Obama's Economy By Stephen Lendman
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| Obama disgraces the office he holds. He exceeds the worst
of his predecessors. His imperial foreign policy risks global war. His domestic anti-populist one transformed the world's richest economy into a house of cards. Thirdworldized. A dystopian backwater. So-called recovery is fake. It’s illusory. It doesn't exist. Protracted Main Street Depression conditions affect growing millions. Things go from bad to worse. Human suffering is real. Pathetically little is done to help. Neoliberal harshness is official policy. Force-fed austerity reflects it. Social injustice is rife. Obama demands it. Bipartisan complicity supports it. Ordinary people are increasingly on their own out of luck. Bankers top the pecking order. Profits are privatized. Losses are socialized. Grand theft is rife. Politicians are complicit with corporate crooks. America's social contact is targeted for elimination. It's disappearing in plain sight when most needed. It's heading for history's dustbin. Inequality is institutionalized. It's unprecedented in modern times. It matches or exceeds 19th century harshness. Monied interests alone are served. A race to the bottom persists. Corporate America and privileged elites never had it better. Most others face growing inequality. Hard times getting harder reflect today's reality. Poverty is a growth industry. So are unemployment, underemployment, hunger, homelessness and despair. In the 1970s, about one in 50 Americans were on food stamps. Today, it's one in five. Over half the population needs aid to survive. Bipartisan complicity keeps cutting it en route to eliminating it altogether. A decade or two from now, it may be gone. At the same time, inflation adjusted median household income keeps declining. Unemployment tops 23%. Official numbers are fake. They're rigged to put lipstick on a pig. Tens of millions of working age Americans wanting jobs can't find them. Most others have low-pay, poor or no-benefit part-time or temp rotten ones. Two or more are needed to get by. Middle America is disappearing. Most children live in low income or impoverished households. Over three-fourths of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck. They're one lost one away from hunger, homelessness and inability to cover other basic needs. America's wealth disparity is deplorable. The top 1% has more than the bottom 95%. The 400 richest families have more than the bottom 50%. In 1965, one in 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today it's more than one in five. America is thirdworldized. It's banana republicanized. For growing millions, it's unfit to live in. Public and private corruption transformed it into a kleptocracy. Democracy is a convenient illusion. Its facade masks New World Order harshness. Monied interests run things. Predatory capitalism is official policy. Class war rages. Notably since the 1970s. Obama calls it shared sacrifice. Most people sacrifice to let privileged ones share. Wages don't keep up with inflation. Benefits erode steadily en route to disappearing altogether. Most high-paying manufacturing and service jobs offshored to low wage countries. Automated production claimed more. So-called "free markets" work best for those who control them. Others lose out. Growing numbers entirely. Technology driven productivity increasingly pressures workers to toil longer for less pay and fewer benefits. Marx was right. He explained capitalism's contradictions. It's a machine for manufacturing injustice. He called it anarchic and ungovernable. What existed in his day pales compared to today's monster. It exploits humanity. It alienates it. It does so by preventing societies from developing humanely. It produces class struggles between "haves" and "have-nots," It destroys fundamental freedoms. They're disappearing in plain sight. Inside the bubble, it's paradise. Outside it's dystopian hell. America was never beautiful. It's worse than ever now in modern times. It's venal, depraved and degenerate. It's too broken to fix. It's corrupted, suffocating and malignant. It's polar opposite Big Lies claiming otherwise. Obama regurgitates them ad nauseam. More on this below. Paul Craig Roberts calls predatory capitalism "a looting mechanism." America's economy "no longer is based on education, hard work, free market prices (and) accountability…" Washington's criminal class is bipartisan. Police state injustice targets nonbelievers. Full-blown tyranny looms. Perhaps armageddon if permanent wars continue. Dystopian hell otherwise. America already is unfit to live in. Obama pretends otherwise. His weekly October 4 address was polar opposite truth. "Last month, our businesses added 236,000 new jobs," he claimed. "The unemployment rate fell to under six percent for the first time in more than six years." False! Labor Department reports are fabricated. They're phony. They're fake. They reflect statistical legerdemain. Even Even the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) admits: "The confidence level for the monthly change in total employment is on the order of plus or minus 430,000 jobs." With that level of accuracy why bother reporting at all. Monthly numbers are meaningless. The so-called "birth/death model" overstates monthly job totals by 50,000 or more. Manipulated seasonal adjustments distort further. Based on how calculated in the 1980s, real unemployment exceeds 23%. Expect it to go much higher once declining economic conditions reach gale force. Don't expect Obama to explain. He's a serial liar. A moral coward. "…(W)e're on pace to make 2014 the strongest year of job growth since the 1990s." False! Truth is polar opposite. America is in protracted decline. Economic conditions are deplorable for growing millions. They're worsening. Consumer credit and real retail sales are flat. Major chains are closing stores. Construction is stagnant. So is manufacturing. Roberts says America's workforce resembles "third world countr(ies) with the vast bulk of the jobs in low-pay domestic service" areas. The kind most US workers shunned decades earlier. "People working these part-time and independent contractor jobs cannot form a household or obtain a mortgage," says Roberts. They're filled by "those aged 55 and older…to supplement meager retirement incomes." Roberts calls America's economy "a house of cards." He does so for good reason. Fake statistics conceal illusory recovery. For privileged elites only. Exacerbated by making money the old-fashioned way at the expense of opportunities to distribute it equitably. Honestly. Legitimately. With full-time/good-pay/good-benefit jobs for workers wanting them. They're gone. So are future prospects for growing millions. Money power in private hands and democracy can't co-exist. Wall Street represents what's wrong with America. Financial giants transformed it into an unprecedented money making racket. At the expense of popular interests. Grand theft is institutionalized. So are systemic fraud, market manipulation, front-running, pumping and dumping, naked short selling, scamming investors, bribing politicians, suppressing precious metals prices, and bailouts with public tax dollars whenever needed. Financial coup d'etat conditions describe things. So cleverly most people have little or no idea what's going on. Or how they're harmed. Or that corrupt politicians conspire with corporate crooks to profit at the expense of most others. America's entire system is corrupted. Broken. Phony. Rigged to benefit wealth, power and privilege alone. By exploiting most others. Doing so gives injustice new meaning. Not according to Obama. He lied saying "progress has been steady (and) real." "It is a direct result of the American people's drive and determination, and decisions made by my administration." Fact: He wrecked the economy. Fact: He looted the nation's wealth. Fact: He stole it from ordinary people. Fact: He handed it to banksters and other corporate predators. Fact: He's waged war on Middle America. Fact: He wants it entirely eliminated. Fact: He wants workers transformed into wage slaves. Fact: Kleptocracy reflects official policy. Fact: So does gangsterism writ large. Fact: Public and private corruption are unprecedented. Fact: Ordinary people are exploited. Fact: Wealth is disproportionately shared. Fact: Hard won labor rights are being lost. Fact: Public education is being commodified. Fact: Healthcare is rationed to enrich insurers, drug companies and large hospital chains. Fact: It's a pay plenty or suffer or die system. Fact: Exorbitant costs put high-quality care out of reach for growing millions when most needed. Fact: Low-quality fast food treatment substitutes most often. Welcome to the age of inequality. Injustice. Unfairness. Obama doesn't give a damn about ordinary people. He wants them used, abused, neglected and exploited. He transformed America into a swamp of unfairness, injustice and lawlessness. He's hard-right, neoliberal, reactionary, belligerent, pro-corporate, anti-labor, anti-populist and anti-social justice. He believes anything government can do business does better so it it. He turns a blind eye to international, constitutional and US statute rule of law principles. His presidency reflects a trail of broken promises. He says one thing. He does another. He gives rogue governance new meaning. He's the latest in a long line of lawless, deplorable leaders. He achieved rogue status without really trying. He deplores democratic values. He trashes them. He defiles rule of law principles. He ignores human need. He impoverished millions. Human misery isn't his concern. Hope and change became race to the bottom hard times. Big Brother watching everyone. Civil and human rights violations. Fast disappearing freedoms. Extrajudicial governance. Political, economic, financial, propaganda and hot wars without end. Diktat power rule. Government of, by and for wealth, power and privilege alone. A nation unfit to live in. Survival depends on challenging him all-out. Defeating his agenda. It's a struggle too important to lose. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. |
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