President Biden?
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Biden’s tax returns are fascinating. e.g.
https://joebiden.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/OGE-Form-278e-signed.pdfClearly, he is a wealthy man. Now, as a senator for about 40 years, he earned about $4 million in salary alone, which (as apparently he likes to get involved in real estate) means he could be worth a rough minimum of $20 million in assets.
His 2020 income includes a salary of $130 thousand odd as professor at Pennsylvania uni (he is known not to be academically gifted, this job is apparently professor of being vice-president studies). He earns about as much for speaking gigs (and seems to run some of his speeches and book income through a company he lists himself as president of).
In other words, he is wealthy, but he is not in business: his wealth is derived from a lifetime of serving as a politician. The colossal speaking fees seem to m to be a grift of a political establishment securing loyalty, likewise the convenient university chair. They could be a way to funnel corrupt payments, but some people might genuinely be willing to pay $180K for a speaker(?!?)
(He has half a million at least in cash in one bank account).
Yes, he lives in Delaware, which is a tax evasion paradise (apparently hence why some of his income runs through a corporate vehicle).
As far as I can see, unless he really is hiding a supreme amount of wealth off-shore, and risking imprisonment for lying on his tax forms, he really is jut a live long politician living on the gravy train.
@ ALB … future wealth, not present wealth, has been transferred to the present corporate class. That debt will have to be repaid by labour, not the corporate class, in the future.
The nature of government loans and debt has changed drastically since the bailout of 2008, circa 1930’s bailout. Regardless of the mechanisms employed, we are still borrowing on ourselves with the profit accruing to the corporate class. But today, the corporate class no longer ponies up their own capital to buy government bonds. Instead, the US government prints money – quantitative easing – and gives this to the capitalist who then uses this future capital to profit, whether it’s in the form of purchasing those government bonds or investing in private corporations. It’s economic cannibalism: it eats itself.
Inflation is not a problem as long as there is no demand, which is the case today and the result of what Marx was referring to when he wrote on declining profit. You will not have inflation when there is no demand, and you will not have demand when there is no money in the pockets of labour. We have been governed by what is called supply side economics. So when a government declares bankruptcy, the capitalist loses nothing b/c he has nothing invested of his own.
Btw, the US can become bankrupt as easily as the next country. Countless powers of the past, large and small, thought the same thing, that they would never face bankruptcy until it happened. And when it happens, the labour class is saddled with the fallout.
@ Leon Trotsky. Of course all new value is produced by the working class, including surplus value. Keeping society going rests entirely on us and our work.
But what happens to surplus value after it has been extracted from us at the point of production — how it is distributed amongst the various parasites who live off it — is not a concern of ours. Why should we be concerned about how the thieves share out their loot, for instance how much goes to the financiers as compared to the industrialists?
Quantitive Easing by the government does not create any new wealth or value. It just redistributes wealth, already produced by the working class, amongst different sections of the capitalist class.
You are right that the US could in theory go bankrupt but this has never happened and in practice is extremely unlikely. The US capitalist class is rich enough for the government to tax them to prevent this if this was threatened. Capitalists, both in the US and in other countries, know this; which is why they are prepared to lend the US government money confident that they will get it back with interest. There is no evidence that this is changing as they know that the US is not Argentina or some banana republic.
Just listened to an AOC interview where she explains the lesser evil approach.
Biden will be easier to lobby and more receptive to protests.
“Far from panicking at the prospect of a Biden win, Wall Street CEOs, traders and investment managers now mostly say they would be fine with a change in the White House that reduces the Trump noise, lowers the threat of further trade wars and ensures a continuation of the government spending they’ve seen in recent years.”
Wall Street traders still like the idea of Trump winning, as it would mean a continuation of their preferred tax and regulatory policy. But they are willing to give that up, at least in the short term, for an all-Democratic government that would provide economic relief to the pandemic.
“The market very much believes that Biden is going to win and the Senate is going to tip to Democrats,” said one Wall Street CEO to Politico. “And the assumption is that we are going to have a very significant increase in stimulus very quickly and that’s very positive for markets. But the fact is there is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty around the outcome of the election and when stimulus might actually come, if it ever does.”
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