Just Another Tale from the Oligarch Recovery – $100 Million Homes Being Built on Spec

One of the key points made by Hanauer that I completely agree with is that once so much of society’s wealth becomes increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, it becomes an enormous drag on society as opposed to conferring any benefits. You get a feudalistic system of a few royals and then the peasant masses. This is happening to the U.S. as we speak.

One of the ways this happens is that corporations take their record profits and rather than invest in plant, equipment, technology or pay workers better wages, push all of the excess earnings into share buybacks. This primarily benefits the richest of the rich; the group that owns financial assets. Even worse, much of these buybacks are being funded by issuing debt at record low interest rates. So not only did oligarchs benefit directly from the Fed’s quantitative easing which has pumped up all financial assets, but they benefit indirectly via record buybacks also enabled by Fed policy. As I’ve said time and time again: The Federal Reserve is a criminal organization primarily designed to provide an endless stream of corporate welfare and bailouts for oligarchs. 

Read more here.