In 2010, every one of my work-related conversations turned to personal wealth management. The money-class wants to preserve and increase their considerable wealth, and they are terrified of losing it. Elsewhere in America, those that don't have money are terrified of the rising cost of necessities like food and energy not captured in the [core] consumer price index calculation.
As of July 24, 2009, minimum wage in the United States was $7.25/hour (before taxes). At the beginning of 2010, minimum wage barely bought you a pre-tax $6.79 ream (500 sheets) of paper at Office Depot. By the end of 2010, that cost had skyrocketed to $9.49 per ream, nearly a 40% increase. But printer paper isn't a necessity for those who need to feed and clothe their families. Official unemployment is at 9.8%, and many "new" jobs are part-time jobs that replaced former full-time jobs. Counting underemployment, the misery soars above 20%.
Arianna Huffington's latest book, Third World America, explains how those with the least power and money have been getting squeezed for decades:
[The median middle class American] in September 1979 was earning (in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars) $25,896 a year. In September 1995, that same man or woman was earning $24,700 a year -- a 5 percent cut in salary over the intervening decade and a half. (P. 54)
Meanwhile, the financial system has strangled U.S. growth by parasitically growing from 3% of GDP in 1965 to 7.5% of GDP currently. Money was diverted from capital investment, the most important stimulus generator for our economy, to save corrupt financial institutions. Financial services now account for 35-40% of all corporate profits in the U.S. That number should be less than 5% in an honest economy. CEOs of bailed-out banks earn more than they did before the bailout.
Sanders: The U.S. Is a Banana Republic
Senator Bernie Sanders (I. Vermont) explained to the Senate during his tax cut filibuster on December 10 that the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest is the greatest it has been in U.S. history. The bottom 50% of Americans own just 2% of the wealth. The top 1/10th of 1% takes home 12 cents of every dollar earned in America. The top 1% earned 23.5% of all income, more than the combined income of the bottom 50%.
Yet, the lust for money and power by the financial elite knows no limits. Over 10 years, the top 2% of the wealthy in this country will get $700 billion in tax cuts. Meanwhile, the country chokes on a $13.7 trillion national debt.
Deflation and Inflation: Where It Hurts You Most
The disappearing middle class is dying of stranguflation. Nominal income is falling; yet debt-loaded consumers have to meet usurious consumer loan payments, while prices for staples like energy, school tuition, and food rise. Despite a rising stock market, most Americans still feel a negative wealth effect, particularly due to depressed housing prices.
The coming year will be worse for too many Americans. They face the quadruple threat of the weak recovery, the astronomical government debt load, price inflation for necessities, and the fear of future overall inflation.
Congress has blocked meaningful financial reform. It approved the Great Bailout, followed by the Great Cover-Up and the Great Recession. If Congress continues its sham investigations, culprits will never be brought to justice.
As the economy struggles in 2011, expect most of Congress to again protect its cronies in the financial elite, instead of the interests of the average voter. It is a bi-partisan betrayal of the nation's economic health. If Americans don't pay attention and vote out corrupt members of Congress, we'll sink further into a banana republic, and this time it's in English.
On December 8, I presented an analysis to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in Washington D.C. of key causes of our current financial crisis: "Repairing the Damage of Fraud as a Business Model." Since I was speaking on issues of public interest and policy, I took more latitude with my remarks than I would in a typical presentation:
Audio version: Please click here.
Presentation notes: Please click here.
(There are a couple of obvious misspeaks. When control fraud occurs, financial institutions often lose a lot of money and often collapse. Losing money -- as Citigroup, Merrill, and others did -- is sometimes not an indication of innocence, but of managements' fraud. When I said risk managers had the authority without the responsibility, I obviously meant to say they had the responsibility without the authority.)
Robert Kuttner: The Stimulus That Isn't
First you should understand that Mr. Bernanke is in the basement furiously printing dollars; the result of which 'should' be a decline in the dollar. Without the expected decline in value the effect is essentially spinning straw into gold. Quite a trick, if you can get away with it.
To say that the comrades in China are unhappy with this dollar-printing is understating the obvious. When you owe them $2 Trillion, and then proceed to print $3 Trillion, the picture gets very clear. Whatever China's abilities or resources, they are not prepared to engage in a serious currency war with the United States. The world has essentially decided that straw dollars are better than Chinese yuan or Euro's
Who cares what the value of the dollar is anyway? Today, only the oil barons and other mega-commodity producers will maintain 'indexed' valuations. $5 gasoline has a wonderful effect of focusing the mind, and since inflation is the goal of 'quatitative easing' there should be no doubt that printing dollars will have the desired effect. So what's a trillion dollars between friends?
Jack
My site - http://www.bubblecove.com/5-bath-bombs
Absent a maximum wage, you can set the minimum wage at $100/hour or $1,000/houÂr or whatever and it still will not be a "living wage" because the COL scale will simply go up each time you raise the minimum wage.
It's not about liking it.
It's just what it is.
My job skills ARE outsourced for much less than $2/hour. How's $30/month sound?
You can kick and scream all you want, but that's just the truth. Feelings don't matter.
print that ream of resumes on staples paper.............much less the stamps to mail them.....
and then there's that whole where to send them thingie........
take your sanctimonious responsibility mantra and........................
http://ecolocalizer.com/2010/04/12/plutocracy-reborn-wealth-inequality-gap-largest-since-1928/
Now, can someone explain how a family could pay for rent, food, gas and subway transportation, clothes, electric and gas bills, and other essentials on an income of $1152?
The company I worked for was a multi-million dollar business. The job that I and 30 other factory workers performed really deserved at least to be paid at least $10 per hour. However the company owner wanted to make 1.3 million dollars for himself, instead of 1.2 million. That extra $100,000 would have easily covered the necessary increase in our wages, so that we could survive.
The owner was a greedy awful person, who paid the least wages possible. In addition, workers were fired at will and there was a constant flow of people coming into the factory and then being fired 3 months later, with no protections.
(continued below)
Whoops, I forgot that this is America. Profits are everything. People don't matter.
Businesses are greedy. In this recession, I have seen the news stories that corporate america is doing just fine, with record profits.
I think it's a travesty and quite criminal in nature that the working people have to succumb to a such a low minimum wage. If my former employer could have paid me $5/hr, he would have gladly done so.
In the US, we need HIGHER Minimum Wage standard.
$7.25 is just ridiculously low. It's criminal.
People can't survive on that wage and employers are taking advantage of the high number of un-employed people and the dirth of jobs.
Shame on Big Business and our Politicians who remain quiet on this national travesty.
RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE.
Sounds like you need to stop whining and get some skills that are needed in the marketplace and make some money. No one will hand it to you (except democrats who want you to be dependent on government).
A "whiner" would be someone who has no job, no skills, and has made NO EFFORT to obtain either, yet expects help. This person is speaking of minimum wage, living wages...things that people who are LOOKING FOR WORK tend to discuss.
You should consider yourself lucky that you grew up wherever you did with whatever parents you had where you have the luxury of assuming that ANYONE who is out of work right now is simply too lazy, or dependent upon the government, to find work on their own. You clearly don't seem to grasp the reality that not everyone has access to the same opportunities you did.
Press Alt #####
where ##### is the Unicode number in decimal using the numerical keypad or
It's create using the Unicode character set on Windows
Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Character Map
and cut and paste
Happy expressing!!! ☼