Do the poor have a lobbyist or agent I can invite?

I would start with him.

This is from the guy who hosted the Democratic debate:

We look after each other, because although we realize nobody has are best intentions in mind and works very hard among the elite to represent us and lobby for us, nobody is spread too thin and is to transparent to do us much good.

But Kudos for nobody, nobody tries, but being a non-existent entity he/she has little power to influence or bribe mortals on our behalf. We understand this and do not blame nobody for what is done to us, but there is a very long list of blame to go around and there are many that we do blame Including the Bush/Clinton crime families.

In shocking news, nobody finds a less corporeally challenged ally in the fight to help us, a Senator Sanders, unfortunately just like our friend and ally nobody, he has no power or influence among the Oligarchical masters of the universe that hold most of the power in industry banking and government, his only weapon appears to be the truth and us poor folk that, as we help our own neighbors we help him as well, because like our neighbors we and he have no power among the elite or those in control of parties and governments but we each help each other.

Welcome neighbor Sanders, we appreciate the help you offer when you can, just as we appreciate the help of Mr Johnson next door that just made a huge pot of Rice, beans, and chicken to share with the couple across the street that had no dinner yesterday to feed themselves and their children (true thing). We accept you into our humble collective as a true friend and neighbor.

But I now think she maybe just doesn't even know.

People in her 'world' really do live in a different world and to them it is their reality.. Something happens at a certain point and everything flips.. Like having a lobotomy.. You wake up and... or it's like you've just zoomed through a worm hole.

People. When she traveled the country on her "listening" tour, did she really insulate herself from any poor people? Does she blame them for being poor like republicans do?

The very same bill Sanders has been attacked on even though Sanders had to vote for it since it was bundled into the budget bill.

http://prospect.org/article/whats-problem-gary-gensler

"I dunno about tech stuff." -- Guy in Terminator to Sarah Connor

William K. Black explains how mass media are working to shift the blame from their corrupt owners to the corrupt governments they also happen to own.



The WSJ and NYT Spin Elite Tax Fraud as “Good News”

William K. Black
TripleCrisis.com, April 7, 2016

A single Panamanian law firm—one of many hundreds of such firms in the world that specialize in aiding tens of thousands of elites to evade taxes—has had over a million of its documents leaked to a consortium of investigative journalists. Neither the New York Times nor the Wall Street Journal are part of that consortium, and neither seems embarrassed about that failure. Instead, they have filled their pages with pieces about the Panama leaks that are spun so brazenly and bizarrely that as a reader even I was shocked at their audacity.

The New York Times was late to the story, but its April 5, 2016, analytical piece Peter Eavis that bore this astonishing title: “In Panama Papers, Finding the Good News in Widespread Tax Cheating.” The Wall Street Journal, despite its less bizarre titles managed to surpass the NYT with the volume and the blatancy of its spin. In an April 5, 2016, article entitled “Panama Papers: Hiding Cash Has Become Crummy Business.” The thrust of that story is that laundering money and tax evasion is a “crummy business” not because it is immoral and destructive, but because it is purportedly experiencing reduced profitability.

But the WSJ’s editorial pages always trounce the increasing lunacy of their news pages. News of endemic fraud by elites is simply an opportunity to attack the paper’s enemies. Bret Stephens’ op ed has a title that exemplifies this attack syndrome: “‘C’ Is for Corruption: The Clintons are the Brazilianization of American politics.” A reader might wonder what all of this had to do with the Panamanian leak.

This is Stephens’ explanation.

“China: A leak of 11.5 million documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca—instantly dubbed ‘the Panama Papers’—implicate relatives of President Xi Jinping along with other top officials of sheltering fortunes in offshore tax havens. Mr. Xi is supposed to be leading an anti-corruption campaign.

“The Panama Papers have also exposed billions in assets belonging to close friends of Vladimir Putin …

“But nobody can be surprised by any of this. And nobody should look away from the central lesson of the scandal, though they’re trying. To wit, the story here isn’t about tax evaders and offshore accounts, deplorable as they may be. It’s about public policies and incentives that make a career in politics an expedient route to personal enrichment.”

wired a bit more differently than those that have developed filters, allowing them only to see the thin layer of paint covering a much broader reality and a less simplistic world than the Bumper sticker ideas and "news" both in print and media put out to "inform" them.

I don't know octafish, perhaps Pravda USA is much better at applying that thin veneer over the obviously larger machinations at play that I give them credit for.

I am however, as always, grateful that you continue showing (quite well I might add) a deeper and more thoughtful look at the big picture covered in translucent graffiti by the american Oligarchical Pravda network of news sources that do more to re-direct, and misdirect than they do to actually inform anyone about anything, they are the magicians of the thoughts of the masses, their slight of hand is practiced and an art in itself, but some DO see the cards in their sleeves and in the hand one is directed to look away from, you just happen to be better than most at revealing the magician's trade-craft.

I wish I could think and write as well as you do.. and Octafish as well..

I am a musician, and not a very scholarly one, at that. My impressions come quick, by instinct, and I post that way. But I so admire the way you very carefully and precisely lay out your ideas.'

Please keep at it.

Maybe you could 'be a writer.'

I never finished 10th Grade (although I was literally at the top of the list regarding grades) because I had to go to work early to support myself having to leave home short of my sixteenth birthday (long story).

The only education I posses comes from self education and an obsession with reading books recommended by those that do possess a good and full education, it's an ongoing process, I consider myself even now still in my own private personal education program.

I also have always just liked reading, that helps I think.

Unfortunately a GED and a less than 10th grade educational record would not sway any publisher to print my thoughts. They expect degrees and training.

There is education, and then there is education.
And you have that 'other' education.

I also do not agree that publishers require a degree or GED.. They want good writing...

You CAN WRITE. and very, very well.

You've got it, my friend...

by MICHAEL HUDSON – CHRIS HEDGES
CounterPunch, April 1, 2016

EXCERPT...

HUDSON: Citibank, along with Countrywide Financial, was making junk mortgages. These were mortgages called NINJA. They were called liars’ loans, to people with no income, no jobs and no assets. You had this movie, The Big Short, as if some genius on Wall Street discovered that the mortgages were all going to go down. And you have the stories of Queen Elizabeth going to the economist …

HEDGES: “How come none of you knew?”

HUDSON: Right. The fact is, if everybody on Wall Street called these mortgages liars’ loans, if they knew that they’re made for NINJAs, for people who can’t pay, all of Wall Street knew that it was fraud.

The key is that if you’re a really smart criminal, you have to plan to get caught. The plan is how to beat the rap. On Wall Street, if you buy garbage assets, how do you make the government bail you out? That was what the president of the United States is for, whether it was Obama or whether it would have been John McCain …

HEDGES: Or Bush.

HUDSON: Or whether it would be Hillary today, or Trump. Their job is to bail out Wall Street and make the people pay, not Wall Street. Because Wall Street is “the people” who select the politicians – who know where their money is coming from. If you have a campaign contributor, no matter whether it’s Wall Street, or locally if it’s a real estate developer, you all know who your backers are.

The talent you need to have as a politician is to make the voters think that you’re going to be supporting their interests …

HEDGES: And what’s that great Groucho Marx quote?

HUDSON: The secret of success is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/the-lies-of-neoliberal-economics-or-how-america-became-a-nation-of-sharecroppers/

But not really funny. We could well end up with Wall Street directly in charge of the White House, by being directly in charge of the President.

Kiss Social Security goodbye.

Kiss everything else in the public interest goodbye.

Kiss the neutral internet goodbye.

Kiss American democracy goodbye.

I hear ya, Peace Patriot. Did you see this?

The author was a Chicago Boy helping implement the privatization scam for Pinochet, ITT and the globalist crowd:

I know I probably know more than most Americans what is going on,. But I also know that I don't really know what is going on, but at least I KNOW that I don't know.

But then something like this shows up (THANK YOU) and I know that I don't REALLY know how much I don't know what I don't know what is going on.

The layers of the the onion are endless.

And Clinton is so obviously right in the middle of it.

This makes Bernie's fight even MORE ..what.... remarkable. To see little by little what he is really going up against.


And there is just no way to inform the 'average American" about the deep, deep deep, down truth.

I can imagine sometimes, Bernie, at one of his rallies, picking on one of these historical horrors and laying it out.... what in the world would be the outcome?

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." -- John Maynard Keynes

The British economist is the guy all the Trickle Down followers have worked night and day to make us forget.

I'd like to know. Here's a big reason why:

When are Sherrod Brown and Carl Levin going to cash in?

He led the charge for transparency when he was a member of the US Senate:

you see, by taking all of their money and gaining their confidence, Sec Clinton is setting them up for the old double-cross/ switcheroo / reversal-of-fortune / tables-are-turned / pull-off-the-mask-it's Old Man Smithers, and he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!!!

I guess that explains the Scooby Doo van (aka Mystery Machine)... 🚐

What was Raymond doing with his hands?



How did the old ladies turn into Russians?

that Hillary's fans and those who would refer to third way Dems as 'fresh thinking' consider somehow defensible.

Blatant disregard for the country in pursuit of wealth for themselves and their cronies.

We don't need Bernie to make us mad as hell. We just need to know how to read, and actually use that skill on something other than corporate-approved neoliberal propaganda

not one of their puppets

On MSM in the last 20 years.

They laugh all de way to de bank

by Paul Buchheit
Published on Monday, December 01, 2014 by Common Dreams

Just 70 individuals now own as much wealth as half the world. In the U.S., the richest 40 individuals own as much as half the country, and the 16,000 American households in the top .01% have accumulated an average net worth of over a third of a billion dollars. As extreme wealth continues to grow out of control, inequality worsens for the rest of us, plaguing our country and our world, spreading like a terminal form of cancer. It should be a major news item in the mainstream media. But the well-positioned few are either oblivious to or uncaring about its effect on less fortunate people.

The data and charts (citations here) come from Forbes, Credit Suisse, and a recent study by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

1. Just 70 Individuals Own As Much Wealth As Half the World



halftheworld.jpg

Less than a year ago, Oxfam reported that the richest 85 individuals owned as much wealth as half the world. But recently updated calculations reveal that the richest 70 individuals now own $1.842 trillion, more than the poorest half of the world.

We're drawing nearer to the fulfillment of Charles Koch's dream: "I want my fair share and that's all of it."


2. Just 40 Americans Own As Much Wealth As Half the United States



40americans.jpg

About a month ago it was 43, and a month before that it was 47. Now the richest 40 Americans (The Forbes 40) own a little over $1.092 trillion, about the same, according to calculations based on Credit Suisse data, as the poorest half of the country.

The national wealth that was created by all of us over many decades is quickly being redistributed to fewer and fewer incomprehensibly rich people.


One of the causes for this pathological transfer of wealth is revealed in the final image..

3. Stock/Equity Wealth of the Richest 12,000 Households Has Surpassed the Housing Wealth of 108,000,000 Households



stockequity.jpg

Just 35 years ago, the percentage of national wealth in middle-class housing (net of mortgages) was about seven times more than the percentage of national wealth in equities owned by the .01% (12,000 families). Now middle-class housing is only about half the value of those equities.

Saez and Zucman report that the total of corporate equities, bonds, and savings deposits owned by the .01% amounted to 2.2 percent of total U.S. household wealth in the mid-1980s, rising to 9.9 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, housing for the bottom 90% dropped from 15 percent of total household wealth to 5-6 percent. Since the bottom 50%, according to the authors, own almost zero wealth, the housing figures pertain to the 50-90% families, which can be described as "middle class."


Possible solutions are becoming clearer:

(1) A Financial Speculation Tax to slow down the flow of money to the takers

(2) Occupy Wall Street, Phase II

That can be used to beat Bernie, and later on, Republicans.