It is hard to believe but it has been 9 years since the 2008 financial collapse that has been labeled “the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression.” That is the length of time for a typical bull market, not that it felt like one to the non-investor citizenship. Like an earthquake, it is impossible to say when the next financial collapse will occur. We can only realize that one is overdue and that a lot of the safety measures have disappeared or are being destroyed as I write. The shredding and elimination of Glass-Steagle and the creation of trade agreements under the Clinton Administration and the trickle down economics and shredding of unions and middle class jobs under the Bush administration brought on the 2008 collapse as much as the deregulation of derivatives did. The real estate derivatives were the first to fail and that is more important than the pundits allow for. Protections and stabilizers that were in place for generations are now being destroyed by the agents of change, the Republican Party. The Dodd-Frank legislation, a watered down replacement for the Glass-Steagle legislation is being targeted and next in line for destruction by the Trump Administration allowing not only a financial collapse of epic proportions in our future but the very same exact kind of financial collapse. In addition, “gating” rules have been created to stop investors from removing their money from stock funds when the next collapse occurs, meaning that losses due to 401(k) retirement accounts will be greater than in the last financial collapse.
Yet the bigger concern is not the next financial collapse that is coming, it is that it will likely be the final chapter in the coming of corporate 1984 control of our government and society.
For the last 30 years we have been the unknowing participants in class warfare that was declared in 1971 with the writing of the Powell Confidential Memorandum. It was written in response to a Chamber of Commerce request and the suggestions in that Memorandum have been followed ever since, including the targeting of news media, environmentalists, unions, and even collegiate intellectuals. It also encouraged the level of lobbying of government and replacement of politicians with corporate agents that we now see. It generated the “Corporate Megaphone” a propaganda arm for corporate interests.
Corporations, for the most part, represent income to the wealthy and are not held to any ethical or moral requirements. Their only purpose is profits. Over time, the Republican party has been turned into a lobbying arm for corporate interests. The Democratic party is still being worked on to become the same. It was because of the influence of blue dog Democrats, wealthy representatives, and the need to replace union income for funding that globalization was fully embraced by the Democratic Party. Being out of touch with what was happening to those that were not millionaires the Democratic Party backed the wrong candidates and it was for that reason that they lost the election. Again, the agents of change have become the Republican Party, those that seek “smaller government.”
With the loss of the middle class, the government has also lost the middle class tax base creating deficits. The deficits were also created by a rigged system in which those with wealth no longer pay the income taxes they complain of. As seen from the tax return of Mitt Romney, the wealthy do not pay taxes, with a system of trusts, family created limited liability companies, and foreign bank accounts they are immune from the coming tax bite. The wealthy have also obtained higher caps on estate taxes that have further reduced income to the government. The cap has increased from about $300,00.00 to $5,000,000.00 through time. With trusts and other tools for the wealthy to avoid probate and estate taxes, this change almost eliminates estate tax altogether. It is part of the “entitlements for the wealthy” and part of the “rigged system” that Mr. Trump complained of during the primaries and has institutionalized in his new administration. He intends to eliminate what he calls the “death tax” altogether.
Any discussion of deficits has magically disappeared now that the Democrats are out and the Republican Party will begin a process of “borrow and spend”on projects that will increase short term profits, knowing that the “tax and spend” Democrats will gladly hold the bag and try to tax and reduce the Republican excesses if they can ever get in again. The new administration will create deficits that the American people will have to pay for eventually, including a wall that the Mexicans will never pay for and is unnecessary. If the penalties were merely increased on the criminal companies that are doing the illegal hiring here in the U.S. a wall that will only make big contractors wealthier would not be needed. After all, the minimum penalty is only $539.00 and such criminal hiring sends the invitation to the alien work force to cross the border in the first place and puts legal U.S. companies under pressure to do the same thing or be put out of business from the unfair and illegal competition. See, DOJ increasing penalty for hiring illegal immigrant, Fox News, June 30, 2016 (minimum from $375 to 539). Higher punitive Penalties for such illegal behavior would make enforcement profitable and such illegal activity unthinkable. I wonder how many illegal aliens will be used to build the wall and whether they will now be coming by water.
In a global economy where the incentive is for jobs to be created anywhere but the United States, there is no incentive to create jobs and therefore no job creation regardless of how much capital is lavished on businesses, corporations, and the wealthy. That is why there is such huge wealth inequality problem and capital being sucked out of the economy. See, Profits up 63%; Federal Figures; Profits Are Booming. Why Aren't Jobs, NYTimes article 1-9-2011; CEO Pay Is Up, Hanah Cho, The Baltimore Sun, July 10, 2011; Profits are Booming. Why Aren’t Jobs, Michael Powell, The New York Times, Economics, January 9, 2011; Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low, Henry Blodget, Business Insider, June 22, 2012 (showing companies are earning more per dollar of sales than ever before regardless of regulation and taxes). Because of the income from tax benefits and “business entitlements” that have not and do not create jobs in the U.S. and because of the “ripple effect” late phase of continuing job losses from offshoring and globalization, companies are now awash with capital and see no need to spend in the U.S. unless it is for legislation and political advantage with more short term profits in mind. Many of the U.S. companies are now international in scope and interest and their concern for the U.S. may be conflicted. The “Corporate Megaphone” is also spending their money on changing the dialogue and debate, in other words they are propagandizing the minds of the American public. The wealthy have been buying up failing newspapers to do just that. See, Conservative Koch Brothers Turning Focus to Newspapers, Amy Chozick, The New York Times, Sunday April 21, 2013 and Rich guys start to replace chains as newspaper owners, Rem Rieder, p.2B, USA Today, Wednesday, August 7, 2013. The National Geographic Magazine was purchased to stop the continuing irrefutable photographic evidence of global warming to assist the oil and coal industry to continue to make their short term profits. See, National Geographic gives Fox control over media assets in $725 million deal, Paul Farhi, The Washington Post, September 9, 2015. With control of the media in process, the oligarchy is ready to control what people hear. The Trump Administration is also controlling what is heard in a way that is paradigm. Elizabeth Warren was stopped from making her case against one of the inevitable conflict of interest administration designees on the floor of the Senate. Kellyanne Conway was caught using 1984 language when she discussed “alternative facts,” a slip that let the whole world know what was being used by the Trump Administration in the media. CNN was banned from administration news reports and the media is again been smeared as liberal as it has been for the last three decades since the Memorandum. What is unusual is that now, it is the government that is doing so and taking on all of the characteristics of the Corporate Megaphone except one, the new administration’s attack on globalization.
The Trump Administration was swept into office for one reason. To end the loss of jobs that the Republican Party actively sought as good for business and the Democratic Party remained a silent partner regardless of their statements of representing the middle class. In one effort to disincentivise offshoring all 40 Republicans, in lock step, voted unanimously against the measure. See, Senate Outsourcing Bill Stalls, Janet Hook, The Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2010. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump will have to fight his own party and is likely to be unsuccessful because of their unwillingness to act in a manner that might increase labor costs and decrease profits and because all of his methods to stop the job hemorrhaging are unlikely to obtain the results that could be obtained. See, my book Offshoring The Corporate Guide Map To 1984, soon to be released by Blue Artists, LLC on Amazon. In addition all the other policies of the Trump Administration will continue the destruction of our government employees, buyers with disposable income, and our marketplace. The destruction of agencies will transfer the cost to the individual States and State taxpayers. It is uncertain whether the voting constituency understood that “draining the swamp” did not mean removing corporate corruption and control of government, but rather meant the removal of government itself as a continuing influence on society and the only remaining control over corporations. Corporations have been using stealth “job creation” to work one state against the other weakening the individual states and nullifying any control the states might have over them.
The wealthy have begun to use their own private police forces and seek to privatize everything, giving vouchers to a gullible population. See, e.g. Oversight for Hire The rise, and downsides, of private bank examiners, Massimo Calabresi, p.37, Time, September 23, 2013. Those that support smaller government do nor stop to think that the vacuum will be filled by something else. Something with no ethical or moral requirements and with purely profit motives. Less expensive? Possibly, but many for profit endeavors are cost effective because of the “cast-off-costs” that are generated for society because of the private enterprise for profit cost cutting measures.
The Trump Administration appears to be in the final stages of corporate control of our government. The people being chosen to run certain governmental agencies each have a background in fighting those very same agencies or have stated their desire to have their agency eliminated. Governmental institutions that have been successful in our history for generations such as Medicaid, public schools, EPA and environmental protection, etc. are on the chopping block already, probably to be followed by Social Security and Medicare. Each of these stabilizing influences on our society appear to be disappearing in a way that will destabilize and continue to destroy buyers with disposable income. Greater costs and crime prevention will also fall upon the States and the middle class tax payers as the populace becomes desperate.
Each of the new administration’s picks are also millionaires, billionaires or from the corporate world with a prerequisite hate for our government. More than half of Congress are made up of millionaires. In the last primaries, the American people chose millionaires over candidates that were not. Perhaps the propaganda campaign is working. The “Corporate Megaphone”has instilled a hatred of government, a distrust of the media, unions, and an acceptance of the destruction of jobs in the U.S. Perhaps the propaganda campaign is working. The “Corporate Megaphone” has created a hatred of “entitlements,” those societal stabilizing necessities that the wealthy do not need. “Socialism” and “liberal” have become dirty words even though we have had a socialist education system for generations. Perhaps the propaganda campaign is working. Without a counter-balance campaign against corporate interests it will continue to work and the class warfare will continue till both society and government are so weak that they cannot stop corporate 1984 control.
With the destruction of government agencies by the new administration and the destruction of further jobs in government, society and government will be further weakened and “small government” will provide the necessary “freedom” for the wealthy to continue to prosper and control. The cost of government will go up if the Democrats can get in and repair the damage or the few remaining benefits of being a citizen of the United States will evaporate. This is something that is already occurring with the result that many people are protesting or worse, choosing to leave the country.
Corporate America now controls our government. It owns the Republican party and will defund anyone that strays from the party line. It has control of the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court. The Roberts Court has decided more corporate friendly cases than any other Supreme Court since the Great Depression. See, Corporations Find a Friend in the Supreme Court, Adam Liptak, Sunday Business, The New York Times, Sunday, May 5, 2013 and Statutory Misconstruction: How The Supreme Court Created A Federal Arbitration Law Never Enacted By Congress, Margaret L. Moses. Corporate America now has a well funded and powerful propaganda arm and has created an otherwise timid media. It has created labor busting on a national and even international scale increasing profits and convinced the country that it needs more money in order to “job create.” Lastly, it has removed government from telling it what it can and cannot do. Now Corporate America is telling us what to do.
Mr. Trump does not need his position to become wealthy. He probably has chosen to become president to leave a historical legacy, however the deal he made with the Republican Party to stop their halting of his efforts during the primaries will ensure that his historical legacy will likely be the worst and most corrupt president in our history. With the next financial recession, or if you prefer, the next “greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression,” will society and government be so weak that it cannot stop the final stages of corporate 1984? This is something that is already in progress. Will there even be a continuing history of presidents in office?