From the Ramparts Congressional Debate Observations
Junious Ricardo Stanton offers his observations and comments on the 1st Congressional district debate held on October 27, 2010 at the Rutgers University Camden Campus
Junious Ricardo Stanton shares data on how the current economic crisis is negatively impacting African Americans both in terms of employment and wealth.
Reverse Robin Hood Syndrome
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Reverse Robin Hood Syndrome
“At the peak of the housing bubble in 2006 Americans had $13 trillion in equity in their residential real estate. At the peak, total residential mortgage debt stood at $9.8 trillion. Today, American households have $6.2 trillion in equity while mortgage debt has grown to $10.3 trillion. In other words American households have faced a real financial loss of $6.8 trillion. At the same time you’ll notice that the amount of mortgage debt has remained steady. The toxic mortgage waste just sits idly by while banks use the taxpayer wallet as an ATM. You can’t have a double-dip without bouncing first. Americans hold most of their net worth in housing. That has not recovered because employment is weak. Stocks, which are heavily tilted as a primary source of income for the top income earners has only made people feel better temporarily. The mainstream media for the most part represents this tiny group and that is why it has taken so long to even realize that there really is no recovery outside of the stock market.” http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/cost-of-bailout-9-trillion-dollars-and-counting-banking-stockholm-syndrome-let-home-prices-fall/
When I was a youngster I used to watch a television series about Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest. He and his merry band of men bedeviled the Sheriff of Nottingham as they robbed from the rich and decadent nobles and gave to the humble and mistreated poor of England. The premise had a nice ring to it and the series was popular. Today in the US we are experiencing a reverse Robin Hood. This time the robbers are another merry band of thieves, con men and shysters on Wall Street, in the corporate suites and Hedge Fund offices. They are looting the little people like us and sending the money up the chain. It’s not as if they need the money, recent news articles have documented the fact the rich are getting richer, thanks to the inherent greed and endemic criminality within the US political and economic systems. “The gap in income between the wealthiest Americans and all others has grown strikingly in recent decades, the CBO data show. In 1979, when the data begin, the average after-tax incomes of the top 1 percent of households were 7.9 times higher than those of the middle fifth of households. By 2007, top incomes were 23.9 times higher than those of the middle fifth — a more than tripling of the income gap. The gap between the top 1 percent and the poorest fifth of Americans widened even more sharply. In 1979, the incomes of the top 1 percent were 22.7 times higher than those of the bottom fifth. By 2007, top incomes were 74.6 times higher than those at the bottom — more than tripling the rich-poor gap in 28 years”. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3220 “The difference in the pay and income of the average factory worker and CEO pay had jumped to 419 times by 1998 compared to 42 times in 1980.” Economic Apartheid in America A Primer On Economic Inequality and Insecurity by Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel page 50-51 Imagine the wealth and income gap jumping that fast in such a short amount of time?! The same goes for our Congress critters. In the midst of an economic catastrophe members of Congress’ bank accounts and bottom lines increased dramatically while millions of Americans now face unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy and homelessness. “The wealthiest members of Congress grew richer in 2009 even as the economy struggled to recover from a deep recession. The 50 wealthiest lawmakers were worth almost $1.4 billion in 2009, about $85.1 million more than 12 months earlier, according to The Hill’s annual review of lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms.” http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/116489-wealthy-lawmakers-increased-their-riches-as-economy-sputtered-in-2009-
Our Congress critters like their Wall Street counterparts use insider knowledge and their positions on various committees to buy stock and interest in companies that often turn out to be harmful to us; conpanies like British Petroleum. “Members of the congressional committees that oversee the oil and gas industry held more than $11 million in personal financial assets in that sector late last year, including at least $400,000 in the two companies at the heart of the Gulf of Mexico oil-drilling disaster. From the nearly $100,000 in BP stock held by Rep. Frederick Upton (R-Mich.) to the nearly $650,000 in ConocoPhillips shares held by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), lawmakers on five key panels with oversight of the oil industry held more than 110 assets in firms from that sector. All told, the members of the five House and Senate committees had a minimum of $11.4 million in stock holdings in the oil and gas industry, with a maximum value that could have exceed $16.8 million, according to an analysis of financial disclosure forms released Wednesday.” Lawmakers sold off BP shares Washington Post http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/06/ I’m all for people getting rich, just not a my expense. The Washington Post article goes on to say that some of them are dumping their BP stocks now that the company is in the news. But the cruelest cut of all is these same Congress Critters and your boy Obama will cite the budget deficits they created as the reason to cut social programs like Social Security and Medicaid. “President Obama and the leadership in Congress have delegated enormous, unaccountable authority to 18 unrepresentative, inordinately wealthy individuals. The 18 individuals are meeting regularly, in secret, behind closed doors, until safely beyond this year’s mid-term election. If they reach agreement, their proposal will be voted on in December by a lame duck Congress, without the benefit of open hearings and deliberations in the pertinent committees and without the opportunity for open debate and amendment on the floors of the House and Senate. Despite the speed and lack of accountability, the legislation will affect, in substantial ways, every man, woman, and child in this nation. Who are these powerful people and what are their views? They are the members of President Obama’s newly-formed National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. They lack racial and gender diversity, and more importantly, they lack diversity of opinion. Their mantra is that ‘everything is on the table,’ but their one member who has any expertise with respect to defense spending, for instance, is the CEO of a major defense contractor that devotes millions of dollars each year to lobby Congress for more defense spending.” Obama's Crazy Plan To Cut Social Security www.alternet.org/economy/146970/ The interesting thing is that none of these psychopaths are talking about cutting one dime from the defense budget or decreasing the war funding! So the Military Industrial Complex and Congress members who buy stock in them will get rich while they cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. For you who still love Obama and think he is the bomb, that’s not all; there are plans in the works to continue his reverse Robin Hood campaign by getting their slimy hands on our retirement accounts, similar to what Bu$h wanted to do with Social Security in 2004. “On August 26, the US Department of Labor issued a news release (http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/2010/ebsa082610.html). It lists the agenda for the joint hearings being held with the Department of Treasury September 14-15, 2010 on what is euphemistically called ‘lifetime income options for retirement plans.’ The hearings are being conducted by the Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration. I don’t like speaking in tabloid-style terms, but the unstated agenda of these hearings, as I understand it, is to push for the US government to eventually nationalize (confiscate) all assets in private Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and 401K plans! The US government is desperate to get its hands on private assets to help cover soaring budget deficits and debts, and this is simply the largest and easiest piggy bank that could be seized. The Investment Company Institute estimates that at the end of 2008 that there were $3.613 trillion of assets in IRAs and $2.350 trillion of assets in 401K plans.” US Departments of Labor and Treasury Schedule Hearing on Confiscation of Private Retirement Accounts - Coin Update News By Patrick A. Heller September 1st, 2010
I am not making this up. We are being set up for another fleecing. Obama and his cohorts are plotting to rob us blind. But unlike the fabled Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest, Obama is not giving the money to the poor. The government will take your IRAs and retirement accounts, mismanage and loot them just like they’ve looted the Social Security Trust Fund for the past several decades. “Since the Johnson administration, the cabal that came into power through the coup d'etat of the Kennedy assassination has been looting Social Security funds and using them to pay for their illegal imperialistic operations. Cabal puppet politicians never mention that the Social Security system has been compiling a huge surplus since it was created. Why? Because they've been illegally looting that surplus for years to hide the real size of the current federal budget deficit, allowing them to spend more and justify tax cuts for the wealthy. US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) data show that while government’s reported deficit averaged about $300 billion a year from 2002 to 2006, the real current deficit was actually more than 50 per cent larger. The government just ‘steals’ about $160-$200 billion from the Social Security Trust Fund every year--under the table. In 2007, the real deficit was $449 billion according to the OMB. However, the ‘official’ deficit widely reported was only $257 billion, because it's government policy to add the borrowed Social Security Trust Fund surplus ($192 billion in 2007) to revenues before calculating the ‘official’ deficit.” http://www.hermes-press.com/sss1.htm The US government at the top is really a criminal enterprise designed to benefit the already rich. It has always been this way. Remember Washington and Jefferson were rich because they owned our ancestors and held them in brutal bondage. So this is nothing new. What is new is that they have now gone hog wild robbing from the poor to give to the rich, the reverse Robin Hood syndrome.
Synopsis of Current US Economic Corruption
Junious Ricardo Stanton provides a brief overview of the current foreclosure scandals and offers cogent advice to anyone facing default and foreclosure.
Introduction To Foreclosuregate
Junious Ricardo Stanton discusses the ever expanding crimes and fraud in the mortgage foreclosure/bond scandals rocking the nation and causing the US economy to implode.
The Truth About The Tea Party Movement
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
The Truth About The Tea Party Movement
"Koch Industries has denied specifically funding Freedomworks or tea parties directly, however. The company's director of communications wrote ‘Koch companies value free speech and believe it is good to have more Americans engaged in key policy issues. That said, Koch companies, the Koch foundations, Charles Koch and David Koch have no ties to and have never given money to FreedomWorks. In addition, no funding has been provided by Koch companies, the Koch foundations, Charles Koch or David Koch specifically to support the tea parties.’ Koch's director of communications did affirm, however, that the company funds Americans for Prosperity (AFP). TPM's Lee Fang reports that ‘AFP was founded in part by the company's Executive Vice President, David Koch. He is currently the chairman of the board of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.’ Media Matters also lists the Sarah Scaife Foundation as having given a total of $2.96 million in funding to FreedomWorks.[7] The Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation is financed by the Mellon industrial, oil, and banking fortune. The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, also controlled by the Koch family, has donated more than $3 million to Americans for Prosperity" Tea Party Funding http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tea_Party_movement_funding
A little over a year or so ago I started getting E-mail messages from Dick Armey who was calling for rallies and demonstrations against the policies of Barack Obama. How he got my E-mail address I’ll never know. However I noticed the masthead on his literature was called Freedomworks and after receiving more announcements about upcoming marches and demonstrations I did a little Internet research on Armey and Freedomworks. For those of you not familiar with him, Dick Armey was a former US Congressman who rose to the rank of Majority Leader when the Republicans took control of the House during the 90's. He eventually left Congress and took on the role as Chairman of Freedomworks an organization dedicated according to it Website to: lower taxes, less government and more freedom. Looking at their Website
www.freedomworks.org/issues you see they profess to be against government regulation and for tax and tort reform, school choice, privatization of Social Security and reform of Medicare. So while their Website appears benign and ideologically non- threatening, the tip off that they are not libertarians is the fact that nowhere on their Website do they take a stand against the ongoing wars that are draining this country dry; nor do they mention the bailouts of the insurance, banking and Hedge Fund industries by the same government they want to shrink. So it was not surprising to me when it came to light that Freedomwokrs is a front for the Koch Brothers, two energy industry billionaires who have their own aggressive right wing agenda. According to SourceWatch a group that, "profiles the activities of
front groups,
PR spinners,
industry-friendly experts,
industry-funded organizations, and
think tanks trying to manipulate public opinion on behalf of
\fs23ulcorporations or government.", the Tea Party is being funded by super wealthy right wingers to promote their own conservative agenda.
"Reports indicate that the Tea Party Movement benefits from millions of dollars from conservative foundations that are derived from wealthy U.S. families and their business interests. Is appears that money to organize and implement the Movement flows primarily through two conservative groups:
Americans for Prosperity and
FreedomWorks. In an April 9, 2009 article on ThinkProgress.org, Lee Fang reports that the principal organizers of Tea Party events are
Americans for Prosperity and
Freedom Works, two ‘lobbyist-run think tanks’ that are ‘well funded’ and that provide the logistics and organizing for the Tea Party movement from coast to coast. Media Matters reported that
David Koch of
Koch Industries was a co-founder of
Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), the predecessor of FreedomWorks. David Koch was chairman of the board of directors of CSE.
[2] CSE received substantial funding from
David Koch of
Koch Industries, which is the largest privately-held energy company in the country, and the conservative Koch Family Foundations, which make substantial annual donations to conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, etc. Media Matters reported that the Koch family has given more than $12 million to CSE (predecessor of FreedomWorks) between 1985 and 2002"
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.p In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the Tea Party movement isn’t a spontaneous grass roots movement after all. Disaffected whites are being manipulated by some very cunning Republican right wingers who are exploiting the fears, frustrations and angst of white folks who see their net worth and standard of living deteriorating at a rapid pace. These white folks are looking for someone to blame because they mindlessly drank the Kool-Aid about their house always appreciating in value, believing they could keep using it like an ATM machine ad infinitum. Now they are facing default, unemployment and homelessness; they are angry and frightened. While their frustrations are real and justified, the so called spontaneity of the Tea Party movement is not. Yes people are upset but like me many of them received E-mails and letters from Dick Armey and Freedomworks urging them to attend town meetings, rallies and demonstrations against Obama’s Healthcare Bill and other domestic policy issues. Armey and the Republican Party recruited Glen Beck and Sarah Palin to be their celebrity spokespersons and Fox News a bastion of fascist propaganda anyway, readily jumped on board to support the movement. Don’t be mad at the Tea Baggers, they are being duped and used by the right wingers for their agenda.
The left-right divide is used by the ruling elites to cunningly keep the masses duped, distracted, disorganized and discombobulated. This way the people won’t come together to figure out how the banksters, military industrial complex war mongers, the multi-national corporations their political puppets and stooges are ripping us off. Both sides of the political aisle are bought and paid for. It’s not just the Tea Party, it’s the left too. Don’t you ever wonder who funds the NAACP or how Al Shaprton flies all over the country to attend "grass roots" rallies? If you want to see who is funding most of the organizations on both the left and right go to
www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=338 which is a right wing Website by the way; and peruse their Funding The Left and Right page. Click on the various spreadsheets they provide and look at the names of the foundations putting out money to fund supposedly grass roots movements.
I have nothing against philanthropy but when money is used as a means for clandestine political manipulation that’s a different story. The ruling elites have mastered funding both sides in a dispute, that way no matter who wins, they come out on top and the "winners" owe them. They do it in political campaigns and war. Don’t fall for the okey-doke and flim-flam. The Tea Party is being used by right wingers to further their own agenda, just like some so called progressive organizations are funded by the left to promote their agenda.
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Labels: Party, politics, right, wing Tea
