IN AMERICA . . . . OUR RIGHTS COME FROM OUR HUMANITY - NOT THE GOVERNMENT!

Money to get power, power to protect money

2016 

People are saying “that they are fed up with Wall Street writing the rules.”
The group, Take On Wall Street, plans to combine the efforts of some of the Democratic Party’s biggest traditional backers, from the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO to the Communications Workers of America. The group says it will aim to turn the public’s lingering anger at the financial sector into policy initiatives that could change the way that Wall Street works.

Among its biggest targets will be doing away with a law that allows private equity managers to pay lower taxes through something known as the “carried interest loophole.” These managers receive a share of profits for any gains they create for their clients, and this income is treated as long-term capital gains and taxed at a lower rate.

“We know that because of this loophole that there are many hedge fund and Wall Street millionaires that pay a lower tax rate than truck drivers, nurses, [and] teachers,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who has introduced several pieces of legislation targeting Wall Street in recent years and is a supporter of the new coalition.

In addition to the issue of carried interest, the group expects to galvanize support for breaking up the big banks and reviving a version of the Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented the combination of commercial and investment banks. It is also expected to push for a transaction tax, which would force some Wall Street traders, particularly high-frequency traders, to pay a fee every time they buy or sell a stock or bond.

Take On Wall Street’s future success may hinge on Democrats gaining control of the Senate, bolstering the influence of supporters such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a vocal Wall Street critic.

Why You Should Tell Coworkers Your Salary

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us https://basic income

Money hasn't been real since we got off the gold standard it's become virtual software the virtual operating system of our world we're on the virge of taking down this virtual reality. " Elliott in Mr. Robot

Enron: Ultimate agent of the American empire
Money to get power, power to protect money.
Sam Esmail created Mr. Robot and said the “E” in Evil Corp is “totally the Enron logo.”

Berkeley: a history of disobedience - in pictures

Refuse to get with the program and rail about injustice​! We should question ourselves, as we fight for truth, justice and the American Way. Where does it stop, what gets your blood boiling, where do you make a stand?​ Your rights are being taken away every day.  And no one's standing up for you, no one with any power.  The politicians are owned by the corporations.

8/5/14 S&P: Wealth gap is slowing US economic growth 

Economists have long argued that a rising wealth gap has complicated the U.S. rebound from the Great Recession. Now, an analysis by the rating agency Standard & Poor's lends its weight to the argument: The widening gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else has made the economy more prone to boom-bust cycles and slowed the 5-year-old recovery from the recession.  Economic disparities appear to be reaching extremes that "need to be watched because they're damaging to growth," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P.  The rising concentration of income among the top 1 percent of earners has contributed to S&P's cutting its growth estimates for the economy. In part because of the disparity, it estimates that the economy will grow at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the next decade, down from a forecast five years ago of a 2.8 percent rate.

The S&P report advises against using the tax code to try to narrow the gap. Instead, it suggests that greater access to education would help ease wealth disparities. Part of the problem is that educational achievement has stalled in recent decades. More schooling usually translates into higher wages. S&P estimates that the U.S. economy would grow annually by an additional half a percentage point —or $105 billion — over the next five years, if the average the American worker had completed just one more year of school.  By contrast, S&P concludes, heavy taxes that would be meant to reduce inequality could remove incentives for people to work and cause businesses to hire fewer employees because of the costs involved.

​1% Exposed

Richest Two Percent Own Half World Pioneering study Shows Richest 2% own half the world  

2013 WEALTHIEST INDIVIDUAL IN EACH U.S. STATE .pdf The .01%ers, are proud and unapologetic capitalists.

wealthx.com Wealth Report: population, defined as those with net assets of US$30 million and above: by region, country, wealth tiers, gender and between old and new money.​

Wealth-X and UBS have worked together to produce numerous groundbreaking reports on the world’s ultra wealthy population. Expert commentary from UBS complements Wealth-X’s global intelligence on the world’s ultra high net worth (UHNW) population to produce content that demonstrates a true collaboration between the global leader in wealth management and the world’s leading UHNW intelligence provider.

Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census 2013 Download | World Ultra Wealth Report 2013 Download

Occupy Wall Street

ANONYMOUS

​99% vs 1% : explained
Are the Occupy Wall Street protesters right? How unequal is the US? We've animated the key data - see what it says

The real divide isn’t between the top one percent and the 99 percent,
​but between the top 1% and the tippy top tenth of one percent, .1% who are the only people who’ve been increasing their wealth share. This has sparked a wave of mock concern for those who  are stuck in the mere 1%, but not the .1%.

That Top 0.1% Problem  It isn't the top 1%, it is the top 0.1%.  

What the 1% Don't Want You To Know [ Moyers ]
You are Never Going To Meet These People and have a sense of what they control.
Thomas Piketty, a 42-year-old who teaches at the Paris School of Economics, shows that two-thirds of America’s increase in income inequality over the past four decades is the result of steep raises given to the country’s highest earners.  This week, Bill talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, about Piketty’s “magnificent” new book.  “What Piketty’s really done now is he said, ‘Even those of you who talk about the 1 percent, you don’t really get what’s going on.’ He’s telling us that we are on the road not just to a highly unequal society, but to a society of an oligarchy. A society of inherited wealth.”  Krugman adds: “We’re seeing inequalities that will be transferred across generations. We are becoming very much the kind of society we imagined we’re nothing like.”

Bill Moyers: Government Is Now a Protection Racket for the 1% [Moyers]

Tom Perkins Cries “Nazi!” to Defend the 1%. And Guess What? It’s Working.

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.  So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.  This is not news, you say.  Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:  Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.​
 

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret. By Joseph E. Stiglitz May 2011
The top 1 percent may have the best houses, educations, and lifestyles, says the author, but “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.
The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

The Waltons Wealth
The Walton family is as rich as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined. Amid all the talk about how rich Teresa Heinz Kerry is, consider that the Walton family is 117 times wealthier. The Waltons' $90 billion fortune is equivalent to the GDP of Singapore. It's bigger than IBM's annual revenues. The dividend stream from the family's holdings produces nearly $880 million annually. It's likely that only the Rockefellers--before John D. gave away much of his fortune --were wealthier. And that's after adjusting for inflation. In sheer dollar terms, the Waltons are far richer. It is reasonable, and useful, to consider the Waltons' combined wealth this way because the family members act and think collectively. They are constantly in contact with each other and with family advisors, and they meet three times a year to discuss and manage their fortune. Because they hold such a huge stake in Wal-Mart, the Waltons have a large, if quiet, influence on our economy and society. They have a say in more than a million jobs in this country. (What if the family, for instance, urged the company to give up the fight with unions in California and pull out of the Golden State?) The Waltons' decisions could also affect hundreds of billions of dollars in investors' stock portfolios and retirement accounts. In the future, their impact could be much greater. The Waltons' philanthropy is a giant just beginning to stir. What the family does with its great wealth--think Rockefellers again for a moment--could leave a lasting mark on the nation.

Rolling Jubilee Project

An Occupy Wall Street spin-off group has bought up $14.7 million worth of Americans' personal medical debt and forgiven it over the last year as part of its Rolling Jubilee project.  The Rolling Jubilee project, organized by Occupy Wall Street's Strike Debt group, has so far spent $400,000 to buy the debt, in the process relieving 2,693 people of the money they owed for medical services Occupy thinks should be free.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/12/usa-occupy-debt-idUSL2N0IX29620131112

 "Think of it as a bailout of the 99 percent by the 99 percent," a post on the Rolling Jubilee project's website said.  The project, which launched on November 15, 2012, raises money through small, individual contributions, and then uses that money to purchase distressed and defaulted debt from the lenders, who in this case are hospitals or medical groups.  The lenders are willing to sell it very cheaply, often for less than five cents on the dollar, because they think there is little chance they will be able to collect.  Andrew Ross, a member of Occupy's Strike Debt group and a professor at New York University, said the group was able to buy debt at a 50-to-1 ratio.  The group receives almost no information about the people whose debt they buy - only an address, Ross said. The group mails a letter to each address explaining the project and that the person's debt has been "canceled," Ross said.  The group does not work directly with debtors.  "One person wrote back and said that he had gone through periods of being homeless and he was trying to get back on his feet," Ross said, calling the elimination of debt a huge relief.  Ross said the group has $200,000 left to spend, and they hope to target student loan debt next.