Warren Buffett, CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
On February 27, 2017, Pam Martens and Russ Martens write on Wall Street On Parade:
Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, authors an annual letter to shareholders that receives wide media coverage for the nuggets of wisdom dispersed to the masses. His latest letter, released on Saturday, trumpets American exceptionalism, the miraculous market system Americans have created, while it blithely dismisses the greatest wealth and income inequality in America since the 1920s. Buffett preposterously observes that “Babies born in America today are the luckiest crop in history.”
Let’s start with that last statement. According to our own Central Intelligence Agency, there are 55 countries that have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States. Even debt-strapped Greece beats the United States.
Much of what Buffett has to say in this letter sounds like unadulterated propaganda to reassure the 99 percent that his amassing of a net worth of $76.3 billion was a result of America’s great economic system which is percolating along just fine. Buffett writes:
“Americans have combined human ingenuity, a market system, a tide of talented and ambitious immigrants, and the rule of law to deliver abundance beyond any dreams of our forefathers…You need not be an economist to understand how well our system has worked. Just look around you. See the 75 million owner-occupied homes, the bountiful farmland, the 260 million vehicles, the hyper-productive factories, the great medical centers, the talent-filled universities, you name it – they all represent a net gain for Americans from the barren lands, primitive structures and meager output of 1776. Starting from scratch, America has amassed wealth totaling $90 trillion…”
Mentioning the rule of law in the same breath with our market system shows Buffett’s hypocrisy in the worst light. Millions of Americans are still seething over the fact that not one top executive on Wall Street has gone to jail for their role in issuing fraudulent securities with triple-A ratings that brought on the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans are still waiting for the U.S. Justice Department or the Securities and Exchange Commission to address the well documented market rigging charges that Michael Lewis made in his book, Flash Boys and on 60 Minutes. Millions of Americans have lost trust in their Congress, now with an approval rating of just 19 percent, to impose legislation to stop the serial crimes that continue to spew from Wall Street. Tens of millions of Americans believe that Wall Street’s financing of political campaigns has so completely corrupted the U.S. market system that it has become an institutionalized wealth transfer system from the pockets of the 99 percent to the 1 percent. As the ever-expanding raps sheets of JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup make clear, there is strong evidentiary support for this view.
Buffett’s reference to America’s “bountiful farmland” fails to mention the gut-wrenching poverty of migrant farmworkers that Jim Hightower captured just last week at Truthout, writing: “Allowing such abject poverty in our fields of abundance is more than shameful — it’s an oozing sore on our national soul, made even more immoral by the fact that our society throws 40 percent of our food into the garbage.”
After Buffett lauds that “America has amassed wealth totaling $90 trillion” he breezes past one of the most important debates of this century — the unprecedented wealth and income inequality in the U.S. — with this: “However our wealth may be divided, the mind-boggling amounts you see around you belong almost exclusively to Americans.” Buffett seems to be suggesting that the thousands of families who were illegally foreclosed on by Wall Street banks during the financial collapse (including active duty military members) should be comforted that the beneficiary of the rip offs were fellow Americans – not foreigners. Buffett writes:
“It’s true, of course, that American owners of homes, autos and other assets have often borrowed heavily to finance their purchases. If an owner defaults, however, his or her asset does not disappear or lose its usefulness. Rather, ownership customarily passes to an American lending institution that then disposes of it to an American buyer. Our nation’s wealth remains intact. As Gertrude Stein put it, ‘Money is always there, but the pockets change.’ ”
Millions of Americans clearly understand that those pockets, increasingly, belong to the 1 percent billionaire class who are gaming the system with a wink from our Congress.
Buffett also rolls out the threadbare, thoroughly discredited myth that Wall Street is an efficient allocator of capital. He writes:
“Above all, it’s our market system – an economic traffic cop ably directing capital, brains and labor – that has created America’s abundance. This system has also been the primary factor in allocating rewards.”
Since at least the 1990s, Wall Street’s radar in directing capital has been landing crashed heaps of jumbo jets on the financial runways of America. As dozens of lawsuits and Justice Department settlements have spelled out, in the lead up to the 2008 crash, Wall Street was paying rating agencies to deliver triple-A ratings to hundreds of billions of dollars of pools of subprime mortgages that they knew were destined to fail from their own in-house reviews.
Less than a decade earlier, Ron Chernow described for New York Times’ readers how Wall Street’s broken capital allocation system had brought on the dot.com bust. Chernow wrote: “Let us be clear about the magnitude of the Nasdaq collapse. The tumble has been so steep and so bloody — close to $4 trillion in market value erased in one year — that it amounts to nearly four times the carnage recorded in the October 1987 crash.” Chernow compared the Nasdaq stock market to a “lunatic control tower that directed most incoming planes to a bustling, congested airport known as the New Economy while another, depressed airport, the Old Economy, stagnated with empty runways. The market functioned as a vast, erratic mechanism for misallocating capital across America,” Chernow correctly observed.
Buffett has a built-in conflict that apparently prevents him taking off his rose-colored glasses when it comes to Wall Street. The company where the bulk of his wealth is invested, Berkshire Hathaway, owns $2.7 billion of Goldman Sachs stock; $27.5 billion of Wells Fargo; and $5 billion of Bank of America preferred stock.
Denying that America is headed in the wrong direction; denying that Wall Street has become hopelessly corrupted won’t get the problems fixed. It will ensure that today’s young generation will become debt slaves to Wall Street and the one percent. Don’t allow Buffett’s facade of homespun folksiness to distract you from the hard facts.
Comments
Charles Consaul Funny, he is the first to come out and say that he would be glad to pay more taxes. He gives his excess money away through the Gates Foundation, which gives him zero influence except among other billionaires who are encouraged to join in. You would have been much better off using Bill Gates as your subject, especially in light of the complaints he received from third world countries. He also had to change his own investment strategy when he was accused of magnifying his own wealth on the backs of burgerflippers. Buffet though? He may love the game, but he would be the first to admit that the playing field needs leveling!
Gary Reber All billionariers are :hoggists!” The system is rigged to enrich the wealthy capital ownership class.
Charles Consaul Some people have a talent for making money. Calling them names will not diminish their talent. It just makes you look jealous. There are plenty of genuinely evil people out there. Attacking someone who is actually, in many substantive ways, on your side, merely leaves you with one less – very powerful – ally!
Gary Reber I believe you are deluding yourself if you think that Warren Buffet and other billionairers are on the side of reforming the system and broadening capital ownership simultaneously with the growth of the economy. If they were for inclusive prosperity, inclusive opportunity and inclusive economic justice they would have acted long ago. They continue to remain silent, yet knowing they are rich because they OWN wealth-creating, income-producing capital assets, and the 99 percent do not.
Charles Consaul I guess you don’t read as much as you think you do. Do a deep dive on Buffet and get back to me. I could post it for you, but you seem like a big boy who knows how to do his own research.
Edward Tedesco Charles ..so he has made a few statements that he should be taxed more ! What exactly has he done to ensure that happening ! While it could be argued there are many other greedy pigs in the market who deserve to become bacon you cant dismiss out of hand buffet is a member of that group !
Charles Consaul Sure I can. This is America, and I just did! The best way for something to happen in America is actually to say “you can’t do that!” So, there!
Jessie Taylor Until capitalist admit capitalism is a scam hiding behind the lie a job is equality and money is freedom; capitalist are criminals. Can a scam get any better than 1% vs 99%?
Charles Consaul Worrying about individual venture capitalists while multinational corporations are corrupting our political process, is like scratching a misquito bite while leeches suck you dry. You are being distracted by the wrong itch!
Gary Reber Who do you think OWNS the mutinational corporations?
Charles Consaul I think that by the term, multinational, it would imply that they are owned by stockholders all over the world! Do you seriously believe that Warren Buffet is the wizard behind Siemans or Haliburton? Do you honestly believe that it is Warren Buffet manipulating databases and hacking voting machines? Look back to the last bill Warren Buffet was interested in. Was that BAD for America?
Gary Reber Major corporations are owned by the so-called 1 percent. Though, millions of Americans own diluted stock value through the “stock market exchanges,” purchased with their earnings as labor workers, their stock holdings are relatively minuscule, as are their dividend payments compared to the top 10 percent of capital owners. Statistically, stock market wealth is held by a relatively small number of the most affluent. In reality, most Americans don’t have any stocks to their name. In fact, many Americans don’t even have any savings to their name. A Pew Research survey found that 53 percent of Americans say they have no money at all invested in the stock market, including retirement accounts.
Jessie Taylor I hope Charles don t believe in the lesser evil in a evil system?
Charles Consaul Nope, but I know the difference between a misquito bite and a bucket full of leeches. How much Corporate Welfare did Buffet receive last year?
Charles Consaul Here’s your bad guy
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/buffett.asp
How Warren Buffett Could Fix the Budget Deficit
Warren Buffett quipped about passing a law…
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Charles Consaulhttp://money.cnn.com/…/warren-buffett-gop-health-care…/
Warren Buffett on GOP health care bill: ‘A huge tax cut for guys like me’
Warren Buffett knows health care costs are…
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Charles Consaulhttp://www.cbsnews.com/…/warren-buffett-wants-to-pay…/
Warren Buffett wants to pay higher taxes
Oracle of Omaha urges new super committee…
CBSNEWS.COM
Charles Consaul Warren Buffet sounds more like you than you do!
http://www.nytimes.com/…/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
Opinion | Stop Coddling the Super-Rich
We mega-rich should not continue to get…
NYTIMES.COM
Charles Consaul Obama even named a tax proposal after him!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule
The Buffett Rule is part of a tax plan proposed by President Barack Obama in 2011.[1] The tax…
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Charles Consaulhttps://www.forbes.com/…/solving-the-buffett…/…
Solving the Buffett Problem: Except There Isn’t A Buffett Problem
One of the standard tropes about taxation at…
FORBES.COM
Charles Consaul Everyone admits that Warren Buffet isn’t perfect, especially Warren Buffet! But what you are missing is that Warren Buffet is not inherently evil! This isn’t a lesser of two evils, this is a huge crippling crisis against a pretty good guy who would actually like to help us with it! There is more than enough genuine evil in the world. Stop trying to create more. If you piss off Warren Buffet, he could simply decide to shift his considerable weight in another direction and work against us. This is how mad scientists and evil dictators are made. If you have a genuine concern about Warren Buffet’s leadership style, write to him about it. If it has merit, he has been known to be open to discussion. Hope this helps!
Gary ReberCharles Consaul Oh, and how does that abate concentrated capital ownership?
Charles Consaul Warren Buffet is an individual with a highly specialized skill set and ethical standards that affect his decision making process. Most multinational corporations leave the ethics part of the equation out, or mutate it to use against the consumer. Sorry you can’t see the difference, but it exists!
Charles Consaul Imagine that an elderly lady passes, and her dog runs away at the wake because it is not used to so much company. The dog tries to adopt you but you kick it away because you are jealous of it’s collar! Next time the dog meets up with somebody, it gets frightened and defensive and the dog is captured and put to sleep. Six months later, the will comes out of probate, and it is revealed that whoever the dog takes to becomes it’s guardian and inherits the entire estate after it passes. The dog is never found however, so a codicil is invoked and all of the money goes to a big box preacher who uses it to buy another jet and build a summer mansion. You my friend, are kicking the wrong dog!
Gary Reber If Warren Buffet truly wants to “help us” he would become an advocate for reforming the system so that future capital formation is financed with insured, pure interest-free capital credit, repayable out of the earnings of the investments. Oh, we should be afraid to directly challenge the Buffet wizard. Sometimes people need to be challenged. Good luck with a response to writing to him. Been there.
Buffet knows why he is rich, yet he does not put his mind to reform the system to implement financial mechanisms that do not require past savings as capital credit loan security or collateral. He perfectly understands the logic of corporate finance that investments must pay for themselves. He has the influence to completely reform the system to provide equal opportunity for EVERY child, woman and man to acquire ownership stakes in future capital formation growth, without the requirement of past savings or taking anything from those who already own.
Buffet needs to understand that the purpose of production is consumption. So how do you increase consumption? The obvious answer is if you want to increase consumption, you must increase production.
Consumption drives everything in economics, and if people don’t have the means to consume, they have no means of participating in economic life. When people such as Buffet hoard the ownership of wealth-creating, income-producing capital assets they cause production and consumption to be out of balance.
The challenge is to empower people to gain the ability to consume by being productive. As the logic of Say’s Law of Markets has it, if you want to consume something, you must either produce it yourself, or produce something to trade to someone who produced what you want to consume.
How you produce something is, ultimately, irrelevant. Human labor and non-human capital are all productive in the same sense. The only problem in the modern world is that while everyone owns labor naturally, most people don’t own enough capital to produce enough for them to consume, and capital is vastly more productive than human labor — and, just as what human labor produces goes to the owner of human labor, what capital produces goes to the owner of capital assets.
Binary economist Louis Kelso, however, made what seems the obvious observation, that if owners of labor alone don’t have enough, and owners of capital have enough, such as a Warren Buffet and other multi-millionaires and billionaires, why not figure out some way that owners of labor can also be owners of productive capital . . . without taking anything from current owners of capital?
Kelso figured out a way to do so: using the techniques of “modern” finance it is possible to purchase newly formed capital that pays for itself out of its own future production, and thereafter yields enough production either for the owner to consume directly, or trade for what he or she wants to consume that is produced by others.
Buffet should understand this basic concept, but instead choose to hoard more and more capital wealth. The so-called 1 percent rulers of corporations have rigged the financial system to enable this already rich ownership class to systematically further enrich themselves as capital formation occurs and technological industrialization spreads throughout the world, leaving behind the 99 percent to depend on income redistribution, with their jobs being destroyed and thew labor’s worth being devalued as a result of tectonic shifts in the technologies of production and globalization (seeking lower cost production).
People, such as Warren Buffet, who already own productive capital systematically concentrate more and more capital ownership in their stationary 1 percent ranks. Yet the 1 percent are not the people who do the overwhelming consuming. The result is the consumer populous is not able to get the money to buy the products and services produced as a result of substituting machines for people. And yet you can’t have mass production without mass human consumption made possible by “customers with money.” It is the exponential disassociation of production and consumption that is the problem in the United States economy, and the reason that ordinary citizens must gain access to productive capital ownership to improve their economic well-being.
Buffet should understand that as long as working people are limited by earning income solely through their labor worker wages, they will be left behind by the continued gravitation of economic bounty toward the top 1 percent of the people that the system is rigged to benefit. Working people and the middle class will continue to stagnate, resulting in a stagnated consumer economy. More troubling is that this continued stagnation will further dim the economic hopes of America’s youth, no matter what their education level. The result will have profound long-term consequences for the nation’s economic health and further limit equal earning opportunity and spread income inequality. As the need for labor decreases and the power and leverage of productive capital increases, the gap between labor workers and capital owners will increase, which will result in turmoil and upheaval, if not revolution.
Buffet and all other multi-millionaires and billionaires should be committed to a just and economically classless market economy, true equality of opportunity, and a level playing field in the future for 100 percent of Americans. By adopting economic policies and programs that acknowledge every citizen’s right to contribute productively to the economy as a capital owner as well as a labor worker, the result will be an end to perpetual labor servitude and the liberation of people from progressive increments of subsistence toil and compulsive poverty as the 99 percent benefits from the rewards of productive capital-sourced income.
Charles Consaul So if you figure out a system to win the lottery, you should become the champion of all of the victims of the lottery rather than winning the lottery and doing as much could with the proceeds? Kind of a self defeating argument Gary. Like telling a fish that it should go into mountain climbing!
Gary Reber What? Please note that I said we can finance future capital formation with EVERY citizen becoming an owner and contributing productivity to the economy’s growth, without taking from those who already own. My challenge to Warren Buffet is to join the movement for this advocacy.
Charles Consaul Yeah but no – not every citizen has the drive, the intelligence, or the desire to become part of that system. Others want to dominate and hoard it. Warren Buffet wants to play with it for awhile and give it away – and he’s the guy you’re picking on!
Gary Reber Charles, you are missing the point of reforming the system to provide equal opportunity to become a capital owner and abate further capital ownership concentration.
William Symons Anyone can save capital from earning, I see and help people do it every day. Is it easy? No. But you can do it. The reason it is not easy is you have to live below your means. That is not an easy thing to do for most people. So currently people do have opportunity to form capital through their labor.
Jessie Taylor I don t look at the numbers; the numbers are the evil base. When humans put nature gifts into money; they make themselves false gods. We the only life on earth that use money; we the only life that play god. We haven t learn there is only one God and his children don t need money. The lesser evil in numbers will not free humanity to be united with Nature/God. Can we trust each other without money? Do we have a choice with a sinking ship name Earth?
Charles Consaul As opposed to the alternative?
Jessie Taylor Make fake democracy “real”; our DNA is cooperation. Money DNA is competition, it has divided humanity from day one at the enrichment of false gods.
Charles Consaul Depends, if you sent your DNA to Ancestry dot com, they now have the patent on it. (LOL)
Charles Consaul We have always reached for Democracy, we have never achieved it. The closest we have come is a Republic and we currently festering away in an oligarchy. When we made corporations into people, they kinged themselves and became nations without borders. Weren’t you invited to the coronations?
Charles Consaul The Queen says so, and so does Jimmy Carter, and they never lie!
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy – BBC News
BBC.COM|BY BBC NEWS
Charles Consaulhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/jimmy-carter-is-correct…
Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy
On July 28, Thom Hartmann interviewed…
HUFFINGTONPOST.COM
Charles Consaul Have you been introduced to your corporate Overlord yet?
Gary ReberWilliam Symons William is am not referring to financial capital (money) but to real physical productive capital which is really producing power and earning power through ownership of the non-human factor of production. Financial capital, such as stocks and bonds, is just an ownership claim on the productive power of real capital. In the law, property is the bundle of rights that determines one’s relationship to things. As binary economists Louis Kelso and Patricia Hetter put it, “Money is not a part of the visible sector of the economy; people do not consume money. Money is not a physical factor of production, but rather a yardstick for measuring economic input, economic outtake and the relative values of the real goods and services of the economic world. Money provides a method of measuring obligations, rights, powers and privileges. It provides a means whereby certain individuals can accumulate claims against others, or against the economy as a whole, or against many economies. It is a system of symbols that many economists substitute for the visible sector and its productive enterprises, goods and services, thereby losing sight of the fact that a monetary system is a part only of the invisible sector of the economy, and that its adequacy can only be measured by its effect upon the visible sector.”
Saving earnings from a job is denying consumption, and relatively few people can afford to save – having to spend every dollar earned on week-to-week and month-to-month survival. Yes, your clients are able to save because they earn enough to save and to invest in financial securities. Though, millions of Americans own diluted stock value through the “stock market exchanges,” purchased with their earnings as labor workers, their stock holdings are relatively minuscule, as are their dividend payments compared to the top 10 percent of capital owners. Statistically, stock market wealth is held by a relatively small number of the most affluent. In reality, most Americans don’t have any stocks to their name. In fact, many Americans don’t even have any savings to their name. A Pew Research survey found that 53 percent of Americans say they have no money at all invested in the stock market, including retirement accounts.
What is needed to not depend on past savings to finance economic growth. In other words, we need to free economic growth from the slavery of past savings.
Capital acquisition takes place on the logic of self-financing and asset-backed credit for productive uses. People invest in capital ownership on the basis that the investment will pay for itself. Because of the fact, we can design financial mechanisms that empower EVERY citizen to acquire ownership stakes in future capital formation using insured, pure capital credit, repayable out of the future earnings of the investments, without the requirement of past savings.
Charles Consaul I’ve tried investing on future savings – it was a disastor!
Gary ReberCharles Consaul That is where capital credit insurance comes into play in the solution. The basis for the commitment of loan guarantees is the fact that nobody who knows what he or she is doing buys a physical capital asset or an interest in one unless he or she is first assured, on the basis of the best advice one can get, that the asset in operation will pay for itself within a reasonable period of time — 5 to 7 or, in a worst case scenario, 10 years (given the current depressive state of the economy). And after it pays for itself within a reasonable capital cost recovery period, it is expected to go on producing income indefinitely with proper maintenance and with restoration in the technical sense through research and development.
Still, there is at least a theoretical chance, and sometimes a very real chance, that the investment might not pay for itself, or it might not pay for itself in the projected time period. So, there is a business risk. This is why the lender has no reason to loan unless it has two sources of repayment. In addition to determining that the investment is viable and that the business corporation is credit worthy and reliably expected to make loan repayments, there needs to be security against default. Thus, for the lender to make the loan the security must be provided. Rather than past savings, the security can be commercial capital credit insurance and reinsurance.
See Monetary Justice at http://capitalhomestead.org/page/monetary-justice.
Also see the Capital Homestead Act (aka Economic Democracy Act) at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/, http://www.cesj.org/…/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for…/, http://www.cesj.org/…/capital-homestead-act-summary/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ch-vehicles/.
DECLARATION OF MONETARY JUSTICE
Whereas, the United States economy is today plagued by a growing gap between the rich and the non-rich; by a global recession and credit crisis; by debilitatin…
CAPITALHOMESTEAD.ORG
Charles Consaul And you have just hit on the basic insanity of economics! We have already pushed the national debt off on our great grandchildren and eliminated their chances of getting an education to earn enough moey to pay for it. Now you want to start another lottery based on our future earnings? I am SO thankful that I am retired – well, at least until #45 figures out a way to steal my pensions from me!
Jessie Taylor A sense of humor can help facing extinction with no real solutions; either we survive together or die together; no DNA tests.
Charles Consaul Well, that would require working together rather than standing our ground, and according to this thread so far, that is contrary to human nature! (LOL)
Charles Consaul Personally, I’m gonna ask Warren Buffet to adopt me, or at least his cousin Jimmy!
Jessie Taylor Rome wasn t build in a day; trusting without money will take more than a day. I wish to be adopted by nature.
Gary ReberCharles Consaul On a larger scale, there is another path to solve the security issue, that is, the risk can be absorbed by capital credit insurance or commercial risk insurance. Thus, in order to achieve national economic democracy, we need a way to handle risk management in finance by broadly insuring the risks. Such capital credit insurance would substitute for the security demanded by lenders to cover the risk of non-payment, thus enabling the poor and others with no or few assets (the 99 percenters) to overcome the collateralization barrier that excludes the non-halves from access to wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital.
One feasible way is to lift ownership-concentrating Federal Reserve System credit barriers and other institutional barriers that have historically separated owners from non-owners and link tax and monetary reforms to the goal of expanded capital ownership. Removing barriers that inhibit or prevent ordinary people from purchasing capital that pays for itself out of its own future earnings is paramount as an actionable policy. This can be done under the existing legal powers of each of the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks, and will not add to the already unsustainable debt of the Federal Government or raise taxes on ordinary taxpayers. We need to free the system of dependency on Wall Street and the accumulated savings and money power of the rich and super-rich who control Wall Street. The Federal Reserve System has stifled the growth of America’s productive capacity through its monetary policy by monetizing public-sector growth and mounting Federal deficits and “Wall Street” bailouts; by favoring speculation over investment; by shortchanging the capital credit needs of entrepreneurs, inventors, farmers, and workers; by increasing the dependency with usurious consumer credit; and by perpetuating unjust capital credit and ownership barriers between rich Americans and those without savings. The Federal Reserve Bank should be used to provide interest-free capital credit (including only transaction and risk premiums) and monetize each capital formation transaction, determined by the same expertise that determines it today — management and banks — that each transaction is viably feasible so that there is virtually no risk in the Federal Reserve. The first layer of risk would be taken by the commercial credit insurers, backed by a new government corporation, the Capital Diffusion Reinsurance Corporation, through which the loans could be guaranteed. This entity would fulfill the government’s responsibility for the health and prosperity of the American economy.
The fact is money power rules. When money power is broadly distributed in the hands of the citizens, not the politicians or bankers, the people shall rule.
The Federal Reserve Board is already empowered under Section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act to reform monetary policy to discourage non-productive uses of credit, to encourage accelerated rates of private sector growth, and to promote widespread individual access to productive credit as a fundamental right of citizenship. The Federal Reserve Board needs to re-activate its discount mechanism to encourage private sector growth linked to expanded capital ownership opportunities for all Americans.
Charles Consaulhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/jimmy-carter-is-correct…
Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy
HUFFINGTONPOST.COM
Charles Consaul Insurance is a lottery against perceived risk and the house always wins. Are you a blackjack dealer Gary?
Charles ConsaulJessie Taylor – Nature has weird priorities and I could never find a leaf that was just the right fit!
Gary ReberCharles Consaul You know the Federal Housing Administration mortgage concept has worked well, and housing is a consumption that requires a separate income source to pay the mortgage, not a capital investment that generates it own repayment.
William Symons I was not taking about only stock and bonds but also small business with real physical productive capital equipment.
Charles Consaul I live in a Carelessly Built Home and do not trust the housing market any more than I do the health lottery
Charles Consaul If you want to throw your money away, send it to me! I will send you a nice thank you note. The insurance companies will just send you a bill for more money!
Patrick Case If this individual would “Force” other Wealthy Individual’s to renounce their Wealth and bring the U.S. into compliance with the Human rights to have equality in wealth, a Debt Free existence and guaranteed Health Benefits without excessive cost and loss of freedom to chose what is best for ourselves ! Currently, there is a Struggle between 2 Wolves ! One is Greedy and Dangerous. The other is generous and benevolent ! The Economy’s condition is based on Which Wolf we feed ! I honestly believe that today, we are feeding the wrong Wolf!
Charles Consaul That’s communism silly!
Patrick Case Actually, Communism is the Society that all citizens contribute it’s resources to the betterment of society as a whole ! Capitalism is the concentration of wealth to the top of society who controls it for the few and creates the LABOR CLASS TO BENEFIT THE WEALTHY: “Shareholders”. Employee ownership is better for all because it eliminates Sole ownership and spreads the Wealth among the “Stakeholders “. Costco, Winco, Woodmans (Wisconsin based grocery chain). There are many companies that have created “Employee Ownership” Corp.’s and the Wealth is Shared and everyone benefits without the “Communist” label ! Communism Does Not work because it has created a Libertarian Government !
Charles Consaul Libertarianism is anarchy with roads and defended borders
Charles Consaul Our economy is no longer based on wolves at all. It’s a pyramid scheme and the first group already took the money and ran. We’re just waiting for the latest house of cards to fall so the automatons who run the system will know to start rebuilding!
Charles Consaul http://www.econmatters.com/…/the-stock-market-is-giant…
The Stock Market is a Giant Ponzi Scheme
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Charles Consaulhttps://moneymappress.com/pro/HPyramid0712MMRClick.php…
Your Future: The Ultimate Pyramid Scheme
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