Ruling Class

Billionaires Are The Lethal Monkey On The Back Of The American Public

September 17, 2018 Robert Scheer, Truthdig.com Educate! Inequality, Ruling Class, US Imperialism

This week on “Scheer Intelligence,” Anand Giridharadas, whose latest book is “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” discusses “how rich people and philanthropists and others are engaged in this well-meaning attempt to make the world better … but upholding through their actions an indecent system.” He describes this as a system in which the market and its needs come before the needs of the people, a system that allows the rich and powerful to be seen as philanthropic rather than the malignant force they represent. They would be, as Tolstoy opined, the guy on the American back, choking our society and destroying our economy. They do so in the name of the distorted libertarian ideology that they use to subvert the American experiment in democracy, by denying the legitimacy of government intervention into the economy on the side of fairness and justice...

Rich People Broke America And Never Paid The Price

September 15, 2018 By Nathan Schneider, Vice.com Educate! Inequality, Ruling Class, US Imperialism

The obvious, minimum observance, I would think, would be a mass march down Wall Street and around the Lower Manhattan’s Financial District. I know, from my traipsing around with Occupy Wall Street, how cathartic such rituals of return can be. Even if much of high finance has decamped to Midtown Manhattan or somewhere else along the high-frequency trading wires, that old downtown of America's largest city has more symbolic heft. The march might be raucous and wild, like most marches were in the Occupy days. But the generation that came into adulthood during the crisis has grown older. Maybe they would be more inclined to something quiet, like holding up their student loan bills with the silent resignation that survival has taught them.

The Wealth Hiding In Your Neighborhood

September 13, 2018 By Chuck Collins, Otherwords.org Educate! Corruption, Money, Ruling Class, Uneven Development

You’ve probably heard about their offshore bank accounts, shell corporations, and fancy trusts. But this wealth isn’t all sitting in the Cayman Islands or Panama. Much of it’s hiding in plain view: maybe even in your town. America’s big cities are increasingly dotted with luxury skyscrapers and mansions. These multi-million dollar condos are wealth storage lockers, with the ownership often obscured by shell companies. In Boston, where I live, there’s a luxury building boom. According to a study I just co-authored, out of 1,805 luxury units — with an average price of over $3 million — more than two-thirds are owned by people who don’t live here. One-third are owned by shell companies and trusts that mask their ownership. And of these units, 40 percent are limited liability companies (LLCs) organized in Delaware.

What Just Happened? $30 Trillion To The Richest White Americans Since 2008

September 4, 2018 Paul Buchheit, Nationofchange.org Educate! Capitalism, Inequality, Ruling Class

The conclusion that $30 trillion went to white households is based on various reliable sources. The Washington Post references Federal Reserve data that estimates combined Black/Hispanic households as about 7% of all millionaire households (about 2% of 40 million Hispanic and Black households), and thus accruing about $2.5 trillion of that total $33 trillion decade-long gain. Statista, on the other hand, estimates that Black/Hispanic households make up 15% of all millionaires, which would represent a $5 trillion gain since the recession. Asian-Americans, with just 7 million households, are millionaires at about the same rate as white Americans. By the best estimates, the ten-year gains by White/Asian households is close to $30 trillion.

The Other Side Of John McCain

August 27, 2018 Max Blumenthal, Consortiumnews.com Educate! John McCain, Party Politics, Ruling Class

If the paeans to McCain by diverse political climbers seems detached from reality, it’s because they reflect the elite view of U.S. military interventions as a chess game, with the millions killed by unprovoked aggression mere statistics As the Cold War entered its final act in 1985, journalist Helena Cobban participated in an academic conference at an upscale resort near Tucson, Arizona, on U.S.-Soviet interactions in the Middle East. When she attended what was listed as the “Gala Dinner with keynote speech”, she quickly learned that the virtual theme of the evening was, “Adopt a Muj.” “I remember mingling with all of these wealthy Republican women from the Phoenix suburbs and being asked, ‘Have you adopted a muj?” Cobban told me.

So What Will The Sanctioned Supergroup Do?

August 20, 2018 Pepe Escobar, Atimes.com Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Ruling Class, Trump Administration

Those were the days, during the Cold War 1960s and 1970s, when the earth was actually ruled by rock supergroups – from Cream and Led Zeppelin to Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends – and the post-truth geopolitical remix of the supergroup. Meet The Sanctioned; a multinational band starring multi-instrumentalists Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China), Hassan Rouhani (Iran) and Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey). As the whole rock universe knows, The Sanctioned run the relentless risk of being outshined – in the form of multi-layered sanctions – by undisputed glitter solo act Donald Trump (US). The two real virtuosos in the band relish playing in perfect synch. Putin may indulge only the occasional Jimmy Page solo (as in Caspian-launched missiles against Daesh in Syria); he’s more like Keith Emerson invoking the Russian classical composer Mussorgsky.

The Bipartisan March For Militarism

August 3, 2018 Staff, Economicfront.wordpress.com Educate! Electoral Politics, militarism, Party Politics, Ruling Class

Republicans and Democrats like to claim that they are on opposite sides of important issues. Of course, depending on which way the wind blows, they sometimes change sides, like over support for free trade and federal deficits. Tragically, however, there is no division when it comes to militarism. For example, the federal budget for fiscal year 2018 (which ends on September 30, 2018), included more money for the military than even President Trump requested. Trump had asked for a military budget of $603 billion, a sizeable $25 billion increase over fiscal year 2017 levels; Congress approved $629 billion. Trump had also asked for $65 billion to finance current war fighting, a bump of $5 billion; Congress approved $71 billion. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2018, which set the target budget for the Department of Defense at this high level, was approved by the Senate in a September 2017 vote of 89-9.

Stop Warehousing Wealth In Charity Funds

August 3, 2018 By Chuck Collins and Helen Flannery, Inequality.org Educate! Corruption, Crime, Greed, Ruling Class, Wealth

Over the years, the IPS Program on Inequality and the Common Good has examined the ways that extreme inequality effects philanthropy. In 2016, IPS published the report Gilded Giving: Top Heavy Philanthropy in an Age of Extreme Inequality, which looked at the rise of mega-donors and the decline of small-dollar donors, and the risks of both for a democratic society. In that report, IPS briefly examined the rise of donor-advised funds (DAFs) as a mechanism for holding funds for later donations. At that time, in 2015, the largest recipient of charitable donations in the U.S. was the United Way, an enormous public charity that had traded that top spot back and forth with the American Red Cross for decades.

Richest Man In The World’s Newspaper Says Inequality Is Not A Problem

July 27, 2018 By Dean Baker, Cepr.net Educate! Inequality, Media, Ruling Class

Wow, what a novel new idea, as though right-wingers have not been pushing this line since the dawn of time: "don't worry that your standard of living is awful, the important thing is that your kids will be able to get rich." (It doesn't help his story that his poster child for the rich being good is Lloyd Blankfein, who made his fortune shuffling financial assets at Goldman Sachs and benefitted from a massive government bailout.) But let's be generous and try to take Lowenstein's story seriously. He goes on: "Rising inequality, although a fact, is also very hard to find a culprit for. Not that economists haven’t tried." Really? There are plenty of really good explanations for rising inequality, many of which are in my [free] book Rigged.

Republicans & Democrats Unite To Increase Police Power, People Call For Abolition

July 25, 2018 By Ricardo Levins Morales, Rlmartstudio.wordpress.com Create! Electoral Politics, Party Politics, Police, Police Abolition, Ruling Class

Virtually unnoticed in the cacophony of the Trumpian news cycle, a bill to place more power in the hands of police slithered through the House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support – including from such progressive Democratic luminaries as Luis Gutierrez, Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison. The “Serve and Protect Act” (HR5698) comes packaged as a necessary measure to protect our brave officers “who put on the badge every day to keep us safe” from the dangers of an imaginary “War on Police.” Specifically, it would impose prison terms of up to 10 years for harming or attempting to harm officers of any local, state or federal agencies of what is euphemistically called “law enforcement.” If convicted of carrying out or attempting a kidnapping or killing of an officer, the accused could be imprisoned for life.

Demonstrators Hold ‘Die-In’ To Protest Sackler Family’s Ties To Harvard Art Museums

July 23, 2018 By Isabelle Agee-Jacobson and Caroline S. Engelmayer, Thecrimson.com Resist! Harvard, Higher Education, Profit, Protests, Ruling Class

Shouting “people over profits” and throwing pill bottles on the floor, more than 30 demonstrators held a “die-in” in Harvard's Arthur M. Sackler Museum Friday to protest its connections to a family they said spurred on the opioid crisis and profited from addiction nationwide. Led by photographer Nan Goldin—whose works are displayed in the museum—protesters demanded Harvard refuse future funding from the Sacklers. They also urged the Sackler family to invest in the overdose reversal drug naloxone, safe injection facilities, and medication that can combat addiction. They charged that the family, which helps lead the multi-billion dollar drug company Purdue Pharmaceuticals, knew the pain relief drug OxyContin was highly addictive but downplayed its dangers when marketing it to doctors.

Five Powerful Families

July 18, 2018 By Bob Lord, Inequality.org Educate! Ruling Class, Wealth

Five powerful families? Is this about the mafia? No, for these five families, it’s not la cosa nostra, “the thing of ours.” Rather, it’s la cupidigia nostra, “the greed of ours.” And it’s their greed that’s killing our democracy. Six hundred billion dollars approximately equals the budget for the United States Department of Defense for an entire year — enough to pay, feed, and house over 1,000,000 active duty service personnel and 800,000 reservists, operate close to 1,000 military bases, pay 750,000 civilian personnel, and fund all military equipment purchases. That $600 billion also equals the combined wealth now hoarded by just five American families — specifically, the Walton, Bezos, Koch, Gates, and Mars clans. The Walton family alone has a combined net worth estimated at $150 billion. The poorest of the five families, the heirs of the Mars candy fortune, hold about $90 billion.

A Sweet New Century For America’s Most Privileged

July 17, 2018 By Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org Educate! Electoral Politics, Inequality, New Economy, Ruling Class, US Imperialism

The United States ended the 20th century on a roll — for the rich. Between 1973 and 2000, the nation’s most prosperous 1 percent tripled their incomes, after taking inflation into account. The even more prosperous top tenth of that 1 percent did quite a bit better. Their incomes more than quintupled between 1973 and 2000, rising an amazing 414.6 percent. And what about Americans of less exalted means, those stuck in the nation’s bottom 90 percent? Between 1973 and 2000, their incomes rose all of . . . 2.6 percent. Something, in other words, went horribly wrong over the last quarter of the 20th century. And what has happened so far in century 21? Our decision makers in Washington have done their best to make things even worse.

Survival Of The Richest

July 17, 2018 Douglas Rushkoff, Medium.com Educate! Class Struggle, Ruling Class

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk — about half my annual professor’s salary — all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology.” I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.

Billionaires Devised A Plan To Kill Unions By Sending Worker Stand-Ins To Spread Propaganda

July 7, 2018 By Leo Gerard, Alternet.org Educate! Class Struggle, Ruling Class, Supreme Court, Unions

Hundred millionaire Bruce Rauner just couldn’t wait to tell Illinois state workers that the U.S. Supreme Court had given them what he considered a gift. Within hours of the court’s ruling in the Janus case last week, Rauner, the Republican governor of Illinois, emailed state workers to tell them the decision meant they no longer needed to pay either dues or fair share fees to their labor union but the union would still be required to represent them. What a deal! Free service! And it was brought to them by Rauner! The governor had filed the lawsuit that led to the Janus decision. When a court tossed him as plaintiff, the right-wing foundations whose billionaire donors paid for the lawsuit drummed up replacement plaintiffs including Mark Janus. He’s an Illinois child support worker who refused to join the union and pay dues and who didn’t even want to pay the smaller fair share fee of $45 a month charged to non-members to cover the union’s costs of bargaining for them.

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