Who Is Pro-Business? Steve Bannon or the Financial-Media-Tech Complex?

Steve Bannon has left the White House. Various ways can characterize it. He left as planned, he was ousted, Chief of Staff John Kelly is trying to create some order. 

Courtney Weaver and Shawn Daonnan write in the Financial Times, "Bannon goes on offensive after White House ousting." What they write exemplifies the disconnect between the elite and the reality on the ground. I will focus on one particular statement:

They characterize Mr. Bannon as having "clashed with pro-business moderates within the administration." The Goldman Sachs troika and their allies are "pro-business" only in the sense of being for large multi-nationals, investment bankers and their allies in the financial-media-tech complex that prospers at the expense of small businesses and ordinary Americans. 

The financial-media-tech complex destroys jobs, while the little guys have always been the source of 80% of America's job growth. Even here in Kansas, Republican Brownback subsidizes Amazon while the Seattle Goliath drives community building small books stores out of business. 

Why has job growth slowed? Why have we had the slowest economic recovery in a hundred years? The "reforms" of the last eight years have stifled the little guys while protecting the big guys. Is it any surprise we have had increased income inequality and slower growth? The elites get fatter, while Everyman and the community he or she lives in dies.

Why is Trump Triumphing In His Demographics Sweet Spot? Look at the Data

Two Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economists, Michael McCracken and Joseph McGillicuddy, provide this graph.  It shows the change in employment since the recession trough in June, 2009:

Bottom line: There are even fewer jobs for those without a college degree now than at the bottom of the recession.  Guess who is bearing the brunt of the weakest economic recovery in a century? 

With income inequality on everyone's mind these days, might a key cause be the administration's economic policies that are eviscerating the working class combined with the cultural elites' war on the family?  Or is that heresy?

Koch Industries Launches Its First Ever Ad Campaign To aid Its Recruitment

Koch brothers launch new ad campaign

Sep. 23, 2014 - 2:43 - FoxBusiness interviews Friends University Professor of Finance, Malcolm Harris, on the Koch Industries’ new ad campaign:

The President Sends the IRS Into Battle against Tax Inversions

As the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina built a business powerhouse.  Unfortunately, H-P then dumped her.  This led to its soap opera era (2005-11) of revolving CEOs.  Later she ran for the U.S. Senate in California unsuccessfully.  Meg Whitman, formerly the star of eBay, stepped in as CEO from her position as chair on September 22nd, 2011 and has been trying to unrock the ship.

FoxBusiness interviewed Fiorina today on President Obama’s action on Syria, tax inversions, America's economic malaise, and fighting the spread of Ebola. Her remarks on the divide between Main Street and Wall street is spot on!


Deals that go by the ungainly name of "tax inversions" enable a company to reincorporate in a country with a a less onerous corporate tax burden.

John D. McKinnon and Damian Paletta reported in this morning's Wall Street Journal that the U.S. Treasury Department issued new regulations and, specifically, "Treasury officials took action under five sections of the U.S. tax code to make inversions harder and less profitable, removing some of the appeal that has made the transactions more common in recent years, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry."  McKinnon and Paletta further wrote, "The Treasury rules will make it harder for companies that invert to use cash accumulating abroad—a big draw in recent deals. In addition, the government has made it more difficult to complete these overseas mergers."

Money Beat explores this issue with McKinnon in this video: