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The current American election campaign will determine who’ll sit in the White House in Washington DC for the next four years. However, whoever’s elected, they’ll run the White House, but they’ll definitely not rule the country. A number of recently-released reports highlighted long-suspected, but not confirmed, old truths. Who leaked them to the media, no one knows. However, the first-ever official audit of the US Federal Reserve System (which functions as a central bank in the USA) singled out the fact that the Fed allocated incredibly huge amounts of money for American businesses during and after the 2008 crisis.
According to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), “Wall Street made the largest coup in world history at the expense of American taxpayers. An independent audit conducted at my request revealed that the Federal Reserve earmarked a startling 16 trillion USD (498 trillion Roubles. 12.35 trillion Euros. 10 trillion UK Pounds) at zero interest for major financial institutions, large corporations, and wealthy individuals without the approval of Congress and president, as required by law”. If it weren’t for Senator Sanders’ credibility, and the fact that it came from data in an independent audit, this information could easily pass for a tall tale designed to create a sensation. However, Washington officials and the Fed’s leadership made no rebuttals concerning the reports; the American news media, usually so thirsty for sensation, have kept a stony silence on this as well. This shows all concerned who’re the bosses of the so-called “free” American media. After all, silence is consent.
However, it’s a mistake to think that the Federal Reserve, which performs central bank functions in the USA and has the right to print dollars, is subject to the government. The US Federal Reserve is a privately-run corporation, which assumed central bank functions in 1913 because of collusion between top politicians and bankers. Even though the Constitution doesn’t mention it, it’s been virtually uncontrollable; it’s practically independent from the government and President, the Federal Reserve has steered American economic policy since 1913. There can be no doubt as to whose interests the US Federal Reserve is trying to protect. A recent audit revealed that the recipients of the billions issued by the Fed since 2008 include Wall Street’s principal banks, including such “poor” institutions as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch.
At present, these banks are injecting huge funds into the election campaign of billionaire Mitt Romney, who declared Russia “Enemy Number One” and promised generous funding for military programmes. The Democratic candidate’s campaign isn’t experiencing any shortages of funds either. According to reports, the current election campaign is costing Obama about one billion dollars (31.1 billion Roubles. 775 million Euros. 625 million UK Pounds). Of course, these billions for the election race aren’t coming out of the blue. Regardless of who wins the election, the winner may think that they’re master in the White House, but they’ll be sadly mistaken.
9 October 2012
Valentin Zorin
Voice of Russia World Service
28 October 2012. Romney Wants to Return to the “Gilded Age”… Gilded for Whom? Good-Sense from Bernie Sanders…
Tags: Affluent Effluent, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Great Depression, Medicaid, Medicare, Mitt Romney, One Percent, political commentary, politics, poster, Republican, right-wing, Social Security, United States, USA, Wall Street, Willard Romney
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In the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Wall Street and Corporate America (and virtually all Republicans) are working on a deficit reduction plan to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, whilst lowering tax rates for the wealthy and large corporations. Sadly, some Democrats are also engaged in this effort. This plan is likely to come up during the lame duck session of Congress after the elections. The idea of balancing the budget on the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in our country… the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor… isn’t only morally grotesque, it’s extremely bad economics. We must vigorously oppose this plan.
As you know, the primary cause of the large deficit that we’re now experiencing are Bush’s two unpaid-for wars, huge tax breaks for the rich, and a prescription drug programme written by the insurance and drug companies. Further, because of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behaviour on Wall Street, which drove us into this terrible recession, revenue at 15.2 percent of GDP is the lowest in 60 years. In order to cover the cost of the unpaid-for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they want to make significant cuts to Social Security that’ll affect not only seniors, but also disabled veterans. They want to do this despite the fact that the payroll tax funds Social Security, it hasn’t added a penny to the deficit, and it has a 2.7 trillion USD (85 trillion Roubles. 2.1 trillion Euros. 1.7 trillion UK Pounds) surplus.
In order to cover the cost of tax breaks given to millionaires and billionaires, they want to increase the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 and throw millions of families with children off of Medicaid. At a time when the USA has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider, their deficit-reduction plan calls for lowering the top tax rates for the rich and large corporations to 28 percent or even lower. There are fair and sensible ways to reduce deficits, but having the rich and the powerful beat up on working families and the elderly isn’t one of them.
Bernie Sanders
US Senator (I-VT)
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If you vote for Willard Romney, you vote to kick ordinary Americans in the teeth full-force so that the Affluent Effluent can party on, without any sacrifice or pain (after all, they’re the only “productive people”). That’s the consequence of your action.
I’m voting for Obama… so should you.
BMD
PS:
By the way… the cutoff level for the One Percent is 506,000 USD (15.92 million Roubles. 391,000 Euros. 314,000 UK Pounds). That is, if we were to seriously raise taxes on those making over 500,000 USD (15.73 million Roubles. 386,000 Euros. 310,000 UK Pounds) a year, very few people would be affected. However… these people think that they “own” the country. Let’s show ‘em otherwise…
BMD