My Daily Rant (January 4, 2016)

After a huge drop in stock prices this morning, today the Dow Jones stock exchange is where it was one year and three months ago. It's reported that the decline in manufacturing in China and the drop in oil prices are major contributors. [Although, I thought cheap energy was supposed to be a "good thing" — and maybe our CEOs shouldn't have offshored so much of our manufacturing to China.]

But maybe the big drop in the stock market is because people (not just in the U.S., but all over the world) haven't been paid enough in wages (despite increased productivity) as the costs for everything else keeps rising, thereby oppressing demand for goods and services, which would hinder job growth and further oppress wages — bringing us full circle again in our race to the bottom.

Maybe if we used helicopter drops (giving money to average workers/consumers) rather than quantitative easing (giving money to super-wealthy bankers), it would drive more demand for goods and services, create more jobs and put pressure on stagnant wage growth.

As far as rising prices, capitalism hasn't worked very well because there has always been price gouging by greedy corporations/CEOs who use copyrights/patents and M&A to create monopolies/cartels to limit competition (e.g. cable TV/internet services, cellphone carriers, drug companies, etc.).

And it's very difficult to get a fair cost-of-living-allowance (either from the government or through a labor union) because core inflation doesn't consider increased housing and food costs.

We can't change the way our economy works because most of the politicians work for the corporations (via lobbyists), and the laws were created by the politicians to keep themselves in power in our economic system of crony capitalism — which features fraudulent markets, not fair markets.

The people can't usurp these corrupt politicians because of rigged election laws, voting laws and congressional gerrymandering (that these same politicians created) — which all conspires to maintain the stranglehold on our corrupt political duopoly. No further proof is needed than to see who all the establishment politicians are currently backing for president in 2016 (both the Democrats and the Republicans).

Now that the cost of oil is historically low (after not too long ago, when the GOP blamed Obama for high oil prices), our last spending bill was recently passed with an amendment to end the 40-year ban on the export of domestic oil. Demand for oil has been flat, fracking in the U.S. has drastically increased, and OPEC has been pumping like crazy — so for now, we have an oil glut. But "drill, baby, drill" was supposed to make American "energy independent", so why export — and why now, when oil is so cheap? Just so the taxpayer-subsidized oil companies can keep their stock prices high?

On another note...

This article at The Guardian ("From Trump to Clinton, the race for the White House is powered by delusion" on January 4, 2015 by Richard Wolffe) asks if Hillary can feel the pain of the middle-class pain as Bill Clinton did, but did Bill really feel their pain?

Lest we forget, Bill Clinton lowered the capital gains tax rate for the rich from 28% to 20%. He signed NAFTA and gave PNTR to China to offshore our best jobs. He deregulated the banks and gave pardons to hedge-fund felony fugitives. He "reformed" welfare, bankruptcy and prison sentencing laws.

Bill Clinton was a philanderer and sexual predator who hung out with hookers and pedophiles.

When the Clintons left Washington in 2001 at the end of President Bill Clinton’s second term, they took a lot of things with them. The problem was, they took some things they should have left behind. Hillary was forced to return an estimated $200,000 in White House china, furniture and artwork.

And Bernie Sanders is not the Senate’s sole socialist — he is a self-proclaimed "democratic socialist" (that many say, is really a social democrat). Bernie is the co-founder on the congressional progressive caucus (along with 70 others) who are promoting FDR's ideas — not "moderate" Third-Way Centrist ideas like Hillary Clinton (who is really a Republican LITE). Hillary thinks that someone making $250,000 a year is "middle-class" when the median wage (50% earn more, 50% earn less) is $28,000 a year.

So why would voters want 8 (4+4) more years of the same old bull$hit? Not that a Republican would be any better — probably just as bad, but most likely much worse. So why wouldn't 99% of all voters vote for Bernie?