▶ Harvest of Despair: Soviet-engineered Ukraine Famine Genocide 1933 - Video

Will America be remembered for its duplicity in another Ukrainian harvest of terror? Will history repeat? What are you doing about it, or do you even care. FDR didn't, so why should you?

What Does Societal Collapse and Martial Law Look Like?

Nov, 2014 by Dave Hodges

According to a survey conducted by the Adelphi University Center for Health Innovation, 55 percent of Americans believe that the government will come to their rescue when the proverbial poop hits the fan because your big brother really cares. Literally, every alternative media outlet could show conclusive proof that an EMP was going to wipe out the power grid. We could conclusively prove that nuclear bombs were going off in 39 American cities in the most horrific false flag attack in world history and it would not make any difference to 55% of all Americans because of their cognitive dissonance.

The United States is staring at an economic collapse in the face with its $17 trillion dollar deficit, $238 trillion dollars of unfunded mandates (e.g. social security, Medicare, etc.) and a one quadrillion dollar derivatives debt in which the governments of the world are being forced to assume in the form of the “bailouts”. Even if Obama and his bankster puppet masters never had any intention of executing a false flag event in order to put this country into martial law in order to fully complete the coup d’état that is already underway, a crash is coming. The banks are going to collapse, the people will riot, there will be food shortages, whether they be planned or unplanned. I do, however, believe that food will undoubtedly be used to control the unruly masses, despite the DHS and their new found friends in the Chinese and Russian personnel which are on our soil.

Are you prepared? At the bottom of this article, I will visually demonstrate to the reader with real time examples of human behavior in groups, how each of us are going to be in very grave danger when the collapse comes. But first, let’s analyze America’s present level of individual and collective preparedness.

How Prepared Is America?

The Adelphi University research center tells us that 53% of all Americans do not have a three day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes. FEMA and DHS are not about serving the needs of the American people; These agencies are about preserving the status quo of the powers that be. But don’t try and tell that to 55% of the citizens of this country.

Most Likely Causes of a Societal Breakdown

As the TV show by the same name, there are literally a 1,000 ways to die. The following six events represent some of the most likely events which would mortally wound our society.

1. False flag attack as a result of a chemical and biological attack

2. False flag attack as a result of a series of nuclear explosions

3. World War III

4. EMP attack

5. Economic collapse

6. Military coup resulting in civil war

America’s Level of Preparedness

A brief summation of the Adelphi study reveals the following:

• 44 percent don’t have first-aid kits
• 48 percent lack emergency supplies
• 53 percent do not have a minimum three-day supply of nonperishable food and water at home
• 55 percent believe local authorities will come to their rescue if disaster strikes

This means that 56% of those with first-aid kits, 52% of those with emergency supplies, and 47% of those who have more than three days worth of water, will be victimized by those who have not properly planned. Please allow me to put this into a real number for you. Over 130 million teenagers and adults will be in the streets seeking to obtain life-sustaining resources in a very short time following the disaster event. 

This is a train wreck starting to happen.

Time Frame for Societal Breakdown

Finish reading

How the Uber Rich Left is Destroying America with their US Taxpayer-subsidized IRS "Charities"

Read also: Uncle Sam Pays Activists to Hit “ROC” Bottom

By Matthew Vadum | June 1, 2014, 3:15 PM EDT

Research Topics:

 

An ultra-secretive left-wing money machine for super-rich radicals is bringing more representatives of Big Labor into the fold, in hopes of preventing a possible Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate this November. New members of the George Soros-dominated Democracy Alliance identified by the Washington Free Beacon are Noel Beasley, president of Workers United, a textile union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Keith Mestrich, president of the union-owned Amalgamated Bank. Other new members from Big Labor include Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. The names of the members were found on an official Alliance document Soros’s son Jonathan left behind at the group’s meeting in the Chicago Ritz hotel.

(l-r) UFCW President Joe Hansen, JLC Acting Executive Director Rita Freedman, CWA President Larry Cohen, JLC President Stuart Appelbaum, CWA Vice President, District One, Chris Shelton, AFT President Randi Weingarten, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and past President, CWA, Morton Bahr. All photos by Photo Miller Photography.

 click here to review full IRS Form990

Other new members of the Democracy Alliance, a donors’ collaborative focused on funding left-wing political infrastructure, include Adam Abram (insurance and real estate), Rick Segal (financial services), and Paul Boskind (behavioral health). Among the heirs and heiresses to recently join the group are Amy Goldman (real estate), Henry van Ameringen (manufacturing), and New School professor Philip Munger, son of Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charles Munger.

Judicial Watch released a new batch of internal IRS documents revealing that the agency’s handling of applications from Tea Party nonprofits was directed out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., contrary to earlier official denials by the White House. The documents also show extensive pressure on the IRS by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations. The IRS emails by then-tax exempt division chief Lois Lerner detail her misleading explanations to investigators about the targeting of Tea Party organizations. The documents were handed over because Judicial Watch filed an October 2013 Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) lawsuit after the agency failed to respond to four FoIA requests dating back to May 2013.

The Internal Revenue Service revoked the charitable status of a conservative nonprofit group that disseminated statements critical of Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry a decade ago. The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty headquartered in Manassas, Virginia, “has shown a pattern of deliberate and consistent intervention in political campaigns” and issued “repeated statements supporting or opposing various candidates by expressing its opinion of the respective candidate’s character and qualifications,” according to an IRS determination. The tax agency found that the group functioned as an “action organization” by publishing alerts on its website for columns written by its president, former FBI agent Gary Aldrich, in which he was harshly critical of Clinton and Kerry, who at the time were both U.S. senators. The ruling takes effect July 1 unless appealed by the group.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge quit Michael Bloomberg’s new gun control group, delivering a setback for the former New York mayor after he said he will spend $50 million on efforts associated with the group and this year’s midterm elections, according to reports. A Ridge spokesman said the former Bush administration cabinet member does not want to be part of an attack on gun rights by the new group, which is called “Everytown for Gun Safety.” “When I signed on as an adviser to Everytown, I looked forward to a thoughtful and provocative discussion about the toll gun violence takes on Americans,” Ridge said. “After consultation with Everytown, I have decided that I am uncomfortable with their expected electoral work.” Bloomberg’s other anti-Second Amendment group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, was profiled in the March 2014 Organization Trends.

We grieve a longtime supporter of CRC, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who died at the age of 69. Tomlinson spent most of his life at the Reader’s Digest, where he retired as editor in chief in 1996. President Reagan nominated him to be director of the Voice of America, and President Clinton named him to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Our condolences to his wife of 39 years, Rebecca Moore Tomlinson, and his family.

via CRC

How Government Forces the Poor Into Black Markets - Peter St. Onge

Tuesday, July 01, 2014 by Peter St. Onge

 

From the left we often see tension between those who want to help the poor, and those who want to help the government. 

One recent example of this is the proposal to ban cash forwarded by Harvard’s Ken Rogoff.

The gist of Rogoff’s beef with cash is that cash fuels the black market, and it makes it harder for the government to push negative nominal interest rates. In both cases, Rogoff doesn’t even get that he’s describing benefits of cash, not problems to be solved.

The fact that cash enables black market transactions is one of its greatest benefits to the poor and undercapitalized. The poor cannot afford to navigate regulatory thickets installed by bored bureaucrats on behalf of the powerful. The choice, then, is to set up an informal, cash-based business, or none at all. Recent debates over Uber’s taxi-services or Mom-and-Pop hair braiding remind us of the never-ending roadblocks placed in the way of entrepreneurs, and especially small entrepreneurs, by government. Indeed, without government who would harass small business? Government definitely built that.

The victims of this arbitrary harassment are disproportionately small businesses, who lack the ability to write checks to political godfathers. We will never know how many businesses are not started In the face of regulatory costs: those unstarted businesses are like the unbought alternatives in Bastiat’s parable of the broken window. The number is certainly large.

In 2011 the Kauffman Foundation found that 54 percent of Americans aged 18-34 either want to start a business or already have started one. Meanwhile, in a study by oDesk and Millennial Branding, 35 percent of 18-35 year-olds have started a business, while a full 72 percent would like to quit their jobs and start a business. We’re not talking a small group here. We’re talking about most Americans. Translating into terms politicians understand, we’re talking most voters.

Cash, of course, lets these people start businesses free of regulatory harassment. It’s an efficient system, actually; you start an informal cash-based business, braiding hair or designing websites. You’re paid under the table, so you can skip the regulatory costs. 

Meanwhile, as you do get bigger, opening franchises city-wide, say, you will need to register and pay those costs. But you’re now big enough to absorb them better.

In other words, black-market business is the “venture capital” industry of the poor and young. Cash provides early-stage immunity from regulatory burdens that would otherwise strangle small entrepreneurs.

The second part of Rogoff’s complaint moves us to the economy-wide level. He wants negative interest rates, and blames cash for making this harder. Here Rogoff betrays his ignorance of the rich classical and Austrian literature on business cycles. Outside the Keynesian reality distortion field, in real economics, it’s precisely government-managed low interest rates that cause the business cycle. Money’s too cheap, dumb projects get funded, and those dumb projects turn out to be unsustainable.

Since he doesn’t understand classical economics, Rogoff thinks he’s pushing for some free lunch sugar-high, when what he’s really asking for is a magnification of business cycles. He might think whether the next recession/depression really should be magnified by ever-lower rates.

Rogoff’s cashless society is aimed squarely at kneecapping the poor. 

He would stamp out early-stage small business, especially the resource-poor start-ups that are often the best way up for the poor and the young. Obviously, this would increase inequality, raise poverty and trim prosperity. Of course, if types like Rogoff manage to knock out an important rung from the ladder to the middle class, you can be sure they will reflexively blame the destruction on the rich or, better, greedy GOP billionaires. It’s the standard socialist pattern — destroy the poor then blame the rich. “Accelerating the contradictions,” as Lenin put it.

We’ll see much worse if Rogoff gets his way on interest rates; more extreme cycles, with the poor, as usual, taking the most savage hits in the downturns. Again, types like Rogoff will be ready with talk of Chinese savings or internet price compression, whatever fashionable explanation lets Harvard econ off the hook for not reading their Mises and Hayek.

Note: The views expressed in Daily Articles on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

Peter St. Onge is a Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute and an Assistant Professor at Taiwan's Fengjia University College of Business. He blogs at www.profitsofchaos.com. See Peter St. Onge's article archives.

via Mises.org

Inflation? Only If You Look At Food, Water, Gas, Electricity And Everything Else

By Michael Snyder, on June 19th, 2014 

     

Have you noticed that prices are going up rapidly?  If so, you are certainly not alone.  But Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, the Obama administration and the mainstream media would have us believe that inflation is completely under control and exactly where it should be.  

Perhaps if the highly manipulated numbers that they quote us were real, everything would be fine.  

But of course the way that the inflation rate is calculated has been changed more than 20 times since the 1970s, and at this point it bears so little relation to reality that it is essentially meaningless.  Anyone that has to regularly pay for food, water, gas, electricity or anything else knows that inflation is too high.  In fact, if inflation was calculated the same way that it was back in 1980, the inflation rate would be close to 10 percent right now.

But you would never know that listening to Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen.  In the video posted below, you can listen to her telling the media that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about...

And it is really hard to get too upset with Janet Yellen.

After all, she reminds many people of a sweet little grandmother.

But the reality of the matter is that she is simply not telling us the truth.  Everywhere we look, prices are aggressively moving higher.

Just the other day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the price index for meat, poultry, fish, and eggs has just soared to a new all-time high.

This is something that I have repeatedly warned would happen.  Just check out this article and this article.

And it isn't just meat prices that are going up.  One of the largest coffee producers in the entire world just announced that it is going to be raising coffee prices by 9 percent...

It took the Fed long enough but finally even it succumbed to the reality of surging food prices when, as we reported previously, it hiked cafeteria prices at ground zero: the cafeteria of the Chicago Fed, stating that “prices continue to rise between 3% and 33%.” So with input costs rising across the board not just for the Fed, but certainly for food manufacturers everywhere, it was only a matter of time before the latter also threw in the towel and followed in the Fed’s footsteps. 

Which is what happened earlier today when J.M. Smucker Co. said it raised the prices on most of its coffee products by an average of 9% to reflect higher green-coffee costs.

Not that coffee isn't expensive enough already.  It absolutely stuns me that some people are willing to pay 3 dollars for a cup of coffee.

I still remember the days when you could get a cup of coffee for 25 cents.

Also, I can't get over how expensive groceries are becoming these days.  Earlier this month I took my wife over to the grocery store to do some shopping.  We are really ramping up our food storage this summer, and so we grabbed as much stuff on sale as we could find.  When we got our cart to the register, I was expecting the bill to be large, but I didn't expect it to be over 300 dollars.

And remember, this was just for a single shopping cart and we had consciously tried to grab things that were significantly reduced from regular price.

I almost felt like asking the cashier which organ I should donate to pay the bill.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.  Food prices are eventually going to go much, much higher than this.

Also, you should get ready to pay substantially more for water as well.

According to CNBC, one recent report warned that "your water bill will likely increase" in the coming months...

U.S. water utilities face a critical economic squeeze, according to a new report—and that will likely mean higher prices at the water tap for consumers.

A survey by water-engineering firm Black & Veatch of 368 water utility companies across the country shows that 66 percent of them are not generating enough revenue to cover their costs.

To make up for the financial shortfall, prices for water are heading upward, said Michael Orth, one of the co-authors of the report and senior vice president at Black & Veatch.

“People will have to pay more for water to make up the falling revenues,” he said. “And that’s likely to be more than the rate of inflation.”

Of even greater concern is what is happening to gas prices.

According to Bloomberg, the price of gasoline hasn't been this high at this time of the year for six years...

Gasoline in the U.S. climbed this week, boosted by a surge in oil, and is expected to reach the highest level for this time of year since 2008.

The pump price averaged $3.686 a gallon yesterday, up 1.2 cents from a week earlier, data posted on the Energy Information Administration’s website late yesterday show. Oil, which accounts for two-thirds of the retail price of gasoline, gained $2.49 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in the same period and $4.88 in the month ended yesterday.

The jump in crude, driven by concern that the crisis in Iraq will disrupt supplies, may boost pump prices by 10 cents a gallon at a time when they normally drop, according to forecasts including one from the EIA.

And the conflicts in Iraq, Ukraine and elsewhere could potentially send gas prices screaming far higher.

In fact, T. Boone Pickens recently told CNBC that if Baghdad falls to ISIS that the price of a barrel of oil could potentially hit $200.

Of course the big oil companies are not exactly complaining about this.  This week energy stocks are hitting record highs, and further escalation of the conflict in Iraq will probably send them even higher.

Meanwhile, a "bipartisan Senate proposal" (that means both Democrats and Republicans) would raise the gas tax by 12 cents a gallon over the next two years.

Our politicians have such good timing, don't they?

Ugh.

And our electricity rates are going up too.  The electricity price index just set a brand new record high and there are no signs of relief on the horizon...

The electricity price index and the average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity both hit records for May, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average price for a KWH hit 13.6 cents during the month, up about 3.8 percent from 13.1 cents in May 2013.

The seasonally adjusted electricity price index rose from 201.431 in May 2013 to 208.655 in May 2014—an increase of about 3.6 percent.

If our paychecks were increasing at the same rate as inflation, perhaps most families would be able to weather all of this.

Unfortunately, that is not the case at all.

As I wrote about recently, median household income in the U.S. is now about 7 percent lower than it was in the year 2000 after adjusting for inflation.

And if realistic inflation numbers were used instead of the government-manipulated ones, it would look a lot worse than that.

Inflation is a hidden tax that all of us pay, and it is systematically eviscerating the middle class.

So what are prices like in your neck of the woods?

Is your family feeling the pain of inflation?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below...

via economiccollapseblog

The Complete History of Monsanto, The World’s Most Evil Corporation

Monsanto: Planting Seeds of Death, Disease & Despair! 

Of all the mega-corps running amok, Monsanto has consistently outperformed its rivals, earning the crown as "most evil corporation on Earth!" Not content to simply rest upon its throne of death, atop a mountain of rotting corpses, it remains focused on newer, more scientifically innovative ways to harm the planet and its people.

As true champions of evil, they won't stop until...well, until they're stopped! But what is Monsanto and how did they get to be so obscenely evil in the first place? I think that's the best place to start this journey, so grab a few non-GMO snacks or beverages and let's go for a ride into the deep, murky sewers of their dark past.

Satan's first family?

1901: The company is founded by John Francis Queeny, a member of the Knights of Malta, a thirty year pharmaceutical veteran married to Olga Mendez Monsanto, for which Monsanto Chemical Works is named. The company's first product is chemical saccharin, sold to Coca-Cola as an artificial sweetener.

Even then, the government knew saccharin was poisonous and sued to stop its manufacture but lost in court, thus opening the Monsanto Pandora's Box to begin poisoning the world through the soft drink. 

"The real thing" - pesticides!

1920s: Monsanto expands into industrial chemicals and drugs, becoming the world's largest maker of  aspirin, acetylsalicyclic acid, (toxic of course). This is also the time when things began to go horribly wrong for the planet in a hurry with the introduction of  their polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

"PCBs were considered an industrial wonder chemical, an oil that wouldn't burn, impervious to degradation and had almost limitless applications. Today PCBs are considered one of the gravest chemical threats on the planet. Widely used as lubricants, hydraulic fluids, cutting oils, waterproof coatings and liquid sealants, are potent carcinogens and have been implicated in reproductive, developmental and immune system disorders. The world's center of PCB manufacturing was Monsanto's plant on the outskirts of East St. Louis, Illinois, which has the highest rate of fetal death and immature births in the state."

Even though PCBs were eventually banned after fifty years for causing such devastation, it is still present in just about all animal and human blood and tissue cells across the globe. Documents introduced in court later showed Monsanto was fully aware of the deadly effects, but criminally hid them from the public to keep the PCB gravy-train going full speed!

1930s: Created its first hybrid seed corn and expands into detergents, soaps, industrial cleaning products, synthetic rubbers and plastics. Oh yes, all toxic of course!

Monsanto's version of "goodwill to all men."

1940s: They begin research on uranium to be used for the Manhattan Project's first atomic bomb, which would later be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese, Korean and US Military servicemen and poisoning millions more.

The company continues its unabated killing spree by creating pesticides for agriculture containing deadly dioxin, which poisons the food and water supplies. It was later discovered Monsanto failed to disclose that dioxin was used in a wide range of their products because doing so would force them to acknowledge that it had created an environmental Hell on Earth.

Monsanto's vision of a toxic future

1950s: Closely aligned with The Walt Disney Company, Monsanto creates several attractions at Disney's Tomorrowland, espousing the glories of chemicals and plastics. Their "House of the Future" is constructed entirely of toxic plastic that is not biodegradable as they had asserted. What, Monsanto lied? I'm shocked!

"After attracting a total of 20 million visitors from 1957 to 1967, Disney finally tore the house down, but discovered it would not go down without a fight. According to Monsanto Magazine, wrecking balls literally bounced off the glass-fiber, reinforced polyester material. Torches, jackhammers, chain saws and shovels did not work. Finally, choker cables were used to squeeze off parts of the house bit by bit to be trucked away."(2)

Monsanto's Disneyfied vision of the future

1960s: Monsanto, along with chemical partner-in-crime DOW Chemical, produces dioxin-laced Agent Orange for use in the U.S.'s Vietnam invasion. The results? Over 3 million people contaminated, a half-million Vietnamese civilians dead, a half-million Vietnamese babies born with birth defects and thousands of U.S. military veterans suffering or dying from its effects to this day!

<<<<

Monsanto is hauled into court again and internal memos show they knew the deadly effects of dioxin in Agent Orange when they sold it to the government. Outrageously though, Monsanto is allowed to present their own "research" that concluded dioxin was safe and posed no negative health concerns whatsoever. Satisfied, the bought and paid for courts side with Monsanto and throws the case out. Afterwards, it comes to light that Monsanto lied about the findings and their real research concluded that dioxin kills very effectively.

A later internal memo released in a 2002 trial admitted "that the evidence proving the persistence of these compounds and their universal presence as residues in the environment is beyond question ... the public and legal pressures to eliminate them to prevent global contamination are inevitable. The subject is snowballing. Where do we go from here? The alternatives: go out of business; sell the hell out of them as long as we can and do nothing else; try to stay in business; have alternative products."

(3)

Monsanto aided Hitler's I.G. Farben exterminators

Monsanto partners with I.G. Farben, makers of toxic Bayer aspirin and Hitler's go-to chemical manufacturer that exterminated millions with it Zyklon-B gas during World War II. Together, the companies use their collective expertise in genocide to introduce aspartame, another extremely deadly neurotoxin, into the food supply. When questions surface regarding the toxicity of saccharin, Monsanto exploits this opportunity to introduce yet another of its deadly poisons onto an unsuspecting public. 

1970s: Monsanto partner, G.D. Searle, produces over a hundred faked internal studies which claim aspartame to be safe, while the FDA's own scientific research clearly reveals that aspartame causes tumors and massive holes in the brains of rats, before killing them. The FDA initiates a grand jury investigation into G.D. Searle for "knowingly misrepresenting findings and concealing material facts and making false statements" in regard to aspartame safety. Finish reading & viewing

Salary delays up to 12 months & “coupons” instead of “money” in Greece - Happy Medieval Days are here again!

Greek employees: salary delays up to 12 months & “coupons” instead of “money”

Posted by keeptalkinggreece

 

Do you remember the serfs and servants and villeins and peasants in the good old times of feudalism and the Middle Ages? If you don't, I have good news for you! The custom of working in return of goods instead of salary revives in Greece of modern European Union and of exquisite Euro area. The results of a survey conducted by the Labor Institute of the Confederation of Labor Union (GSEE) are shocking but not unexpected. KTG has often reported in the four years of blogging about these sweet little working and payment conditions of modern Greek slaves living under the feudal law of austerity, recession and  competitiveness.

Laborers receive salary with delays of 3 to 12 months.

Laborers receive 1/3 of their salary, the rest is being paying through services like sleeping in a hotel free of charge, free food and coupons for purchases of food and other goods from supermarkets.

All above cases refer to full time job of 8 hours per day for 25-30 days per month.

Employers who cannot pay salaries give:

1. free sleep in hotels, free food

2. pay salaries with at least 3 months delay and not on monthly basis.

3. they do not pay full 13th and 14th salary (for Christmas/Easter and vacation) as obliged by the Labor Law.  They give food items and fuel coupons, instead, and force employees to sign that they have received the full bonus. GSEE estimates that one million employees have not received neither the 13th nor the 14th salary.

Young employees below 25 years old get hired with monthly contracts for part-time work of 4 hours per day and for salary of €180 per month. By 25 working days per month this could be translated into a wage of €7.2 per day! – It makes no sense here to try to identify the wage per hour…. it could be some €1.72 per hour! I remember when the first labor 'reform' drastically cut wages in 2011, my readers could not believe that the per-hour wage was 3 euro!

According to Labor Law, minimum wage for those below 25 years old is €480 gross for full-time work. But who cares about the laws when jobs demand is high, unemployment is dancing and cash is short because the banks have been saved but they pour not a recapitalization cent into the market.

According to Labor Hiring  statistics for January-April 2014:

From 423,174 job vacancies,

232,383 were for full time job

140,527 were part-time jobs

50,264 were rotation jobs. (sources: zougla.gr, newsit.gr)

I suppose, Greek laborers will be soon allowed to pay their rent and utility bills with "food stamps" and "detergent coupons."

It's odd that while in 2011 ans 2012 Greeks made a step backwards to Dickens' times, in 2013 and 2014 had a big jump back to Middle Ages.

PS I can well imagine that in a couple of years, the Troika will complain about the shortage of labor craft and empty social insurance funds in competitive Greece.

Happy Middle Age society :p

Source

The Purchase of Our Republic - the Who & How Much

Wednesday, June 04, 2014

The massive consolidation of wealth, combined with the removal of any limits on money in campaigns, has allowed for the purchase of our government.

Today I am publishing a comprehensive and important guest essay, The Purchase of Our Republic, by longtime correspondent Y. Falkson.

---

Americans know that something is wrong, deeply wrong. They see signs of the problem everywhere: income inequality, growing concentration and power of mega corporations, political donations/corruption, the absence of jobs with decent salaries, the explosion of the US prison population, healthcare costs, student loan debt, homelessness, etc. etc.

However, the true causes and benefactors behind these problems are purposely hidden from view. What Americans see is Kabuki Theater of a functioning form of capitalism and democracy, but beyond this veneer our country has devolved into the exact opposite.

Those who benefit from this crony capitalist state go to extreme lengths to paper over the reality and convince Americans that the system works, the American Dream is still a reality and that American democracy is in fact democratic.

Below I hope to begin to outline some of the underlying dynamics and trends that have evolved in recent decades and led us so far from what we once were. As fun as it would be, the answer is not some evil conspiracy by the Illuminati, but rather the unfortunate result of three long term and mutually reinforcing components that have been attacking the fundamental roots of the structure of our Republic.

The first is the increased concentration of corporate and private wealth. Both of which are quickly yelled down in the media as anti-free market and class war hysteria.

The second is the use of this wealth to capture all three branches of government in order to ensure the continued extraction of capital from the many and to the few.The rich might have climbed the ladder because they earned it, but they have then purchased government to pull up the ladder behind them.

The consequence of the first two components is a democracy in name only that represents the very few.

1. Faux Capitalism = Wealth Consolidation / Income Inequality


Corporate Wealth:

 


While there is no true beginning to the story, we can start with the incredible build up and concentration of wealth among corporations in recent decades. The USA now boasts a cartel-like set of corporate titans in almost every industry. It goes beyond, but certainly includes, our Too Biggerer To Fail banks, merged from what was 37 banks in 1995 into a Frankenstein’s monster like 5 (Citigroup, JP Morgan-Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs).

In agriculture, Monsanto alone controls over 85% of all corn and soy bean crops, four companies control 83% of the beef market, 66% of the hog market and 58% of the chicken market. So while shopping at the grocery store might appear to be the manifestation of capitalism at its finest, it doesn’t take much digging to look behind the curtain to see how little competition truly exists.

When the average American goes to pick up some groceries, they are shopping at Walmart and buying something from P&G that is mostly made of Monsanto corn. Is that true choice?

The same story plays out with our news and media (and other industries) where we have gone from 50 companies in 1983 to the big 6 which control over 90% of all media. Is choosing to watch one of 30 news channels, all of which are owned by News Corp (Rupert Murdoch) a real choice? This is not capitalism and they are not competing, not in the true sense of the word.

Along with this consolidation of corporations in recent decades, their senior leaders have taken up a larger and larger piece of the pie at the expense of their employees. In particular, the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay has increased 1,000 percent since 1950. Unsurprisingly, Walmart is both the largest employer in the country and the worst CEO pay offender with a ratio of over 1000:1. This is at a time where worker productivity has increased significantly, something that historically correlated with increased pay. But no more. It’s a new twist on the old Soviet saying “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”, but now it’s closer to “we do all of the work and they pretend to pay us”.



www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/bank-merger-history

illusion of choice

www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-income/fortune-100

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/ceo-pay-1-795-to-1-multiple-of-workers 


Private Wealth:

As a consequence of the royal tribute we pay to the C-suite class these days, we have likely surpassed the pre-Depression Roaring Twenties in terms of inequality.



This, amazingly, has only accelerated since the crisis in 2008 in thanks to bailouts, Quantitative Easing and other gifts from Congress and the Fed. The wealthy 1% and in particular the .01% have now grown their fortunes to levels that tax comprehension and even their ability to spend it (the decisions by a few billionaires such as Bill Gates to essentially donate his fortune is a tacit acknowledgement that our current system over provides wealth to a select few).

So what is an incredibly wealthy capitalist CEO of a mega-corporation do once they control their industry and have essentially limitless wealth? Well in a competitive market, the only way to go from the top is down and the only thing that can make that happen is competition. Consequently, competition must be avoided whenever possible.

To squash or prevent competition, the oligopolies and oligarchs target their resources on the one place that can make competition illegal, our government.Something to keep in mind the next time you see a corporate billionaire grandstanding about the importance of “Free Markets” when their strategy is quite the opposite.

As this capture of the government has taken place we have essentially shifted from capitalism and to crony capitalism. So we now have industries that have mastered the art of faking capitalism by turning our government into one that fakes democracy.

This government takeover took time, but the purchase of all 3 branches of government has almost been completed by 2014. You don’t have to take my word for it, luckily that has now been empirically proven in an analysis of over 20 years of government policy where the clear conclusion was that policy makers respond solely to those in the top 90th percentile and essentially ignore the large majority of Americans.

Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens

boingboing.net/2014/04/13/study-american-policy

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/08/rich-people-rule

Wealth Inequality in America (6:23 video) 


2. Wealthy Purchase of Government Institutions / Elections

Purchase of the Executive Branch:

Let’s take a step back and take a glimpse at how the government was purchased, beginning with the executive branch. In 1980, Reagan’s election cost less than $300 million. When Bush beat Kerry in 2004, it cost almost 3x times as much, almost $900 Million. 4 years later, the 2008 election cost a record $1.3 Billion. It was in this election where Obama hammered the final nail in the coffin for government funded for elections.

Obama, more so than any other candidate in recent decades had the widespread support of millions of small donors, but in the end I guess it wasn’t enough. So when Obama “leaned to the green”, it forever set the precedent that you can’t win without the backing of our nation’s oligarchs. Consequently, the money has only gushed in since as the cost of Obama’s reelection in 2012 skyrocketed to an unfathomable $7 billion.

Needless to say this is slightly above the rate of inflation. Our Presidents are now preselected exclusively by a tiny fraction of Americans can have the money to fund what has become necessary for a legitimate run.

Summary: Candidates spend years courting the super-rich to build up a multi-billion dollar war chest. Only those who succeed can actually run a campaign that an average American will be aware of. Then Americans get to choose one of the pre-selected “candidates”. No wonder voter turnout is so low…

Executive branch, check!

– Note that media corporations benefit doubly as they can use their cash to fund elections, but are also the beneficiary of all that money as it is used for campaign spending.

rt.com/usa/seven-billion

Purchase of the Legislative Branch:   Read more…