[sparkscoffee] Re: the US Is an Oligarchy
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Subject: Fwd: the US Is an Oligarchy
Bernie Sanders Asks Fed Chair Whether the US Is an Oligarchy .John Nichols
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Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen recently testified before Bernie Sanders.
The senator began with the facts: “In the US today, the top 1 percent own about
38 percent of the financial wealth of America. The bottom 60 percent own 2.3
percent. One family, the Walton family, is worth over $140 billion; that’s more
wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the American people. In recent years, we
have seen a huge increase in the number of millionaires and billionaires, while
we continue to have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized
world. Despite, as many of my Republican friends talk about ‘the oppressive
Obama economic policies,’ in the last year Charles and David Koch struggled
under these policies and their wealth increased by $12 billion in one year. In
terms of income, 95 percent of new income generated in this country in the last
year went to the top 1 percent.“
Sanders then introduced an academic study, by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page,
that concludes, “The central point that emerges from our research is that
economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have
substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based
interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
That sounds like an oligarchy.
So Sanders asked Yellen: “In your judgment, given the enormous power held by
the billionaire class and their political representatives, are we still a
capitalist democracy or have we gone over to an oligarchic form of society in
which incredible enormous economic and political power now rests with the
billionaire class?”
Yellen did not answer “yes.” But she did say, “There’s no question that we’ve
had a trend toward growing inequality and I personally find it a very worrisome
trend that deserves the attention of policy makers.”
She also expressed concern that trends toward growing inequality “can shape
[and] determine the ability of different groups to participate equally in a
democracy and have grave effects on social stability over time.”
Sanders asked another question, as well: “There comes a point where the
billionaire class has so much political power, where the Koch brothers are now
because of Citizens United able to buy and sell politicians; they have so much
political power, at what point is that reversible?”
The senator did not press Yellen for an answer to that question. And her
responses to inquiries about Republican proposals to cut the estate tax and
otherwise steer wealth upward suggested that the Fed chair believes Congress
has policymaking duties in this regard.
Ultimately, questions about oligarchy come back to politics, something Sanders
well understands. He’s been arguing that core question regarding the
concentration of economic and political power need to be addressed not just by
politicians but by voters—with choices made in 2014 and 2016. As he explained
recently, “[This] country faces more serious problems than at any time since
the Great Depression, and there is a horrendous lack of serious political
discourse or ideas out there that can address these crises, and that somebody
has got to represent the working-class and the middle-class of this country in
standing up to the big-money interests who have so much power over the economic
and political life of this country.”
The issues are so consequential, Sanders says, that he is thinking about
mounting a presidential campaign that would ask the American people whether
they want to live in an oligarchic form of society.
DO YOU WANT TO PICK OUR ELLECTED OFFICIALS OR HAVE THEM PICK US ?
Elizabeth Warren changes the conversation---CHECK THESE OUT !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR7XHVp9t_o
ELIZABETH WARREN IS FIGHTING FOR MAIN-STREET ! 2008 financial crisis NO
JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED - AIG - CDO - etc
Senator Elizabeth Warren·43 videos "There is nobody in this country who got
rich on his own." EXCEPT IN THE 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS !
CUT FROM THE TOP NOT MOM & POP ! WE MUST STOP THE TAX CHEATS !
HANDS OFF SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, MEDICAID ! ADD YOU NAME AND GROUP AND
FIGHT THEM !
WOW THANK YOU PUPPET BEOHNER & HOUSE REPUBLICANS " 113 DAYS IN 2014 - 3 DAYS A
WEEK " THEY SHOULD BE PUT ON UNEMPLOYMENT ! THANK GERRYMANDERING !. OVER 440
FILIBUSTERS ! SHUTDOWN .
Republicans have set the schedule "ONLY 113 DAYS IN 2014". WOW what a job.
WE LOST 428 BILLION AND THEY ACT LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED !
GERRYMANDERING IN THE HOUSE BY( LILLY WHITE) TEA / PARTY EXTREMIST is our main
Problem!
Which States, Districts Are Most Gerrymandered?
REPUBLICANS DO NOT CARE ABOUT MAIN-STREET, JOBS, SENIORS, VETERANS & THE GROWTH
OF AMERICA !
This is Class Warfare!
WE NEED TO TAKE THE HOUSE OVER FROM THE GOP.
SIGN YOUR NAME HERE --> http://dccc.org/Reject-Ryan
Outside spending in the 2012 elections
Americans for Prosperity: $112 million
American Crossroads: $104 million
Crossroads GPS: $70.9 million
3 DAYS A WEEK. We pay them by our tax dollars $175,000 "PLUS", and by the Koch
Brothers, Big Businesses and are
PAYING THEM TO DO what ever they want them to do.
Democrats actually won the generic ballot in 2012. More people voted for a
Democratic member of Congress than a Republican one in 2012, and yet there are
more Republican-held congressional seats, 234. Democrats only have 201, even
though they won a majority of the vote in 2012. We must fix our voting and
taxing system to be more fair !
GERRYMANDERING of voting districts is the KEY that enabled the following:
SHUTDOWN 28 BILLION PLUS, FILIBUSTERS 428 , least bills PASTED , killed bills
to help MAINSTREET, they protect the RICH, WALLSTREET, BIG BANKS, BIG BUSINESS
AND KILLED EVERTHING THAT WOULD HAVE HELPED THIS COUNTRY GROW AND FOR SENIORS,
VETERANS, AND JOBS. REPUBLICANS WANT TO CRUSH MAINSTREET !
Our team has put together an info graphic to make sure you know which races –
from coast to coast – we are currently planning to target and win. Click here
to view the info graphic, then share with your friends and family to let them
know just how important it is to join our team.
Please join thousands of others who will fight to reverse the impact of
Citizens United and give momentum to campaign-finance reform in 2014. Click
here.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, big
corporations, KOCH BROTHERS and OTHER special interest groups can spend
virtually unlimited amounts of money to influence elections FEDERAL & STATES.
And there’s no way for you or me to know where their money is coming from.
Corporations and Super PACs can’t vote in elections.
STOP TAX CHEATS & TAX HAVENS - UNITE - Republicans insane Tea / Party, Alec,
Koch Brothers HAVE -
Rebuild the USA - Jobs in the USA - Stop Outsourcing - Take the House Back !
Urge Congress & President Obama to crack down on corporations & wealthy that
use offshore accounts to dodge paying taxes.
We need to make sure that we close the special tax loopholes that let big
corporations dodge their taxes, and that subsidize shipping American jobs
overseas.
Most Red States Take More Money From Washington Than They Put In
Make them pay a fair share!
Click here to add your voice now to my petition calling for Citizens United to
be overturned so that we can tune out the noise and get back to the things that
matter. Your voice in our democracy is what is at stake.
Sign this petition and tell the Koch brothers to join a public debate on
climate, and then be sure to share it with your friends. Thanks Tom Steyer
KOCH BROTHERS: Possible $100 billion in tar sands profit if Keystone XL
pipeline is approved by Meteor Blades
THE KOCH BROTHERS ARE WORKING IN STATES TO KILL HEALTH CARE AND VOTING RIGHTS
!
The Koch brothers funded Americans for Prosperity is going on the air in these
two Senate contests, hitting Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu and Kay Hagan for
their support for ObamaCare. The buy is reportedly $1.7 million in North
Carolina and $500,000 in Louisianan, with an extra $100,000 each for
"grassroots and social media efforts".
The Kochs dirty secret is out in Chicago by FishOutofWater
WE NEED TO CALL OUT BUBBLE PEOPLE AT FOX AND THE KOCH BROTHERS !
KOCH BROTHERS WITH BILLIONS ARE CONTROLLING, PLANNING, BUYING MEDIA, AND STATE
& LOCAL OFFICIALS.
Take the House Back ! 14 reasons to pass immigration reform in 2014 Rebuild the
USA - Jobs in the USA - Stop Outsourcing -
a majority of Americans support reform “14 reasons to pass immigration
reform in 2014.”
Most Red States Take More Money From Washington Than They Put In
Make them pay a fair share!
Obstructionists in Congress, led by Senator Mitch McConnell, are once again
choosing the Tea Party agenda
over American families and threatening to block the momentum we've already
achieved.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, big
corporations, KOCH BROTHERS and OTHER special interest groups can spend
virtually unlimited amounts of money to influence elections FEDERAL & STATES.
And there’s no way for you or me to know where their money is coming from.
Corporations and Super PACs can’t vote in elections.
President Obama has the power to issue an executive order that can
simultaneously cut down on predatory businesses, save millions of low-income
families money, and help shore up the Post Office’s finances, thus securing
hundreds of thousands of jobs and pensions.
Do you want chicken factories inspected by the poultry companies who own
them—while feces-filled birds, doused with chemicals, zoom through the assembly
line at three per second? That could be the future, if we don’t act now.
Sign our petition to President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack—urging them to dump the “filthy chicken rule.” Click here to sign.
We know that Rick Scott has already started purging voters from the rolls,
again. That won't fly with us, and we need your help to fight back.
Can you click here to add your name to our petition and demand that Rick Scott
stop the purge?
Together, we can defeat Rick Scott. We are just going to have to go all in to
make sure we are ready for any dirty trick he may try.
Comcast, the biggest cable and Internet provider is trying to take over Time
Warner, its biggest rival. This would give Comcast a near-monopoly, and a
presence in every major media market in the country.
Sign the petition: Tell Senator McConnell to end General Electric's tax
loophole.
General Electric is one of the worst corporate tax dodgers out there. Thanks to
a few major tax loopholes.
Click here to tell the Federal Communications Commission that it needs to stop
the merger.
Add your name and demand that Scott stop suppressing the vote>>>
Sign the petition to save the Post Office and help poor families: Tell
President Obama to bring back postal banking.
Click here to immediately sign the petition and demand that Congress end the
influence of secret money by requiring public disclosure.
Click here to sign the petition by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Gov. Maggie Hassan and
the Democratic Governors Association demanding that congressional Republicans
pass the unemployment insurance extension.
Please stand with me and Democracy for America today in demanding that Congress
increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour!
SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, MEDICAID ARE NEXT ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK ! THE
REPUBLICANS INSANE,TEA / PARTY WANT TO CRUSH MAIN-STREET !
'Believe It or Not!' --- Mind blowing Facts About America's Tax-Dodging
Corporations
Bank of America committed foreclosure fraud, was bailed out by the government,
and then paid no taxes on $4.4 billion in profit!
Wells Fargo got $8 billion in tax breaks, even as executives at its subsidiary
Wachovia avoided indictment for laundering money for the Mexican drug cartels!
That's right. Wells Fargo paid a negative tax rate of -1.4 percent between 2008
and 2010 while Wachovia, a Wells Fargo subsidiary, admitted to laundering more
than $378 billion for Mexican drug gangs.
Corporate tax rates are near their 60-year low, even though profits are at a
60-year high! Need we say more?
(Source: Americans for Tax Fairness.)
According to the Government Accountability Office, a five-story building called
"Ugland House" is home to nearly twenty thousand corporations.
Ugland House's distinction pales next to that of 1209 North Orange Street in
Wilmington, Delaware. According to one investigation, that address is home to
217,000 corporations.
Inequality for All. You can see a clip of Robert Reich talking about the film
at the Daily Beast here or view the trailer here.
petition calling on Congress to extend unemployment benefits for the families
like his. Add your name to theirs today.
FROM BERNIE SANDERS
WEALTH AND INCOME INEQUALITY: A nation will not survive morally or economically
when so few have so much while so many have so little. It is simply not
acceptable that the top 1 percent owns 38 percent of the financial wealth of
the nation, while the bottom 60 percent owns all of 2.3 percent. We need to
establish a progressive tax system which asks the wealthy to start paying their
fair share of taxes, and which ends the outrageous loopholes that enable one
out of four corporations to pay nothing in federal income taxes.
JOBS: We need to make significant investments in our crumbling infrastructure,
in energy efficiency and sustainable energy, in early childhood education and
in affordable housing. When we do that, we not only improve the quality of life
in our country and combat global warming, we also create millions of decent
paying new jobs.
WAGES: We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. We should pass the
legislation which will soon be on the Senate floor which increases the federal
minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, but we must raise that
minimum wage even higher in the coming years. We also need to expand our
efforts at worker-ownership. Employees will not be sending their jobs to China
or Vietnam when they own the places in which they work.
RETIREMENT SECURITY: At a time when only one in five workers in the private
sector has a defined benefit pension plan; half of Americans have less than
$10,000 in savings; and two-thirds of seniors rely on Social Security for more
than half of their income we must expand Social Security and make sure that
every American can retire with dignity.
WALL STREET: During the financial crisis, huge Wall Street banks received more
than $700 billion in financial aid from the Treasury Department and more than
$16 trillion from the Federal Reserve because they were "too big to fail." Yet
today, the largest banks in this country are much bigger than they were before
taxpayers bailed them out. It is time to break up these behemoths before they
cause another global economic collapse.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM: We are not living in a real democracy when large
corporations and a handful of billionaire families can spend unlimited sums of
money to elect or defeat candidates. We must expand our efforts to overturn the
disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move this country to
public funding of elections.
SOCIAL JUSTICE: While we have made progress in recent years in expanding the
rights of minorities, women and gays, these advances are under constant attack
from the right wing. If the United States is to become the non-discriminatory
society we want it to be, we must fight to protect the rights of all Americans.
CIVIL LIBERTIES: Frankly, the National Security Agency (NSA) and some of the
other intelligence agencies are out of control. We cannot talk about America as
a "free country" when the government is collecting information on virtually
every phone call we make, when they are intercepting our emails and monitoring
the websites we visit. Clearly, we need to protect this country from terrorism,
but we must do it in a way that does not undermine our constitutional rights.
WAR AND PEACE: With a large deficit and an enormous amount of unmet needs, it
is absurd that the United States continues to spend almost as much on defense
as the rest of the world combined. The U.S. must be a leader in the world in
nuclear disarmament and efforts toward peace, not in the sale of weapons of
destruction.
Let me conclude by once again wishing you a happy and healthy new year -- and
by asking you to share this email with friends, family and co-workers. They
can sign-up for our occasional emails by clicking here.
This is a tough and historical moment in American history. Despair is not an
option. Let us stand together as brothers and sisters and fight for the
America our people deserve. Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely, Senator Bernie Sanders
.
We need to make sure that we close the special tax loopholes that let big
corporations dodge their taxes, and that subsidize shipping American jobs
overseas.
Other related posts:
- » [sparkscoffee] Re: the US Is an Oligarchy