The Morgan Stanley - Citi Merger
If ever there was a merger that proves that we have become a country "of the investor, by the investor, and for the investor," it's the Citi/Morgan Stanley merger. I suspect that Abe Lincoln would feel as I do that this is a perversion of what he meant during his famous Gettysburg address**
New Release available soon on Amazon.com.
Availble here now!Keep in mind that Citi has been claiming injury by the mortgage crisis to which it was a huge contributor in creating. This merger will create the largest brokerage on the planet with $1.7 trillion in "client" assets.
Say that aloud: "one point seven trillion dollars in client assets" That means that while on Main Street U.S.A unemployment is climbing and most of us are making decisions to pay the utilities or buy groceries at times, investors still have, and must be hoarding $1.7 trillion dollars. This probably a pretty good indication as to where the $350 billion of the $700 billion Bailout Funds have gone.
Now if you read the news blurbs, they indicate that this merger will service 1.6 million households "globally" That word globally is important because thought 6.8 million sounds impressive, it means that this merger will only be beneficial to .024 percent of the world population it is serving. That's two percent of one percent. That means that less than one percent of the world population.
It also means that these few investors hold assets that are nearly four times our national debt of $455 billion. The paradigm of the current administration has place our country in debt to line the pockets of a very few investors. It also means that these few investors and we are only talking about the clients of the Citi/Morgan Stanley merger, hold assets that are 42 times the trade deficit the country currently faces. That means if we were to ask Citi/Morgan Stanley's clients to pay off the deficit, they would still have $1.66 trillion. Say that aloud. one point six trillion dollars
The reason this last factoid is important is because this trade deficit was created in large part by large manufacturing off shoring it's workforce in order to reduce overhead and line the pockets of investors. Although, if you were to listen to them, it was to survive. Of course, survival really was dependent on huge profit returns to investors, despite the impact on Joe Main Street jobs. The irony of this being missed by large manufacturing in their greed is that as you move your workforce offshore, jobs drop off and when jobs drop off, so does your consumer base, which is exactly what we are seeing in this new recession: A middle class no longer able to forward the economy by keeping cash flow moving. In other words, a middle class no longer able to function as a middle class
When are we going to finally realize that whatever we do to improve the economy, we need to move away from the supply side paradigm of pandering to the investors. We need to bring back jobs and build an economy based on products and Joe Main Street.
** "Of the people, by the people and for the people"
