How Wall Street and Washington broke faith with working families. Household incomes fell and the number of Americans in poverty surged last year as the stubborn hangover from the Great Recession lingered. The 2010 statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau offered a grim picture of working class America: The real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, down by 6.4 percent since 2007.The ranks of the poor swelled by 2.6 million Americans, as the poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, its highest level since 1993.And some 900,000 more Americans were without health insurance, pushing the total close to 50 million.
The number of men working full time, year-round has dropped by 6.6 million since 2007. Some 6 million young adults, aged 25 to 34, are living with their parents, rather than launching independent lives. The poverty rate for children jumped to 22 percent. The Census figures, which cover the first full calendar year after the recession, were released as the Center for Public Integrity embarks on a new election-year project. Are We Witnessing the Shock Doctrine in Effect? Nancy Pelosi CNN Breaking News Bailout Bill. Econ 101: September 30, 2011. How The European Rot Spread To Wall Street. Detroit Publishing Co. Lower Manhattan 1904"New York Stock Exchange, Wall and Broad Streets" Ilargi: There were mass protests in Portugal today. The country has been largely left outside of the international media recently, but the people in Lisbon still hurt.
Austerity raises electricity and gas prices at the same time that jobs are lost en masse. No-one in southern Europe bats a surprised eye at this anymore. It's become a way of life. Both the new-found poverty and the rising protests. Time for Protest 2.0. 1000’s of deaths later, there's precious little democracy, and countries like Portugal are set for the next wave of banners in the streets (along with who knows how many others along the Mediterranean and beyond). And now there's Wall Street. Hence, Morgan Stanley was down over 10% on Friday. It’s not like you can ringfence Greece, or its banks. And so the vigilantes are licking their chops and waiting for Monday.
Morgan Stanley is not a commercial bank. Morgan Stanley Takes Hits. Senate To Vote On China Currency Legislation Tomorrow. The U.S. Senate will vote on a China currency bill tomorrow, according to a White House press briefing. The bill even got precedence over President Obama's $447 billion jobs act. The bill aimed at hitting back at China for manipulating its currency, would impose tariffs on Chinese imports and allow for easier investigations into currency manipulation. China officially de-pegged from the U.S. dollar back in June but the yuan has appreciated only 10% against the dollar since, a pace not quick enough for many American officials.
U.S. senator Charles Schumer (via The Wall Street Journal) said New York state alone has lost 160,000 jobs to China since 2001. In his New York Times blog, Paul Krugman wrote that Chinese currency manipulation has a huge impact on U.S. manufacturing. Not everyone is in favor of the legislation though. about 51 U.S. industry groups have ramped up efforts to block the bill, according to AFP. "We share the goal of achieving further appreciation of China’s currency.
Follow the Money: Behind Europe’s Debt Crisis Lurks Another Giant Bailout of Wall Street. Today Ben Bernanke added his voice to those who are worried about Europe’s debt crisis. But why exactly should America be so concerned? Yes, we export to Europe – but those exports aren’t going to dry up. And in any event, they’re tiny compared to the size of the U.S. economy.
If you want the real reason, follow the money. A Greek (or Irish or Spanish or Italian or Portugese) default would have roughly the same effect on our financial system as the implosion of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Financial chaos. Investors are already getting the scent. The Street has lent only about $7 billion to Greece, as of the end of last year, according to the Bank for International Settlements. But a default by Greece or any other of Europe’s debt-burdened nations could easily pummel German and French banks, which have lent Greece (and the other wobbly European countries) far more. That’s where Wall Street comes in. The Street’s total exposure to the euro zone totals about $2.7 trillion. Get it? Full circle. Are Lawmakers Listening? The Consumer Watchdog Vote Will Tell. The scene in lower Manhattan yesterday evening was remarkable.
A broad swath of union locals and community organizations brought out their members. Students from colleges around the country walked out to join them. Workers from offices and retail outlets in the area spilled out into the crowd. The result was thousands of people—one count put it at 15,000—from all walks of life making one clear point to the world: it’s time to build an economy that works for everybody, not just for the super rich. The inspiring scene is being repeated in big and small ways around the country, as many movements converge around this simple idea. The scene yesterday was also reminiscent.
It looked refreshingly like the early moments of what became a global mobilization to stop Western powers from launching a war in our names. And to be clear, there are quite specific measures of whether our representatives are listening. Why is this crucial? Buck Up, America: China Is Getting Too Expensive. New York State News on the Net! WASHINGTON – Citing census data she says show more than 700,000 New Yorkers living in poverty, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, called for more federal funding for the nation’s food stamp and emergency food programs to aid impoverished New York families and underserved communities. For many families trying to survive on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits or monthly food stamps, their benefits only last until the third week of the month while many soup kitchens and food pantries continue to experience chronic food shortages.
Gillibrand proposed an increase in SNAP benefits levels under the 2012 Farm Bill’s Nutrition title, increasing monthly assistance for a family of four by an estimated $144 and also pushed for more emergency aid for food banks running out of meals for hungry children and communities. The Census Bureau also showed that SNAP has lifted 3.9 Million Americans above the poverty line.
Capitalism and Poverty | Truthout. The US Census Bureau recently reported what most Americans already knew. Poverty is deepening. The gap between rich and poor is growing. Slippage soon into the ranks of the poor now confronts tens of millions of Americans who long thought of themselves as securely "middle class. " The reality is worse than the Census Bureau reports. Consider that the Bureau's poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,314. Families of four making more than that were not counted as poor. So the real number of US citizens living in poverty -- more reasonably defined -- is much larger today than the 46.2 million reported by the Census Bureau. Another one in four is or should be worried about joining them soon. Deepening poverty has multiple causes, but the capitalist economic system is major among them. Poverty is one result of this capitalist type of enterprise organization. Another major corporate goal is to control politics. If the workers made those decisions, here are some likely results.
Banks turn to demolition of foreclosed properties to ease housing-market pressures. The banks have even been footing the bill for the demolitions — as much as $7,500 a pop. Four years into the housing crisis, the ongoing expense of upkeep and taxes, along with costly code violations and the price of marketing the properties, has saddled banks with a heavy burden. It often has become cheaper to knock down decaying homes no one wants. The demolitions in some cases have paved the way for community gardens, church additions and parking lots. Even when the result is an empty lot, it can be one less pockmark. T he task of plowing under the homes rests with the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., which grew out of a 2009 state law aimed at creating “land banks” with the power and money to acquire unwanted properties and put them to better use — or at least put them out of their misery.
The efforts have led other states to pursue similar laws to deal with their own foreclosure epidemics. “Two years ago, when we started . . . it was difficult,” he said. WHOOPS: Consumer Confidence Tanks Badly And Misses Expectations. The Failure to Investigate 9/11 Has Bankrupted America. Preface: This post does not discuss whether or not 9/11 was a “false flag” operation or an “inside job”. Anything other than a discussion of the negligence of the Bush administration is unnecessary for the purposes of this essay, and is thus beyond the scope of this post. In case you didn’t get the memo, we are currently in a depression. And see this And given that American citizens can be indefinitely detained or assassinated at the whim of the president, it is pretty clear that we now live in a police state.
This post will demonstrate – without getting into discussions of an “inside job” one way or the other – that the failure to hold a real 9/11 investigation is a core cause of our loss of our prosperity and freedom. The Failure to Investigate 9/11 Has Bankrupted America Top economists say that endless war bankrupts a nation. For example, Nobel prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz says that the $3-5 trillion spent on the Iraq war alone has been very bad for the American economy. The Real Size of the Bailout. The Big Banks Falter. US Consumer Taps Out: Personal Savings Rate Drops To Lowest Since December 2009. The August Personal Income and Spending report is out and while there were some modest surprises in the data, namely a drop in Personal Income of -0.1%, on expectations of an increase of 0.1% (and an adverse revision for July data from 0.3% to 0.1%) - the first drop in two years, while Personal Spending was in line with expectations at 0.2% (previous revised from 0.8% to 0.7%), the biggest news of the day is that the US consumer is getting tapped out, with spending coming entirely from savings: the savings rate dropped from a revised 4.8% (previously 5.0%), to 4.5%, the lowest since December 2009.
August income components are not pretty, in fact they were pretty damn ugly: Private wage and salary disbursements decreased $12.2 billion in August, in contrast to an increase of $23.8 billion in July. Rental income of persons increased $8.3 billion in August, compared with an increase of $8.1 billion in July. And Goldman's take: Weak Income and Spending MAIN POINTS:1. 2. 3.