By Prof. Michael Hudson article link
February 17, 2010 "Global Research"
Throughout the world, scaling back the 20th century’s legacy of progressive taxation and untaxing real estate and finance has led to a public debt crisis. Property income hitherto paid to governments is now paid to the banks. And although Wall Street has extracted $13 trillion in bailouts just since October 2008, the thought of raising taxes on wealth to pay just $1 trillion over an entire decade for Social Security or health insurance is deemed a crisis that would lead Wall Street to shut down the economy. It is telling governments to shift to a regressive tax system to make up the fiscal shortfall by raising taxes on labor and cutting back public spending on the economy at large. This is what is plunging economies from California to Greece and the Baltics into fiscal and financial crisis. Wall Street’s solution – to balance the budget by cutting back the government’s social contract and deregulating finance all the more – will shrink the economy and make the budget deficits even more severe.
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The Richest 1% Have Captured America's Wealth
What's It Going to Take to Get It Back?
By David DeGraw article link article link
This is Part II of David DeGraw's report, "The Economic Elite vs. People of the USA." Click here for Part I.
February 17, 2010 "Alternet"
The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis -- and it's gotten even worse.
... the United States already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the average worker much harder than CEOs, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high. The economic top one percent of the population now owns over 70% of all financial assets, an all time record. ...
... the average US citizen is forced to give up approximately 30% of our income in taxes. This tax system is now strategically designed to flow straight into the hands of the Economic Elite. A huge percentage of our tax dollars ultimately end up in their pockets. The past decade proves that -- whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats running the government -- our tax money is not going into our community, it is going into the pockets of the billionaires who have bought off both parties - it is obscene.
For an example of how this system flows to the Economic Elite, just look at the Wall Street "bailout." The real size of the bailout is estimated to be $14 trillion - and could end up costing trillions more than that. By now you are probably also sick of hearing about the bailout, but stop and think about this for a moment. Do you comprehend how much $14 trillion is?
What could be accomplished with this money is almost beyond common comprehension.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg that has hit us. On top of the trillions given to the Wall Street elite, we already have a record $12.3 trillion in national debt - and we now have to pay $500 billion in interest to the Economic Elite on this debt every year, yet another way they are milking us dry. When you add in unfunded liabilities owed, like social security payments, we actually owe a stunning $74 trillion. That adds up to a debt of $242,000 for every man, woman and child in America. ...
When you take the time to research and analyze the wealth that has gone to the economic top one percent, you begin to realize just how much we have been robbed. Trillions upon trillions of dollars that could make the lives of all hard working Americans much easier have been strategically funneled into the coffers of the Economic Elite. The denial of wealth is the key to the Economic Elite's power. An entire generation of massive wealth creation has been strategically withheld from 99% of the US population.
The US public doesn't have any understanding of how much wealth has been generated and concentrated into the hands of the Economic Elite over the past 40 years; there is no historical frame of reference. This withholding of wealth is truly the greatest crime against humanity in the history of civilization.
What could be done with all the money that has been hoarded by the Economic Elite is extraordinary!
Let's consider what we could do with the money that has been stolen from us? On top of what should be our average six-figure yearly
income, we could have:
* Free health care for every American,
* A free 4 bedroom home for every American family,
* 5% tax rate for 99% of Americans,
* Drastically improved public education and free college for all,
* Significantly improved public transportation and infrastructure,
The list goes on...
This is not some far-fetched fantasy. These are all things that Franklin D. Roosevelt talked about doing in the 1940's, long before the explosion of wealth creation in our technologically advanced global economy. The money for all this is already there, stashed into the claws of the Economic Elite. The denial of wealth to the masses is the key to the Economic Elite's power. Outside of outdated and obsolete economic models and theories -- and incredibly short-sighted greed -- there is no reason why all this money should be kept in the hands of a few, at the immense suffering and expense of the many.
If Americans could just understand how much wealth is being withheld from us, we would have a massive uprising and the Economic Elite would be swept away, into the history books alongside the evil despots of the past.
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With A Deficit Like Ours, Who Needs Enemies…?
By Giordano Bruno article link
Neithercorp Press - 2/9/2010
... It is interesting and perhaps despairing to note that the government’s solution to our current economic spiral (caused in large part by the unchecked creation of debt by the Federal Reserve) is to now create even MORE debt through successive bailouts, in an attempt to encourage Americans and the U.S. Treasury to borrow even MORE money which they cannot afford to pay back. When this plan meets its inevitable failure, as common sense and simple mathematics dictate it will, we the people will be told that it was all a terrible “mistake.” That our government’s greed and stupidity led to a horrible “miscalculation.” In fact, such mistakes, such “perfect storms,” are not made by accident. They are purposely engineered… ....
In order to create a globalized economy and a world governing body, free nations would have to relinquish private control of their finances along with many of their personal liberties. Americans would never go along with such a scheme, especially as they are used to being the primary economic power in the world. It is not only possible but quite probable that Central Banking officials in the U.S. along with the help of certain politicians are deliberately creating a financial panic scenario by which they hope to drive the American people into desperation. The goal is to make us ASK for globalization, to make us believe that it is the only solution to the problem they originally created. ...
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