WE, the People, present the following evidence of abuse, cruelty, criminality, corruption on the part of the rich and corporations to subvert America, the American economy, American government, American society:

1]. “Crypto firm Binance is fined $4 billion”. ”CEO admits not stopping money laundering.” [Lindsay Whitehurst, Gene Johnson, Fatima Hussein, Eric Tucker; Associated Press; 11/22/23]

2] “Palm oil labor abuses linked to world’s top brands, banks”. “..millions of laborers from some of the poorest corners of Asia, many of them enduring various forms of exploitation..child labor, outright slavery and allegations of rape.” [Margie Mason, Robin Mcdoweel; Associated Press; 9/25/2020]

3]. “Amazon ends controversial tipping practice for its drivers”. “..were surprised to learn..the e-commerce giant would at times dip into their tips to cover their promised wages..”The problem most drivers have with Amazon is there is zero transparency about our wages..” [Johanna Bhuiyan; Los Angeles Times; 9/11/2019]

4] ”Panama Papers Mossack Fonseca Linked to 1,000-plus U.S. Companies”. “In 2012, a federal judge..ordered former hedge fund manager Chetan Kapur to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission $4.9 million in a suit alleging Kapur and his fund “engaged in a pattern of deceptive conduct..” {Steve Reilly, Brad Heath; USA Today; 4/16/2016]

5]. Boeing improperly influenced Max Tests”. “The 101-page report, based on a whistleblower account, alleged..the FAA and Boeing officials were attempting to create “a predetermined outcome..by coaching plots..” [Keith Laing; Bloomberg News; 12/20/2020]

6] ”Goldman allegedly giving stock tips to certain clients”. “..providing the early information only to certain clients hurts customers who aren’t given the opportunity..” [Stephen Bernard, Marcy Gordon; Associated Press; 8/25/2009]

7] ”Billions are hidden beyond reach”. “..perhaps the wealthiest American whose offshore holdings are detailed extensively, Smith agreed last year to pay a fine of $139 million and admitted to hidden funds offshore..The agreement calls for Smith to cooperate in a case against Robert T. Brockman, a Texas billionaire who backed Smith financially and has been charged with hiding $2 billion in income..” [Greg Miller, Debbie Cenziper, Peter Whoriskey; Washington Post; 10/4/2021]

8]. “Brazil court fines Cargill over child labor”. “..as indemnity for buying cocoa from farms where child labor or forced work has been identified”. [Marcello Teixeira, Anan Mano; Reuters; 9/28/2023]

9]. “Checking the Price You Pay for Corporate Food” ”It’s plain ol’ price fixing by avaricious food monopolies. Top executives even brag abiut it when talking to their bankers and stockholders. McDonald’s..recently told investors..”strategic menu price increases”..had boosted profits by 63%..Chipotle..also jacked up prices..manufacturing an 84% profit increase.” [Jim Hightower; The Progressive Populist; 6/15/2023]

10] ”UnitedHealth to pay $15.7 million in settlement”. “The government said insurer improperly denied mental health coverage”. [Jonathan Stempei; Reuters; 8/14/2021]

11]. “Report: Apple used subsidiaries to avoid $44 B in taxes” ”..in an elaborate web of offshore subsidiaries to avoid paying at least $44 billion in U.S. taxes in the past four years..three of its subsidiaries..claim to have no responsibility to pay income taxes to any country..” [Jim Puzzanghera, Chris O”Brien; los Angeles Times; 5/21/2013]i

Nancy MacLean testifies from the text of her acclaimed “Democracy in Chains The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America”

MacLean: ”..the utterly chilling story of the ideological origins of the single most powerful and least understood threat to democracy today: the attempt by the billionaire-backed radical right to undo democratic governance. For what becomes clear as the story moves forward decade by decade is..a stealth bid to reverse-engineer all of America, at both the state and..national levels, back to the political economy and oligarchic governance of midcentury Virginia, minus the segregation.”
 ..”it wasn’t until the early 2010s..the rest of us began to sense..something extraordinarily troubling had..entered American politics..every so often, but with growing frequency and in far-flung locations, an action would be taken by governmental figures on the radical right that went well beyond typical party politics, beyond even..extreme partisanship…Wisconsin in 2011..in New Jersey..several GOP-controlled state legislatures to inflict flesh-wounding cuts in public education..also took aim at state universities..Then came a surge of synchronized proposals to suppress voter turnout..all-out campaign to defeat the Affordable Care Act..
 ”Numerous independent observers described such stonewalling, vicious partisanship, and attempts to bring..normal functioning of government to a halt as ‘unprecedented..William Cronin[‘s]..investigations convinced him..what had happened in Wisconsin did not begin in the state. ’What we’ve witnessed is part of a ‘well-planned and well-
coordinated national campaign..he suggested others look into..the American Legislative Exchange Council..producing hundreds of ‘model laws’ each year for Republican legislators..to enact..Alongside laws to devastate labor unions..others would rewrite tax codes, undo environmental protections, privatize many public resources, and require police to take action against undocumented immigrants.”

MacLean: In a January, 1997, speech at George Mason University, “Charles Koch signaled his desire for the work he funded to be conducted behind the backs of the majority. ”Since we are greatly outnumbered,’ Koch conceded to the assembled team, the movement could not win simply by persuasion. Instead, the cause’s insiders had to use their knowledge of ‘the rules of the game’ – that game being how modern democratic governance works – ‘to create winning strategies.’..Koch warned, ‘The failure to use our superior technology ensures failure.” Translation: the American people would not support their plans, so to win they had to work behind the scenes, using a covert strategy instead of open declaration of what they really wanted.”

MacLean: ”..what exactly constituted that ‘free society’ where ‘liberty of the individual’ was preserved? Buchanan found it in an earlier time when government was unusually weak. there were, consequently, few rules to constrain how a man might get wealthy, and great restraints on..government in asking for some part of that wealth..’        “What animated Buchanan..was the seemingly unfettered ability of an increasingly more powerful federal government to force individuals with wealth to pay for a growing number of public goods and social programs they had no personal say in approving..To Buchanan, what others described as taxation to advance social justice or the common good was nothing more than a modern version of mob attempts to take by force what the takers had no moral right to: the fruits of another person’s efforts. In his mind, to protect wealth was to protect the individual against a form of legally sanctioned gangsterism.”

“The goal of the causer, Buchanan announced..[was].. no longer who writes..The focus must shift from who writes the rules to changing the rules. For liberty to thrive..the cause must figure out how to put legal ..constitutional – shackles on public officials, shackles so powerful..they would no longer have the ability to respond to those who used their numbers to get government to do their bidding. There was a second, more diabolical aspect..one that..influenced Koch’s own thinking. Once these shackles were in place, they had to be binding and permanent. the only way to ensure the will of the majority could no longer influence representative government on core maters of political economy was through what he called “constitutional revolution.'”

MacLean: “A similar cynicism ruled Koch’s decisions to make peace – at least in the short term – with the religious right..the organizers who mobilized white evangelicals for political action..were entrepreneurs..so common cause could be made..religious entrepreneurs were happy to sell libertarian economics to to their flocks – above all, opposition to public schooling and calls for reliance on family provision or charity in place of government assistance..ther Koch team learn[ed] how to leverage wider corporate backing..”

MacLean: “The Koch team’s most important stealth move..the one that proved most critical to success, was to wrest control over the machinery of the Republican Party, beginning in the late 1990s and with sharply escalating determination after 2008..while these radicals of the right operate within the Republican Party and use that party as a delivery vehicle..the cadre’s loyalty is..to their revolutionary cause.”

MacLean: “..what this cause really seeks is a return to oligarchy..to reinstate the..political economy that prevailed in America at the opening of the twentieth century, when..mass disenfranchisement of voters and the legal treatment of labor unions as illegitimate enabled large corporations and wealthy individuals to dominate Congress and most state governments..and feel secure..the nation’s courts would not interfere with their reign.”

WE the People all as our next witness in this trial, Pope John Paul II.

“Pope John Paul II in 1981 issued an encyclical called “Laborem exercens,” or “Through Work.” He attacked the idea, fundamental to capitalism, that work was merely an exchange of money for labor. Work, he wrote, could not be reduced to the commodification of human beings. Workers were no impersonal instruments. they were not inanimate objects.
work was about more than wages and profit. It was essential to human dignity and self-fulfillment. It imparted a sense of purpose, empowerment, and identity. It allowed workers to bond with society and contribute to social harmony and cohesion.
 ”The pope castigated unemployment, underemployment, inadequate wages, automation, and a lack of job security as violations of human dignity. These conditions, he wrote, were forces that destroy self-esteem, personal satisfaction, responsibility, and creativity. The exaltation of the machine, he warned, reduced human beings to the status of slaves.
He called for full employment and a minimum wage large enough to support a family. He called for women to stay home with children and for the disabled to receive a living wage. He advocated for universal health insurance, pensions, accident insurance, and work schedules that permitted free time and vacations to build strong families. He wrote that every profession should be represented by unions with the right to strike.”
    note: the above quotes from Pope John Paul II courtesy of Chris Hedges, “America. The Farewell Tour”]

The following quotations are from “Take Them At Their Words,” by Bruce Miller and Diana Maio:
1]. “In 1990, then-Republican House Whip Newt Gingrich [later Speaker..] hired a pollster to devise a lexicon of demonization. In a memo Gingrich circulated, “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” Republicans were instructed that “words and phrases are powerful” and that the list that had been test-marketed should be “memorized.”
 ”Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party:  decay…failure [fail]…collapse[ing]…deeper..
crisis…urgent[cy]…destructive…destroy…sick…pathetic…lie…liberal…they/them…unionized bureaucracy…”compassion”
is not enough…betray…consequences…limit[s]…shallow…traitors…sensationalists…endanger…coercion…hypocrisy…
radical…threaten…devour…waste…corruption…incompetent…permissive attitudes…destructive…impose…self-serving
…greed…ideological…insecure…anti[issue]: flag,family,child,jobs…pessimistic…excuses…intolerant…stagnation…welfare
…corrupt…selfish…insensitive…status quo…mandate[s]…taxes…spend[ing]…shame…disgrace…punish [poor..]…bizarre…
cynicism…cheat…steal…abuse of power…machine…bosses…obsolete…criminal rights…red tape…patronage”
  note: reread this !!! ”test-marketed,” ”hired a pollster,” ‘A LEXICON OF DEMONIZATION,” you wonder why Congress is dysfunctional??? YOU wonder why there is so much division, and even hate? The Far Right PLANNED it 1

2]. “I w





ant you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good.” [Randall Terry, “Demagoguery in America,” ”The New Republic,” 8/1/94]

3] “Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity The degree these two ingredients have diminished is in direct proportion to the corruption and fall of the nation.” {State Rep. Don Davis [R-NC e-mail – “E-mail miffs legislators,” Fayetteville Observer, 8/22/01]

4] “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. they should get a liquor store and practice robberies.” [Rush Limbaugh, Eric Alterman, “Little Limbaughs and the fire next time,” The Nation, 9/27/99]

5] ”Ideally, it would have been nice to have a few phalanxes of policemen with machine guns and mow them down.”
S[Talk Radio Host bob Grant, WABC, New York, discussing New York’s annual Gay Pride parade. Boston Globe, 4/29/95]

6]. “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. The Iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons.” [George W. Bush in the Rose Garden, 9/26/02. Dana Priest and Walter Pincus, “Bush Certainty on Iraq Arms Went Beyond Analysts’ Views,” Washington Post, 6/7/03]

7]. “Even fanatical Muslim terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do.” [Ann Coulter at the Conservative Political Action Conference 2002, Crystal City, VA. PFAW.org, 2/26/02]

8] ”I believe that the homeless people should essentially be put to sleep. they should. I don’t see any reason for them to exist. They are more of a burden than anything else.” [Emiliano Limon, talk radio host, KFI-AM, Los Angeles, 11/17/94]

9] ”I would eliminate the payroll tax and institute a national sales tax to cover Social Security and Medicare. the sales tax would slide depending on need…” [Bill O’Reilly, ”The No Spin Zone,” NY: Broadway Books, 2001, p. 175} {note: a
sales tax would be – IS – regressive, one more way the rich and corporations would escape ANY duty to help the less
fortunate than them; let alone whether this would even come close to funding necessary for the programs]

10] ”…but this tax cut, there is no tax cut that needs to be paid for. That, please shelve that. Please sweep that from your lexicon. Tax cuts do not need to be paid for. If, if, if any of you continue to look at tax cuts that way you may as well be under the Svengali mind-control of the Democrats. Tax cuts don’t need to be paid for…” [Rush Limbaugh, 5/23/03}
  [note !!!: this is FALSE. – think – if this was true, then we’d need no taxes!!! the tax cuts of Reagan, Bush II, and
Trump are being paid for – in a variety of ways – the U.S. national debt has exploded from the less than $1 trillion it was when Reagan took office, to now over $30 trillion – so we are WASTING hundreds of billions on interest EVERY year; WE pay for it in reduced services to Americans; YOUR taxes are higher – just so the Rich and corporations can escape taxes;
the 2017 Trump tax cut – for the rich and corporations was passed KNOWING IT WOULD BE DESTRUCTIVE….]

The Far Right, Rich and Corporations lave no stone untouched in their perpetual GREED for ever more wealth. A major effort is reducing and eliminating their taxes – which means YOU. will pay their share !!!!. 
   Consider the following article by Brian Riedl: ”Cuts to the IRS aren’t conservative,” which appeared in the 12/24/23 Washington Post Weekly, Scrooge is once again revealed!!!

“Last year, President Biden and congressional Democrats enacted $80 billion in new IRS finding for the next decade.
During the debt limit debate earlier this year, Republicans successfully negotiated a $20 billion cut in that funding. And now, in the appropriations showdown, they’re going after the rest of it.
 ”The IRS has long been an easy and popular target, because few of us enjoy paying taxes. And the agency has invited criticism with its history of overzealous audits, including a heavy-handed targeting of conservative nonprofit organizations during the Obama administration that fueled the latest round of GOP cuts.
   [note: YOU may wish to ask what/who are the “conservative nonprofit organizations.” Exactly what were they doing? Some “conservative” nonprofits have included highly partisan political groups, among other things pushing for more tax cuts for the rich and corporations, and defunding the IRS]

“However, defunding and weakening the IRS is not conservative. To the contrary, it will ultimately drive up deficits and raise middle class taxes.
 ”Between 2010 and 2021, the inflation-adjusted IRS budget fell by nearly one-quarter, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Tax enforcement staff declined by 31%, and the number of revenue agents collapsed to 1954 levels – even as the taxpaying population doubled, and the tax code grew vastly more complex. During the 2010s, audit rates fell by 54% for large corporations and 71% for millionaires. {obvious note: for GREEDY rich and GREEDY corporations – this would be “good” – so let’s keep doing it !!!]
 ”The amount of unpaid taxes has jumped to $625 billion per year, driven heavily by the underreporting of corporations and pass-through business income. Unpaid personal income taxes are vastly concentrated among the highest-earning 5% of taxpayers…
 ”Nevertheless, House Republicans recently proposed “paying for” emergency aid to Israel with IRS cuts. When the Congressional Budget Office showed that the bill’s $14 billion in IRS rescissions would REDUCE tax collections by $26 billion, House Speaker Mike Johnson [R-La.] dismissively responded that “only in Washington when you cut spending do they call it an increase in the deficit.” [read this again – does Johnson believe You are that dumb?}
 ”Populist pandering aside, lawmakers understand that collecting money requires staff and salaries. The original $80 billion in new IRS funding – to be split between taxpayer services, operations, modernization and enforcement focused on upper-income taxpayers – was projected to bring in $180 billion over the decade.” [note”: remember what was said earlier – $625 billion A YEAR, not 10 years – is currently NOT being aid – thus America has an increasing national debt, and some, mostly “conservatives” – want to cut programs, including Social Security and Medicare.  S. – the real “trade off is this: America doesn’t enforce its tax collection for millionaires and billionaires and corporations -so therefore, we “must” cut programs and services to ordinary people. - thus THE Threat to Democracy by the rich and corporations.]

  So, dear people – here it is – in black and white – either America enacts real progressive taxation – AND ENFORCES THOSE TAX LAWS – or we have what Justice Brandeis warned many decades ago: a GREEDY plutocracy by the rich and the corporations they control. More will be said; more numbers provided, in future posts.
     The unspun data prove without any doubt aren’t even paying close to their fair share – every year. If this doesn’t bother YOU – then maybe America is already dead as a “democracy.”

‘Over the past three decades, we have become two Americas. We are no longer one large American family with shared prosperity and shared political and economic power, as we were in the decades following World War II.”……..

“The Powell memo [1971] was a business manifesto, a call to arms to Corporate America, and it triggered a powerful response. The seismic shift of power that it set in motion marked a fault line in our history. Political revolt had been brewing on the right..but it was the Powell memo that lit the spark of change..a long period of sweeping transformation both in Washington’s policies and in the mind-set and practices of American business leaders..that reversed the politics and policies of the postwar era and the “virtuous circle” philosophy that had created the broad prosperity of America’s middle class.”

“Today, the gravest challenge and most corrosive fault line in our society is the gross inequality of income and wealth in America…the past three decades have produced the third wave of great private wealth..a new Gilded Age comparable to ..the robber barons in the 1890s, which led to the financial Panic of 1893 and the trust-busting presidency of Theodore Roosevelt; and to the ..great fortunes in the Roaring Twenties, which ended in the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.  [note: a thinking person just might see a trend here!!!]
 ”In our New Economy, America’s super-rich have accumulated trillions in new wealth, far beyond anything in other nations, while the American middle class has stagnated. What separates the Two Americas is far more than a wealth gap. It is a wealth chasm…Wealth has flowed so massively to the top that during the nation’s growth spurt from 2002 to 2007, America’s super-rich, the top 1% [3 million people], reaped two-thirds of the nation’s entire economic gains. The other 99% were left with only one-third of the gains to divide among 310 million people. In 2010, the first full year of the economic recovery, the top 1% captured 93% of the nation’s gains.”  [TIME OUT – re-read this last paragraph – how does this achieve the Constitution’s “promote the general welfare”??? How does this work in a “democracy”???]

…..”contrary to political arguments put forward for not taxing the rich, an economy of large personal fortunes does not deliver the best economic performance for the country..concentrated wealth works against economic growth..A recent International Monetary Fund study..conclusion – that a high level of income inequality can be “destructive” to sustained growth and that the best condition for long-term growth is “more equality in the income distribution.”

“The opposite has happened in America since the late 1970s. The soaring wealth of the super-rich has brought the unraveling of the American Dream for the middle class…As a country, we have declined from an era of middle class prosperity and middle class power from the 1940s to the 1970s to an era of vast fortunes and mass economic insecurity..

“Our once healthy clash of interests has become precariously one-sided. In the past decade, business has deployed thirty times as many Washington lobbyists as trade unions and sixteen times as many lobbyists labor, consumer, and public interest lobbyists combined. Spending has been even more lopsided in favor of Corporate America. From 1998 through 2010, business interests and trade groups spent $28.6 billion on lobbying compared with $492 million for labor, nearly a 60 – to – 1. business advantage.”…

“The standard explanation offered by business leaders and political and economic conservatives is that these harsh realities of the New Economy are the unavoidable product of impersonal and irresistible market forces….the unavoidable
cost of progress..the price of the inexorable march of technology and free trade. But the seductive half-truth doesn’t fully square with the facts. It ignores..the impact of public policy and corporate strategy on how we became Two Americas. It fails to explain why such an overwhelming share of the fruits of technological change and globalization went to a privileged few while the majority of ordinary Americans got left out.’

“Germany took a different fork in the road in the 1980s and it has fared better than America in the global marketplace.
While the United States piled up multitrillion-dollar trade deficits in the 2000s, Germany had large export surpluses..
Its economy grew faster than the U.S. economy from 1995 to 2010, with the gains more widely shared. Since 1985, the hourly pay of middle-class workers in Germany has risen five times as fast as in the United states….
 ”German leaders worked hard to keep their high-wage, high-skilled jobs at home. While U.S. multinational corporations aggressively moved production offshore…Today, 21% of Germans work in production; n the United States,
it’s 9 percent.

“America chose a different path, driven by the pro-business power shift in politics and a new corporate mind-set, both of which lie at the root of the economic rift in America today. The New Economy laissez-faire philosophy of the past three decades promised that deregulation, lower taxes, and free trade would lift all boats….
 ”But that is not what has happened. the middle class was left behind..Even the 60 million upper-middle-class Americans and the nation’s wealthiest 5 % have been falling steadily firther behind America’s financial elite, the super-rich 1 percent….

“Since the 1970s, business leaders have largely abandoned [the[ share-the-wealth ethic. With some exceptions, CEOs have practiced “wedge economics” – splitting apart the pay of the rank-and-file employees from company revenues and profits..according to the Census Bureau, the pay of a typical male worker was lower in 2010 than in 1978, adjusted for inflation….
“..in our New Economy, the dynamic thrust of the “virtuous circle” has been disrupted by job losses and the lid on average pay scales. Flat pay is not bad only for individuals, but for the whole economy. Weak pay leads to weak consumer demand. Companies don’t expand and hire, ans as a country, we bog down in long painful “jobless recoveries.” That has happened several times in the past two decades..
“..downsizing, offshoring and wedge economics have backfired.”

“There is growing, and disturbing, evidence that America has evolved into a caste society, increasingly stratified in terms of wealth and income, with people at the bottom almost frozen there, generation after generation..
 ”One major reason..a caste society is emerging in the United States is that education is no longer the great social leveler that it once was. Just the opposite.”

“It didn’t have to be this way..Sharing the gains from America’s growth from 1979 to 2006 in the same way they were shared from 1945 to 1979 would have given the typical middle-class family $12,000 more per year. Overall, 80% of Americans, from the bottom through the entire middle class, would have earned $743 billion more a year; the richest 1% would have made $673 billion less; and the next 4% down from the top would have made $140 billion less.
 ”So it was the changes in our laws and in the way American business decided to divide its revenues that cost average Americans roughly three-quarters of a trillion dollars since the late 1970s. All that money went to the richest 5%..”

“Overall, more than 59,000 factories and production facilities were shut down all across America over the last decade, and employment in the core manufacturing sector fell from 17.1 million to 11.8 million..a punishing toll for what historically had been the best sector for steady, good-paying middle-class jobs. By pursuing a deliberate strategy of continual layoffs and by holding down wages..which yielded higher profits for investors, business leaders were not only squeezing their employees, they were slowly strangling the middle-class customer demand that the nation needed for the next economic expansion.

“Two trends are primarily responsible for today’s hyperconcentration of wealth in America – the collective decisions over time by America’s corporate power elite to take a far bigger share of business earnings for themselves, and the increasingly pro-rich, pro-business policy tilt in Washington since the late 1970s
 ”The long-term trend of tax cutting since the 1970s has dramatically widened America’s wealth divide. As the tax code has been written, rewritten, and rewritten again since 1978, it has been tilted so heavily in favor of the super-rich that many millionaires and billionaires today actually pay lower tax rates than many people in the middle class. The key driver of this lopsided outcome is the sharp cut in capital gains tax – from 48% in 1978 to 15% today.”..
 ”To make matters worse, ordinary employees typically pay a higher payroll tax rate – 7.65% to finance Social Security and Medicare – than corporate CEOS and super-rich investors. their investment gains are not subject to the payroll tax, and their pay over $106,800 is also exempt. As a result, the super-rich pay as little as 1 to 2% of their earned income in payroll taxes, far below the 7.65% rate of middle-class Americans.”

So – is there ANY. doubt about. ”Who Stole The American Dream?”  Why do. YOU. think this series was titled. “The Far Right Threat to Democracy – the Rich and Corporations” ????????     WHY do. YOU. think Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel Prize winners are writing books, studies, papers on the. THEFT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM by the rich and corporations?????????????????????  It’s all there for. YOU – unspun Census Bureau, IRS, GAO, CBO. statistics, confessions by the perps themselves, statistical comparisons between the middle class golden prosperity of 1947-1973 and the middle class hell of 1980-2023.  WHY are billionaires paying taxes [IF they pay !] at a lower tax rate than YOU?

Below some more numbers illustrating how the Rich and the Corporations have managed to CHEAP, ROB, STEAL from people like YOU, since 1980. As Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners have shown. the breadth and depth of this massive
ROBBERY now in all likely hood exceeds their previous peak of the 1865-1901 “Gilded Age.”

1]. From l948-73, American productivity increased 96.7%, wages for the bottom 80% increased 91/3%
  in 1973-2013.   ”     ”     ”   74.4%,  ”  ”  “   “   “    ”   9.2%
   [note: the 1973-2013 meager wage increase. of. 9.2% is. NOT. an error !!!!!!!!] – source: “The One Percent Solution”]

2] From 1979-2014, the bottom 60% of male workers’ real wages declined – 70 million men in 2014 were working fro. LESS. than their fathers and grandfathers. [Source; ”The One Percent Solution”]

3] A major American CEO makes in one year what it would take that company”s ”average’ worker 320 years to do !!!
   [Source: ”The Man Who Broke Capitalism”; 2022]

4] A 2013 Associated Press study found 4of 5 American adults would “struggle with joblessness, near-poverty, or
reliance on welfare for at least parts of lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.”
    [Source: ”People Get Ready’}

5] Between 1987 and 2013, the number of billionaires rose according to “Forbes” from 140 to 1,400; and their total wealth rose from 300 to 5,400 billion dollars. [Source: ”Capital in the Twenty First Century”]

6] Privatization waste – health and finance: $160-200 billion annually                 
  Eliminating financial sector rents waste: $460-636 billion annually [2015] 
  Drug price comparison” hepatitis – USA cost. $84,000; India cost: $300-500 !!!!
    {Source: ”Rigged”]

7] In 2005, UNICEF’s “Child Poverty in Rich Countries” found – USA was 2nd from bottom ‘worst;’ 22% of Americans under 18 were living in households with per capita income below 50% of the national average
    [Source: $ervants of Wealth”]

8]. The USA standard of living between 1872 and 1988 increased only 8%, fourth of the average gain in West Germany, France, Italy, Britain, and Canada, and a seventh of Japan. [Source: “The War on the Labor and Left”]

9] University of Texas law professor Johnson and his colleagues “have shown how Congress, by closing loopholes could raise $1 trillion each year without any new taxes or rate increases.” [2012] [Source: “The Fine Print”]

10] he USA is #29 in Internet average speeds [2012]; the French get better Internet and phone service for 1/4 the American cost !!!!!!!!!!! [Source: “The Fine Print”]

  Wake up, FOOLS, YOU. are being played and lied to, manipulated and massively. CHEATED – every.  single. day!!
     The rich and corporate oligarchy is. ROBBING. YOU. BLIND”.   The “culture wars”. have succeeded in ”dividing and conquering” the bottom 90%  The peak 1947 – 1973. middle class mass prosperity has literally been stolen from YOU.  Research the UNSPUN. real. Census, IRS, GAO, CBO numbers.

This post, from l2/24/23 headlines – illustrates to YOU how the rich and corporations are constantly finding ways to abuse the lower 90% – this time in their own neighborhoods. the following information comes to YOU from College Football Sacks Housing Markets Nationwide” [Allison Salerno, New York Times; 12/24/23]

From Athens, Georgia: ”But the rent is too high for anyone to go anywhere, at least locally…youcan get one for $l,800, that’s considered cheap,” said Ms. Malcolm, 48. ”For a one-bedroom – a one-bedroom. It’s like $2,100 on average.”……..
 ”But Ms. Malcolm believes the rent issue in Athens has more to do with football. the Georgia Bulldogs..draw some 90,000 spectators to Sanford Stadium for six or seven games..essentially creating an alternate market for short-term rentals..Real estate investors are buying and building homes for fans who will pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a weekend housing…and the effects are affecting local residents ll year.
  “..there are currently 1,135 short-term rentals available in Athens – up from 865 in November 2022…”…

 ”Athens is no outlier. Around the United States, in small cities reliant on college sports to keep their economies humming, short-term rentals are destabilizing housing markets, fueled by wealthy fans and investors who transform single-family homes into de facto hotels for a few weeks..often leaving them sitting empty the rest of the time.”

 ”Over the past year, the supply of short-term rentals has grown 34% in Tuscaloosa..33% in Columbia, Mo..and 11% in South Bend, Ind..according to data from AirDNA.

“But it’s not just the rental markets that are effected – investors are overpaying for the houses they rent out, pulling sale prices out of reach for many locals.
 ”They have very wealthy alumni that have no problems buying second houses, whether that’s for their kids to go there or whether that’s just for them to have a good time seven or eight weekends a year,” Mr. Bouchet said. ”And that’s caused the price of these houses to go through the roof and push people out of these neighborhoods.”…

“But this summer, after she returned from some traveling, she found the trees felled and a two-story house under construction close to her property line, part of a larger complex that now includes a renovated six-bedroom, five-bath ranch house. The Texas-based investors have yet to open their property to paying guests, but VRBO lists it as available to up to 16 people, with the first night, Feb. 1, set at $1,250

“Right now, the housing market favors the investor over just the average human being..”

“In south Bend..blocks from Notre Dame stadium..they’re nearly surrounded by short-term rentals..With so many investors scooping up homes, Harter Heights has been irrevocably changed.”…
 ”Houses are being purchased, flipped, and then they stand empty for sometimes weeks upon weeks..In Harter Heights, rents for one-bedroom apartments have risen 89% since 2013, according to data compiled by the federal Housing and Urban Development agency, drastically outpacing the national average.”
 ”Officials in South Bend can do little to stop the surge. In 2018, Indiana’s state legislature enacted a law prohibiting local governments, cities, and counties from passing ordinances regarding short-term rentals..”… !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“But investor-owned homes have no place in a residentially zoned neighborhood, he said…”It’s so hypocritical of us as a city because we don’t allow a hair salon, we don’t allow a tax preparer or whatever to be in a neighborhood because that’s a business,” Mr. Tyner said. ”So you’re going to allow short-term rental, which is definitely a business. People are making huge amounts of money in our neighborhoods, but they don’t even live there.”

“The rush of investors turning private homes into short-term rentals is “absolutely” contributing to Tuscaloosa’s affordable-housing shortage, said Ellen Potts. ex-director of Habitat for Humanity of Tuscaloosa. ”It ties up a lot of rental housing that would be for families,” she said. A landlord friend of hers, she said, “is making so much more money than she used to, renting it for maybe $1,200 a month, when she’s renting it for $2,000 0r $3,000 a weekend.”……..

“The bottom line, she said: “It’s impacting how we form a community and how we sustain all the goods of that community.”

    SO – dear people – research into. YOUR. OWN COMMUNITY - how are YOU. doing there???  Do YOU even have a clue on how the rich and the corporations are doing the same type of things where YOU live ??????
   THE. “investor” stories are proliferating. The “private equity” reports are exploding>. The stories about how various companies no longer just want to sell YOU. something – but they want to rent it to YOU, make YOU a “Subscriber,” make YOU return to the dealership for “service”. [YOU are no longer allowed to fix YOUR own piece of equipment!!!!!!!!]

More “investor” stories will be unearthed. Reports are that the rich and their corporations are working to corner the markets in virtually ALL disposable products. Reports on various food monopolies are coming out – tight corporate control allows the rich to jack the prices on. YOUR. food – by eliminating independent competition.

I was told by a real estate agent he/she knew of local communities where up to 50% of all houses were owned by absentee landlords – many of which could be rented out; which, again – takes a single-family house off the market.

There once was a period where American civilization approached its peak; 1947-1973. It had weaknesses [racism, misogyny] – but the “average person” could – and did, succeed. I. know this to be a fact – because this describes the community and immediate neighborhood in which MY family lived. What many of you can only read about – we, in real time fact lived the real American Dream – and so did the people around us.
      A MAJOR factor was the cultural norms supporting the control of GREED by the rich. the top marginal tax rate for this period, and much time around it – was an average of 81%. Labor unions were accepted and supported.
      All this mass prosperity was “too good a deal” in the eyes of the rich. So they set about to destroy it – which they have nearly succeeded in doing – which gives YOU the divided America of 2023.   SEE – “divide and conquer” works – if one has slick marketing, and believable LIES.
     So – America has “cultural wars” – and YOUR real oppressors – the rich and their corporations – are literally “laughing at. YOU. all the way to the bank.”   YOU’RE running around in circles, angry at the wrong people – while the rich, Wall Street, financialized medicine, various monopolies are robbing YOU blind.
     “Football victims” are just one of many victimized populations. WE will provide more.

-Collins & Yeskel: ‘”The larger economic trends of the past three decades [1975-2005]: falling wages for the bottom 60%;
wealth inequality – the top 1% of households had more wealth than the bottom 95%; the widening gap between the richest and lowest paid workers. Inequality in wages is at an all-time high; losing ground at work – in the last 25 years, 3 0f 4 U.S. wage-earners lost ground on the job; precarious and stressed middle class – half the population says they feel no employer loyalty or job security; the rising tide lifts only yachts – unlike the post- World War II years, when economic growth was shared more equitably, a dramatic pulling apart in the last 25 years between the small number of “haves” and everybody else.”

Collins & Yeskel: ”The problem of inequality is, in part, a problem of democracy. The growing role of big money in politics is only one aspect of the decline of democracy. The vast majority of people in this country have been excluded from decision-making about some of the most important rules determining our shared economic lives.”….
 ”We believe that we are at a dangerous juncture. As wealth concentrates in the hands of a few, so does the power to change the rules that govern our economy.”..
 ”This is a vicious circle. As corporations gain more power, they use their power to buy lobbyists and pay to elect candidates who will change the rules in their favor. They buy the media and utilize complex tactics to influence and shape public opinion and culture.”

Collins & Yeskel: “What is clear is that economic inequality is the result of rules rules that govern the economy; over three decades of public policies and private corporate practices that have benefir asset-owners at the expense of wage-earners. Tax policy, global trade policy, government spending, and regulation have all been tilted in favor of asset-owners and large corporations.”

Collins & Yeskel: “The power shift since the 1970s: on the rise: big campaign contributors, corporate lobbyists, corporations, big asset-owners, CEOS, Wall Street. In decline: popular political movements, voters, labor unions, wage-earners, employees, main street.”

Collins & Yeskel: Rule changes since the 1970s: for unions, an anti-union climate; in trade, global treaties that benefit corporations; in taxes, big tax cuts for the wealthy; in the budget, corporate welfare expands. Human services are cut. 
The minimum wage is not raised for inflation. Federal Reserve policy, “whip inflation” policy helps investors, hurts wage growth. In “privatization,” government dismantling helps investors, hurts consumers and workers.”

Collins & Yeskel: “”In the last two decades, large corporations have taken over the health care industry in the United States. The corporate takeover of health care has caused a restructuring similar to other industries, including downsizing, subcontracting and outsourcing, work speed-ups, and mandatory overtime.”
Collins & Yeskel: ”We have prepared graphs, using Census Bureau data, that illustrate how America grew together from
1947 to 1979 in real family income; and illustrate how America grew apart from 1979 to 2003.”

Collins & Yeskel: “In the last 30 years, the tax burden has been transferred from large corporations to individuals; from the wealthy owners of assets to low-and middle-income earners; from foreign corporations to domestic corporations;
from foreign investors to U.S. workers; from multinational corporations to medium-sized and small businesses; from the federal government to state and local governments whose taxes are the most regressive; from today’s taxpayers to the next generation of taxpayers.
 ”The shift part of the program comes in the form of budget cuts and shifts eroding the quality of life for working people. But these tax cutters are counting on the American public not to connect the dots between local service cuts and federal budget policies.”

[note: the preceding testimony comes from Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel”s 2005 book: “Economic Apartheid in America.” Please access the book – for text, data, graphs and charts – all illustrating THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE THEFT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM SINCE 1980 – by the perps: the rich and the corporations they control.
  Reflect on this: WHY did they choose the term ”Economic Apartheid in America?” What does “apartheid” mean?
What are thy telling YOU about what has happened to the bottom 90% of America since 1980???????

Following are some numbers, courtesy of Barlett & Steele”s ”America: What Went Wrong?” [1992]. Already, 31 years ago, NUMBERS were beginning to reveal what The Far Right was doing to sabotage the great post-World War II mass middle class prosperity. Read this book, then read their “The Betrayal of The American Dream.”
  PIECE together the following Numbers – as part of the bigger PATTERN of winners & losers as the Far Right’s counter-revolution progresses – and the victims are people like YOU……
– “The wage and salary structure of American business, encouraged by federal tax policies, is pushing the nation toward a two-class society. The top 4% make as much as the bottom half of U.S. workers.”
- ”The total amount of dollars in salaries funneled to the rich soared in the 1980s – as did the number of rich themselves
…people making $20,000-$50,000 salaries only gained a 44% increase…those earning $200,000- $l million salaries gained a 697% increase…those earning salaries over $1 million gained 2,184% in increased money !!!
- The “Tax Reform Act” of 1986 cut everybody’s taxes. But 3 years later, some fared much better. If YOU made $40,000-$50,000, YOU got a $1,000 cut [16%]. If you made $l million or ore, you got a $28l,033 cut [31%] !!!
- ”Fewer rich are paying the minimum tax, contrary to reformers” promises> {surprise !!!!!] ”..collections dropped 90%”
…from 77% to 85%, depending on bracket, paid the “minimum” tax; paid LESS when they paid anything.
- ”American corporations are closing plants or slashing work forces in the U.S. & shifting the jobs to Mexico. Since 1965, more than 1,800 plants employing more than 500,000 workers have been built there, most by U.S. corporations.”
- ”The amount deducted for corporate interest payments on borrowed money soared in the 1980s, due to a wave of corporate restructurings. The lost taxes ended up exceeding the taxes paid – a first.
- ”Corporations pay lessc[taxes], and individuals make up the difference>’. In the 1950s, the corporate tax share was 39%. In the 1980s, the corporate tax share was 17%.
- In the 1980s, interest payments on the federal debt were 55.2% of American education expenses, by 1990, that debt interest payment was 93.87% of American educational expenses.
- ”Corporations discover the NOL, a tax write-off bonanza worth billions. Companies escaped paying the 34% corporate income tax on $51.4 billion in write-offs in 1988, costing the U.S. Treasury $17.5 billion.”
- 29 of the 30 biggest corporate bankruptcies occurred between 1982 and 1991. At that point in time.
- ”Congress taxes foreigners at lower rates than you…An American taxpayer earning $30,000 to $40,000 paid $3,710..
If taxed at the same rate granted United Arab Emirates investors in the U.S., the American would have paid just $49.”
- ”American academic emphasis: Money over engineering. In the 1950s, more graduates were awarded masters degrees in engineering than in business management. In the 1980s, MBAs outnumbered engineers by more than 3-l.”
- ”The High Cost of Deregulation…What Went Wrong…Thousands of firms gone.  200,000 jobs lost..In the case of the savings and loan industry, the cost to taxpayers will be staggering…Now the push is on to deregulate..banking…” !!!!!!!!
- In 1978, before deregulation, around-trip ticket, Philadelphia-Pittsburgh, cost $86. In 1992, after deregulation, that ticket cost $460. !!!!And – YOU know of other costs since 1992 !!!!!!!!!!!!
- Post-deregulation, “The collapse of the U.S. trucking industry..Most of the top 30 trucking firms of 1979 are gone.”
Which also means lost middle class jobs; means devastation in some communities.
- ”What went wrong. The number of companies that provide fully paid medical insurance for their employees is steadily shrinking as American business transfers health-care costs to workers.” In 1982-1989 alone, individual coverage slipped from 75% covered to 48% covered; families from 50% covered to 31% covered.
- Between 1981 and l991, multiple corporate raiders attacking a highly profitable company, Simplicity Pattern, from having $l00 million in the bank, to being $l00 million in debt.
- ”The Disappearing Pensions….What Went Wrong. Under federal law, a company may remove money from an employee pension fund if it certifies that enough remains to cover its pension obligations. On 8 different occasions between 1983 and 1988, companies controlled by Victor Posner tapped employees’ pension plans….Total removed from pensions: $65.2 million.” One company’s workers lost over 40% of their pension coverage. Posner was not alone, page 178 shows 15 other companies whose workers were cut from 27% and 86% on their pensions.
- ”What Went Wrong  On Capitol Hill, it is the lobbyists who have the clout. they speak for vested interests, not the middle class. And they have been extraordinarily successful in blocking tax-law changes that would be detrimental to the privileged, as well as preserving tax breaks that benefit the few at the expense of the many – such as the tax exemption for interest paid on bonds issued by state and local governments.. 52% of 1989 tax-exempt interest income – $20.1 billion – went to 800,000 individuals and families earning $100,000 or more [less than 1% of filers]. 48%..went to 3 million individuals earning less than $100,000 [2% of filers]. 108.5 million individuals and families received no tax-exempt interest income..97% of all U.S. tax filers.”
- ”Rewriting The Government Rule Book Capital Gains Tax Cut: Who Gains? If Congress enacts a capital gains tax cut, the benefits will flow overwhelmingly to a tiny percentage of individuals and families. 72% of 1989 capital gains income – $108.2 billion – went to 1.3 million individuals and families earning $100,000 or more..1% of all U.S. tax filers.
28% of 1989 capital gains income – $42 billion – went to 7.2 individuals and families earning less than $100,000..6% of all U.S. tax filers. 103.8 individuals and families received no capital gains income..93% of all U.S. tax filers.”

  This series of posts: The Far Right Threat to Democracy – the rich and corporations, VIII, is an effort to educate YOU
in the MANY ways the rich and corporations have sabotaged America – its government, its economy, its society. Much of that case is built on UNSPUN NUMBERS, the PATTERN of which covers the entire recent modern era: 1945-2023.
    The answer to “Who Stole The American Dream?” should be obvious- it is the rich and the corporations they control.