Great American Daily – 2018 is shaping up to be President Trump’s year.
Many Americans who were once apprehensive about his presidency are now showing their support for him.
And this latest poll just proved that the Democrats are doomed.
Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has made uniting America a priority.
After eight years of Barack Obama, America was more divided than ever when Trump first took office. Continue reading
Charles Hugh Smith – When people say “capitalism has failed” or “capitalism has succeeded,” we have to ask: what type of capitalism do you mean? Authentic capitalism, in which capital is placed at risk to earn a return in a competitive, transparent marketplace, or do you mean cartel-state capitalism, or crony-capitalism, or monopoly capitalism or finance capitalism, i.e. the types that dominate the global economy.
As long as most startups crash and burn, and anyone with a few bucks and plenty of inner drive can start an enterprise, authentic capitalism still lives. But let’s face it, authentic capitalism occupies a diminishing corner of the U.S. and global economies.
With a work force of 150 million and around 120 million full-time workers, the U.S. economy has about 6 million small businesses with employees and a few million self-employed (sole proprietors) who earn a middle-class livelihood: Endangered Species: The Self-Employed Middle Class.
The political and financial influence of small business and the self-employed barely registers on K Street, Wall Street and in Washington D.C. Politicos praise small business in the same way they speak of small family farms as the backbone of American agriculture–as a form of pandering for PR purposes while they pocket the big campaign contributions from Monsanto and Big Ag.
Meanwhile, in the real world, small business is in decline while corporate money floods the financial sector and Washington D.C.
The Washington Post published a study that found U.S. businesses are being destroyed faster than they’re being created. While not exactly a surprise, this is sobering evidence that small enterprise is in structural decline:
The 22.4 million with some self-employment income looks like a big number, but most earn a pittance: only a relative few earn what qualifies as a middle-class income, and 3 million of these are professional-sector corporations or partnerships:
The real action in modern-day capitalism is finance capital: that’s where the really big money is made. You don’t make money making inexpensive autos, you make the big money selling subprime auto loans.
Corporations aren’t selling more products to boost their share prices–they’re buying back their shares as a way to push their stock price higher. It has been estimated that the majority of corporate profits (presumably actual profits, as opposed to the tricked-up accounting games companies play to boost their announced earnings) have been spent buying back shares.
Correspondent Arshad Ali recently described the underlying dynamic of finance capital in a Facebook post: a lack of authentic growth is driving financial cannibalism:
“The modern banking system of the last few centuries has been based on lending to borrowers who do something productive with the capital — open a mine, start a factory, start a ranch, drill an oil well. But this whole equation becomes unstuck when — because of a finite resource-constrained planet — there’s nowhere productive to invest it anymore. That’s when finance capital becomes cannibalistic, as it has over the last few decades. That’s why the Greeks, for example, cannot grow themselves out of the debt pit — there’s no growth to be had.”
This is why corporations are “investing” in their own shares–there’s no place left to invest for growth. They are cannibalizing the entire financial system, buying regulatory and tax favors from thoroughly corrupt political systems to secure their profits, which are then used to remove shares from the market, boosting the price-earnings ratio and the share price.
Insiders grant themselves immense chunks of newly stocks via options which they promptly cash in, reaping tens of millions in personal gains from the cannibalism.
Yes, authentic capitalism still exists, but it’s been relegated to the sideshow. The Big Tent with the Big Bucks is all finance/cartel/state/crony capitalism, and financialization is devouring all the other players.
With authentic growth scarce, there’s no other way to reap huge profits but cannibalism.
Charles Smith is a Guest Writer for Shift Frequency
SF Source Of Two Minds July 2015
“. . . as of January last year Stambler has been back to making bread again – one of the first to do so ‘legally’ in his state. Now there are over 1200 home-made food businesses to thank him and Rep. Gatto for their efforts. Power to the people – and let them eat some good bread!” C Sarich
Imagine growing your own heirloom, non-GMO tomatoes and then brewing up a batch of pasta sauce that would make Pavarotti sing from his grave. Or, an angel food cake from a recipe your great, great grandmother passed down to you that makes everyone’s mouth water, full of fresh, free-range, organic eggs from chickens roosting in your backyard. Now, imagine being able to sell these confections to the locals in your own town without being regulated, taxed, and FDA’d to death. California has made this possible for thousands in their state in January 2013, all because they legalized selling food made at home.
In a time when food sovereignty is threatened and Monsanto wants to control every forkful of sustenance we put into our mouths, this isn’t just a great revenue and local business support, but a radical, in-your-face move that tells the Feds just where they can stick their regulations.
It used to be, if you sold a loaf of home baked bread, you could get a knock on your door from a government official. No exaggeration. It has happened to Mark Stambler, of Los Angeles, and many others. He was forced to stop making bread for over 18 months. Stambler was even featured in an LA Times piece, with mention of his specially created brick oven and artisan baking skills. Continue reading
WASHINGTON – Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he chose to run for the Senate because of the passage of Obamacare, which he called the “greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime.”
Johnson, who owns a small business in Oshkosh, told the Atlas Society, a D.C.-based think tank, that he believes Americans are like a bunch of frogs in a pot of water.
“The pot of water is being brought up to a boil. I think we’re losing freedoms across the board,” Johnson said.
According to the senator, there are two tipping points that the American people must be wary of: the financial tipping point and the cultural tipping point.
The financial tipping point, he explained, is when the debt crisis hits a point where world creditors will look at the U.S. and no longer loan it any money.
He considers the cultural tipping point to be the dependency and entitlement mentality to which many Americans have fallen victim.
“When we shift to a culture where people are just saying, ‘I’m happy to sit back and let the government provide me with things,’ that becomes a very dangerous point in time for this country,” Johnson said.
See video clip of Johnson.
If you’re a small business owner and unable to hire a full-time accountant you’ve either experienced considerable frustration preparing payroll taxes, or exhausted yourself trying to figure out the software you bought to assist you. The solution lies in finding an easy-to-use payroll software product that can manage business details and streamline routine tasks.
It’s important you invest in a product that facilitates quick input of required information (e.g., employee address, salary, deductions, marital status), issues checks, runs reports and automatically tallies taxes and withholding. In addition, check to ensure any product you buy seamlessly converts financial information into a check format that looks exactly like what you’d expect to see in a traditional paycheck.
At minimum, get something that offers:
Make sure whatever payroll tax product you get comes packaged with quality customer service and no onerous strings attached that prohibit you from moving your data elsewhere should the need arise.