"Who's Really Looting America?" With Robert Reich

[appalachiablue]

As hundreds of thousands take to the streets to protest ruthless police killings of Black Americans and centuries of systemic racism, Donald Trump and his enablers have been quick to cast the protesters as violent “looters” — and distract from the real looters of America. So far, over 10,000 Americans have been arrested during the wave of protests. Yet a decade ago, after Wall Street bankers looted America through predatory lending and securities fraud — often preying upon people of color and causing American households to lose roughly $19 trillion in total wealth — not a single top Wall Street executive went to prison. Instead, they received billions in taxpayer bailouts, and executives took home massive bonuses.

Now, during the coronavirus pandemic and an unprecedented economic crisis, America’s billionaires have seen their wealth soar by $434 billion. How? Their corporations lobbied for and got $500 billion in bailouts and they got $135 billion in tax breaks. And the Treasury Department and the Fed are erasing the corporate debt they amassed over the last few years so their corporations could buy back their shares of stock. Meanwhile, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Walmart, and other corporate giants are using their vast market power to rack up record profits.

The corporate looting doesn’t stop there. Just look at the epidemic of wage theft through misclassifying employees as independent contractors and denying workers the overtime pay they are due. Every year, American employers steal a combined $15 billion in income from their workers, whether white, black or brown. The most profitable corporations in America are also looting America of billions in taxes through loopholes, write-offs, and special exemptions they’ve successfully lobbied for. Amazon paid just a 1.2 percent tax rate on $13 billion in profit in 2019. Other companies, including Chevron, Halliburton, and Netflix, haven’t paid a dime in federal taxes in recent years. The United States loses nearly $70 billion a year in tax revenue because corporations loot America by shifting their profits to tax havens overseas...

The worst looting in America isn’t breaking windows at Target or Wells Fargo. It’s billions of dollars in wage theft, unjustifiable tax breaks for the top 1 percent, corporate tax havens, predatory loans, bail bonds, mass incarceration, and crooked Wall Street bankers who have never been accountable to anything but their bottom line...

More, https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/whos-really-looting-america/

[oasis]

1. Reich always does his homework. nt

[appalachiablue]

2. He really does, and this one is right on the money, ha!

[delisen]

3. This is an exceptional article by Reich nt

[RussBLib]

4. universal health care

doubling of the federal minimum wage (at least)

and recoup some of the billions lost or given away to major corporations

would go a long way to restoring some balance and decreasing inequality.

The answers seem easy. Why is getting there continue to be so hard?

[appalachiablue]

5. All of that needs to happen but the opposition

is immensely funded and powerful now and their message amplified by decades of propaganda media.

The anti- democratic movement away from people's interests towards wealth and oligarchy for 40 years has created mass inequality, major systemic problems and lowered U.S. standing from a full democracy to a flawed democracy.

At peak now, we're in a dangerous new Gilded Age that that will devolve into neo-feudalism if remedies aren't implemented. Fortunately many people who uphold democracy and the constitution exist along with bright minds capable of positive change if they get the chance to reform and rebuild.

Most urgent is countering consolidated U.S. media with truth, focus on the public interest and the welfare of the country.

[CTyankee]

6. This is wonderful and I love Reich and have read his works BUT

the Right always countermands with racist attacks to divert attention.

PLUS, here's the thing: many, many ordinary workers will vote for the republicans who are robbing them blind because they want to be rich someday. So they don't want these goodies (which they are SURE await them) themselves!

I've seen this game go on for years and yeas and years. It's discouraging.[/i]