Tag Archives: money

Business/Economics, U.S.

Occupy America: Know your enemy; the top 1% are money sucking vampires. 1.4 million vampires are sucking the money out of more than 300 million people!!! Are you under their spell?

“The top 1 percent of households took a bigger share of overall income in 2007 than they did at any time since 1928.”-Annie Lowrey, New York Times

Here’s a shocker; in New York City the top 1% average U.S.$3.7 million in income, according to Christopher Ketcham.

The IRS and the CBO have already proven with their data that the top 1% have been acting like money vampires, sucking money out of our economic system.

What kind of jobs do the 1% have?  According to a CNNMoney report, 8.4% are attorneys, 14% are financial professionals, 15.7% are medical professionals, and 31% run Corporate America (executives, managers and supervisors).

Mother Jones has a more detailed breakdown.  MJ also shows that most of the wealth of the top 1% is invested in paper (stocks, securities, trusts, equities),  not traditional real estate.

AlterNet gives top five astounding facts about the 1%: “1. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Owns 40 Percent of the Nation’s Wealth, 2. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Take Home 24 Percent of National Income, 3. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Own Half of the Country’s Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds, 4. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Have Only 5 Percent of the Nation’s Personal Debt, 5. The Top 1 Percent are Taking In More of the Nation’s Income Than at Any Other Time Since the 1920s.”  AlterNet breaks down each of their claims with facts.

So how many of these money suckers are there, how many vampires make up the 1%?  Approximately 1,400,00 (according to the IRS).  Compare that to the total U.S. population of  308,745,538 (according to 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data).  1.4 million vampires are sucking the money out of more than 300 million people!!!

And what about raising taxes on the top elites?  According to IRS data, reported by Bloomberg Businessweek, the top 400, out of the 1.4 million money suckers, actually paid less taxes in 2007.  These super elite vampires (the Count Draculas of the money suckers) saw their effective tax rates fall from nearly 30% in 1995 to under 17% in 2007!!!

I still don’t understand why there isn’t more of the 99% joining the Occupy America (OWS, Occupy Wall Street) movement, unless they’re under the spell of the money sucking vampire elites known as the 1%.

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: Venezuela to nationalize Gold industry, demands that their gold stored in European & U.S. banks be returned, creating gold back money

“Venezuela is the 13th largest holder of gold in the world. From a financial aspect, I think it is a very shrewd and intelligent move to protect his country’s gold assets.  There is, however, a political overtone in that he wants to pull out the other financial assets that Venezuela has in the U.K., in the U.S., and push it into what he calls ‘more likable allies’, Russia, China and Brazil.”-Adrian Salbuchi

President Hugo Chavez wants all of Venezuela’s gold now held in European and U.S. banks to be returned.

It would be the largest physical movement of gold in recent history.  Some reports say it would involve U.S.$11 billion in gold.

The demand for Venezuela’s gold to be returned, comes after Chavez announced that the government would nationalize all gold mines in Venezuela.

The intent of nationalizing their gold industry is a precursor to creating money backed by gold: “We are going to nationalize gold and turn it into foreign exchange reserves…”-Hugo Chavez

 

 

Business/Economics, International

China to modify Tight Money Supply policy

China has tightened money supply (monetary policy) in order to control inflation.  Now they will modify it with a “directional loose” money supply.

What they mean is that certain industries will be allowed easier access to financing.  Those industries include agriculture, certain small and medium sized businesses, and construction of low income housing.

Chinese officials hope this new policy will still hold down inflation, without putting a drag on industries.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? World Banks tightening their grip on money

On Saturday, June 25, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision announced that all major international banks, and central banks (like the U.S. Federal Reserve) are going to increase their capital reserves.

This means they are going to hold onto more money and issue less loans.  Some banks refer to capital reserves as putting their money to ‘rest’ (aka bank reserves, desired reserves).

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision refused to give a list of which banks will be holding back on their money.  This is an indication that the major international, and central banks do not expect any short term improvement in the world economies.

The increase in capital reserves is to help banks handle monetary emergencies, like traditional “runs on banks”.  Just how long does the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision think the economy will suck?  The new tighter control on money will be implemented in phases, becoming fully in effect in 2018.  Mmmm, it’s 2011 now, uh oh!

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

Obama ignores pleas for help from Texas Governor, FEMA out of money

“If you hit Houston with a Category 4 or 5 (hurricane), and we’ve only got a couple billion dollars in the rainy day fund, instead of going in and rebuilding and recovering, we’re talking about bankruptcy. That’s the choice that we have here.”- Rick Perry, Governor of Texas

Texas Governor Rick Perry asked President Obama for help, two weeks ago, in fighting the biggest fires in Texas history.  Obama has not responded.

FEMA is still trying to reply to the request for help from Texas.  The problem? No money!  Rachel Racusen, FEMA spokeswoman, says they’ve approved 22 grants to help local firefighting agencies, by there’s no money to fund the grants.

Maybe FEMA would have the money if our government wasn’t so happy with spending it on wars?

 

Business/Economics, International

Currency Wars Pushing Global Inflation

On October 2nd, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned the world’s countries not to start a currency war. Such action could end any economic recovery. The problem is that it appears that the world is already in a currency war.

Today, October 6th,  an RT (I think it stands for Russia Today) program called Cross Talk, interviewed three currency analysts about the race, by most countries, to devalue their money.

Countries want their money to be low in value in order to attract foreign customers. International trade is key to growing a country’s economy. An economy that’s based on domestic trade only, leads to stagnation. But, if all the major traders in the world crash the value of their money the result could be worse than an economy based only on domestic trade.

The analysts interviewed on RT represent companies/organizations from Hong Kong, Russia and the U.S.

They said currency devaluation works only if a handful of countries do it. The problem is that “everyone” is doing it. The result will be global inflation.

The analysts agreed that the coming global inflation will not affect the ‘western’ countries as badly as the rest of the world. They didn’t give any example of how bad it would get.

An allegory was used to explain the effect of most countries trying to devalue their money at the same time: It’s like a marathon where you have so many runners that they knock each other out of the race. I other words, some countries are going to have their economies “knocked” out.

To solve the problem of currency wars, the analysts said world leaders might create a common global currency, or at least common rules on currency trading.

Increasing commodity prices, currency wars, actual wars, massive debts owed by governments, continuing job losses, etc. It seems to me that despite the positive spin our leaders, and main stream media puts on our economy, the evidence is clear that things are going to get worse. Buckle up.