plutocracy

Warren Buffett the Slumlord – Predatory Loans, Kickbacks and Preying on the Poor at Clayton Homes

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The disastrous deal ruined their finances and nearly their marriage. But until informed recently by a reporter, they didn’t realize that the homebuilder (Golden West), the dealer (Oakwood Homes) and the lender (21st Mortgage) were all part of a single company: Clayton Homes, the nation’s biggest homebuilder, which is controlled by its second-richest man — Warren Buffett.

Buffett’s mobile-home empire promises low-income Americans the dream of homeownership. But Clayton relies on predatory sales practices, exorbitant fees, and interest rates that can exceed 15 percent, trapping many buyers in loans they can’t afford and in homes that are almost impossible to sell or refinance, an investigation by The Seattle Times and Center for Public Integrity has found.

Berkshire Hathaway, the investment conglomerate Buffett leads, bought Clayton in 2003 and spent billions building it into the mobile-home industry’s biggest manufacturer and lender. Today, Clayton is a many-headed hydra with companies operating under at least 18 names, constructing nearly half of the industry’s new homes and selling them through its own retailers. It finances more mobile-home purchases than any other lender by a factor of six. It also sells property insurance on them and repossesses them when borrowers fail to pay.

Former dealers said the company encouraged them to steer buyers to finance with Clayton’s own high-interest lenders.

Buyers told of Clayton collection agents urging them to cut back on food and medical care or seek handouts in order to make house payments. 

To maintain its down-to-earth image, Clayton has hired the stars of the reality-TV show “Duck Dynasty” to appear in ads…

– From the excellent Seattle Times article: The Mobile-Home Trap: How a Warren Buffett Empire Preys on the Poor

In so many ways, Warren Buffett and modern America are the same thing. An idea packaged and marketed so brilliantly, most of humanity unquestionably believes the myth. Warren Buffett and the U.S. both sell themselves as encompassing the very best of human qualities; highly successful, extraordinarily intelligent, yet at the same time, extremely ethical. It’s that last part that’s actually most important to the continued power and prestige of both the man and the nation-state. However, when you look beneath the surface, it becomes increasingly clear that neither of them actually come close to what’s printed on the package.

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Poor Jeb Bush – Poll Numbers Plunge in Home State of Florida and Remain Dismal in Ohio and Pennsylvania

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While Hillary Clinton is undoubtably an authoritarian, crony fraud, she can at least say she’s got hapless Democrat party lemmings firmly behind her. Not so for Jeb Bush, a candidate so bad only an oligarch could love him.

What’s been so amusing about his campaign thus far, is the lengths to which big money Republican donors have gone to try to manufacture support and create a likable candidate out of someone with zero grassroots support. The best example of this came about a month ago, and was highlighted in the post, Jeb Bush Forced to Bus Supporters From Washington D.C. to CPAC as Attendees Walk Out On Him. Here’s an excerpt:

It sounds like Jeb Bush’s supporters are taking CPAC pretty seriously this year. Emails provided to Slate show that backers of the former Florida governor are busing supporters from downtown Washington D.C. to CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland, and organizing to get them day passes into the event.

One long-time CPAC insider said these organized efforts impressed him, and that he didn’t know of any other potential 2016 candidates busing backers in. Perhaps that’s because no other potential candidates are worried about the regular crowd turning against them—the Washington Times reports today that some CPAC attendees are planning “to stage an informal protest when he hits the stage.”

Unfortunately for Jeb, busing in supporters doesn’t translate into genuine support. This was recently on full display with the latest Quinnipiac University poll.

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Peter Thiel on the American Political System – “Not a Democracy or Constitutional Republic”

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The obvious conclusion that the U.S. is neither a democracy nor a constitutional republic has been a key topic of conversation here at Liberty Blitzkrieg over the past several years. One of the most powerful representations of this unfortunate fact came from an academic study highlighted last year: New Report from Princeton and Northwestern Proves It: The U.S. is an Oligarchy.

A couple of days ago, Peter Thiel sat down with Tyler Cower at George Mason University’s Mercatus center for a chat about all sorts of interesting things. The Washington Post picked up on some of his thoughts regarding the American political system, which I think deserve some additional commentary.

On the one hand, he accurately identifies the U.S. as nothing resembling either a democracy or a constitutional republic. He then goes on to point out that the system we have is one in which the power is increasingly concentrated in undemocratic, “technocratic” agencies. Where I think he falls way short is with a failure to ask what interests are driving the decisions of these undemocratic entities. Any unbiased observer can clearly see that it is oligarchs driving the oligarchy, as opposed to independent thinking bureaucratic technocrats driving a technocracy. I have published countless articles proving this to be the case. Naturally, a billionaire might have a harder time recognizing this.

Fortunately, the writer of the Washington Post article picked up on his oversight. Here are some excerpts:

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Jeb Bush Doubles Down on His Love Affair with the NSA in Recent Interview

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Last month, I highlighted Jeb Bush’s passionate and relentless support for the fascist, authoritarian and unconstitutional activities of the NSA in the post, Jeb Bush Exposed Part 2 – He Thinks Unconstitutional NSA Spying is “Hugely Important.” Here’s an excerpt:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is seriously considering a run for the White House in 2016, said Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program that collects bulk telephone records was “hugely important,” throwing his support behind the practice as Congress debates whether to reauthorize or limit it.

At an event on foreign policy hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Mr. Bush, a Republican, said, “For the life of me, I don’t understand the debate” over the metadata program.

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Meet the Overseas Contingency Operations Account – Washington D.C.’s Crony Capitalist War Slush Fund

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Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain has called it a “gimmick,” and Democrats complain that larding up the separate war funding bill with extra spending amounts to an “abusive loophole.” Yet so far, the massive increase is likely to remain in this year’s budget.

Another major criticism of the process has been its common use to fund favored projects and other items not directly tied to the war — a trend that has steadily grown over the years as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on and the Pentagon loosened the definition of war-related spending.

From 2001 to 2014, nearly $71 billion of nonwar funding was provided through war appropriations, according to the Pentagon’s own definition, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reported in December.

– From the Politico article: War Budget Might be Permanent ‘Slush Fund’

Many people will read this post, and posts like it, and shrug their shoulders saying that there’s always going to be corruption. True; however, there are degrees of corruption. When empires such as the U.S. attain a certain level of corruption that reaches the point where it becomes engrained within the fabric of society, and you couple that with zero accountability for the super rich and powerful, you have the ingredients for societal collapse. We are rapidly approaching this point, and I personally don’t think there’s any way to stop it.

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Another Oligarch Preaches to the Peasants – Charlie Munger Says “Prepare for Harder World”

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While several exceptionally wealthy and successful people have admirably come out and spoken passionately of the broken nature of financial markets and the political system, as well as the threat this poses to society in general (think Paul Tudor Jones and Nick Hanauer), there have been several examples of oligarchs coming out and conversely demonstrating their complete disconnect from reality, as well as a disdain for the masses within a framework of incredible arrogance.

I’ve commented on such figures in the past, with the two most popular posts on the subject being:

A Billionaire Lectures Serfs in Davos – Claims “America’s Lifestyle Expectations are Far Too High”

An Open Letter to Sam Zell: Why Your Statements are Delusional and Dangerous

The latest example comes from Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right hand man, who tends to demonstrate an incredible capacity for verbal diarrhea. Recall his commentary on gold: “gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939.”  

Moving along, Mr. Munger provided some typically insensitive commentary at an event yesterday in Los Angeles. Bloomberg reports that:

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Neither Republicans nor Democrats Top 40% Favorability in Latest Gallup Poll for First Time Ever

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Over the past couple of months, I’ve launched a series of posts titled either “Hilary Clinton Exposed” or “Jeb Bush Exposed,” in order to call attention to the deplorable and embarrassing fact that the American citizenry is being set up to choose between two awful candidates, both from dynastic and corrupt political families.

One thing I’ve realized over the past half-decade or so, is how incredibly slow genuine political change can be. Societies can be well aware of how despicable, useless and criminal their so-called political “leaders” are, yet it still can take decades or more to usher in real, sustainable paradigm level change. This is sort of the curse of being aware and awake, but it’s a burden I and all of you reading this share together.

While I spend a lot of time on this site talking about concerning things happening around us, there’s certainly reason for optimism. Indeed, if I didn’t think that positive systemic change was not just possible, but probable, I wouldn’t bother doing this at all. Many people will read the news from Gallup about how neither the Republican nor Democrat party have greater than 40% favorability and say “who cares,” but I’ll tell you why I think it matters.

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Bernanke Wants the U.S. President to Declare “Economic Emergencies” in Future Crises

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Screen Shot 2015-03-03 at 9.59.11 AMPresidents should get the power to declare economic emergencies along the lines to declare war, said former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday.

It might make sense to give “the president some ability to declare emergencies or take extraordinary actions and not put that all on the Fed,” Bernanke said at a conference. “The constitution gives the president significant flexibility to respond to military situations,” in part because they are chaotic, he noted.

“I am sure it is not politically possible, but it would be worth thinking about,” the former Fed chairman said.

– From the MarketWatch article: Presidents Should Be Able to Declare Economic Emergencies: Bernanke

For those of us who remain horrified and disgusted by the 2008-09 Federal Reserve and U.S. government bailout of the kleptocratic oligarchs who created the crisis, the above comments by the mastermind of this historic theft should be extremely concerning.

Although bankers and oligarchs got everything they wanted and more from the post crisis panic, what seems to bother Bernanke is that some of the response measures had to be pursued publicly. By calling for the U.S. President to declare economic emergencies in future crises, he is explicitly saying he doesn’t want Congress involved at all, even if just ceremonially. This man is a dyed in the wool fascist.

MarketWatch reports that:

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Is the Media Trying to “Disappear” Rand Paul As Was Done to His Father?

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On Friday, the Wall Street Journal ran a cover photo of the Republican hopefuls set to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland. The caption at the bottom of the picture read: At a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, an attendee holds photos of possible presidential candidates.

This is what the photo looked like:

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Jeb Bush Forced to Bus Supporters From Washington D.C. to CPAC as Attendees Walk Out On Him

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Screen Shot 2015-02-27 at 2.40.56 PMIt sounds like Jeb Bush’s supporters are taking CPAC pretty seriously this year. Emails provided to Slate show that backers of the former Florida governor are busing supporters from downtown Washington D.C. to CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland, and organizing to get them day passes into the event.

One long-time CPAC insider said these organized efforts impressed him, and that he didn’t know of any other potential 2016 candidates busing backers in. Perhaps that’s because no other potential candidates are worried about the regular crowd turning against them—the Washington Times reports today that some CPAC attendees are planning “to stage an informal protest when he hits the stage.”

– From the Slate article: Jeb Bush Backers Are Busing Supporters From K Street to CPAC

I mean it just doesn’t get much more pathetic than this. Jeb Bush has such little genuine support, he was forced to bus in supporters from ground zero of American cronyism, K Street in Washington D.C., in order to ensure phony applause at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

What else would you expect from a candidate so awful only a corporate lobbyists could love him…and believe me, they do.

Here’s are some excerpts from Slate:

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