Enslaved through trade, That seems to be the agenda with trade agreements these days. Over and over again national law, the common good is overwritten through bad trade deals. Wikileaks has exposed yet another horror from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement being negotiated. It seems freedom loving, Democratic United States is leading the charge to ensure life saving drugs are not affordable for most people.
Walmart is at it again, slashing benefits for their workers. This time Walmart will deny health insurance to employees working less than 30 hours a week. That's about 28,000 Walmart workers. Walmart isn't alone in throwing part-time workers under the healthcare bus as Target, Home Depot, Walgreens and Trader Joe’s. have already denied healthcare coverage for their workers.
How much would you pay for a year of life? It seems Big Pharma has figured that number out and are charging over $100,000 a year for life saving Cancer drugs. Yes, surprise, surprise, the more dire the disease, the more the great for profit pharmaceutical industry is charging for the cure. In 2012 alone, of the 12 cancer drugs approved by the FDA, 11 cost over $100,000.
While America still suffers with repressed wages, increasing poverty and a vanishing middle class, Wall Street and big Multinational Corporations are having a party. Bonuses increased 15% and are back to their pre-financial crisis excesses Corporations hording cash offshore increased 11.8% in 2013 to a whopping $1.95 trillion.
Want to know how to create up to 5.8 million jobs in three years? End currency manipulation. So says a new study released from the Economic Policy Institute. If currency manipulation was stopped, the U.S. trade deficit would shrink by up to $500 billion in three years, annual GDP would increase up to $720 billion, the federal budget deficit would be reduced by $100 billion each year and 40% of the new jobs created would be in manufacturing.
The Obama 2015 Budget is finally here with the usual fanfare of a thud, dud, not gonna happen political reality. Earlier we received previews where the Obama administration finally dropped chained CPI from their proposals. The 2015 budget proposed is $3.9 trillion dollars.
Yet another Senate report, yet another bank is busted for tax evasion. The Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations has released a report on Credit-Suisse bank detailing their systemic offshore tax evasion of U.S. funds.
The Obama administration is finally abandoning their endorsement of chained CPI for next years budget. The reason is probably not good economics, but political. Election season is near and this is just one of many policies the Obama administration endorsed which raised the ire of the retired. A refresher, chained CPI is another method to adjust for cost of living increases at a reduced rate than what is currently used, CPI-W.
The headlines blare Obamcare will cause over two million more jobs to be lost by 2017 and the losses will grow to 2.5 million jobs by 2024. That analysis is from the Congressional Budget Office in their 2014 Budget Outlook report. Unfortunately, the rationale behind the CBO claims are that the subsidies to buy health insurance for individuals are larger than the wages earned working full-time hours. From the report:
The amount of cash multinational corporations are stashing is at an all time high and economists are wondering why. A recent Federal Reserve research paper examined some of the reasons. A big one is multinationals pay no taxes on profits if they park them offshore. A stash of cash is building and the miser pile is now a mountain.
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