Welcome to America, Inc.

So what was all the hang up over the buget? Why the big scare about a government shut down? They were trying to figure out best how to stick it to the poor and middle class while giving even BIGGER tax cuts to the wealthiest . Austerity measures have begun to rear their ugly heads, and since we are cutting revenues even more sharply with the huge tax cuts for the rich, expect more to come.

www.nytimes.com...

The House budget proposal that was unveiled last week — and was praised as “bold” and “serious” by all of Washington’s Very Serious People — includes savage cuts in Medicaid and other programs that help the neediest, which would among other things deprive 34 million Americans of health insurance. It includes a plan to privatize and defund Medicare that would leave many if not most seniors unable to afford health care. And it includes a plan to sharply cut taxes on corporations and to bring the tax rate on high earners down to its lowest level since 1931.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center puts the revenue loss from these tax cuts at $2.9 trillion over the next decade.

The new tax cuts alone are obscene since Wall Street posted 17% increases in profits this year.

www.economist.com...

The current profit-reporting season is shaping up to be one of the best ever. For non-financial firms in the S&P 500, earnings per share are now higher than they have been for at least a decade. With over half of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported, profits in 2010 were up by 17% compared with 2009. (The year-on-year increase is far greater if financial firms are included, since they plunged in 2009 and then rebounded spectacularly.)

And the wealthiest Americans just keep getting richer.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

The richest Americans got even richer this year, according to the new Forbes 400 list, even as the country's total net worth tanked during the second quarter.

The top 400, all of whom are worth at least $1 billion, saw their combined wealth increase 8 percent this year, to the dizzying total of $1.37 trillion, according to analysis from CNN.

Meanwhile, according to data released last week by the Federal Reserve, the net worth of American households and non-profits in the second quarter of this year plunged 2.8 percent, or $1.52 trillion, from the previous quarter, to settle at $53.5 trillion.

And if you look at the numbers you notice the money coming out of the pockets of the majority of Americans, is being transferred directly to those who are richest. Wait till you see where that 2.9 TRILLION dollar new tax cut is going to come from. I will give you ONE guess.

Welcome to America incorporated. Im actually stunned at how quickly this has progressed since the Supreme Court passed Citizens United vs FEC. I knew that ruling was the death knell of democracy, but I didnt honestly expect it to go this quickly.

I love how you named this post America INC.

Suiting

F&S

Yes America is a corporation and not a country.

Grander

Just how big does the magnifying glass have to be? How simple the equation. Geeessh I hate asking those two questions over and over and over.

When the conspiracy is so blatantly obvious as you present it above, one can only comprehend it by considering complementary conspiracies and it's on your mark, get set, go. Once we can see that black is so clearly black to some and so clearly white to others, I at least, can only look at myself and wonder just how my comprehension of reality might have gone so far askew. But just how big can the mote in MY eye be. I mean come on folks. Oh man, did I just rant there a bit? Oh well.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


I wonder if TPTB are sitting back in disbelief?

They have pushed and pushed the working class harder and harder, yet they refuse to fight back..
The middle class is being blatantly robbed of more and more yet they do nothing..

It's basically 300 destroying the lives of 300 million..
The odds are in our favor and yet still we watch TV..

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

It's a sad, but very common development on a global scale, not just in America. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is vanishing slowly but surely.

A few very wealthy individuals have a higher influence on the politics as the non-wealthy masses, because they have the money so they have the influence and therefore the politicians will represent their specific interests.

Sometimes I have the feeling that there are some 1000 huge families all around the world that simply enjoy nothing else than collecting as much money as possible - even if that means that others have to suffer on a large scale from their passion. Who cares as long as the bank statement shows positive climaxes each year, right?

These obscene profits come from more than just tax cuts. The typical American worker has been pushed to the limit, often being given the responsibilities of recently-fired co-workers. I have seen this many times and nearly everyone I know who works for corporate America has been nearly worked to death. OF course this only applies to production areas and not upper management who slough off their duties on underlings to carry more of the load.

“Around 90% of the productivity growth in corporate America has come from cost-cutting, and that is now reaching its limit,” says Carsten Stendevad of Citigroup’s corporate-advisory arm. Scared for their jobs during the crisis, employees toiled more for no more money; but they cannot be whipped much harder.

Toiled more for no more money and money that is worth less than it was at that!
Nearly everyone I know is falling further and further behind and not because they stretched their credit to the max either. Just simply paying your monthly bills has become more and more difficult due to increased fuel, food, utilities and insurance costs.

Meanwhile the fat cats congratulate each other on a job well done (that somebody else did for them!)

Well, Yuri Bezmenov did say that the biggest obstacle they have in destroying America is the middle class. So things will only get worse and Obama is just going along with the plan to finish the middle class off. 50% of the US labor force work for small business.

Obama's "corporate written health-care reform bill" makes a change in the tax law governing 1099's that is going to be a major pain for every single businesses and it will force many small businesses to close their doors. It will basically make it impossible to even start a small business.

This is just another part of the Master plan.

I remember hearing Donald Trump say something about his wealthy friends.

He said that the government is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the wealthy. They need both the "people" and the wealthy families to be kept happy.

He said that if the wealthy families aren't kept happy enough, they'll just leave. I can't imagine it would be good for the country if the Microsofts of America just moved all their offices to China.

Seems USAID has teamed up with Walmart to create a supply chain from South America to Walmart. I guess Walmart does not have enough money to supply themselves with products they have to get subsidized by the USAID or US tax payers. There not doing this in one country but several in South America.

www.usaid.gov...

The USAID-Walmart regional agreement builds on experience gained from previous collaborations in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. One of the lessons learned is that formal relationships between the suppliers and the corporate buyers provide the long-term perspective necessary to ensure the sustainability of the program. Another is that small farmers benefit greatly when buyers explain their quality and quantity standards and share their production calendars.

So is Hillary working for Walmart again. She runs USAID. She was the attorney for Walmart when they first started in business. Now shes the money paying for there next cheap product.

www.devex.com...

The U.S. Agency for International Development and Walmart, a U.S. multinational retailer, have agreed to jointly support small rural farmers in Central America under a partnership that aims to connect them with the company’s regional and international supply chains.

The three-year partnership links USAID’s Feed the Future and Walmart’s Global Sustainable Agriculture Goals, which focuses on supporting farmers and their communities, sustainably sourcing agricultural products and producing more food with less waste.

Actitivites conducted under the partnership will be jointly funded by USAID, Walmart, Walmart Foundation, Central American governments, non-governmental organizations and other private sector partners.

So all this money that USAID gives to farmers is only for farms who sale to Walmart. Why not any other stores?

Heres some information on her Walmart days.
www.nytimes.com...

In 1986, Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, had a problem. He was under growing pressure from shareholders — and his wife, Helen — to appoint a woman to the company’s 15-member board of directors.

So Mr. Walton turned to a young lawyer who just happened to be married to the governor of Arkansas, where Wal-Mart is based: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton’s six-year tenure as a director of Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest company, remains a little known chapter in her closely scrutinized career. And it is little known for a reason. Mrs. Clinton rarely, if ever, discusses it, leaving her board membership out of her speeches and off her campaign Web site.

Fellow board members and company executives, who have not spoken publicly about her role at Wal-Mart, say Mrs. Clinton used her position to champion personal causes, like the need for more women in management and a comprehensive environmental program, despite being Wal-Mart’s only female director, the youngest and arguably the least experienced in business. On other topics, like Wal-Mart’s vehement anti-unionism, for example, she was largely silent, they said.

Her years on the Wal-Mart board, from 1986 to 1992

So even as they fight over what to take from US citizens and have a government shut down USAID still found a way to make a new deal to give away money to a country you might have never heard of.

www.ghanaweb.com...

Speaking at the signing ceremony, the Head of Development Cooperation of DANIDA, Mr. Jan Poulsen, said establishment of BUSAC Fund was based on the belief that when private businesses in Ghana flourish, many people would get decent jobs and would help many families to move out of poverty.

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
These obscene profits come from more than just tax cuts. The typical American worker has been pushed to the limit, often being given the responsibilities of recently-fired co-workers. I have seen this many times and nearly everyone I know who works for corporate America has been nearly worked to death.

Absolutely. From that same Economist article,

www.economist.com...

Scared for their jobs during the crisis, employees toiled more for no more money; but they cannot be whipped much harder. To increase profits still further, firms need to increase sales far more than most analysts think they will, reckons Mr Stendevad.

Squeezing the lemon

Others disagree. “There is a lot more juice to be squeezed out of the lemon,” insists Hal Sirkin of BCG, a consultancy. Firms brag about having introduced “lean systems”, but most have done only “10-25% of what they could do”, says Mr Sirkin.

We pretend it is "conspiracy theory" that there is a plan to squeeze more and more blood out of the American people, but its really not theory. Its fact. And the corporate elite are not really hiding it, they just dont propagandize it via the channels through which most people get their information.

Expect more "lemon squeezing" in America.

The backs of Unions are not being broken in a final and complete way for nothing. They are being crushed into the dirt to restore the "glory days" of industry when people worked slavish hours for a pittance, and could do absolutely nothing about it. Expect that. Americans are being propagandized that Union workers are greedy horrible people wanting to get ahead at the expense of their fellow American, but they are one of the final straws keeping wages from dropping to second and third world levels in North America.

The truth is, the greedy horrible people are the ones convincing you that asking for a wage you can live on and good working conditions is greedy and horrible.

reply to post by Mayson


Ufortunately, by allowing our politicians to use our tax dollars, and our military to create "stability" in many parts of the world, we have created the conditions where the wealthy can "just leave."

We have been and still are, in essence, enabling them to abandon us. And we have been paying with OUR taxes, that should have been used to make America better, to make the third world a better place to move your business and exploit the cheap labor.

The problem with most people is they dont think more than one move ahead. Its not that they lack intelligence, per se, its that they dont or cant plot out the implications of those moves several moves into the future. All along, we have been paying, working and fighting, for our own destruction as a nation.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


You are correct, but brace yourself for the onslaught. People will question anything but what they should question most, here. You're about to get a faceful of confirmation of exactly why what you have said is tragically correct. They will bring partisan points into it and mention specific politicians as if you could not possibly have an opinion that isn't just a way of cheering for your favorite team. They will demonstrate why it's hard to keep caring about how thoroughly convinced they are by the lies, because frankly sometimes it feels like they deserve whatever they get.

reply to post by sepermeru


One of the strategies the people who are hijacking our country are using is to create the illusion of a majority that stands against you. Its why the media chants poll results, refuses to show footage of Americans protesting, and why they pay people to come onto boards like this and harass dissenting opinions and voices.

I dont really believe the majority of Americans support what is going on, nor do I believe that the majority of Americans are really buying the two party stuff so much any more. There has been a big change since 2008 in the collective consciousness of the US, and that is WHY we are seeing the enormous push by media outlets, and propagandists, to paralyze us, and to make us think our neighbors are the ones doing this to the country. I really dont think they are. I think a lot of it is the illusion of consensus.

I dont want it to be this way. I want America to stay sovereign and free, and I want us to have the chance to rebuild our economy, and get corporate money out of our political system. So you make posts, and you take the abuse, and you let the cards fall where they may.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Maybe all the tax dollars spent "improving" the third world countries will improve America economically; for exactly the reason you stated.

The middle east and Asia as well as parts of Africa are becoming pretty destabilized. It would be hard to build a factory there with all the wars and riots. Heck, the whole world seems to be getting pretty economically destabilized. The last time that happened (WWII) America was there with a functioning industrial base and made a buttload of cash. I wonder who's going to end up on top this time?

reply to post by Mayson


Could you explain your reasoning?

I dont follow you on how you feel stabilizing another nation using American tax dollars to allow corporations to move their operations to those regions really works in our interest. We lose the jobs, and we lose the tax revenue. Now we might gain in terms of cheaper products, like we did when manufacturing first headed to China, but as you might notice, the loss of jobs has pretty much undermined the cheaper products angle, and the increase in wages over there has the knock on effect of increasing THEIR demand for stuff, (food, oil, etc) which, as supply and demand determine price, causes the price of a lot of OTHER things to go up in the US. Which we are also seeing now.

The real up side, I suppose, is for the people in the third world nations who are getting the jobs, and seeing the increase in quality of life.

The problem with that, however, is that the Earth doesnt have enough resources to make this game sustainable. The whole world cannot end up with the American lifestyle. Its not possible. What will happen is the whole thing will come crashing down at some point, and its just a matter of WHEN.

You cant have an economic system that depends infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources indefinitely. Unless someone knows something I dont know.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Well the united states goes into countries like Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of "peace". They say that they're offering aid, but I wouldn't say those countries are actually "stabilized". It's quite the opposite, in fact. I'm pretty sure that's what I said in my previous post.

You come in and overthrow a dictator of one form or another and create a power vacuum. Hopefully you back someone that's eventually sympathetic toward American causes, but in the interim you've thrown the region into utter chaos.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander

And the wealthiest Americans just keep getting richer.

America is now a 2 class society

Have's and have not's

Some of the have not's are armed, educated, supported and pissed

Who thinks this is going to end well?