OPINION
Veteran’s Today: by Jeff Gates, Dissolving the Union
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By Jeff Gates
For those who think the U.S. is broke, think again. It’s far more serious than that.
To renew Bush-era tax cuts for our most well-to-do 2% would reduce U.S. government revenues by $700 billion over the decade. That shortfall will need to be borrowed.
Or we could provide college scholarships to 14 million U.S. high school students. Or tuition, room and board for about half of today’s college students.
$700 billion is also the interest expense on the $3 trillion that the U.S. is projected to borrow to fund the long-term costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of that interest paid to individuals, care to guess what portion finds its way to the topmost 2%?
$700 billion is also the amount authorized in October 2008 to stabilize the financial sector as part of the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
To boost liquidity, the Federal Reserve just announced $600 billion in “quantitative easing” over the next six months. That sum could be increased by another $300 billion.
A December 1st report brought news that, from March 2008 to May 2009, the Fed extended nearly $9 trillion in short-term loans to 18 financial institutions.
That’s our full faith and credit at work making the world safe for financial markets. And for the elite of Wall Street. To show their gratitude to the American public, the financial sector just paid themselves $144 billion in year-end bonuses.
Meanwhile long-term unemployment is the worst since the Great Depression and fiscal disorder is now commonplace at the federal, state and local level.
States and municipalities have around $2.8 trillion of outstanding bonds. That debt is dwarfed by debts that are off the books, including as much as $3.5 trillion in pension shortfalls. The situation resembles the run-up to the subprime mortgage meltdown
Meanwhile, the first of 78 million Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964 reach age 65 in 2011. This demographic bubble ensures fiscal strains unlike anything the U.S. has ever experienced.
Breaking the Habit
The topmost few have fared well over the past three decades. Then there’s everyone else.
In 1981, a $872 billion tax cut and investment stimulus helped expand national net worth by $5 trillion from 1983 to 1989. 54% was claimed by the half million families who make up the top one-half of one percent of the U.S. population.
That works out to an average $5.4 million gain per already-wealthy household. That’s a $65,000 increase in wealth per month or $90 per hour, 24 hours a day.
As with our wars, that surge in personal wealth was financed with debt. While the public got the debt, the well-to-do got ownership of the assets financed with that debt, along with the bulk of the interest.
That boost to personal wealth dates to when the stock market was a fraction of what it is today. Now the top 1% have a combined net worth greater than the bottom 90 percent.
The top 1% own 34% of all private net worth; the bottom 90% own 29%.
From 2002-2006, the topmost one percent received two-thirds of the gains in national income. That trend has remained steady over three decades.
During the 1977-1989 period, the top 1% claimed 70% of the increase in household income. The U.S. is now witnessing its widest ever disparities in wealth and income.
Reagan-era “supply-side” economics was marketed with campaign rhetoric remarkably similar to what we hear again today.
Reagan policies doubled the national debt in just one year.
18 Comments
Tarpley on Alex’s show – The Hidden Agenda of Wikileaks – Part 1/4
Tarpley interview Part 2/4
Tarpley interview Part 3/4
Tarpely interview Part 4/4
I remind all American reader’s, all of these billions given to foreign banks, we pay the debt. This means your children, yes, your children will pay for it.
Three trillion dollars of taxpayer debt. Talk about redistribution of wealth.
Helen,
Thankyou very much for those interviews. Helps to put some pieces together regarding these Wikileaks. Very troubling stuff.
The way Tarpley lays out the Wikileaks “operation” was hugely helpful. Seeing I’m not a spook, I wouldn’t have been paying attention to how the site has rolled out it’s info or disinfo to gain credibility as a truther so to speak. It is an operation as Bryznsky said last week to Judy Woodruff in his PBS interview.
Troubling. Very troubling indeed.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/240309-is-j-p-morgan-getting-squeezed-in-silver-market?source=dashboard_stocks-sectors
And this is not surprising. However, I can’t really understand why JPMorgan would put itself in this position. Something is up, as usual.
Max Kaiser is hellbent on bringing JP to its knees. To give you an idea of how far he’s willing to go, go down to the cafe and watch the xformation video of the two bears talking about JP rigging the silver market and how they’ve done it. The guy is determined and it look’s like he’s making progress, eh?
Yes, I’ve seen the video. Thanks. But about JPMorgan, I just don’t know.
You know Helen, I bet this is another scheme just like what happened to Lehman Brothers. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
The Keiser bank run spiel is a con.
Don’t fall for it.
I agree. It is a scheme or as Bryzinsky stated, it’s “pointed” which I have learned means “operation”. Something is definitely going down and I haven’t a clue as to what it might be. I’m digging though and have found some material that may or may not be credible. Not sure yet. Need to keep self educating before I share any info publicly. Right now, it’s journeying down yet another rabbit hole. Damned tired of these trips too…LOL.
tell us why, Lila. Welcome.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/988.html
Everything you wanted to know
about Wikileaks but didn’t know to ask
Julian Assange
He’s a guy with a vague history…
Who travels the world without visible means of support…
His parents: Members of an LSD “cult” that abused kids…
Hmmm…
He’s not against war…
He hates the 9/11 truth movement…
He has no info about the Bush or Obama White House…or the Federal Reserve Bank…or Goldman Sachs (but he is helping take down Bank of America)…
His “leaks” paint Pakistan as a threat and foreign politicians the CIA doesn’t like as jerks…
He believes Osama is alive…and probably in Pakistan…
Everything else he “leaks” is stuff we all already knew…
The mainstream media loves him…
The right wingers love to hate him and are using him as a justification to censor the Net…
If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and smells like a duck…
Another intelligence agency spectacle. ..”
Media Monarchy and Corbett Report told ALL of us who Wikileaks was back in July. Definitely worth replaying as Brasscheck TV has suggested –
Thanks for that link Helen.
Hi Helen!
Sounds like you have your wits about you–no surprise there though since it’s wise folks like you all along who are able to see through the “fog”, and call a duck a duck if it’s a duck. It’s voices like yours, and the other critical-thinkers posting here on your pages that need to be heard, especially over the den of “pointers” manufacturing news with a calculated slant/bent. PLEASE carry on your heroic/genuine-patriotic efforts here…have a great week!