Other economic absurdities that
Democrats must expose:
...because it's wrong to penalize success and hard work.
...After all, they came from, and understand, business.
...even though it is based on pitting the worlds' workers against each other.
...union bosses are only out for themselves.
...and the more the rich have, the more will trickle down to everyone else.
...Democrats are communists, or at least, socialists at heart.
...so when we tax wealthy investors, we lose jobs.
...so investors, not workers, create wealth.
...so we should give them all the tax breaks possible.
...Democrats just want to tax and spend today.
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General Issues:
...for those of Indonesia, Mexico, China and India.
...and how not to do it again.
...and the "crisis" is just a ploy by those who want to destroy it.
...Republicans' most important propaganda technique.
...and get the media on your side
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This pair of articles does a reasonable job of summarizing what’s going wrong in the world economy. As distant as these seem to be from each other, they are related.
The world’s bankers are making out like bandits because they have—through their bought and paid-for politicians—created a world economy in which those with money can control the labor market to enrich themselves. By pitting the world’s workers against each other in a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions, they make transnational corporations immensely profitable.
This also benefits the lucky workers who happen to be near the top of the food chain, because they’re able to buy better and more food, better housing and real estate, better transportation, and so on. Unfortunately, this creates inflation for the bottom 80% of the world’s population who have stagnant or declining incomes.
Of course, since the bankers themselves are the major movers making this all happen, they demand outrageous incomes for themselves.
This brief column is from Bloomberg Businessweek, January 20, 2011.
Banks Are Still Where the Money Is
Finance workers' annual pay compared with that of other top professions
Wall Streeters discouraged by declining bonuses this year can take solace: They still earn much more than brain surgeons, top lawyers, and four-star generals.
M&A banker
Experience: 10 years
Annual Pay: $2,000,000
Bank oil trader
Experience: 10 years
Annual Pay: $1,000,000
Corporate bond trader
Experience: 10 years
Annual Pay: $1,000,000
Neurosurgeon
Experience: 8 to 17 years
Annual Pay: $571,000
Law firm partner
Experience: 10 years
Annual Pay: $600,000
Four-star general
Experience: 34+ years
Annual Pay: $185,000
Cancer researcher
Experience: 10 years
Annual Pay: $110,000 to $160,000
Aerospace engineer
Experience: 5 to 10 years
Annual Pay: $100,000
Architect
Experience: 10 years
Annual Pay: $80,000 to $100,000
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From The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2011.
Global Price Fears Mount
As Food, Raw Materials Soar, Europe's Central Bank Head Warns on Inflation
Inflation fears—fueled by spiraling food, oil and raw material prices—are mounting around the globe, prompting the head of the European Central Bank to signal that it could raise interest rates in the future even though some countries have been weakened by the Continent's debt crisis....
Fast-growing emerging markets such as China and Brazil are seeing rising inflation at home, and their demand for globally traded commodities is pushing prices higher elsewhere.
While high unemployment and spare capacity are restraining underlying inflation pressures in the U.S. and elsewhere in the developed world, annual inflation in China is almost 5%—and a sizzling 9.8% economic growth rate in the fourth quarter triggered fears of more price pressures ahead. Inflation in Brazil is even higher.
Incidentally, I claim no special insights into this issue. Historians Will and Ariel Durant, in their excellent book, Lessons of History, described how—in every society—bankers eventually rise to the top in their ability to control governments. Unfortunately, that’s what we have now, even with President Obama: Wall Street and their bankers are in total control.
For more insight into how Republicans and conservative Democrats have been able to turn over control of our government to bankers, check out the file, Class War; It’s investors vs. everyone else who actually works for a living.
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