While the 99.9% Continue to Struggle the Wealthiest .01% Keep Getting Wealthier.

Why is it that while America is supposedly in crisis - or jobless "recovery" - the rich continue to increase their wealth at a rate that is creating staggering wealth inequality? The net worth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans grew by 13% in the past year to $1.7 trillion, as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen at a staggering rate.

Meanwhile, average workers' wages haven't budged over the last 40-years, and the real minimum wage--adjusted for inflation--has declined over the same period.  According to the  Congressional Budget Office (CBO), between 1979 and 2007, the top 1% of Americans income grew by 275%!  And between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. The CBO also found that between 1979 and 2005, after-tax income for middle-class Americans (adjusted for inflation) rose by 21% while the richest 0.1 per cent grew by 400%!.
How much longer can this obscene transfer of wealth to the privileged few from poor and hard-working Americans continue before most Americans become serfs if they're not already?

“We can have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1846 – 1941)

“Men did not make the earth… It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property… Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.” — Thomas Paine

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Paul Ryan's Plan Will Ration Health Care by Ability to Pay Even More Than It Already Is.

Even today, the elderly have considerable out of pocket expense when it comes to health care. I know my retired parents pay $800 per month (I think...I just know it's a hell of a lot more than they should have to pay) for health care insurance, in addition to Medicare coverage. And, now Medicare (government sponsored single payer health care system for the approximately 47 million elderly) may be eliminated entirely if deficit-cutting, supply-sider, Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, gets his way.

Ryan's plan relies on vouchers - which the federal contribution will be pegged to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) - that future retirees can use to buy private health insurance. Here's the thing: the inflation rate of healthcare expenses (and private insurance costs) rises three times faster than the CPI.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that by 2030, retirees will pay 68%  out of pocket, compared with the 25% the elderly  pay now.  Not to mention, those retiring in  ten years, will- if the current trend continues - have very little to no savings at all.

We often hear that demographics, or the growth of the aging population is what's responsible for driving health care costs sky-high.  Not so, says health care economist Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton University. He claims that the growth in the aging population (occurs at a glacial pace) only accounts for one-half of one percent of the 6% inflation rate of healthcare expenses (and private insurance costs). So, what drives the cost?
The supply side of the health care system. That's right, the private sector (physicians, especially specialists, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, etc.), who continue to increase prices. Americans pay twice the amount for everything from doctor visits to medicine, than every other country.

Now Ryan will lie to tell  you that he has the same type of health care insurance. This is not true, as his plan is not pegged to the CPI; the federal contributions in his plan keep pace with the inflation rate of healthcare costs.

On the critical metric of whether the Ryan plan would reduce total health-care costs [] the CBO conclusion is shocking: The plan would not only fail to decrease health-care costs per beneficiary, it would increase them — by an astonishingly large amount that grows over time. By 2030, health spending on the typical beneficiary would be more than 40 percent higher under the Ryan plan than under existing Medicare, according to the CBO report.

....How could this possibly be, when the point of reform is to reduce costs? The CBO points to two factors: Private plans have higher administrative costs than the federal Medicare program, and less negotiating leverage with providers-- Peter Orszag

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Who Says a Live of Crime Doesn't Pay?

As President Bush defends the US Treasury's decision to guarantee $306 billion of Citigroup's troubled mortgages and toxic assets, in addition to the $20 billion, which escalates the total cost of this "rescue" to $7.76 trillion, one has to wonder about the "reality" of the structure that underlies our monetary system. Does it even exist? Or, have the last few decades of "free market" and "dereg" politics wiped it out entirely, leaving only a verisimilitude of architecture in its place?

What can we do about it? How can we begin to figure out what needs to be done or what's going on, when most of us, afflicted by nausea and whiplash from the 401k roller coaster, must find the time to sort out information flying at us like a thousand bats straight out of hell? It's impossible. Nevertheless, as detrimental as this cyclone of fiscal "intelligence" is for us, it seems very convenient for the powers that be. After all, confusion, panic, and mayhem provide the perfect cover for all sorts of illicit activity...the kind of activity this administration thrives on to fulfill its agenda.

When you consider that the role of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury is to prevent panic, keep order, and instill calm into the markets, it's disturbing to to think back on Henry Paulson's frantic message. As Terry Gross asked one of her economist guests, "How did the situation go from the Secretary of the Treasury telling us everything is under control to...you have to pass this bill immediately, or else the whole system is going to crash, there is no time to think about it, there is no time to debate. Stop asking for changes. You've got to do it right now."

Paulson tells us that this is an investment, not expenditure, and that we the taxpayers should earn a rate of return eventually. However, we're investing our money in bankrupt institutions without any knowledge of the type of collateral that borrowing banks are offering, and the Federal Reserve will not disclose that information. Moreover, what about all the money the government is pledging? Take Citigroup. We are "loaning" $20 billion to this bank, but we're guaranteeing over $300 billion...so, which part of that money do we have the potential to earn a return?

The "banking system" as a whole is protected. What is not protected is the U.S. taxpayer, and the purchasing power of the dollar when the According to the Congressional Budget Office, the government's pledge will cost every man, woman and child in the country, $24,000. Do you think the banksters care?

Several of the highest-paid college presidents said that they would give back part of their pay or forgo their raises, meanwhile, back at bailout central, the bankers and CEOs...the ones who put our entire economy at risk and who will collect billions of our dollars, show no significant changes in how they pay top executives except Goldman Sachs. However, even Goldman Sachs still plans to pay its more than 400 partners bonuses averaging $4.5 million.

Breakdown of the U.S. government's rescue efforts.

Question to ponder:
How does the North American Union factor into this, if at all?

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