Six on "our" Economy: As 2010s conclude, investors have enjoyed bull market for the ages — but many Americans have been left out; Offshore finance: how capital rules the world; Hip Hop Vs Late Stage Capitalism; Railroads are slashing workers, cheered

[panaritisp]

If you like what you find on the "Six on History" blog, please share w/your contacts. 

Here is the link to join: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/six-on-history

And please don't forget to check out the pertinent images attached to every post

How to Search past posts/articles by topic or issue: Click here    h/t to John Elfrank-Dana

Thanks John and Gary

Six on "our" Economy: As 2010s conclude, investors have enjoyed bull market for the ages — but many Americans have been left out; Offshore finance: how capital rules the world; Hip Hop Vs Late Stage Capitalism; Railroads are slashing workers, cheered on by Wall Street to stay profitable amid Trump’s trade war; A Charitable Reading

As 2010s conclude, investors have enjoyed bull market for the ages — but many Americans have been left out

“If you owned stocks, bonds, real estate, hard assets, you benefited,” said Michael Farr, president of Farr, Miller & Washington, a D.C. investment firm. “Prices on everything from parking lots to publicly traded equities went dramatically higher.”

Yet not only did the prosperous decade leave many Americans behind — 52 percent of Americans own stocks, largely through retirement accounts, according to the latest Federal Reserve data — it also fits into a much more uneven economic picture.

Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, acknowledged that people who owned stocks did well. “But when you are talking about the equity markets, you are talking about the top half of the population,” he said.  “The bottom half of households don’t own stocks.

Emerging financial challenges such as the explosion of student debt and, until the past few years, highly disappointing levels of wage growth meant many Americans may have had less to invest in the first place.

“Unfortunately, the bulk of investors don’t have enough money in their retirement accounts to retire on, even though they just lived through a fantastic decade,” said Daniel Wiener, chairman of Adviser Investments.

In addition, Americans who sold in the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009, or lost their home to foreclosure, would not have had as much of a chance to take part in this decade’s boom. Retirees who shifted money into fixed-income accounts saw paltry returns as interest rates sat at historic lows.

“People who retired and thought they would live on their fixed income have become Walmart greeters because the income wasn’t enough,” said Nancy Tengler of Tengler Wealth Management.

As 2010s conclude, investors have enjoyed bull market for the ages — but many Americans have been left ou

As 2010s conclude, investors have enjoyed bull market for the ages — but... For people who got into the market early in the decade, investment returns have been impressive. But only about ...

A Charitable Reading

A Charitable Reading

A Charitable Reading Charis JB It’s tough out here for a billionaire trying to give away all his money...

Offshore finance: how capital rules the world

"This essay focuses on the murky financial realm known as offshore finance. It shows that offshore finance is not solely about capital moving beyond the reach of states, but involves the rampant unbundling and commercialization of state sovereignty itself.

Offshore jurisdictions effectively cultivate two parallel legal regimes. On the one hand, we have the standard regulated and taxed space for domestic citizens in which we all live, on the other we have an “extraterritorial” secretive offshore space exclusively maintained for foreign businesses and billionaires, or non-resident capital, comprising “a set of juridical realms marked by more or less withdrawal of regulation and taxation”.

This offshore world is a state-created legal space at the core of the global financial system, and hence global capitalism, housing the world’s major capital stocks, flows and property claims with the goal of protecting wealth and financial returns. Viewed as an integrated system, it is a curious sovereign creature capable of exerting a political-economic authority similar to imperial powers of the past.

Some call it Moneyland, others see a return to feudal times. The offshore world could also be compared to the two-tiered architecture of imperial Panem in Suzanne Collin’s dystopian Hunger Games trilogy, which is said to reflect the workings of the Roman empire."

The Hunger Games The Hunger Games is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American novelist Suzanne Collins. The s...

Offshore finance: how capital rules the world | ROAR Magazine

Offshore finance: how capital rules the world | ROAR Magazine

Hip Hop Vs Late Stage Capitalism

“People will always resist,” said Dr Lisa Calvente, author of a Souls article that draws a straight line between neoliberal capitalism and the birth of Hip Hop in New York City. “Hip Hop is that resistance from neoliberalism,” which devastated Black and brown neighborhoods in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Dr. Calvente is a professor of Intercultural Communications at DuPaul University."

NewsClick - Hip Hop Vs Late Stage Capitalism | Black Agenda Report

Hip Hop Vs Late Stage Capitalism | Black Agenda Report “People will always resist,” said Dr Lisa Calvente, author of a Souls article that draws a straight line between...

Railroads are slashing workers, cheered on by Wall Street to stay profitable amid Trump’s trade war

Railroads are slashing workers, cheered on by Wall Street to stay profitable amid Trump’s trade war

Railroads are slashing workers, cheered on by Wall Street to stay profit... Major railroads are cutting workers at a pace not seen since the Great Recession.