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We Are the 90% (Who Don't Own Stocks)
Actually, the richest 10% don't own ALL the stocks. But they own over 80% of the stock market, while the richest 20% of Americans own 93% of our country's financial wealth.
Many of the rest of us own SOME stocks, and would certainly like to own more. But given that we don't, we would at least like to know that the happy owners of stock market wealth don't have an unfair advantage over us.
But they do. Do they ever.
Wealthy America is made wealthier by the 15% capital gains tax, which allows millionaires, as famously observed by Warren Buffett, to pay a smaller percentage in taxes than their secretaries. IRS data shows that only 19% of 2008 income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. Thanks in good part to capital gains, the richest 400 taxpayers DOUBLED their income and nearly HALVED their tax rates in just seven years (2001-2007). So dramatic is the change that anyone making more than $34,500 a year in salary and wages is taxed at a higher rate than an individual with millions in capital gains.
A particularly insidious form of capital gain is "carried interest," a name given to income by private-equity and hedge fund managers to help them avoid taxes. In just one year a single hedge fund manager made enough money to hire 100,000 new teachers while calling his $5 billion income "carried interest" so he could defer the little amount of taxes he owed.
There's yet more to the madness. The stock market has grown much faster than the GDP over the past century, which means that this special tax rate is being given to people who already own most of the unearned income that keeps expanding faster than the productiveness of real workers.
How has this bipolar system remained in place so long? The long-running explanations include the allegedly beneficial effect of a smallish tax on entrepreneurial activity and capital formation, investment in the U.S. economy, and job creation and innovation.
But the evidence shows that no relationship exists between the capital gains tax rate and investment. As noted in the Washington Post, "The top tax rate on investment income has bounced up and down over the past 80 years - from as high as 39.9 percent in 1977 to just 15 percent today - yet investment just appears to grow with the cycle, seemingly unaffected." In fact, the low rate may even have a negative effect on growth. A Congressional Research Service report states: "Capital gains tax rate increases appear to increase public saving and may have little or no effect on private saving. Consequently, capital gains tax increases likely have a positive overall impact on national saving and investment."
It does seem certain that the tiny tax rate available to a privileged few is promoting inequality. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service have concluded that the 15% rate is the largest contributor to the concentration of wealth at the top.
Yet despite all this, the delusion persists. Many political leaders feel that the capital gains tax should be ELIMINATED. As Newt Gingrich said in 1998, "If you really wanted the most wealth created over the next 20 years, you would have a zero rate for the capital gains tax, which is a tax on job creation."
It's as if the people in charge have no sense of the average American who might have a couple thousand in savings, or a few thousand in a tax-sheltered retirement account where the capital gains rate does not apply. The benefits of economic growth accrue to Congressmen and business leaders and media executives and perhaps 10 to 20 percent of Americans. Most of the others, the food service workers and health care employees and store clerks and maintenance workers who can only watch as their social programs continue to be cut, get little of the free money being choked out of a once-productive middle class.
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Show AllStockowners and holders make money by doing literally nothing.
They engage in no physically productive labor. They make mark time by occupying an office for six or more hours, but for the most part they do NOTHING.
Tapping away at a keyboard, issuing buy and sell orders is hardly equivalent to spending eight hours a day on a retail or factory floor, and certainly nothing in comparison to the hard labor of many migrant farm workers.
So why have these social parasites become the paragons of fiscal virtue?
Because "these social parasites" own the politicians and the media, thereby assuring that their propaganda is delivered to Amurkins 24/7. As long as more than 90% of Amurkin voters continue to support Democrats and Republicans nothing will change.
"only 19% of 2008 income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. "
What was the percentage of business income?
"Business income" can be distributed (IRS term) in the form of wages, salaries, dividends, shares or stock...etc.
Most wealthy folks get their business income from the most tax advantaged methods.
Keep in mind that in the US, interest earned on the bank accounts the author mentioned is taxed at the higher wage rate even though the % of interest is always lower than the rate of inflation.
"So dramatic is the change that anyone making more than $34,500 a year in salary and wages is taxed at a higher rate than an individual with millions in capital gains."
Someone has to offset the lost revenue, and it's the rest of us. Consider this: Everyone in congress makes more than that, and I am betting the majority holding elected and appointed seats have extensive capital gains.
The first thing we need to do to "offset the lost revenue" is to cut the military budget by 50% and eliminate corporate welfare but taxing capital gains as ordinary income would be a good change no matter what.
Only 50%, cut it by 75% at least. We have no real enemies, only those fabricated by neocons. If we stopped invading and overthrowing the world might actually like Amerika. Occupy should concentrate on convincing people that no Democrat or Republican should ever again be elected.
from forbes magazine 14 jan 2012:
"Six Waltons Have More Wealth Than the Bottom 30 % of Americans
Different people will take this different ways, but Jeffrey Goldberg tells us that six members of the Walton family (the original owners of WalMart) have more wealth than the bottom 30 % of Americans. Here’s where he says it:
Different people will take this different ways, but Jeffrey Goldberg tells us that six members of the Walton family (the original owners of WalMart) have more wealth than the bottom 30 % of Americans. Here’s where he says it:
In 2007, according to the labor economist Sylvia Allegretto, the six Walton family members on the Forbes 400 had a net worth equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans.
And given that he quotes us here at Forbes on the point, he’s almost certainly right.
The question is, what are we to make of this point?"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/14/six-waltons-have-more-wealth-than-the-bottom-30-of-americans/
george carlin on the "owners of amerika":
"They want obedient workers, obedient workers. People who are just
smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb
enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with
the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of
overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go
to collect it.
And now they’re coming for your social security money.
They want your fucking retirement money; they want it back so they
can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know
something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later
because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in
it! You and I are not in the Big Club. By the way, it’s the same big
club they use to beat you in the head with all day long when they tell
you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their
media telling you what to believe, what to believe, what to think and
what to buy."
then there is the credit default swap market which is pegged at around 1.5 quadrillion dollars
"Interview with LEAP Executive Director Neill Franklin
Popping the Quadrillion-Dollar Derivatives Bubble: Not If, But When
July 13, 2011
By Tom Burnett
Europe has belatedly grasped that huge Credit Default Swaps are being sold to hedge short positions that cannot be filled. There is a run-up of precious metal, but it cannot continue because all that metal is going to be dumped to cover the enormous margin calls which, because of long hedges, cannot be met either.
So…..there is an OTC exposure for a quadrillion dollars worth of derivatives — of which several hundred trillion can be covered but, at some point, people will simply stop covering their billion dollar debts — because the paper they are hedging is no good anymore."
http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/07/popping-the-1-quadrillion-derivatives-bubble-not-if-but-when/
"Quadrillion may mean either of the two numbers (see long and short scales for more detail):
1,000,000,000,000,000 (one thousand million million; 1015; SI prefix peta-) – for all short scale countries; increasingly common meaning in English language usage
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (one million million million million; 1024; SI prefix: yotta-) – for all long scale countries; increasingly rare meaning in English language usage"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrillion
the cds market is unregulated and undisclosed so we don't have any idea how big it is - the 1.5 quadrillion is a low ball number
so while we the sheeple play around and budget 50 bucks for this week's food, our masters play around with numbers that look like this 1,000,000,000,000,000
which is as noted one thousand million million
is something wrong with this picture??????????????????
"so while we the sheeple play around and budget 50 bucks for this week's food, our masters play around with numbers that look like this 1,000,000,000,000,000"
They don't really have the money to cover that amount, so it all may simply implode. The real struggle then will be to prevent the various governments from confiscating everything else in a vain effort to bail out those bettors at our expense, as they've been doing since at least 2008. That means NO bank bailouts, among other things, which will raise a cry from the "experts" (including Liberals) about how that will "wreck the world economy". Yes it will, but the economy for all of us has been wrecked for years. We need a new economy, not bailouts for the old one ...
Sounds simple until you realize that the bailout recipients own the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, a fact that continues to be ignored by more than 90% of US voters.
The US Government's own general Accounting Office (GAO) has confirmed that US taxpayers are on the hook for $16 trillion in bankster bailouts.
"Sounds simple until you realize that the bailout recipients own the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, a fact that continues to be ignored by more than 90% of US voters."
I don't think the voters ignore this, but they don't see what they can do about it. In 2008, over 90% of the calls to Congress opposed the bank bailouts. Congress passed them anyway when Bernanke and Paulson gave them an ultimatum. It's worth noting that even Paul Krugman backed a form of bailouts, although he wanted the biggest banks nationalized at least. Currently, he supports the ECB printing money to bail out the European banks in their current crisis. Even Liberals can't seem to see past patching and bailing out the current system, at the expense of the masses ...
This Common Dreams treatise clearly describes the very reason why we no longer live in a democracy. The President as well as over half of the members of the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the House are all millionaires and they are the only ones making the rules by which our country is governed.
Not only that, a person cannot even run for the Presidency or the Congress in the United States unless he/she has millions behind him/her to engage in a lengthy campaign.
Now is this in any way, shape, or form a valid description of a "democracy"?????
Not, in any way, shape, or form - it is a perfect description of a Plutocracy - rule by the wealthy.
And since no one can run for the Presidency or the Senate or the House without millions to back his/her campaign, it reserves these offices to none but the very wealthy ad infinitum.
America can no longer be called a Democracy in any sense of the word. To call it such is a sadistic joke!!!!! Which millionaires club are you going to vote for this year??? No matter, the result will be the same!!!
Why even vote????? We are nothing but the cattle!!!!!
"America can no longer be called a Democracy in any sense of the word."
That was actually true years before the plutocracy became so obvious. The inner clique simply used bullets to assassinate opponents rather than dollars to bury them. Basically, we're an empire, like Rome. In the end, the rich simply bought the Roman government, and ruled as emperors, after they'd fought each other for decades during the death of the republic. Sound familiar?
The idea of a voter's strike might have some value. If turnout in an election could be held below 10% as an explicit protest, it would at least be news, although it probably wouldn't change anything by itself ...
"if you wanted the most wealth created...you would have a zero rate for the capital gains tax..."
What amazes me is that people still say this/believe this/pretend to believe it.
They beLIEve it because in one sense it is true. It's just that all the new wealth created goes to the already wealthy.
Too true, but do most people get that?
Zero percent interest policy (ZIRP) for years to come via FOMC meeting announcement means that if you are lucky enough to have a bit of savings, you are LOSING money in real terms.
Even if you take CPI, it does not take a PhD in Econ to figure out that savers are losing money in real terms. Interest rate less CPI. If inflation were measured as it was 30 years ago it would likely be around 9% (See John Williams Shadowstats.com). That means millions of retired folks living on a fixed income are not only getting their SS cut (through COLA freezes) their savings is being stolen through back door
One intention of ZIRP is to force people into the market and thus subsidize Wall St. gamblers. If the banksters lose a bet, the Fed will bail them out.
As medmedude points out below, the "Shadow Banking System" ( a term apparently coined by Gordon Brown) is unregulated and the off-balance sheet liabilities exceed the total GDP of the world! (so-called derivatives)
One thing is clear: the current intl. financial/currency/balance of payments systems are un-sustainable and another crisis is coming. The Fed and ECB have only been "kicking the can down the road" and delaying the inevitable.
They should have listened to folks like Dr. Michael Hudson and Prof. Steve Keen who predicted all this and have solutions. But no, we only see these guys on non-US outlets.
Good post, Socialist.
Yesterday, my AOL browser (go ahead and laugh, I never said I was computer savvy) featured an article on the Huffington Post that spoke of the NEXT collapse. That means this understanding is reaching a lot of centrist readers. It mentioned the instability in Europe and what Japan is facing insofar as real estate losses, and others directly pertaining to their economy as a result of Fukushima. This was the FIRST time I saw any central media attempt to connect those dots.
MED's figures on the phantom economy, the world of "Finance" that's decoupled itself from any measures or metrics of realistic economics, is what is measured on the Stock Exchange. It blew my mind to notice the market going UP when one dangerous, diastrous, and EXPENSIVE ecological calamity followed another. It was like something out of The Twilight Zone: that rather than measure the TRUE cost of the evident massive losses in our global midst, stocks became a runaway train just tallying up their own FALSE bases for the measurements of financial growth.
It IS insane. In fact, the guy that CNBC used to feature with news on the Stock Market is named Ron Insano...
Like Goldman Sachs the nation
Like Eric, the place Holder
Like Dick Armey
I could go on... it's true that names often DO tell a story.
Santorum/sanitarium... anyone?
"Like Goldman Sachs the nation
Like Eric, the place Holder
Like Dick Armey
I could go on... it's true that names often DO tell a story.
Santorum/sanitarium... anyone?"
Cheers SR! That was funny. Much needed laughter
"the richest 20% of Americans own 93% of our country's financial wealth"
It's important to know that, because so many people so easily fall into the elites' greed trap. But most certainly, when we manage to escape that trap, we find out what REAL wealth is. Our own self-determination, rights to own the means of production, knowledge, wisdom, community, and security. And by the way, most of that Merkan "financial wealth" is vaporware. Heh heh! Fraud of the ages! Munny-changers! Losers!
"Many of the rest of us own SOME stocks, and would certainly like to own more."
I think that's a losing proposition. The news of today is very exciting, a real awakening, and it refutes, absolutely, the whole idea of that stock market thing. Many more people today agree, and many, many more are learning, with eager anticipation, that the stock market, and the real estate market, and MOST other "markets", like "intellectual property", created in Merka, are dead-end rackets, that can be safely abandoned.
We always wondered whether these things were on solid ground, or not. We now know they are not. Stock markets detach people from people, in a sort of anti-community. This leads to all sorts of anti-social behavior, most prominently, the destruction of small businesses, and the concentration of power in fewer hands. And stock markets promote speculation, which accomplishes nothing of value, but rather further destroys community, by pitting people against each other in a stupid, destructive casino game.
Those other rackets, real estate, et al, have different mechanisms but similar results. The people are learning to build their local economies which keep the political power at home where it belongs, maximizes the potential for human fulfillment, and minimizes destruction of the biosphere.
There is absolutely no role for mechanisms of power concentration. We don't NEED power concentration, concentrated initiative, mass production. Industrialization over the past two hundred years has already brought an abundance of knowledge, tools and techniques to make our lives more convenient. Today, our challenge is not to create more of that, but rather to sort through what we got, purge the junk, and learn how to apply what's left more thoughtfully, in our quest to work WITH nature, instead of against nature, including human nature.
I guess we are standing on terra firma, here on the political far left, with our Agenda for the People. I think many more people are taking a walk on the far left side. The light is shining in a new place today, and this will be permanent.
Time for Change
Does our country need an election system financed by conflicts of interests
aka corporate special interest campaign money? Absolutely not!
Citizens need new system systems such as:
*Fair Vote America : http://www.fairvote.org/irv/
*Public financing of campaigns: http://www.publicampaign.org/
Of course voters will need to demand a change on the ballot. Current
elected officials simply lack the spine to make the change.
Special interest money does influence votes and the chase pulls elected officials away from their jobs. They were not elected to spend 6-8 hours a day in search
of campaign finance. In fact how do they justify such activity?
We need public financing of campaigns for local,state and national elections. Citizens cannot afford special interest money campaigns for it is the citizens that get left out.
Who would campaign against this smart and practical concept? The special interest money providers plus their bought and paid for politicians!
Now if this concept could only get the attention of the media perhaps nationwide discussion might commence.
I contend were it not for big time special interest money that this nation would have:
* Improved Medicare Insurance for ALL
* A vibrant “ green collar” industry that could not be outsourced
* Fewer new roads
* well maintained existing road ways
* yet a more developed rail and bus commuter system which would be the better bang for the tax buck
* Much better managed economies at the local,state and national levels based on strict guidelines rather than back door special interest politics.
"Many of the rest of us own SOME stocks, and would certainly like to own more."
Isn't gambling a sin?
If the 99% decided to boycott shopping for 7 days it would be noticed in a big way.
If the 99% quit buying gasoline for 7 days it would be noticed in a big way
If the 99% quit eating out for 7 days it would be noticed in a big way.
If the 99% quit buying cars for 7 days it would be noticed in a big way
If the 99% cancelled their bank accounts in big name banks it would be realized in a great big way. Move your money:
Move Your Money - To local institutions and do your community a large favor.
A database to assist those wishing to move their money out of big banks that took taxpayer money and used it to pay themselves large bonuses:
http://moveyourmoneyproject.org/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/move-your-money-a-new-yea_b_406022.html
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/4/move_your_money_project_urges_people
If the 99% accomplished all of the above Wall Street would dive faster than a speeding bullet.
The 99% would be realized once again = we must stick together forever!
The 90% don't own, they are owned.
A silly and turgid essay from a silly person.
Corporations are as communistic as one can get: anyone - irrespective of race, creed, or gender - can enter and enter at the same price.
In Japan, even the Yakusa knows this. For the most part (NOT completely), the Yakusa replaced street violence with tantrums in the stockholders' meetings: they gained much more from said meetings than from the street.
Contrary to the silly author, the poor can have a foothold in the corporate executive suite. Like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Michael Savage will ask: "Do you wear Nike shoes?", "Do you go to McDonalds'?", "Do you have a car?", "Do you have an iPhone and how much do you pay monthly?" The point is, no matter how poor you are (and for 99.9% of the time, there is plenty of Government (and religious charities) programs), one can save a few dollars a month. 100 bottom-poor people can pool and buy 100 shares of a corporate stock (not Warren Buffet's!!! each of his stock costs more than 200,000 dollars). Often newspaper relate stories of some washer-woman who died and left half-million to a million dollars to some local college. It is not rare to have a neighbor who is frugal, living a simple life, and is a millionaire several times over.
So the main question: Is the culture in which the bottom-poor live is conducive to savings and good husbandry of resources? Answer: unfortunately NO, primarily because of the Progressive/Socialist indoctrination (for more than 50 years) of the poor in the politics of Envy, Jealousy, Resentment, and Hate.
Question: Which habits/culture do you want to use: that of the poor or that of the rich? Smart people choose that of the rich. By rich, I mean those whose origins is from the poor-to-middle class. Steve Jobs was definitely from the middle-class while Obama has always lived in privileged environment.
I was born and raised in a 3rd world country. I observed minority immigrants (Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, even Caucasians (Germans after WW2)) arriving with a fistful of coins and doing pretty well commercially and industrially without gaining any political power.
Here in the US, it is a tragedy that the African-American community dropped the can-do philosophy of Washington Carver ("It is better to say 'I is rich' than 'I am poor'") and adopted the politic method of envy, resentment, and hate of W.E. Dubois.
“Corporations are as communistic as one can get: anyone - irrespective of race, creed, or gender - can enter and enter at the same price.”
You mean the price per share? Sure, but not everyone controls the same number of shares. Certainly you don’t wield the same amount of influence as someone from the Walton Family just by holding a few shares of Wal-Mart.
“…the Yakusa replaced street violence with tantrums in the stockholders' meetings…”
The Yakuza tend to disrupt shareholders’ meetings, which they get to attend when they buy shares in the company, with implicit threats of violence. There’s usually no need to throw tantrums.
“Contrary to the silly author, the poor can have a foothold in the corporate executive suite. Like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Michael Savage will ask: ‘Do you wear Nike shoes?’, ‘Do you go to McDonalds'?’, ‘Do you have a car?’, ‘Do you have an iPhone and how much do you pay monthly?’”
Just wearing Nikes, eating at McDonald’s, driving a car, and using an iPhone gives you a foothold in the corporate executive suite? Then I suppose you’re firmly ensconced in that corner office already.
“100 bottom-poor people can pool and buy 100 shares of a corporate stock…”
That averages out to one share per poor person.
“Is the culture in which the bottom-poor live is conducive to savings and good husbandry of resources? Answer: unfortunately NO, primarily because of the Progressive/Socialist indoctrination (for more than 50 years) of the poor in the politics of Envy, Jealousy, Resentment, and Hate.”
So how can the poor have the means to accumulate the money to buy those aforementioned 100 shares of stock if they’re apparently so busy envying and resenting those who have it?
“Which habits/culture do you want to use: that of the poor or that of the rich? Smart people choose that of the rich. By rich, I mean those whose origins is from the poor-to-middle class.”
Interesting that you left out the easiest way to become rich, which is to have the right set of parents.
“I observed minority immigrants (Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, even Caucasians (Germans after WW2)) arriving with a fistful of coins and doing pretty well commercially and industrially without gaining any political power.”
I bet I’ve seen a lot more immigrants (and native-born folks) whose toil has made their bosses rich (or richer) while they continue to struggle to make ends meet.
“…it is a tragedy that the African-American community dropped the can-do philosophy of Washington Carver (‘It is better to say “I is rich” than “I am poor”’) and adopted the politic method of envy, resentment, and hate of W.E. Dubois.”
Are you referring to George Washington Carver? If so, I believe he had a list of virtues he lived by, among them: 1) neither looking up to the rich nor down on the poor and 2) taking one’s share of the world and letting others have theirs. Du Bois probably would have concurred.
There are some very interesting comments here. Many seem to support the contention that the stock market is gambling, and wealth built upon speculation is fleeting: here today, gone the next.
A good start at a fix would be to support a tax on the sale/transfer of stocks.
Call your congressional representatives who, while they are busy representing themselves and their moneyed class, will notice the attention.
The author comes perilously close to indicting those of us squarely in the 99%, but who are closer to the top, by casting aspersions on the owning of stock. That owning in itself is not bad, and by casting it in said light, is he not attempting to drive a wedge between us at somewhere around the 80% level?
This is a republican tactic.
I want to own more stock than I do, but to be able to capitalize on the long term value, not to take my money back out after the firm in which I invested has had a whopping 10.2 hours to use my "investment" before I take it out to realize a personal (fractional) gain. This is crap!
Tax that gain at a higher rate than personal income, precisely because the big players in the stock market do not "work" for their money.
The 1% ers could not be enriching themselves among themselves. It is when the 99% commons are placing their money, savings and investments at their disposal that when they are able to skim it off and move it to secret offshore banks.
If we all look at the history of the dot com bust and housing market bust, it is only when everyone, joe and his brother, jane and her sister moved their decades worth of hard earned savings into the russian roulette gamble called the stock market or the housing market that they lost their shirts and whetever else.
Tomorrow there will be an IPO of a faceless, productless company called Face Book. Again, the wall street and media a cooking up an investment frenzy, toutin g this as the next best thing since man invented wheel. What does Face Books sell - your personal and data and my personal data to other corporations. Instead of questioning and castigating this practice, everyone wants a piece of the kill when it goes for the IPO. I do not know the offering price of this IPO, but speculation is rife that it will skyrocket 20 times right after the offer. Guess who will be the biggest losers when this speculative bubble busts within the next year - it is us the commons, the greedy bunch who wanted something for nothing. The execs of FB, the big hedge/private investment funds in the wall street, the billionaire investors already have positions in FB even before the IPO - to the point that the overvaluation is already consumed. So, it is the average investors, pension funders, 401k funds that will buy this piece of FB junk at the overprice.
Think back the housing market. Yes, the wall street and big bank scum have engineered the sub prime housing market. But, who rushed head long into this madness called housing bubble? Every joe and jane took a half a million worth of housing loan, not considering how they will repay it or whether their purchases were worth the money. Buy, fixup, resell, pocket difference - this game worked for some. Again, when the music stopped after a year, every one and their brother were left holding a bomb in their loins.
Point is - the 1% could not have played their game all by themselves, without the willful sucking up of the 99%. Greed is greed folks - only a tiny minority can profit by greed. When it becomes a majority phenomenon, it does not reward any one.
I am reminded of Nicholas Cage's movie "Match Stick Men", where the protagonist (Cage) is a small time con man - the kind who steals credit card IDs from the old and the infirm. He is asked about the moral justification for what does by another character. He says something like "It is easy to cheat the greedy - people who are after something for nothing". Among the hundreds of the movies I might have seen, this one clip resonates in my mind all the time. People are swindled only with their willingness to be swindled, by subscribing to collective greed. There can not be any more flagrant testimonies to this fact other than the dot-com bust and the housing bust.
Even now it is not late to stop the madness. If we all believe that the Wall Street and big banks have cheated us, let us please pull our savings out of them. They go boom-bust every 7 years, leaving us with less than we had saved, any way.
No where was there mention of foreign ownership of a lot of companies here, hotel chains, Burger king, etc. What a scam to say Americans own all of it. Makes this guy's article a complete lie as it is missing a gigantic element.
The whole set of parasitic money bloodsuckers have no concern for anyone but their own necks. I think that French guy had a good plan for that.
Oh, ya, there's those financial planners out there who sell stocks to unsuspecting wannaberichies to make them feel as if they have a peice of the pie. What a pathetic joke on them. They are just funding someone's paycheck, barely, while they might clear 2%, but face devastation when it comes crashing down.