Wifing Politicians: I don’t love these politicians (plutocrats)

I am writing to satisfy one issue, and that is why do folk take up for these political plutocrats regardless of political affiliation? It is as if folk cannot see they are all in the same gang of scratch my back crony-capitalist crooks. And for those unaware, crony capitalism refers to the intercourse between the state and corporate power. These cats have two sets of laws, one for us common folk and one for the elite folk. This manifested by two kinds of economic models of capitalism which breaks down to the over-regulated capitalism we have to abide by and the protected and unregulated variety for corporations, cartels and said participants.

Personally, as a libertarian, I unlike conservatives or liberals or progressives believe that part of the price of freedom is allowing others to have their freedom equally. Moreover, I believe whether I agree or like or dislike something, if it is peaceful and voluntary and harms no one, I can tolerate such. Unfortunately, this is not the game played by the ruling political elite regardless of party affiliation.

And even with all of the empirical evidence we observe, we allow these folk to play us like a fiddle, telling us things that do not even make sense yet many of us accept without question because we love our politicians. Love them so much we will let them lead us to poverty and a penal existence. So enthralled with them that we allow them, the federal government to give billions tax free in the form of TARP and even more via Quantitative Easing and all that so they can make loot in the markets at the cost of money that in theory should have gone to pay salaries of average employees. 

The real concern is that in order to do this, we have to be complicit in our own death. To accomplish this, they make up stuff; I mean artificially contrive stuff as well as the proof to support the stuff they made up in an effort to communicate impending doom. Take Global warming for example (ironically newspeaked into climate change) or any environmental cause. This the strategy used by plutocratic political elite and it is grounded in their sense of “moral absolutism” that makes them feel that since they have money, money shouldn’t be an issue to you thus your value as being regular folk, only exist to make them believe “WE” need them to tell us what to do.

We can also look at the civil rights and black power movements as examples. What did these folks do then? Well we were it before global warming and the environment. First, they focus on inequality amongst various societal sub groups like African Americans and encourage us to act against these certain political targets. It was just a few weeks ago the democratic held an all-nightclimathon talking about global warming.  This was 28 democratic senators all because some rich cat said he wanted to put $100 million behind politicians dealing with global warming. And we all know, including the money behind them, the politicians and the masses, that 60 percent in America think the economy is the most important issue to address and climate change next to the bottom, especially us black folk. Why, because climate change makes them wealthier.

In the early 1970s, Aaron Wildavsky, the former Dean of the Graduate School of Public Affairs at California Berkeley described their play book as being designed to “have middle class civil servants, hire upper class whites, to use lower class blacks” to stack the front line to complain against the political institution or policy (or lack of) at hand. And this minus-sum game as Wildavsky describes, often leaves African Americans worse off than we were before.

Take the recent election of Barack Obama. The change and hope mantra had folks wanting to tear the club up. But in 2014, what do we see? We see home sales going up for those with a price tag of $10 million plus, but not regular folk, especially if they are African Americans. Black Americans, Obama's most loyal supporters, are among the hardest hit by this uneven recovery.


The average price for a kilowatt-hour (KWH) of electricity hit a record of 13.5 cents in March based on data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: meaning it was up about 5.5 percent from 12.8 cents per KWH in March 2013. In March, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also shows that shrimp prices jumped 61 percent from a year earlier. Cost for pork items, especially bacon are also dramatically on the increase.  Ironically the story line is due to a disease. The increases of cost in agricultural and beef products have been conveniently blamed on a drought (disease and drought equally environment). 

All to make you think there are more things (the environment) which are more important than feeding your family, earning a living and maintaining a roof over your head (humans). Think about it PETA will tell you not to eat meat and that slaughtering cows is inhuman but they get their lot from VISA, who owns Omaha Steaks and got big loot in the Kentucky Derby (can’t make this ish up). 

You might be a progressive, but you are not a progressive elite and you, if defined as such are not seeking the same goal as they are.  The recession officially ended in June 2009, but we still are down 6 million jobs from pre-recession levels and now these cats got us believing that Obamacare and the economy are separate issues. But fact is that the new trend is not giving part-time workers company health coverage like Target, who will no longer offer health insurance to part time workers. Meaning, class, African Americans will be the hardest hit by this.

The disparity between rich and poor has blossomed since 2009 and the job participation rate is way worse, not to mention the average person has less money to spend and is taxed much more - all when our nation's debt is our greatest concern because WE paying the debt. And you know how I know we paying the debt? Because, more than 23 million American households rely on food stamps. Households operationally defined let us say as being four per household which equals 92 million Americans. And although more whites on welfare than blacks, we rely on it disproportionately more than whites.

This one reason why neither democrats nor republicans will ever simplify the tax code because this is the plutocratic politician’ main source of revenue (taking huge contributions (bribes) in exchange for tax breaks for the super-wealthy. They want inflation because the math proves that inflation (when prices go up) raises GDP subsequently making federal debt cheaper to service every year. But where we live and everywhere else, median household income is down 7% since 2000. And don’t forget if we removed the top 1% households from this equation, the decline for the bottom 99% would be more than closer to 30% (my math). Thus via the tax code and quantitative easing, the purchasing power we have is slowly being siphoned and swindled and given on purpose by our government to super rich folk, who in turn get to borrow money from the Fed at an interest rate of zero.

American politics is completely, owned, run and operated by the most powerful economic elite that politics and corporate America can proffer, which leaves out the democracy this republic was created on for the rest of us.  Yawl, especially black progressives, needs to stop wifing these politicians.  I mean if black folk regardless of political orientation put as much into protect, defending and believing in self and our communities as much as we wife these politicians, we wouldn’t have am problems. But we don’t, and now a majority of us believe and trust the government. When did we start to believe in and trust the government I ask again? Of all folk, African and Native Americans should never trust the government, especially the federal government. But that is just me, and unlike most, I don’t love these politicians.

Cyprus, Not Cyprus Hill Negro

One of the biggest news stories thus far this year was the lead for the top German, Brazilian, Japanese and Canadian Television outlets yesterday. But it wasn’t even mentioned in the coverage offered by CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, or CBS via broadcast transcripts - Thank God for PBS and the News Hour. Not to mention it wasn’t even a consideration for coverage by African American political bloggers or news sites the likes of The Root, Politics 365, The Grio or any other supposedly political news site that is run by African Americans. And no it was not Obama in Israel, or even Keisha Cole and Beyoncé, rather the run on banks and the EU central bank actions toward Cyprus. Yes to get a bailout from the EU central banks, banks are now allowed to take money from all bank depositors – all account holders.

Now I know many will ask, “What does that have to do with me?” A lot and I will attempt to explain, albeit I know it may be difficult for many of us African Americans because we never heard of Cyprus, care or know anything of substance of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, but such should be no excuse. See what happened over the weekend was that a group of EZ leaders, the IMF and newly elected President of the small tiny island nation with a GDP the size of Vermont and a population the size of Philly agreed to force all with a bank account to pay for the government’s debt. Banking will never be the same if folk can’t truth the banks and since they saw the could not trust the EZ, IMF, government or the banks they started to pull all of their loot out.

The EU central bank has decided it is ok for big banks to take money out of the accounts of private citizens to pay for the debt of the nation they live in. Yes that right, all under the guise of it being a new tax. Strange since taxes are the result of political legislation and don’t go back in time. But that is what the large global banks are doing and if they can do it there, they can do it here, especially given Obama’s lack of gonads to even prosecute and arrest bankers. Even funnier is the fact that the banks are taking citizen’s money for loans they did not ask for and which the banks knew were bad when they first made them to the government of Cyprus.

Some will naively assert that this is America and it could or would never happen here. Surprise, it already did, last year from on one of Obama’s boys – John Corzine of MF Global. What Corzine did is what we see happening in Cyprus right now – bank account seizure (tax) without due process. Thus if it can be done in Cyprus, it can and will be done in Italy, Ireland, Spain and even the US, since bankers who caused all this nonsense with the assistance of inept politicians will seek to get all their money from the governments they loaned them too to cover for the losses of the zillions of different complex papers they created that were then and still today basically worthless. But yawl don’t hear me though.

What I can say factually that the present Administration, as the last four are for the fat cat bankers and Corporations. Just from IRS statistics we know that Americans who made over $10 million in 2010 paid on average just under 24 percent of their incomes in federal income tax, less than a third what they paid in 1950. The end result of such practices is a nation in which corporate profits are setting records while typical workers continue to make less than they earned a dozen years ago.

You know there was a time in America when corporations paid taxes, no lie. Not anymore even when corporate profits have been growing per annum at a 20 percent rate. In fact, to find a year when corporations were grabbing as great a share of America’s income as they’re grabbing now, you have to go back to 1950. In the 1950s, the average corporation paid about 40 percent in annual taxes. Now, major U.S. corporations actually pay about 12 percent in taxes. Why is this a problem, well in 2011, the Institute for Policy Studies, reported that 25 major U.S. corporations paid their CEOs more than they paid in corporate income taxes.  Then we can take alook at NYC where the number of  residents receiving food stamps has  more than doubled over the past decade under Mayor Bloomberg, according to data released yesterday. Now, 1.8 million receive food stamps, a jump from 800,000 in 2002, and the Independent Budget Office data show. But 99 percent of African Americans believe their President even against fact that the economy is growing. But it is not and if I accept this premise, then for whom is it growing?

First, the cost of the federally funded food-stamp program in places like NYC had increased dramatically to $3.4 billion from $1.28 billion over the past decade. True, naysayers and other average minded individuals reinforced on reciting lessor proofs proffered my weaker minds will say look at the stock market. I in return will say, yes, look at it. But reality notes that the stock market is not a good indicator for overall wealth of Americans since the average American’s wealth, if the happen to own a home is in home equity - real estate values are still down about $5.5 trillion from their peak. So thinking about, one has to ask if the economy is doing so well and growing as Obama describes it, why then are there over 47 million people in the US living on food assistance to survive. It is clear they are not obtaining any of this wealth.

The Administration is a top down machine just like it was when Ronald Reagan started the practice. The US financial system is buttressed upon trillions of dollars of bailouts and loan that result in risky speculation that cause incessantly financial bubble after bubble. Right now, America has a record debt of $16.7 trillion. Maybe this is why as quiet as it is kept, the Obama administration has announced policy that would allow the federal government to control private citizens 401k’s.

Plainly stated, it is the cost of borrowing money itself that has bankrupted Cyprus, Ireland, Spain and Italy. As it stands, the same shackles of debt are on the hands and feet of the US government and if history is any indication from a policy purview, the people will be the ones to pay for it. But this won’t happen, Obama and Bernanke are so stuck on “quantitative easing” even when they know and data points out that it is just making money out of thin air via a few zeroes added via a computer monitor. The problem with today’s QE is that it has put money into the pockets of the big fat Wall Street bankers but not into the pockets of consumers. What we need is to obviate all public debt and let the corporations and banks keep theirs and let them deal with the problems they created as a fiat. I mean default on the public debt has worked in Iceland, Argentina, Ecuador, and Russia, among other countries.

 But this all makes too much sense and we African Americans don’t care if it hasn’t anything to do with a singer, rapper or anything on television. I know, I asked all of my classes if they were aware of what had occurred in Cyprus: one asked, “you mean Cyprus Hill?” I responded “naw Negro, Cyprus not Cyprus Hill.” Cyprus may be just the start. As of now banks are closed until Thursday. We will have to see if a run starts again and if it spreads to other European nations, if so, it could be the end of the Eurozone and the start of the demise of the US economy. Two years ago we exported 40 percent of our goods and services, this year its down to 21 percent.

Constipated Now Nows

While many of us continue our habitual over zealous consumption of stuff and things of no real economic value, two events have occurred since the November mid-term election that may be of critical economic importance regarding the future of America, three if one includes the proposal presented this week by President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

The first was the announcement by the U.S. Federal Reserve this week of $600 billion of extra money being put in the economy. Specifically they will use the loot created out of thin air and computer virtual reality to buy $600 billion of long-term Treasury bonds (about $75 billion a month) through March 2011. They call this “quantitative easing.” In theory, this can be defined as a willy nilly, hocus pocus way to promote a stronger pace of economic growth and recovery. By my math, in addition to the pronouncement made by the New York Federal Reserve Bank to reinvest maturing mortgage securities owned by the Fed in Treasury bonds, that projects to approximately $900 billion of Federal bond purchases in the next six months or almost half the loot issued to finance this year's federal deficit.

The second is the meeting of the G-20 in South Korea. We know that most of the attention during this meeting will be directed towards the global economy. Particularly, monetary and currency policy and international trade. This will be an up hill battle for the US, since most of what we see that is jacked-up economically is our fault. I mean since the time of Nixon, we as a nation encouraged all of this, when we decided to get cheap stuff abroad via Chinese, Vietnamese and Latin American labor and taking the dollar off the gold standard.

Yes, once upon a time there was a gold standard in which the monetary unit is a fixed weight of gold. This came about via the Bretton Woods agreement put in place after World War II, allowing several countries to base their exchange rates to the U.S. dollar. But like I said previously, this ended in 1971 when President Richard Nixon ended the dollar-gold peg, leading to what we have now - floating exchange rates. Even stranger is that at this time, Alan Greenspan, who arrived in Washington in 1967, as a campaign advisor to Richard Nixon, wanted to reshape the economic landscape of America via deregulate, But I digress.


The China/US relationship is a clear example of what I am trying to say. They have pegged their currency to the dollar, which keeps the value of the Yuan artificially low, thus giving them the ability to flood the US market with cheap products. The consequence was that it gave China the ability to use the dollars they earned to buy US debt, which let us live way above our incomes. Unfortunate for us, this created a trade imbalance between the two nations, growing dollar reserves in China and creating a trade surplus (just as what we see with Germany).

Chinese dollar reserves currently are estimated at about $2 trillion. If the Feds puts too much money into circulation, these reserves may be devalued. And if China isn’t happy, and their value is decreased because the dollar is reduced in strength by the Feds actions, a trade war and a worldwide recession would not be far fetched as a probably outcome. Funny thing is we complain about china keeping the value of the Yuan fixed, but the actions the US central bank is doing by flooding billions in the world market, is the same thing, only via monetary policy.

What the federal Reserve has done is to take more risk with respect to our economy, an untested risk, which could not have come at a more dangerous time globally for the US. Banks already have about $3 trillion in cash, they just are hoarding as opposed to lending or spending. Thus such actions seems to increase the risks of higher inflation sooner than latter, especially now since the places we used to get cheap labor from is outcompeting us and holding our economic growth stagnant.

Now, other wealthy nations are super critical of the US economic policy as were of theirs 30 years ago, with the clout being on their side now. Especially the German and Chinese with respect to the Feds actions and overall macroeconomic policies. I just don’t get it, what will buying bonds do to encourage job creation? We still spend too much. On December 31, 2010, the Obama stimulus package, will end and thing will really be up in the air.

I do not know what the end game will be but I can say from our actions at home and our buddies around the world. And on the real the U.S. needs to generate at least a million plus jobs annually to keep up with new workers entering the job market alone. From the actions of the G20 summit there are several things we see. First is obvious, that no one wants to be in any paper currency. This may be why a former banker at Goldman Sachs and deputy secretary of state under George H. W. Bush, suggested a return to a modified gold standard. Second, that we are not in a position to tell other nations how large of a surplus or deficit they can run. And last, Unfortunately neither individual folk or our government have learned anything from the last 6 to 10 years of economic disarray. It is very obvious that folks still think and behave the same and still have not taken responsibility and just spend as much loot as they brought in – Governments included. Foir even with this second round of “quantitative easing," Amercia sure feels constipated to me. And may require Funkadelic - Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad.