Headed to House Commerce Committee meeting this am. Various legislation from the Senate to consider.
My reading remains concentrated on national politics and national finances.
The view is not benign. After half a century of so-called tax 'reforms' that benefited the wealthy, we've managed to grow a very rich class of wealthy families who run the nation's finances and its governments, from the smallest municipality to the largest states and even to the White House and Congress.
America is home to more than 750 billionaires and 22 million millionaires. Without question this super rich class deserves to be called an Oligarchy. It is the nation's creditor. They own the vast majority of financial and property assets. They own the debt. It is there where they harvest their accumulation of immense savings.
This is the contagion of income inequality. It infects everything. It creates political inequality. History shows that political inequality creates poverty and destroys democracy.
If you want to take over a national government—without revolutionary violence—the first institution you need to control is the judicial system.
The Constitution says that Supreme Court nominees of a President require the ‘Advice and Consent of the Senate’ in order to be confirmed. During his two terms, President Obama made two successful Supreme Court nominees.
Obama nominated a third, Merrick Garland, to the Supreme Court but Senate President, Mitch McConnell as majority leader of the Senate, refused to give Garland the ‘Advice and Consent’ of the Senate. McConnell used the excuse that Garland’s nomination came too close to the next Presidential election.
President Trump made three successful Supreme Court nominees in his one term. That formed a 6-3 majority of right wing conservatives. McConnell rushed Trump’s last nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, to the Senate—even though her nomination came closer to the next Presidential election than had been the case with Garland.
Thus we have a far right majority (6-3) in the Supreme Court. The most important victory to taking over a nation is already completed.
Our Constitutional bastion of Democracy has fallen from grace. The Supreme Court’s recent rulings all benefit the class of Oligarchs. The decisions have the ‘allocative effect’ of transferring the wealth of labor and small business up to the ballooning class of the super rich.
The Court ruled campaign financial restrictions unconstitutional. It then designed a non profit trust category where the wealthy can donate unlimited amounts of money to their favored politicians and remain anonymous.
In brief, bribery is now legal in America.
Using the same concept, this corrupt Court also applied that non-profit trust idea to launder taxpayer money and use it for private education.
These taxes were originally designed to fund public education for the citizens.
With this trust 'sleight of hand' alchemy the Court ruled these taxes can be used for tuition at religious schools and the elite private schools of the Oligarchs, so long as the taxes were funneled through a special, non profit trust.
These rulings are brazen and the opposite of democracy.
"One man one vote" is no longer. "One dollar, one vote" is the rule.
By the way, this corruption is not new in America. In the late 1800s a politician with the nickname "Boss Tweed" ruled New York.
Boss Tweed said "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating."
One might think this corruption, this use of "money power" influences just the rich, a small minority of the population. This money power also attracts those who are not wealthy.
The same desire to accumulate controls the not so rich. It is not an irony that the labor class and the small business class oftentimes support the Boss Tweed types of the world.
The class of Oligarchs may be relatively small in number, but it is a mistake to believe that just the super rich run the shop alone.
The slices, the layers of money are fine and numerous. The very concept of 'trickle down' economics, that giving the wealthy tax breaks and tax avoiding trusts, is a powerful aphrodisiac right down to labor and small businesses.
This concept says if the super rich get tax breaks, the benefits will 'trickle down' to the population below. It has never been empirically proven. Because it is false.
A companion to 'trickle down' is that when the government spends a dollar, that dollar is taken from the private sector. That it 'crowds out' money from private use.
Like 'trickle down' this too is false. Government spending 'crowds in' additional investment by the private sector. Government spending opens up additional opportunities for the private sector to make profits.
This is the circulation of the dollar. The more it is applied, the more wealth is created—public and private. This combination of investment and spending, in the aggregate, powers the nation.
Spending, on consumption or productive investment, is restrained by resources, or the lack thereof. Trying to buy that which is not for sale creates inflation. Inflation can be understood as a form of taxation.
There is another very important understanding required to competently manage a nation’s economic health: There is a distinction between the quality of spending and consumption. It is called financialization.
Definition: ‘ Financialization is a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes. Financialization transforms the functioning of economic systems at both the macro and micro levels.’
The rise of the rent seeker is degrading our economy. I will discuss this in future essays.
definition of rent seeking: the fact or practice of manipulating public policy or economic conditions as a strategy for increasing profits. "cronyism and rent-seeking have become an integral part of the way our biggest companies do business"