The Predatory Economics of Debt-Money Disaster and Depression
OpEdNews.com
By Kent Welton
Image: Trickle Down Economics from THE IRRAWADDY
Swami Beyondananda
The trickle down idea is one of the great scams of economic policy throughout history. During any disaster, manufactured panic or structured depression you are told to just let "your" politicians give all the remaining money, power, and policy authority to the already super wealthy and powerful. You are told not to worry and to just obey your monetary masters and stand in line for a job or some meager benefits - usually just enough to keep you from rioting and killing the rich - assuming, of course, you have any time and energy left after your stress-inducing and health-destroying work schedule. In any case, you must keep on competing until you die.
It is a very old game run by Kings, Monarchs, Oligarchs and politicians on the take from the ruling elites sitting atop their immense gains from past imperialistic exploits. The essence of the theory is that the rich and powerful bankers and industrialists can do no wrong and that any problems in the economy caused by those same forces must then be ameliorated by yet more power, money and tax benefits to same... to be paid for, of course, with their debt-money which we must borrow from these same forces and which includes interest paid with your tax money - all in order to create the very money going to the trickle-down gang at the top of the perch. Wow, that is so very economic for the few! Further, if you don't pay, there is then a lien on your body, your work, and all the national assets secretly pledged by the corporate state.
Trickle down is then really trickle up and nothing less than an inverted funnel of assets sucked up the financial phylum to the few and fewer, to the rich and richer, to the big and bigger. For the many it is simply a fantasy-land wherein the shoe doesn't fit and the cowardly lion needs a heart operation he cant afford. But then nobody said economics had to make sense, only ensure that the few will continue to be able to screw the many and build very high walls for their protection.
Well, it is quite obvious that this eternal screwing and neo-slavery for the many is caused by the rule of money in society... which then guarantees trickle-up policy devastation and debt-money debacles. The incredible pile of money and credit power in the hands of the few enables the employment of all kinds of one-handed academics and media sycophants to trumpet their "free market" solutions within the very media they own. What a deal, the very few own and control society and, in case you forgot, the Supreme Court said so when one man decided to vote with four others!
Clearly, the money is very good in the economic whoring profession today, despite the fact nothing of any value is created except the maintenance of power by the few. In these high-paying worthless professions you must never ever broach a topic like a public central bank, a National Initiative process, or any truly democratic trade process or IMF regime. No, that would cause you to lose your privileged status as a spineless piece of sh*t. After all, you've built a career on suppressing subversive thoughts, mouthing your master's nostrums, and you know what happened to Howard Beale!. You certainly could not emulate him.
So to all us austerity-ized, debt-money busted, peons it is obvious we have been pee-ed on and that the only remedy is to reverse the flow... big time!
Billions for Acquisitions, Nothing for US Workers
CommonDreams.org
Trickle-Down Mythology: Corporations Sitting on Mountains of Cash and Workers be Damned
by Sandy LeonVest
When PBS’ corporate-friendly Nightly Business Report (NBR) airs a story at the top of its newscast about a major blockage in the corporate ‘trickle-down’ pipe, you know the jig is up.
On August 30th, NBR did just that.
In her setup to this fascinating little segment, NBR host Susie Gharib opened with the words: “Well, American companies are sitting on a pile of cash. But they're not using it for hiring. They are using the money for deal-making.”
The story that followed pretty much confirmed what most Americans have suspected all along: So-called ‘trickle-down’ economics never did work as advertised. And when it comes to spreading the wealth, corporate trickle down is turning out to be a very bad joke -- one that American workers don’t find very funny.
Introducing her story, NBR correspondent Erika Miller announced: “Consumers are not the only ones holding on tightly to their cash these days. Corporations are too … Non-financial companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 have a record $837 billion in cash in their coffers.”
“That’s enough to pay 2.8 million workers -- basically, the entire population of Chicago -- $100,000 a year for three years.”
“But,” added Miller, “one of the few places companies are spending money is on is on mergers and acquisitions. With one day left, August already has the highest value of global M&A deals this year.”
Notably, only days before the NBR story was aired, Thomson Reuters had released a study revealing that a whopping $200 billion worth of corporate deal-making took place in the month of August alone – that’s $200 billion in mergers and acquisitions (known as M&A’s in corporate circles). The study was followed by an August 27th Reuters report sporting the following headline: “August's $200-billion in takeover announcements is unlikely to provide enough of a spark to energize equity markets fretting about another dip in global growth.”
Yet, while Reuters waxed anxious about “energizing equity markets,” their concern with record US unemployment seemed oddly limited -- to the problems those unemployment numbers posed for investors.
“The steady flow of bleak data on the US jobs market and consumer spending on both sides of the Atlantic over the past few weeks has been at the heart of investors' worries, and the prospect of an M&A tide is adding to fears over jobs,” wrote Reuters.
What the news agency didn’t mention was anything about how far the billions spent on M&As might have gone toward “putting America back to work.”
So much for corporate America’s professed commitment to that worthy goal.
Damn the workers, full speed ahead
By now, anyone familiar with 21st century ‘corporatese,’ understands that when corporate news agencies refer to “the economy,” they are actually talking about corporate profits – jobs or no jobs.
So, when NBR’s Erika Miller observes that corporate mergers often lead to layoffs, and hastens to add that Americans “may take some comfort in knowing that a flurry of deal-making is often a positive sign about the outlook for the economy,” we know what she means.
These corporate elites don’t give a damn about unemployment numbers. Well, they care, but only insofar as those numbers impact their bottom line. Which explains why, on August 20th, despite an anticipated loss of another 100,000 jobs in August, Public Radio’s Alisa Roth glibly observed on MarketPlace: “A lot of companies have saved so much money, they can pay cash [for their acquisitions]. And it's cash they don't necessarily know what else to do with.”
“When the stock market's valuation is low,” added MarketPlace guest and equity analyst Brad Hintz, “it's actually cheaper to go out and buy whole companies … than it is to go out and hire workers and invest in new plants and equipment.”
Trickle down was (and still is) DOA – can we please admit it now?
Back in 2001, economist Thomas Sowell wrote in Capitalism Magazine: “There has never been any school of economists who believed in a trickle down theory. No such theory can be found in even the most voluminous and learned books on the history of economics. It is a straw man.”
Sowell’s words were never more true than they are today.
Oh, and by the way, NBR wrapped up its ‘corporate hoarding’ segment with this intriguingly ‘corporatesque’ outro:
Scott Wren (Wells Fargo Equity Strategist): “Right now people are hesitant to hire because they're able to pick up companies, do it quicker, build their business quicker, at least in a strategic sense, without having to hire new people in, without having to train those people, without having all of the up-front costs that it takes to really organically grow the business you're in.”
Erika Miller: “So what will it take to get firms to abandon their cash-hoarding mentality and start hiring again? Experts say businesses need to see a strong recovery in consumer demand.
“And that's not expected as long as the job market remains weak.”
Sandy LeonVest is the editor and publisher of SolarTimes, an independent quarterly energy newspaper with a progressive slant. SolarTimes is available online at www.solartimes.org, and distributed in hardcopy throughout the Bay Area and beyond. Sandy LeonVest's work has been published locally, as well as internationally, and includes 15 years in the news department at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, CA.
Read also: A Government by The Fascists for The Fascists
Book coming out on Amazon.. For a Fair America: Well Researched, supports your posts.... Covers what we need to do, but I doubt there is the will to do it. Public is uneducated by the press. $ buys what is sold as true.We are all definitely Peeons.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, anon...I believe there is hope and the will to do something about he current loss of our representation and our Nation is growing by leaps and bounds as more of us awaken to the deception...Change is coming and it won't be attributed to a political puppet but rather, to the collective actions of We the People.
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