And, as in Canada, not the people who elect them. You say
"unpatriotic...bordering on treason" or is it an act of aggression
bordering on war. War against the common person by those of wealth and
power. If these games were played against the U.S. from outside the
country to this extreme of economic ruin, it would have been called war
in the last century.
So, what remains as a reply to an "act of war"?
Darryl
On 1/20/2011 4:20 PM, Ray Harrell wrote:
I call it unpatriotic to say the least and bordering on treason.
Unless you want to return to my term with the big C. A tumor on the
body of a nation. And who does the Federal Reserve support? Not
the states.
REH
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Michael
Gurstein
*Sent:* Thursday, January 20, 2011 6:59 PM
*To:* [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME
DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
*Subject:* [Futurework] FW: Goldman Sachs sets aside $15bn for pay;
the state of California cuts $1.5bn from education. What's wrong with
this picture?
-----Original Message-----
*From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On
Behalf Of *Sid Shniad
*Sent:* Thursday, January 20, 2011 3:02 PM
*Subject:* Goldman Sachs sets aside $15bn for pay; the state of
California cuts $1.5bn from education. What's wrong with this picture?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/20/goldmansachs-banking
The
Guardian
20 January 2011
Bonuses for bankers, bankruptcy for public services
*Goldman Sachs sets aside $15bn for pay; the state of California cuts
$1.5bn from education. What's wrong with this picture?*
Richard Wolff <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/richard-wolff>
[Photo] Goldman Sachs's chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, looks
unworried as he listens to a speech by President Obama on banking
reform last year. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters
So, now we know about the $15bn-plus 2010 pay package for Goldman
Sachs partners and employees
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/19/bankers-10bn-unemployment-record-high>.
The top rungs will get their many millions each
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/19/goldmansachs-executive-pay-bonuses>,
with lesser and lesser amounts going down the GS hierarchy. The mass
of its more than 35,000 employees will, as usual, get much, much less
than the top. In addition, the appreciation of Goldman's share prices
likewise adds billions to employees who got stock options, which were
likewise distributed very unequally throughout the firm. The unequal
division of rewards within Goldman Sachs mirrors and mocks the far
larger social divide it feeds.
While vast wealth flows for the tops of finance, austerity is the
watchword across the United States. Every one of the 50 state
governments and nearly all of the thousands of city and town
governments are sharply reducing their citizens' economic wellbeing
<http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=cuts>.
Their debates concern the mix of raised taxes and reduced public
payrolls and services to impose on a citizenry already reeling from
the continuing economic crisis conditions: high unemployment, home
foreclosures, job insecurities and benefit reductions.
US capitalism continues to dole out wealth for a few and austerity for
the mass. Economic and social divisions helped bring on the crisis.
Wage stagnation since the 1970s
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/17/economics-globalrecession>
had enabled profits to boom, but it also provoked family debts and
financial speculation that spiraled to the far side of sustainability.
As the crisis deepened, rising unemployment turned wage stagnation
into wage and job benefits declines. Home-ownership for millions
deteriorated into a mass of empty homes confronting stunned
ex-homeowners. Economic and social divisions deepened and hardened.
Now, in the next act of an accumulating social tragedy, the
governments' responses -- austerity -- drive yet another degree of
separation between the 10 % at the top of the nation's corporate
pyramid, and of its income and wealth distributions, and everyone else.
Just like speculation in credit default swaps and "jumbo" mortgages
for people without jumbo incomes, deepening economic divisions will
prove unsustainable. Clearly, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/14/jp-morgan-bankers-share-10bn?INTCMP=SRCH>,
and the other financial giants either do not see or do not care about
that deepening. In any case, they take no responsibility for producing
or preventing or offsetting it.
Meanwhile, deprived of all but a few, weak organisations to articulate
a clear, critical analysis of what is happening, the mass of US
citizens watch, demoralised, and fume. Millions of former supporters
turn away from a president as his promises of "hope and change" fade
from memory or become objects of bitter humour. The space is cleared
for the Tea Party movement to displace anger over deepening economic
divisions as epitomised in big banks' pay packages onto politicians in
general and Democrats in particular. Offering only another variant of
austerity, the Republicans guarantee that they, too, take no
responsibility to change the basic direction of this society's
trajectory. Economic and social divisions will keep deepening.
The new governor of California announced last week that he proposed to
cut about $1.5bn
<http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/19/3336484/gavin-newsom-suggests-challenging.html>
from the largest and arguably the best state system of higher
education in the country. Such a cut will further damage the quantity
and quality of the skilled and hi-tech workforce on which the nation's
economic future depends. Governor Brown also proposed over $1bn in
cuts to the Medicare program providing healthcare to hundreds of
thousands of California's poorest residents.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs pays out $15bn, alongside the other big
banks' comparable payouts. More than yet another glaring contribution
to social division, these contrasts represent stages on the path to
self-destructive social implosion.
!DSPAM:2676,4d38bf04308681288951640!
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