Incredible food for thought

None other than Citigroup itself "declared that the inequality of income in this nation is the greatest since 16th century Spain."

Even the fatcats are acknowledging how out of skew our country is.

It's THAT bad.

And you don't want to do anything about it?

Link:  Concentration of wealth is too profound to ignore

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/search_results/?q=moving%20for%20the%20middle#storylink=cpy

Quote of the day--on taxes and fairness

"Open your wallet. Take out a dollar bill, and feel it between your fingers. That dollar is more than Bank of America, Citigroup, Verizon and Boeing all paid in U.S. income taxes last year, combined."  --The Daily Kos

Does this make any sense at all?

Does this seem like a good or wise way to run a country?

Link:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/15/956508/-All-in-a-Month’s-WorkCrashing-BofA,-Drawing-Beck’s-IreShaming-Corporate-Tax-Dodgers-

And you're angry at THIS president and his administration?

I don't care who you are, whether you're a Conservative, a Republican, an independent, Tea Party member, Libertarian, whomever, if you're in any way angry at this president and his administration for what you see as going into "Socialism" and "big government" and a social-welfare state, honey, you have another think coming.

Yes, come with me now as we once again look back on that last administration and what they and the Fed did for big business, specifically the big banks in this country and around the world.  Let's put this current administration into perspective.

That last administration, via Mr. Bernanke and now former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson did with our government--and our money.

They gave the following low-interest loans to the following companies, and in these amounts:

Goldman Sachs received nearly $600 billion; 

Morgan Stanley received nearly $2 trillion; 

Citigroup received $1.8 trillion; 

Bear Stearns, received nearly $1 trillion, 

Merrill Lynch, received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed.

From Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, VT) today at The Huffington Post:

We also learned that the Fed's multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, but that some of the largest corporations in this country also received a very substantial bailout. Among those are General Electric, McDonald's, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota and Verizon.

Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations including two European megabanks -- Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse -- which were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed's purchase of mortgage-backed securities.

Deutsche Bank, a German lender, sold the Fed more than $290 billion worth of mortgage securities. Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, sold the Fed more than $287 billion in mortgage bonds.

Senator Sanders asks a very pertinent question:  Has the Federal Reserve of the United States become the central bank of the world?

Mind you, that last administration kept all this quiet and totally out of the public's knowledge until only recently because Sen. Sanders had to put into law a provision, asking for a breakdown of just what exactly was given to whom but for all the complainers and haters out there, of this administration, I ask you--where was your outrage back when the ultra-white and very-privileged George W. Bush and Co. were spending like drunken sailors and starting pre-emptive and illegal wars, all in our name?

If you're going to be raising hell about something, you ought to be raising it about the guy who gave over the candy store to the rich fatcats, not the guy who is, now, trying to stand up for the everybody else in the country and not the wealthiest top tier.

You knuckleheads.

Link to original post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/a-real-jaw-dropper-at-the_b_791091.html

8 Surprising facts about the shrinking Middle Class in the US

--Income Inquality Is Soaring: In 2005, the bottom 20 percent of household earners had an average income of $10,655 while households in the top 20 percent made nearly 160,000 – a disparity of 1,500 percent, the highest gap ever recorded, Arianna notes in Third World America; --Cash-Strapped States Are Cutting Crucial Services: "According to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, at least twenty-nine states have made cuts to public health programs, twenty-four states have cut programs for the elderly and disabled, twenty-nine states have cut aid to K–12 education, and thirty-nine states have cut assistance to public colleges and universities. America’s states faced a cumulative budget gap of $166 billion for fiscal 2010. Total shortfalls through fiscal 2011 are estimated at $380 billion—and could be even higher depending on what happens to unemployment. These are massive numbers. But when you remember that we spent $182 billion to bail out AIG ($12.9 billion of which went straight to Goldman Sachs), you realize that this amount alone would be more than enough to close the 2010 budget gap in every state in the Union. Toss in the $45 billion we gave to now-making-a-profit Bank of America and the $45 billion we gave to now-making-a-profit Citigroup, and we would be well on the way to ensuring that no state’s vital services are cut through 2011." --Corporations are skipping out on taxes: "According to the White House, in 2004, the last year data on this was compiled, U.S. multinational corporations paid roughly $16 billion in taxes on $700 billion in foreign active earnings— putting their tax rate at around 2.3 percent. Know many middle-class Americans getting off that easy at tax time?" - Arianna Huffington, Third World America; --The Financial Services Sector Is Dominating Our Economy: "As MIT professor Simon Johnson recounted in the Atlantic, between 1973 and 1985, the financial industry’s share of domestic corporate profits topped out at 16 percent. In the 1990s, it spanned between 21 percent and 30 percent. Just before the financial crisis hit, it stood at 41 percent. The share of our economy devoted to making things of value is shrinking, while the share devoted to valuing made-up things (credit-swap derivatives, anyone?) is expanding. It’s the financialization of our economy." --Health care costs are bankrupting Americans: "The vast majority of people who file for bankruptcy are middle-class folks who can’t pay their bills because they’ve lost their jobs or been hit with high medical bills. In fact, a 2009 study by researchers at Harvard and Ohio University showed that health-care problems were the root cause of 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies in America in 2007. When the same researchers did this study across five states in 2001, health-care problems caused only 50 percent of bankruptcy filings. According to the American Bankruptcy Institute, America had 1.4 million personal bankruptcies in 2009, a 32 percent increase over the previous year. Put another way: Every thirty seconds, someone in this country files for bankruptcy in the wake of a serious illness."; --The Foreclosure Crisis Is Not Abating: “Barry Bosworth and Rosanna Smart of the Brookings Institution found that the catastrophic collapse of the 2008 sub-prime mortgage market resulted in the disappearance of $13 trillion in American household wealth between mid-2007 and March 2009... on average, U.S. households lost one quarter of their wealth in that period," cites Huffington. She continues, “We are facing nothing less than a national emergency: 2.8 million homes faced foreclosure in 2009, and an estimated 3 million more are expected to be foreclosed on in 2010. If there was ever a middle-class Katrina, this is it." --America's Education System Is In Crisis: America's educational system is failing: "Eight years ago, amid much fanfare, the D.C. establishment passed No Child Left Behind...but it turned out to be reform in name only," Arianna explains Third World America . "Despite a goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading and math, eight years later we are not even close. In Alabama, only 20 percent of eighth graders are proficient in math. In California, it’s just 23 percent. In New York, it’s 34 percent." --America's Infrastructure Is Crumbling: "In studying car crashes across the country, the Transportation Construction coalition determined that badly maintained or managed roads are responsible for $217 billion in car crashes annually – far more than headline-grabbing alcohol-related accidents ($130 billion) and speed-related pile-ups ($97 billion)", Arianna writes in Third World America. But Americans are paying an even higher price for our deteriorating roads. Of the 42,000 road fatalities each year, 53% are at least partially the result of poor road conditions. "We are currently spending $70 billion annually on improving our highways, but that’s nowhere near the $186 billion a year that is needed. It's a collision of need versus resources; for far too many of us, it can be fatal," she adds. It is the point of Arianna Huffington's book, Third World America, that some of us, here in the US, are, in fact, members of the "Third World", that is, in poverty equal to undeveloped countries. Did you think we were better than that? Link to original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/09/8-surprising-facts-about_n_675545.html#s121657

Quote of the day --on Citigroup (or as Bill Maher says "Shittygroup")

"Citigroup...repeatedly rescued by the government since the Great Depression...shouldn't continue in its current unmanageable form...Any bank that needs that much help doesn't deserve to exist." --Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Milm, from their new book "Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance", quoted from The New York Times Book Review this past Sunday

An education and warning

I hope you--and lots of people, nationwide--watched the "Frontline" special on PBS last evening named "The Warning."

It was about how our unregulated markets were allowed to be created, first, but then, further, how they were allowed to propagate, complete with rules that allowed out-and-out fraud and manipulation of the markets, with the thought that completely, utterly free markets were important and good and that they could and would regulate themselves.

They did and, because of the lack of regulation, they also collapsed.

Last evening's one-hour report told of one woman's attempt to regulate the quantity of trades--so we know how much or our economy was tied up in it--as well as regulating, again, possible manipulation and fraud.

So now, here we are in 2009 after two collapses in our markets and where are we?

After seeing it, I had to ask: How could you not come to the conclusion that we are in very much the same place, without having learned any lessons?

Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and all these people are still in power, the bonuses are still being paid out, there were no penalties, we still allow fraud and manipulation in commodity futures, we still don't regulate the trillions of dollars in hedge funds, etc.

It's hard to be optimistic about either what happened in the 1990's and its collapse, the recent collapse, now, in the 2000's and into the future.

If you didn't see "The Warning", you need to.

Links: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502108.html
http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/10/20/brooksley-born-on-frontline-tuesday/

Citigroup? Connected to a profit?

Are you kidding me?

A profit?

That's what they want to declare that?

Let me be the first to point out that Citigroup took how many billions of dollars from the government, just to prop it up?

Billions of dollars.

February 27, the United States was to be giving them 25 billion dollars for a 36% stake.

How, exactly, do you take 25 billion dollars from your own government's tax coffers and then declare a "profit"?

What nonsense.

Not only that, but from everyone's best estimations, there is still a great deal of bad paper on Citigroup's books they have to get rid of.

And the Dow goes up 379 points?

This is, truly, a world gone mad.

This must be some bizarro universe.

Citigroup's stock is at $1.40.

How excited can you be about that?

I have to say, the possibility of that same Dow losing those nearly 400 points between now and Friday are far too possible--and even likely.

But who knows?

In this "bizarro world", absolutely anything could happen.

Link to story: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5291NK20090310

Who's zoomin' who?

Okay, word today of a couple of things.

One, we keep hearing how the Republicans in the Senate are going to keep pushing for "concessions" on the bill to bail out the car companies.

The first thing that comes to mind is that this is what those pussy Democrats in both houses of Congress should have done when Hank Paulson and the White House came screaming out for 700 billion dollars, of all things, to help save the banks.

What hooey.

If ever we could have had concessions, it was then.

How about lose the company jets, Citigroup?

How about put in a maximum still-obscene multi-million dollar salary range for the executives?

How about losing the "credit swap" tool?

How about jettisoning "hedge funds", eventually but absolutely, since they just weaken our financial system and are, as I've said, a virtual "bet on a bet", since they're conjecturing on the position of where stocks are headed in the future?

There were all kinds of things that Congress could--and should--have demanded, since they supposedly wanted and badly needed tax money--and lots of it--to save their hides?

Pussies.

As I quoted my friend Bryce, "Republicans are evil; Democrats are retarded."

(No offense to the retarded).

Anyway, who's kidding whom here or, as Aretha Franklin so aptly put it: "Who's zoomin' who?"

Does ANYONE really think the Repugs are going to let the auto industry go bankrupt?

They'd better not.

There would be between 2 to 3+ million additional people AUTOMATICALLY out of work and on the street.

You don't think there wouldn't be some "revolution goin' on"?

Besides, they don't want that on their tombstone.

They're already so far down on the US public's popularity list, it'd be curtains, for sure.

It kills me that they're pushing so far and so hard on this.

It also gets me that people like Richard Shelby, a Southerner who has some foreign auto manufacturers in his backyard, ladies and gentlemen, would be allowed to weigh in on this.

He should absolutely recuse himself from this.

As hard as it is to believe, even though he's an American, and a representative of at least some Americans here in the States, that he'd tempt the fate of ruining both this industry and, possibly, the country, by letting this whole industry fail.

I'm no big fan of the American auto industry but hey, jobs are jobs, and we need 'em all right now.

Just now, even the White House has come out, pushing the Repug Party to accept this 14 billion dollar "loan"--or whatever you want to call it--for the Big 3 car makers.

Hey, what's a few more billion dollars to this President, right? He hasn't met money he hasn't wanted to spend yet.

Anyway, let's get over this whole "you gotta' give more concessions", crap, Senators.

The country's in a heck of a mess and, regrettably, this is something that needs to happen.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, regarding the economy and bailout

In the meantime, we've committed, it's been quoted, $7.7 Trillion dollars to the banking financial bailout.

(Link here: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/11/bailout-pledges-hit-77-trillion.html)


Thanks, George. Thanks, Hank.

You can't say the last 8 years haven't been interesting.

Tragic, sure--and misguided and wrong--but interesting.


Happy Thanksgiving everyone.