j.i.c.23

The “Occupy Wall Street” protests are gaining momentum, having spread from a small park in nyc, 2 marches around the city 2 other cities across the country. << full article here::bi

Unemployment. 3 yrs after the financial crisis, the unemployment rate is still at the highest level since the Great Depression (except for a brief blip in the early 1980s)

Let's start with the obvious one: Unemployment. Three years after the financial crisis, the unemployment rate is still at the highest level since the Great Depression (except for a brief blip in the early 1980s)

Image: St. Louis Fed

Jobs are scarce, so many adults have given up looking for them. Thus, a sharp decline in the "participation ratio."

Image: St. Louis Fed

And it's not just construction workers. The average duration of all unemployment is also near an all-time high.

Image: St. Louis Fed

That 9% rate, by the way, equates to 14 million Americans—people who want to work but can't find a job.

Image: St. Louis Fed

And that's just people who meet the strict criteria for "unemployed." Include people working part-time who want to work full-time, plus some people who haven't looked for a job in a while, and unemployment's at 17%

lowest percentage of Americans w/jobs since early 1980s ( boom prior = women entering workforce).

Put differently, this is the lowest percentage of Americans with jobs since the early 1980s (And the boom prior to that, by the way, was from women entering the workforce).

Image: St. Louis Fed

Corporate profits just hit another all-time high.

Image: St. Louis Fed

After adjusting for inflation, average hourly earnings haven’t increased in 50 years.

In short... while CEOs and shareholders have been cashing in, wages as a percent of the economy have dropped to an all-time low.

Image: St. Louis Fed

Of course, life is great if you're in the top 1% of American wage earners. You're hauling in a bigger percentage of the country's total pre-tax income than you have at any time since the late 1920s. Your share of the national income, in fact, is almost 2X the long-term average!

Image: David Ruccio

And the top 0.1% in America are doing way better than the top 0.1% in other first-world countries.

Image: David Ruccio

In fact, income inequality has gotten so extreme here that the US now ranks 93rd in the world in "income equality." China's ahead of us. So is India. So is Iran.

Image: G. William Domhoff, UC Santa Cruz

And, by the way, few people would have a problem with inequality if the American Dream were still fully intact—if it were easy to work your way into that top 1%. But, unfortunately, social mobility in this country is also near an all-time low.

top 1% of americans own 42% of total financial wealth

top 5%, own close to 68%

So what does all this mean in terms of net worth? Well, for starters, it means that the top 1% of Americans own 42% of the financial wealth in this country. The top 5%, meanwhile, own nearly 70%.

Image: G. William Domhoff, UC Santa Cruz

That’s about 60% of the net worth of the country held by the top 5% (left chart).

Image: G. William Domhoff, UC Santa Cruz

top 1% = 5% of country’s total debt

And remember that huge debt problem we have—with hundreds of millions of Americans indebted up to their eyeballs? Well, the top 1% doesn't have that problem. They only own 5% of the country's debt.

Image: G. William Domhoff, UC Santa Cruz

And then there are taxes... It's a great time to make a boatload of money in America, because taxes on the nation's highest-earners are close to the lowest they've ever been.

Image: National Taxpayers Union

The aggregate tax rate for the top 1% is lower than for the next 9%—and not much higher than it is for pretty much everyone else.

Image: G. William Domhoff, UC Santa Cruz

As the nation's richest people often point out, they do pay the lion's share of taxes in the country: The richest 20% pay 64% of the total taxes. (Lower bar). Of course, that's because they also make most of the money. (Top bar).

Image: G. William Domhoff, UC Santa Cruz

Um, no. Bank lending dropped sharply, and it has yet to recover.

Image: St. Louis Fed

So, what have banks been doing since 2007 if not lending money to American companies? Lending money to America's government! By buying risk-free Treasury bonds and other government-guaranteed securities.

Image: St. Louis Fed

And, remarkably, they've also been collecting interest on money they are NOT lending—the "excess reserves" they have at the Fed. Back in the financial crisis, the Fed decided to help bail out the banks by paying them interest on this money that they're not lending. And they're happily still collecting it. (It's AWESOME to be a bank.)

Image: St. Louis Fed

Meanwhile, of course, the banks are able to borrow money FOR FREE. Because the Fed has slashed rates to basically zero. And the banks have slashed the rates they pay on deposits to basically zero. So they can have all the money they want—for nearly free!

Image: St. Louis Fed

IRA figure below

When you can borrow money for nothing, and lend it back to the government risk-free for a few percentage points, you can COIN MONEY. And the banks are doing that. According to IRA, the "net interest margin" made by US banks in the first six months of this year is $211 Billion. Nice!

Image: Institutional Risk Analytics

And that has helped produce $58 billion of profit in the first six months of the year.

Image: Institutional Risk Analytics

And it has helped generate near-record financial sector profits—while the rest of the country struggles with its 9% unemployment rate.

Image: Reuters (Felix Salmon)

And these profits are getting back toward a record as a percentage of all corporate profits.

Image: The Big Picture

2010 figure below

And those profits, of course, are AFTER the banks have paid their bankers. And it's still great to be a banker. The average banker in New York City made $361,330 in 2010. Not bad!

Image: New York Times, New York State Comptroller

This average Wall Street salary was 6X the average private-sector salary (which, in turn, is actually lower than the average government salary, but that's a different issue).

Image: New York Times, New York State Comptroller

So it REALLY doesn't suck to be a banker.

And so, in conclusion, we'll end with another look at the "money shot"—the one overarching reason the Wall Street protesters are so upset: Wages as a percent of the economy. Again, it's basically the lowest it has ever been.

Image: St. Louis Fed

presstv

^whu also ^have^ a live feed^

. . of both #awakening & #occupy demonstrations

Several updates available

via::Google +

Michael Mozart G+

^^Beast^^

#occupyJacksonville G+

j.i.c.8

07 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by whu in Art, life, manana, tuday, yesterday

≈ Comments Off

Tags

#occupy, Change, Evolution, Help, Nonviolence, NoW!, nyc, Occupy Wall Street Movement, Revolution, Televised Online, Unemployment, wall street, Washington DC

Ben & Jerry’s:: 2 those whu Occupy: We stand w/u. page.

We, the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors, compelled by our personal convictions and our Company’s mission and values, wish to express our deepest admiration to all of you who have initiated the non-violent Occupy Wall Street Movement and to those around the country who have joined in solidarity. The issues raised are of fundamental importance to all of us. These include:

The inequity that exists between classes in our country is simply immoral.
We are in an unemployment crisis. Almost 14 million people are unemployed. Nearly 20% of African American men are unemployed. Over 25% of our nation’s youth are unemployed.
Many workers who have jobs have to work 2 or 3 of them just to scrape by.
Higher education is almost impossible to obtain without going deeply in debt.
Corporations are permitted to spend unlimited resources to influence elections while stockpiling a trillion dollars rather than hiring people.

expanded article here::B&J’s

& of course. .

+ +

>>livestream<<

of the #occupy movements NoW.

>>#occupy2getherStream<<

>>#occupyAmsterdam<<

>>#occupyOregon<<

>>#occupyAtlanta<<

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this j.i.c. thing simply stands 4 ‘just in case. .’

Only point being 2 keep any1 listening informed