We the Toxic Assets?

The "middle class" is an historical anomaly and in my humble opinion, was artificially created to build the wealth of the ownership class until it was no longer needed. Well, this class is no longer needed, hence its current decline.

Today, as J.A. Myerson point out in the video below, "the middle class is the working class plus debt." We're now in the process of returning to the natural harmonious capitalist order which does not include a "middle class". Home ownership, college, medical insurance, etc. is a privilege of wealth

“In the digital age where American workers have increased their productivity hugely with no real increase to their wages, the middle class has only been able to keep up the incredible consumption schedule it is used to by taking on a ton of debt. We go into debt to buy the home, the health care, the education, the automobile, that working class people aren’t traditionally entitled."

Links:

Who's Profiting From $1.2 Trillion of Federal Student Loans?

No FAFSA, No Diploma in Louisiana

After Math Error, Fitch Doubles Student-Debt Downgrade Estimate

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Will Anthropogenic Global Warming Change to Anthropogenic Global Chilling?

Or, perhaps an all inclusive anthropogenic global chaos--better to be safe than sorry.    But the important question is, Will "we the people", still be held responsible/accountable?  And therefore, of course, subject to the imposition of extra taxing, tracking--consumption, population, "footprint"--and toiling.  Keep in mind, anthropogenic is the key word, here.

A garden thermometer reads the daytime temperature of -3 C. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Chicago snow. Pic: Andrew Seaman (Flickr CC)

Sunlight streams through the windows of a building which caught on fire in Plattsmouth,
Neb., Friday, Jan. 3, 2014, and the water sprayed on it by fire fighters froze

Friday, Jan. 3, 2014. John Hart/Wisconsin State Journal/AP

The cold blast that hit much of the East coast- including New York City's
Bryant Park- has left a trail of ice and snow in its wake

The former Odd Fellows Building in downtown North Attleboro, Massachusetts.
It was destroyed by an early morning fire before the deep freeze set in

One of the four fire trucks responding to the North Attleboro fire that became encased
in frozen ice during the rescue

And for those who might say, "This is just a blip on the global warming radar", or "This frigid weather is another example of the kind of violent and abrupt climate change that results from global warming"... not so fast.  As this trend will more than likely continue.

Since the NOAA, back in 2011, projected higher temperatures and reduced sea ice, northern Arctic ice has increased by 29% from 2012 to 2013, despite some 2007 reports claiming the Arctic would be ice-free by the summer of 2013. Even the latest data shows Antarctic sea ice is more than two standard deviations above normal.

To be sure, the powers that be will  not give up so easily, as there is too much money and too much power at stake.

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Poverty is a Criminal Offense Even Punishable by Death.

Out of Reach 2012

Even though corporate profits have soared to record levels in recent years and the 1% continue to line their already lined pockets, most Americans are still struggling; there has been no economic recovery for the 99%. However, the "recovered" wealthy politically connected class has thoroughly convinced the waning middle-class to hate the poor, an ongoing effort since 1980. They tell the middle class, "Look how much it costs you to provide food stamps, welfare benefits, etc., to the poor," covering up the fact that they are the ones plundering all of the wealth, and effectively keeping the 99% at each others throats, therefore blind to the truth.

The mainstream media ensures that most of us stay blinded to that truth by continuously droning on and on about this "economic recovery" when, in actuality, median household income is actually 4.4 % lower than it was when the last recession officially "ended".  Economic recovery? How can that be when over  100 million American citizens are on welfare?  But despite the growing inequality between rich and poor, too many Americans still support the policies that deny basic humanitarian aid to our nation's poor, a population that's growing by leaps and bounds.

So it is, in the richest nation in the world, millions of people are out of work--or underemployed--homeless, and hungry, as it becomes increasingly commonplace to criminalize homelessness, not to mention, the act of helping the homeless. Those who dare to go out into the community to bring food and supplies are finding themselves arrested at an alarming rate. Yet, how does one get a job once you no longer have a home address, phone number, bus fare? If you become too ill to work?

Meanwhile, people experiencing homelessness are dying all over the nation. All too often, these lonely people are as invisible in death as they were in life.  At the very least, 700 homeless people freeze to death in the US every year.  In the Bay Area alone, since November 28, 2013,  seven homeless people died from exposure to the cold

Did you ever hear of Hart Island? No?  Well, you're not alone.  Hart Island is "a thin, half-mile long blip of land at the yawning mouth of Long Island Sound, just across the water from City Island in the Bronx" and is the largest publicly-funded mass grave site in the U.S. which has been closed to the general public for the last 35 years. Almost one million unclaimed/unknown dead, mostly homeless, are buried there. Loved ones are prevented from freely visiting these almost impossible-to-find grave sites. In Arpil of this year, an online searchable database of burial records was set up, however, access is limited to a small gazebo near the dock, rather than any of the actual burial sites.

“Its most important role has been to serve as what’s known as a potter’s field, a common gravesite for the city’s unknown dead. Some 900,000 New Yorkers (or adopted New Yorkers) are buried here; hauntingly, the majority are interred by prisoners from Riker’s Island who earn 50 cents an hour digging gravesites and stacking simple wooden boxes in groups of 150 adults and 1,000 infants. These inmates—most of them very young, serving out short sentences—are responsible for building the only memorials on Hart Island: Handmade crosses made of twigs and small offerings of fruit and candy left behind when a grave is finished."

Moreover, 41 states have debtors' prisons. Even though the U.S. officially made debtors' prisons illegal in the 1830s, you can still be jailed for showing "contempt of court" during a creditor lawsuit.  In Ohio they're throwing people into jail for as little as $300! That's right, in Huron County, "more than one in every five of all bookings...involved a failure to pay fines." 

Most of the homeless in America are just regular people (over 40% working) trying to survive, a situation that anyone of us can find ourselves in, yet, so many remain callous, as if it cannot happen to them.  If society is judged by the way it treats the least of its citizens, well...

Links:

Cities' homeless crackdown: Could it be compassion fatigue?

Bloomberg Strikes Again: NYC Bans Food Donations to the Homeless.

Prohibitions on Sharing Food with People Experiencing Homelessness

Poor Give More Generously Than the Rich

Charity and the poor: The rich and their 'bah humbug' attitudes

Why the Rich Don't Give to Charity The wealthiest Americans donate 1.3 percent of their income; the poorest, 3.2 percent. What's up with that?

Why Do the Rich Give Less than the Poor?

Food Not Bombs

Interfaith Hospitality Network

A mother loses her job, a father is kept from working by an injury, a family is forced from their home by fire or natural disaster. Healthcare costs soar, public transportation is underfunded, affordable housing is almost impossible to find. These are the reasons why families now make up 40 percent of the homeless population, and why one out of every four homeless people is a child.

In response to this crisis, the Interfaith Hospitality Network brings the faith community together to help families regain their housing, their independence, and their dignity. IHN is a partnership of congregations within a community helping families who are facing homelessness. It offers an opportunity for volunteers of all faiths to reduce homelessness and transform lives.

Interfaith Hospitality Networks are currently operating in 41 states and the District of Columbia, in large cities, suburbs, and rural counties. They mobilize community resources: houses of worship for lodging, congregations for volunteers, social service agencies for assessment and referrals, and existing facilities for day programs. This strategy enables networks to help homeless families achieve lasting independence at a third of the cost of traditional shelters.

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The Top Ten America's Greediest of 2013

America’s Greediest: The 2013 Top Ten By Sam Pizzigati

“Butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. You won’t find any of them on our annual Too Much list of America’s most avaricious. You will find wheelers and dealers and a candy store heiress.

The impact on America’s super rich — and super-rich wannabees? Not much. They haven’t even deigned to slow their grabbing...

10/ Angela Spaccia: Pint-Sized Pilfering

We start this year’s top ten with garden-variety greed, the sort that inevitably grows in the shadows of escalating grand fortunes. In that shade, people in positions of modest power and authority regularly — and clumsily — try to emulate the avaricious high and mighty they see all around them.

In Bell, a small Los Angeles County working class community, that modest power and authority once belonged to Angela Spaccia. As Bell’s assistant city manager for a seven-year span that ended in 2010, Spaccia helped stuff hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of the city’s top officials, including herself. Spaccia in one year alone took in $564,000.

Prosecutors eventually caught up with Spaccia and her pals. Her boss, the Bell city manager, cut a plea deal in October to 69 corruption charges. He pulled in $1.18 million in his most lucrative year. Spaccia chose to go to trial instead, claiming she did nothing illegal.

“Everyone’s greedy,” her defense attorney argued  in November. “There’s no crime in taking too much money.”

Jurors disagreed. Last week, they found Spaccia guilty on multiple counts of criminal behavior, including one misappropriation of public funds designed to pump $15.5 million in pension checks to Spaccia and her boss.

9/ Dylan Lauren: Sweet Squeezer

They don’t come more suave and sophisticated than Dylan Lauren, the only child of billionaire designer Ralph Lauren. Or more ambitious either.

Not for Dylan the empty heiress life. Over a decade ago, she opened up her own business, a luxury candy emporium on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where moldings atop display cabinets mimic dripping chocolate and a cocktail bar offers Gummy Bear martinis.

“Dylan’s Candy Bar” would go on to become wildly successful, expanding into Miami Beach, Los Angeles, and the Hamptons, all the prime watering holes for America’s super rich.

Things today could hardly be peachier for the young Lauren. She has by her side a totally smitten hedge fund manager husband. Maybe even better, the 39-year-old has realized the life’s dream she’s had ever since she first saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at the ripe old age of six.

“I just wanted,” as Dylan gushed recently, “to live in a world full of candy.”

Dylan’s employees, meanwhile, would be satisfied with a world where they could just make ends meet. Workers at her Manhattan flagship store have been protesting  their meager $8.50 hourly compensation and management policies that make sure employees never work enough hours to qualify for overtime pay.

The New York workers are seeking full-time weekly set schedules and a hourly wage at $13.99, the price of a Dylan’s Candy Bar pound of candy.

Earlier this month, in a pouring rain, the workers demonstrated to make their case, carrying lollipops that read, “Dylan, we’re not suckers.” Their chant: “Dylan, Dylan, Candy Queen, you’re filthy rich, so share your green!”

8/ Michael Duke: Low Wages All the Time

This may well be Walmart CEO Michel Duke’s last hurrah in America’s most greedy. He’ll be stepping down as CEO early in 2014, after an embarrassing final year at Walmart’s summit.

The crowning embarrassment? At the company’s 2013 annual meeting, a glitzy affair that management packs with “loyal” employees, one Walmart worker actually won cheers when she denounced Duke’s $20.7 million 2012 paycheck.

Researchers have calculated that Duke is essentially making $6,898 an hour, 779 times the $8.86 average Walmart wage.

In the nation’s capital this fall, city council members tried to up that worker average. They passed a bill that would have required Walmart stores in D.C. to pay at least $12.50 an hour. Duke reacted swiftly. He had his company threaten to pull up stakes if the bill became law.

Washington’s mayor promptly panicked and vetoed the measure.

Duke took a PR pounding for that threat and still another pounding when the Demos think tank in New York revealed  that the $7.6 billion Duke had Walmart spend last year buying back company shares, if redirected to worker compensation, could have raised Walmart’s lowest wages by $5.83 an hour — and ensured all the company’s workers at least $25,000 for full-time work.

Poor Michael Duke won’t have to face any more pounding come his retirement this February. He won’t face any financial worries either. Duke is sitting on $113.2 million in retirement assets, thanks to a tax loophole that lets corporate execs annually set aside unlimited sums, tax-free, into their retirement accounts.

Duke’s retirement stash, notes the Institute for Policy Studies, “could yield him a monthly retirement check of $669,169.” The average Walmart worker 401(k), by contrast, will generate a monthly retirement check of $89.

7/ Art Pope: A Backroom Bully Goes Public

In North Carolina these days, few people think Francis first when they hear “Pope.” A different Pope has been dominating headlines here, an exceedingly deep pocket who owes his fortune to a discount store chain his daddy built.

In the run-up to the 2012 elections, this Art Pope invested over $40 million of his personal wealth to gerrymander how North Carolinians cast their votes.

The gerrymandering worked. This year opened with the state sporting — for the first time ever — a conservative GOP governor, Supreme Court majority, and legislature all at the same time. The state budget director? Pope himself.

Pope’s budget priorities would soon start wreaking havoc with the lives of North Carolina’s most vulnerable. In a state with America’s fifth-highest jobless rate, lawmakers indebted to Pope and his millions slashed top weekly jobless benefits and denied 170,000 long-term jobless special federal aid.

North Carolina’s conservatives didn’t stop there. They put in place, notes one Duke University analyst, an agenda that cuts education and social programs, shifts the tax burden “toward the less affluent,” and restricts voting rights.

North Carolinians have responded to this rich people-friendly legislative onslaught with spirited demonstrations. The latest protest: an “educational picket campaign” outside the discount stores the Pope family owns.

Art Pope, notes state NAACP president William Barber, has brought a “cynical and sinister form of wealth and power manipulation” to North Carolina.

Pope has put his stores “deliberately and publicly in communities of low wealth,” exploited people in these communities with low wages, and then employed his resulting wealth “to push and promote policies,” sums up Reverend Barber, that undercut the quality of average people’s lives.

6/ Tim Cook: Lost Even with a Compass

The $100 million club, researchers from the corporate watchdog GMI Ratings revealed  this past October, has become a bit less exclusive. Last year, for the first time, America’s ten highest-paid CEOs all realized over $100 million in compensation. High on that list, at $143.8 million: Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Cook’s good fortune came as no surprise to computer industry observers. Apple retail stores, notes  Forbes, “take in more money per square foot than any other United States retailer.”

Yet Apple store employees only average $25,000, and Apple can’t seem to afford to compensate its 42,000 retail workers for the time they spend every day waiting to get searched — for stolen goods — before they can leave the store premises. Two former Apple employees have filed  a class-action lawsuit to recoup those unpaid wages, estimated at about $1,500 per year.

But give Apple credit. The company remains an equal-opportunity exploiter. The company mistreats workers both at home and abroad. Workers at Apple’s offshore suppliers continue to work in factories that, says  the Economic Policy Institute, “reflect some of the worst practices of the industrial era.”

Apple, details EPI analyst Isaac Shapiro, “has not met commitments to ensure that workers in its supply chain receive retroactive compensation for working unpaid overtime” or “ensured promised wage increases.”

Apple CEO Cook’s response to critiques like this?

“Apple,” he told reporters before U.S. Senate testimony this past spring, “has a very strong moral compass.”

5/ Ron Packard: The ABCs of Avarice

Some of us look at school buildings and see students learning. Ron Packard looks at schools and sees himself becoming fabulously richer — if he could only empty the buildings.

Packard runs K12 Inc., a for-profit company that specializes in “virtual” education. K12 Inc. operates online “schools” that supply lessons to kids sitting in front of computers, a business endeavor that Packard pronounces a noble step toward “educational liberty.”

“Kids have been shackled to their brick-and-mortar school down the block for too long,” he has declared.

An army of corporate lobbyists has been spreading this message over the past five years, backed by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, and more than three dozen states have now enacted legislation that lets companies like K12 Inc. grab students — and tax dollars.

K12 Inc. currently has nearly 130,000 students in its “virtual learning” empire, with only one problem. Compared to their traditional school peers, K12 Inc. students are not doing much learning. Critics are, understandably, blasting the K12 Inc. business model as a giant scam.

In that model, heavy K12 Inc. advertising on kid-centric media like Nickelodeon gets kids enrolled for the company’s offerings. State government education officials, after their annual student “head count,” then pay K12 Inc. for each kid signed up. But after the head count, many of the “virtual” students drop out. K12 Inc. doesn’t mind. The company gets to keep the money.

Lots of it, enough to reward Packard over $19 million in personal compensation the last five years. Not bad, notes the Center for Media and Democracy, for a former Goldman Sachs executive “who started K12 Inc. with a $10 million investment from convicted junk-bond king Michael Milken.”

4/ Lloyd Blankfein: An Appetite for Aluminum

Five years ago, Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs tottered near disaster, as did every other major U.S. bank.

America’s taxpayers came to the rescue. Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein soon had at his disposal $814 billion in near zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve and $10 billion from the Treasury Department.

Blankfein has made the most of this generous support. Forbes calculates his total compensation for the last five years at $159.5 million. Blankfein currently holds over a quarter-billion dollars worth of Goldman shares in his personal portfolio.

How have Blankfein and Goldman Sachs done so nicely the past five years? We learned a good bit about that in 2013. The juiciest revelations came over the summer when the New York Times exposed a commodity speculation scheme that Goldman “intentionally created” to drive up the global price of aluminum.

This scheming, the Times estimates, has cost consumers $5 billion since 2010.

Blankfein has shared, at tax time, precious little of the profits from Goldman’s speculative ventures, thanks in large part to Goldman’s dozens of offshore tax havens. In 2010, these tax havens cut Goldman’s tax bill by $3.32 billion.

Blankfein is putting his share of those tax savings to something less than productive social use. News reports have him down as an advance buyer in the new $1 billion Faena Miami Beach, an 18-story oceanfront luxury tower set to open next year. The tower’s 47 residences are going for up to $50 million each.

3/ Jim McNerney: Middle Class Manslaughter

The U.S. manufacturing giant Boeing, analyst Harold Meyerson observed last week, has only one global rival in the large-scale passenger-plane market, the European conglomerate Airbus.

Workers at these two aerospace giants turn out to make about the same compensation. But executives at Boeing make more.

Question: Given these realities, what should Boeing do to compete more effectively? The answer from Boeing CEO Jim McNerney: Cut Boeing worker wages, benefits, and pensions!

Earlier this fall, McNerney gave his Seattle area workers an ultimatum: Either accept a contract “extension” that would leave them paying more for health care and getting less in retirement — and force new hires to work 10 extra years at substandard wages — or Boeing would go elsewhere to manufacture its new 777x passenger jetliner.

Boeing gave Washington State’s political leaders a similar ultimatum: Either fork over new subsidies and tax breaks or see your state lose jobs by the thousands. Washington lawmakers caved almost instantly. They voted Boeing the largest subsidy deal in U.S. history, over half a billion annually for the next 16 years, over double  the state’s annual funding for the University of Washington.

Boeing’s workers didn’t cave. They rejected the Boeing ultimatum, and McNerney, who pulled in [39] $27.5 million in take-home last year after $23 million the year before, is now parsing subsidy offers from half a dozen other states.

How does this story end? Maybe with the “Walmartization of aerospace.”

“This,” as Seattle author Timothy Egan puts it, “is how the middle class dies.”

2/ David Novak: Fast-Food Glutton

At first glance, corporate CEO David Novak doesn’t need a subsidy from anybody. The fast-food empire Novak oversees, Yum! Brands, amassed $1.59 billion in profits last year.

And Yum — think Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC — is doing pretty well by Novak, too. He pocketed $94 million worth of “performance pay,” notes an Institute for Policy Studies analysis, in just 2011 and 2012 alone.

But Novak and Yum are collecting subsidies anyway — and plenty of them. One comes directly from the U.S. tax code. Current tax law lets corporations deduct executive “performance” pay off their taxable income. This sweet subsidy saved Yum $33 million the last two years on Novak’s ample compensation.

Average Americans are actually subsidizing Novak and Yum at much higher levels than this single tax break suggests. In fact, taxpayers are subsidizing Yum’s entire fast-food business.

Workers at fast food giants like Yum simply don’t make enough to make ends meet for their families. So how do these workers get by? They depend on taxpayer-financed social safety net programs, from food stamps to Medicaid.

Overall, researchers noted  in 2013, American taxpayers “are spending nearly $7 billion a year to supplement the wages of fast-food workers.”

And how are fast-food executives like David Novak spending the profits this generous taxpayer support makes possible? They’re having their companies, for starters, buy back shares of company stock off the open market, a strategy designed solely to bump up their share prices.

Higher share prices, in the meantime, produce higher “performance pay” awards for execs like Novak.

If Novak had plowed the vast millions that Yum spent last year on share buybacks into worker pay, estimate researchers from Demos, worker wages at Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC would have jumped by as much as $3 per hour.

1/ Larry Ellison: An Awesome Arrogance

Drum roll, please. Our 2013 greediest of them all: Larry Ellison, the longtime chief exec at business software kingpin Oracle.

Ellison currently owns a quarter of Oracle, a chunk that makes the 69-year-old the ninth richest individual in the world. His total net worth sat last week at $38.6 billion.

Enough? Not for Ellison. Last year, the software kingpin had Oracle award him $96.2 million in compensation. Unhappy shareholders considered those millions a tad excessive. In a nonbinding 2012 say-on-pay vote, an Oracle shareholder majority turned thumbs-down on Ellison’s pay package.

Ellison, of course, gave none of that $96.2 million back. This year, he had Oracle hand him another $76.9 million. Unhappy shareholders again expressed their displeasure, making Oracle just the 12th company  in U.S. corporate history to have its shareholders go on record against their CEO’s pay in consecutive years.

No frustrated shareholder better try getting any of Ellison’s latest paycheck back. Oracle spends $1.5 million a year on security personnel to protect him. And why not? Ellison, as Oracle general counsel Dorian Daley gushes, rates as Oracle’s “most critical strategic visionary.”

Sign up for To Much Ellison pays dearly to surround himself with such fawning adulation. His two top executive underlings collected $43.6 million each in compensation in Oracle’s fiscal 2013.

Ellison’s billions, to be sure, buy him more than office sycophants. This past year Ellison hosted global yachting’s premiere race, the America’s Cup, in San Francisco Bay. Each race’s host sets the race’s rules. Ellison’s rules limited the field to ultra-expensive — and ultra-dangerous — catamarans.

One sailor died in training runs for the race.

Whose yacht eventually won? Guess.

Links:

Super Sizing Public Costs How Low Wages at Top Fast-Food Chains Leave Taxpayers Footing the Bill

“The Fast Food industry is marked by two extremes: on the one hand, the leading companies in the industry earn billions in profits each year, award chief executives generous compensation packages, and regularly distribute substantial amounts of money in the form of dividends and share buybacks.

At the same time, the overwhelming share of jobs in the fast-food industry pay low wages that force millions of workers to rely on public assistance in order to afford health care, food, and other basic necessities. This report focuses on the 10 largest fast-food companies in the united States and estimates the substantial costs that these highly profitable companies’ low-wage, no-benefits business model imposes on taxpayers.
our findings include the following:

• Low wages and lack of benefits at the 10 largest fast-food companies in the united States cost tax-payers an estimated $3.8 billion per year. Mcdonald’s alone costs taxpayers an estimated$1.2 billion each year.
• While low wages and lack of benefits cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year, the seven publicly-traded corporations on this list remain in strong financial condition today. Last year, these companies collectively:

• Earned $7.44 billion in profits;
• Paid $52.7 million to their highest-paid executives;
• Distributed $7.7 billion in dividends and buybacks

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75.4% of All U.S. Wealth is Owned by by the Top 10%!

I've always believed that we, the American, live in the best of all possible worlds and much to my surprise, after all I've learned, and after all I've complained about,  I still do, although to a much lesser degree, of course.  I realized this when I came across the headline," America Is the Most Inhumane Developed Country on the Planet..."  My immediate reaction, at the gut level, was shock.. that is, until I had time to think about the extraordinary incarceration rate, the millions and millions of people without health insurance, the millions and millions of people without  enough food to eat, without safe shelter, without  the means to pay off exorbitant student loan debt, without full employment, or in an increasing number of cases, without employment at all....

However, if I didn't know just how inhumane our nation has become, the fourth edition of the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook (2013) cinched it for me.  The report ranked the US as the most unequal of all advanced economies. The Gini coefficient-, the standard measure of a nation's wealth-inequality (a Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality) in the U.S. is 85.1.  That's right,  we're thee number one most unequal of the 20 developed nations in the world! 75.4% of all U.S. wealth is owned by by the top 10%!   Followed by:

Denmark, with 72.2% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Switzerland, with 71.5% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Sweden, with 71.1% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Israel, with 68.9% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Norway, with 65.9% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Germany, with 61.7% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Singapore, with 61.1% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Ireland, with 58.4% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
New Zealand, with 57.6% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Canada, with 57.4% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Netherlands, with 54.6% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Spain, with 54% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
U.K., with 53.3% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Italy, with 49.8% of its wealth owned by the top 10%
Japan, with 49.1% of its wealth owned by the top 10%,
Finland, with 44.9% of its wealth owned by the top 10%

Hell, we even beat Chile (72.5%), India (73.8%), Indonesia (75.0%), and South Africa (74.8%)!

At the other end of the wealth spectrum, the bottom 90% of the U.S. population own only 24.6% of all the privately held wealth in our nation, whereas in most of the other developed nations, the bottom 90% own, on average, approximately 40% of the wealth.

Moreover, not surprisingly, this so-called "economic recovery" has only benefited the richest Americans, as the richest 1% of Americans have received 95% of the income-gains since the 2008 financial crash, raising their incomes by 31.4%.

Once again, this should come as no surprise in a world where the richest 300 people on earth have more money than the poorest 3 billion.

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The Pathology of the Rich

On The Real News Network. with Paul Jay, Chris Hedges discusses the decadence of the ruling elite, the psychology of the super rich; their sense of entitlement, the dehumanization of workers, and mistaken belief that their wealth will insulate them from the coming storms. "Après moi, le déluge"

Hedges asserts that the intellectual class serves the system--that allows those at the top to plunder the wealth from the rest of the population-- don't have a job.

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The Precedent is Set for the Cutting of Public Employee Pensions Across the Nation.

Is "Bankrupt" Detroit, in which "a judge [U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes] in Michigan ruled that the bankrupt city of Detroit can impose cuts to its municipal pension plans" the new paradigm for dealing with "municipal bankruptcy" for the rest of the US? Now remember the "fictional municipal corporation government called the “City of Detroit” bankruptcy is a huge lie! Of course there is no mention of what Clint Richardson  refers to as "the legal crime operating behind these horrific scenes and reported in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR)."

“In case you haven’t heard, municipal bankruptcy is now all the rage. When smaller municipal corporations (only corporations can declare bankruptcy) had little resistance as test cases for these outrageous claims of fraudulent bankruptcy and default, the larger municipalities gained the confidence that the financially illiterate cesspool of people as citizens don’t know there heads from a hole in the wall when it comes to the financial reporting apparatus of government. The people were determined to be sufficiently ignorant of even the basic checking account balance of the general fund in their local governments and school districts, let alone the massive collective government investment scam robbing them of the entirety of their wealth, making it reasonable to assume that these municipal corporation’s financial position would likely never be challenged by that clueless mass of the indentured. And so the latest trend of conspiracy and fraud against those debt-slaves continues… this time in the not so great City of Detroit.

In other words, Detroit is a test case for the rest of the nation in the ongoing agenda of the predatory class to steal our wealth.

San Bernardino,, California, you're next.

“The ruling comes as a bankrupt California city, San Bernardino, edges closer to a possible legal showdown with CalPERS over the sanctity of public employee pensions. Although the decision in Detroit doesn’t directly affect what happens in San Bernardino, legal experts said it will strengthen the California city’s hand as it tries to reduce its multimillion-dollar pension obligations.

However, as Clint Richardson states:

“In short, the Governor of the great corporate State of California is lying to his taxpayers through the act of omission of these CAFR facts, by only referring to a hand selected portion of that CAFR, which is called the State’s annual budget report. While this should be tried as perjury, the laws of the State/Federal government protect him from this ever happening.

To help in your understanding, let’s say that you were to have a checking account with $1,000 and a savings account with $10,000 in two different banks, and that you only reported to the government that you had $1,000 dollars as your net worth because you don’t want to use your savings account to pay bills (taxpayer obligations) to government. You’d be audited and put in a federal debtor’s prison. But for government, the simple designation of “non-governmental” or “non-taxpayer” income and investment returns allows them to hide all of this wealth from the people and the “Budget Report”, while never mentioning the funds and wealth in the CAFR report. The only difference is that government does this legally – because government makes its own laws!

Why do they do this?

The answer is simple, really… TO JUSTIFY THE CONTINUATION OF, THE RAISING OF, AND CREATION OF NEW TAXES!!!

Public Employees’ Retirement Fund (CalPERS) – $241,761,791,000

Public Employees’ Health Benefits Fund (CalPERS) – $1,866,877,000

State Teachers’ Retirement Fund (CalSTRS) – $155,345,815,000

Teachers’ Health Benefits Fund (CalSTRS) – $598,000

Deferred Compensation Fund – $9,365,582,000

Judges’ Retirement Fund (CalPERS) – $54,146,000

Judges’ Retirement Fund II (CalPERS) – $575,833,000

Legislators’ Retirement Fund (CalPERS) – $123,476,000

State Peace Officers’ and Firefighters’ Defined Contribution Plan Fund (CalPERS) - $499,873,000

Supplemental Contributions Program Fund (CalPERS) – $19,658,000

Other pension and other employee benefit trust funds – $10,117,000

————————————————————————————-

TOTAL IN PENSION/EMPLOYEE BENEFIT FUNDS = $409,623,766,000

“...for this is the lie that is propagated to the public about the nature of pension funds. I would suggest you watch my documentary, The Great Pension Fund Hoax for a detailed look at pension funds.

In reality, the 270 billion dollars that is invested in CalPERS and the 200 billion that is in CalSTRS pension funds has nothing to do with paying for benefits, which total about 9 billion each year.

Calpers made a 27 billion gain in its investment pool after all benefits were paid to employees and retirees. So do you still think that these assets as investment funds (pension funds) are “liabilities:? How can they be liabilities if they are making massive profits after all liabilities are paid???

The truth is that pension funds grab TAXPAYER money out of the taxpayer base in order to “match” or pay for pension obligations – laws created to steal money and put it in the pension system. For every employee of the State, more money gets exacted from the public to pay into the pension system.

But here is the kicker… the employee has no equity in that money! While he or she can quit or get fired and take back what he contributed to the fund, the entire taxpayer contribution stays in the fund, and the employee cannot touch it. millions and millions of federal and state employees, each one supported by taxpayer money, and some pension funds do not require employee contributions, only government (the people) fund them with taxmoney. Ive seen the ration of contribution from 100% matching of employee funds to 45oo% of matched employee funds from the tax base. The employer is government and government is funded by taxmoney.

Now, with that said, it is your perception that is the problem. You perceive the good intentions of the pension system, and don’t comprehend the true corporate nature of it. You find justification for the above to support “retirement”, even though the purpose of pension funds was to extract taxmoney and invest it worldwide to build up the entire global economy for which pension funds are the largest holder of stock. And you, who may or may not receive a pension, believe that I (who does not recieve a pension) should pay for those employees who do. Why should I pay tax money to support a pension system that does not benefit me in any way, shape, or form, and in fact harms me by consolidating power and wealth into government hands?

Finally, you should know that if (or when) States begin to declare bankruptcy, which in my opinion is part of the master plan to rape the people once again, the pension system for that State will be taken, and no employees will see any of that money for retirement. Remember, a “contribution” is literally the act of giving away your money voluntarily. You do not own the money you have contributed, and can only get it back if you live long enough (which the fund hopes you don’t) and if the corporation doesn’t go bankrupt.

Again, the pension fund balances are not liabilities. The fund does what is called projections to guess what future liabilities will be. But as of today, any funds within the pension fund are profit.

I hope this helps…

-Clint-

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The Crash of 2016?

Is the response to the 2008 financial meltdown a band-aid fix that "punished none of the financial abusers, propped up the major culprits at the expense of consumers and taxpayers, and brought us closer to an even worse disaster?" That is the question radio host Thom Hartmann, author of “The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America and What We Can Do to Stop It,” answers on NPR's  show, The Takeaway..

Hartmann claims the crash of 2008, that really began in 2006 when housing started to collapse, is still ongoing, despite the over-the-top performance of the stock market.  Millions of people have fallen out of the middle class since the 1980s, including 700,000 in the last couple of years, driving wealth inequality to an all time high. These enormous concentrations of wealth are not being used productively in the economy as they are invested internationally and stored in Swiss bank accounts.

One of the main problems is that banking has replaced manufacturing as the fundamental impetus of our economy, yet it creates no wealth, not to mention, Glass-Steagall Act (1933) has never been replaced so the banks are still gambling with our deposits.  Then there is the the quantitative easing program that's devaluing our currency more and more every day.  Half of the program is buying toxic securities--junk--from the banks to the tune of $35-$40 billion per month.  That is they're  buying junk left on the books of the banks left over from the unregulated derivatives market that Phil Gramm created in 1999 and 2000 when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act of 1999 was passed and even more importantly, the Commodities Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) a law that opened the door to unregulated trading of credit default swaps, the financial instruments blamed, for the 2008 economic meltdown.  The passing of this Act catapulted the derivatives market to $800 trillion in 2008! (Keep in mind, the GDP of the entire planet is $65 trillion.) Right after the crash in 2008, It fell to $500 trillion, but according to the Bank of International Settlements it's back up to $800 trillion!

Since the wheels of commerce started to spin, there's always been some sort of  commodities futures market in play, where farmers and merchants could lock in on actual physical things--pork bellies, wheat, oil, etc.--in advance at a fixed price. Up until 2000, the commodities futures market ran through the Chicago Board of Trade and has always been transparent.  For example, airlines could hedge their bets by buying futures in oil.  With the CFMA it became possible to make these kind of bets on the non-physical, and it became possible to make bets on bets on bets.  In other words, they've created an economy that has absolutely no value!

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Who Says You Must Be Super Wealthy To Ride Out the Apocalypse?

From DVICE:

"If you're determined to live through any possible doomsday scenario, the thought of climbing into one of those deep underground shelters might give you pause. After all, who wants to live dormitory style with a bunch of strangers when you've become accustomed to the comforts of your own double-wide at the RV park?

Dug over 100 years ago as part of a limestone mining operation, this bunker in Kansas covers 45 acres sitting 100-150 feet below ground. Developer Robert Vicino says that the structure can withstand a 1 megaton nuclear blast just 10 miles away, but there's no word on how many apocalyptic zombies the doors can hold back. The temperature inside hangs constantly in the low 70s, so it should be fairly comfortable as you wait for things to settle down up on the surface.

The shelter is being built by the same Vivos folks who gave us that missile silo bunker for the super rich. The difference here is that bunker is much larger, allowing you to move in complete with your own portable home. As with most RV parks, the costs are somewhat lower too at $1,000 per linear foot for the RV space plus $1,500 per person for food. That means a family of four with a 30-foot rig could move in for $36,000, a whole lot less than the $170,000 you would need to get into the Indiana silo bunker.

Once it's fully developed and sold (sorry, cash only), participants will be encouraged to spend their vacations at the facility to familiarize themselves with underground bunker living. Sounds like fun to me.

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Richest 300 People on Earth Have Same Wealth as Poorest 3 BILLION People On Earth

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Behind the Mexican Drug Cartels?

Within the last few days, more than a dozen Mexicans were brutally murdered by the drug cartels, and dozens more in this month alone.   The bodies of seven men were found in plastic chairs placed along the side of a street in the drug-plagued Mexican state of Michoacan, while another seven people, including three federal agents, were killed in neighboring Guerrero.

7 Executed in Uruapan, Michoacan found sitting in white plastic chairs

What's so disturbing about the above photo aside from the brutal murder of seven individuals,  is the effort and time it must've taken to arrange these bodies in such a public place, not to mention, the ritualistic aspect that almost always seems to accompany cartel slaughter. In other words, this picture exemplifies the carte blanche of the drug cartels who have also infiltrated, at the very least, 1,286 cities, according to a DOJ report last year.  Oh, and the dead men's crimes: supposedly begging and washing car windscreens at traffic lights, all victims of the Knights Templar.

13 in total for The Bloody Friday Seige in Guerrero

3/15/2013 Gunmen kills 7 in Cancun bar as thousands of students enjoy spring break

3 men murdered 3/11/2013 in Acapulco

The following creepy photo shows that the influence of the drug cartels has extended to the hearts and minds of U.S. citizens.

La Santa Muerte, an underworld saint most recently associated with the violent drug trade in Mexico, now is spreading throughout the U.S. among a new group of followers ranging from immigrant small business owners to artists and gay activists.

While the Mexican army and police forces are equipped with weapons circa 1980's, the drug cartels are armed with state-of-the art brand new weapons. This flow of weapons into cartel hands is unprecedented, even though guns have been banned in Mexico for decades. And despite the reported confiscation of weapons from the drug cartels in raids, the never-ending supply continues to proliferate.

Now, we already know that up to 90% of cartel's weapons come from the U.S. The question is why is the U.S. government, not only doing nothing to stem the supply, but, is instead encouraging this ongoing and escalating atrocity by issuing cutbacks in Border Patrol agent positions (with an astounding lack of coverage at the border)?   Oh, and let's not forget the release of hundreds, perhaps thousands (according to ICE whistle-blowers) of criminal and violent illegal aliens from prison. Why? Because, there's no room since the prisons are filled to the brim with non-violent U.S. citizens!

From Border Issues: Mexico:

“Thank you Secretary Napolitano. Thank you for endangering us. Thank you for cutting our pay 40% to prove a political point. Thank you for making our job even more meaningless. Thank you for releasing thousands of criminal illegal aliens that we risked our lives to arrest and put in jail. Thank you for all your lies about how “secure” the border is so that you can prop up another amnesty program. Thank you for cutting off our uniform allowances. Your support is really breathtaking. We just don’t know how much more we can handle."

Meanwhile, law-abiding Mexican citizens can't buy firearms--or even, publications about firearms--without risking the full force of Mexican "law".

You see, it's only the little guys that the big guys go after with a vengeance Case in point is the prosecutors in Aaron Swartz’ case, led by US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who "piled multiple criminal counts on Swartz that collectively could have locked him up for a quarter century," they "chose not to pursue prosecution of another far more serious alleged corporate computer crime," "drone code piracy" "sophisticated, analytical software program, known as Geospatial, that was developed IISI"  that was flawed, therefore potentially effecting the lives of many, unlike Swart's "crime", which would've assisted the many.

Links:

The Drug Warriors Cashing In on Pot Prohibition

Former public servants, from DEA chiefs to cops, are using their clout to lobby for drug policies that enrich themselves—before it's too late.

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$46 Trillion Mostly Held by the Top One-Tenth of One Percent of Americans

“The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.”– Michael Lind

In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper 0.1% of the 1% population according to the report by David DeGraw, Analysis of Financial Terror. Meanwhile an astounding 62 million Americans have a zero net worth, and 68.3 million Americans struggle to put food on their table. That's right, the very same people, the top one-tenth of one percenters, 300,000 out of 300 million people, essentially responsible for the devastating economic damage to the US,whilst benefiting greatly, have almost $46 trillion in wealth. Remember, $1 trillion is equal to $1000 billion! Imagine, what $46 trillion can do for you.

And unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, the top 0.1%--not to mention, the 99.9%--can often borrow as much as they want at very nearly 0% interest, keep profits and production offshore, store personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and greatly influence legislation in the US. They have access to the best of the best in accounting firms, attorneys, consultants, private wealth managers, and access to a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and on and on and on...

However, thanks to the absence of reporting and/or the reporting of outright lies on this issue by the mainstream media--despite growing financial hardship--most of us are left to believe the rest of the nation is coming out of this financial crisis and getting back on their feet. Add to that, statistics based on rather primitive and outdated poverty/unemployment measures. Although, all one has to do is drive around and see  the empty storefronts that line the streets of the wealthiest nation in the world.

The following excerpts come from  Michiganjf and Jon who commented on the show The End Of Middle Class Neighborhoods? on On Point with Tom Ashbrook. 

"Well, 30 years of Reaganomics and the Republican Revolution has allowed the super-wealthy to "trickle down" on the heads of the middle class and the poor in America... allow the wealthiest 1% to squeeze every penny they can out of the middle-class (those who actually spread money throughout the economy and kept it thriving for so long), and of course it eventually leads to the demise of once healthy middle-class neighborhoods!

Just check out On Points recent show on "Dirty Politics and Big Money" for an idea of the ways in which "The Club for the Rich" rigs the game for their own private and exclusive benefit, bestowing temporary Visas into the Land of the Wealthy unto politicians who "play ball" by the Club Rules.

The wealth, savings, and homes of the middle-class are fodder for the super-wealthy to milk at will:

• The market goes down, the wealthy make a bundle while the rest of America gets wiped out
• The market goes up, the wealthy make 99% of the profit
• The middle class saves money, the wealthy use institutionalized gambling to leverage those savings at absurd risk for their own gain, hedging their leverage for their own gain if the poor suckers' savings get wiped out
• Got a good job? Wait a while... the wealthy will see that your employer is liquidated for a nice tax write-off; or maybe they'll restructure and send your job off to China to improve the value of their executive preferred stock options
• Need cheap gas or food to make ends meet? Well, a nicely cornered commodity and some specualtive maneuvering will see to it that oil gets a $30 jump to makes someone billions almost overnight; or perhaps wheat, or corn, or pork
• You'd like to see that decaying bridge fixed so you don't end up having to add an hour to your commute? Well, Government's broke because the wealthy needed another tax cut... or perhaps a few million tossed by industry lobbyists saw to it that those infrastructure dollars were spent on corporate subsidies instead.
• Start a brilliant business and now want to take it public? Well, you'll get in on the IPO, of course... but the rest of the IPO stock needs to be reserved for the bank's "more deserving clients..." we don't want just anybody in on this money-maker, do we?

... But Hey, let's protect those tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% who milk the rest... even if not compromising means giving up the 4 trillion in deficit reduction the Dems and the Prez offered up in exchange,
[...]
Then you wouldn't be an industry lobbyist looking for corporate subsidies at the expense of infrastructure development! Good, successful programs start to suffer at the hands of the Mismanagement Kings who would rather see taxpayer dollars go to corporate welfare, tax breaks for those who don't need them, and the military-industrial complex... after all, why spend the money on Government programs that work well for 99% of Americans."

and from Jon:

"I'm an Electrical Engineer with a Masters Degree in Biomedical Engineering. I'm 57 and was layed off two years ago when the business I was associated with went under. At my age (ageism is accepted in our sociaty) I've given up after 100+ resumes. Luckly my wife is a tenured academinc, otherwise our situation would have been quite serious. Yes we are still middle class, however if the situation was a little different we would have been catapolted into the growing ranks of the distressed. I'm now doing furniture and cabinet work that grew out of what was a hobby. I've gone from being saleried to hourly and although I own my own buisness, my revenue is joined to the hip of the failing economy. Our income was cut by more than half and I feel like the very fabric of what made this country great is being torn apart.

Not only have our values been turned upside down, exalting greed and technology to the level of god, we no longer create value. Manufacturing and even services are increasingly chase cheap labor all over the world. At the same time institutionalized gambling--the stock/bond/derivative markets--has taken over, creating nothing, or counterfeit "value". The jobs have been shipped overseas, or "in-sourced", leaving us with a feudal system of lords and serfs. A perpetual underclass and permanent overclass.

This did not happen overnight. Rising home equity and easy credit masked the ever-increasing deficit in wages and purchasing power. But now that they've crashed the housing sector and tightened credit, the veil is beginning to rise, revealing the ugly reality. Moreover, the predator class is cashing in and increasing our burden tenfold, ensuring that the next generation faces a third world society, a reality they are not prepared for, given they've been dumbed down and distracted by glitzy celebrities and super shiny technology.

Links:

Full Report: The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America

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A Class That Rules and a Class That is Ruled.

Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

Well, we failed that test thanks to the insidious forces that turn progress into retrogression, that culminates in a society divided into a class that rules and a class that is ruled...into a society of the very rich and the very poor.

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28% of Americans are Raiding Their 401k Plans

Millions of Americans are drawing down their 401(k)s for non-retirement needs in record numbers just to keep their heads above water as they struggle due to stagnant wages on an inflation adjusted basis since the early 1980s--that is if they have a job--and increasing expenses on essential items. Rising food prices, escalating tuition, escalating medical costs...you name it, are drowning hard-working Americans in debt.  

"In 2010, 28 percent of participants reported having an outstanding loan against their retirement accounts, an all-time high, according to a survey of 110 large employers by Aon Hewitt, a human resources consultancy. And nearly 7 percent of employees took hardship withdrawals that year — roughly a 40 percent increase since the recession, while 42 percent of workers cashed out their plans rather than rolling them over when they changed jobs.

Here are some of the best comments from the Washington Post article... because the comments are much more truthful than the article (if you want to read comments for yourself just click here and sort comments by "most liked").

Sean2020 wrote:

"This article misses the mark in a major way. For example, the author says there are efforts underway to cut Social Security benefits as a means of reducing the deficit, but Social Security doesn't add to the deficit. He also suggests employers are overpaying employees with regard to retirement benefits, but employers significantly cut overall employee compensation when they switched from DB to DC plans. Many employees didn't figure out that their overall compensation had been cut (still haven't!), because their salaries weren't reduced, and they thought DC plans would offer similar benefits to DB plans - they don't. I do agree with the author about the importance of establishing an emergency fund, but the real problem is that with wages stagnant on an inflation adjusted basis since the early 1980s, many workers have little to no money to save after paying essential expenses. The bottom line is that DCs should be used as they were originally intended - as a supplement to a pension, not as the primary vehicle for retirement income. To be blunt, they benefit Wall Street much more than Main Street. Research has shown DB plans, which enjoy professional management, lower costs, and economies of scale, do a much better job of managing money and providing benefits. The average worker needs a pension in retirement - no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The only way they're going to get them is to form unions to pry the money loose from executive salaries and perks, which have grown exponentially since the early 80s. There's collective bargaining or individual begging. Oh, by the way, conservative trolls on this blog have suggested this is all Obama's fault. Get real. For starters, try reading "Retirement Heist," by Ellen Schultz, a former Wall Street Journal reporter.

ScottFromOz wrote:

"Workers are in debt up to their eyeballs, with mortgages underwater, savings are gone and now they're dipping into their 401K's to pay the bills. Meanwhile, businesses and the 1%ers are drowning in oceans of cash that they WON'T spend. They keep tightening the screws on wages and then wonder why demand falls.

ticked wrote:

"Second great depression brought to you by the war criminals and war profiteers and oil profiteers and enablers of the financial crooks= bush/cheney/rove/gramm/paulsen...et al......

Oil under clinton averaged $28.00 a barrel
Oil under bush went to a high of $147. and averaged around $100-110

In 1999, CEO pay averaged 30-40 times worker pay
Today CEO pay averages 343 times worker pay

When Clinton left office there was a surplus
When the crooks left office the debt was $10 TRILLION and the financial crooks tole over ten trillion

And still five plus years later and the financial crooks are still not regulated and toxic derivatives are not regulated and according to goldman suxs are 5-6 times what they were when the bubble burst in 2007....that's over $1.2 QUADZILLION or more money than in all the world....

Wake up Americans the colluding politicians and special interests are stealing more of your money every day.

Here are the sums of total compensation for the most recent fiscal year- 2011 according to S&P

Capital IQ based on as reported total executive compensation:

• JPMorgan Chase CEO James Dimon: $23.1 million
• Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf: $19.8 million
• Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: $16.2 million
• Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit: $14.9 million
• Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: $8.1 million

JPMorgan Chase's Dimon clearly brings home the biggest haul, but it's also the largest U.S. bank, largely due to his leadership.

Time will tell if the national outrage over bank CEO pay will result in changes in how the compensation is structured.

ccs53 wrote:

"When I started working 40 years ago, my savings account paid 5% interest and had zero fees. What's a savings account paying today? Less than 0.5% and fees if the balance falls below a minimum. A 401(k) plan is only as good as the employer that (who? Citizens United) sponsors it makes it. The employer chooses the investment vehicles (for better or worse), chooses the match level (or zero match), employees get the gains and pay the losses (2008 anyone?) MINUS fees and loads on the investments (employee can't control). What's the "average" rate of return for the typical American employee’s 401k over the last two decades? I found quotes of 3.5%-6.5%. A lot less or only slighly more than my savings account earned 25+ years ago, and back then I didn't have to risk losing half of it when the stock market tanked like it did in 2008 and will do again in the future. So how good is your 401(k)? Without nationwide standards, a 401(k) is only as good as the employer makes it -- do you trust your employer with your retirement money?

KarenLS wrote:

"Retirement was "guaranteed" relative to the contract individuals had with the companies....whether they were union or non-union jobs. Some form of retirement was part of the compensation packages given to each worker. What we have found over the decades is that these contracts are meaningless in the eyes of the courts which is why these corporations have been able to go to court and get judges to toss them without input from the workers who were losing the benefits without any equivelent compensation. Just all that "money" wiped off the books. First such major corporation I read about was back in the mid-90's in fact. I'm not just talking about going from defined pension plans to so called investment plans (which can tank and it`s just considered oh well the risk of investing.....when we have no choice) but all terminating health insurance coverage that had been promised as part of the compensation packages.

The Government has been doing the same with the military workers. "Free health care for life" was caveated back in 1957 and they (DOD) have been marching forward over the decades to elimination of coverage for retirees. Latest and greatest is to restrict the "miiitary health care" management companies from negotiating with medical organizations outside XXX miles of military treatment facilities for the best (Prime) rates. That makes the retiree or dependent have to pay a higher co-share of the bills which are not at the lowest negotiate rates. Kind of like going out of your plan. Won't be the retirees option.

So breaking faith with employees is not unique to the civilian world or the gov`t. What I find unsettling is that we employees don`t seem to care or perhaps notice. We certainly don`t seem to call it out. All while, at least in the civilian world, the top tiers of manangement are walking away with tens of millions of dollars in benefits whether they do a good, bad or indifferent job. We are Sheeple folks."

Centsorsense wrote:

"First employers raided pensions to pay their bills, then The government raided the social security trust fund to pay its bills, now workers are raiding their savings to pay their bills . . .
I wonder where they got that idea?

Also since many employers pay employees less salary based on their retirement benefits, employees are being repeatedly ripped off.
They are paid less in order to have a pension or 401k. Then the company steals the pension money leaving the retiree high and dry. Then Congress tanks the market again and again so the 401k loses value, instead of gaining.
Then just to be especially nasty the retiree gets bilked on their social security benefits too.
Meanwhile the CEO that raided their pension gets a bonus, Congress gets a six figure salary and healthcare for life, and then the retiree is called one of the 47% who paid into the system.

The game is rigged, these guys are right to cash out their 40lk. Otherwise they will never see their money it will be wasted by politicians and executives. So at least by spending it now they get something for their work."

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