The following quotes and charts were all taken from a Burning Platform post titled Who Destroyed the Middle Class? - Part 1.

You should read it as it's probably your ass that's getting chewed off here.

You should also read Part 2.

As always, click on any of the charts for a link to this outstanding piece.

“Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.” – Charles Ferguson – Predator Nation

The Federal Reserve released its Survey of Consumer Finances last week. It’s a fact filled 80 page report they issue every three years to provide a financial snapshot of American households. As you can see from the chart above, the impact of the worldwide financial collapse has been catastrophic to most of the households in the U.S. A 39% decline in median net worth over a three year time frame is almost incomprehensible. Even worse, the decline has surely continued for the average American household through 2012 as home prices have continued to fall. Median family income plunged by 7.7% over a three year time frame and has not recovered since the collection of this data 18 months ago. Even more shocking is the fact that median household income was $48,900 in 2001. Families are making 6.3% less today than they were a decade ago. These figures are adjusted for inflation using the BLS massaged CPI figures. Anyone not under the influence of psychotic drugs or engaged as a paid shill for the financial oligarchy knows that inflation is purposely under reported in order to keep the masses sedated and pacified. The real decline in median household income is in excess of 20% since 2001.

Start shopping for your pitchfork, get yourself a real pointy one.

The following is from Wired.com via our friends at Whiteout Press.

As always click on the map for the entire piece.

Recommended.

Revealed: 64 Drone Bases on American Soil

Public Intelligence, a non-profit that advocates for free access to information, released a map of military UAV activities in the United States on Tuesday. Assembled from military sources — especially this little-known June 2011 Air Force presentation (.pdf) – it is arguably the most comprehensive map so far of the spread of the Pentagon’s unmanned fleet. What exact missions are performed at those locations, however, is not clear. Some bases might be used as remote cockpits to control the robotic aircraft overseas, some for drone pilot training. Others may also serve as imagery analysis depots.

The medium-size Shadow is used in 22 bases, the smaller Raven in 20 and the miniature Wasp in 11. California and Texas lead the pack, with 10 and six sites, respectively, and there are also 22 planned locations for future bases. ”It is very likely that there are more domestic drone activities not included in the map, but it is designed to provide an approximate overview of the widespread nature of Department of Defense activities throughout the US,” Michael Haynes from Public Intelligence tells Danger Room.

The possibility of military drones (as well as those controlled by police departments and universities) flying over American skies have raised concerns among privacy activists. As the American Civil Liberties Union explained in its December 2011 report, the machines potentially could be used to spy on American citizens. The drones’ presence in our skies “threatens to eradicate existing practical limits on aerial monitoring and allow for pervasive surveillance, police fishing expeditions, and abusive use of these tools in a way that could eventually eliminate the privacy Americans have traditionally enjoyed in their movements and activities.”

As Danger Room reported last month, even military drones, which are prohibited from spying on Americans, may “accidentally” conduct such surveillance — and keep the data for months afterwards while they figure out what to do with it. The material they collect without a warrant, as scholar Steven Aftergood revealed, could then be used to open an investigation.

The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the U.S. military from operating on American soil, and there’s no evidence that drones have violated it so far.

So far being the operative phrase.

We've run a number of interviews with law professor and former federal government banking regulator Bill Black who has become one of our personal heroes having put a no kidding thousands of bankers in jail during the Savings and Loan fiasco.

We learn something every time we stumble across one.

The overall quality isn't as good as the couple we have posted previously, but it is no less educational.

If you'd like to know how it is that the banks in this country were able to effect another no kidding trillions of dollars in fraudulent mortgages while riding off into the sunset with a bailout on the losses leaving you with the bill, Professor Black has your answers.

At just under 14 minutes, you have the time.

Way super double highly recommended.

Our highest recomendation. 

We have two previous interviews with professor Black posted here.

From Bloomberg comes this bit of human interest, along with an interview with a guy explaining why FB might not be a great investment.

Facebook Co-Founder Saverin Gives Up U.S. Citizenship Before IPO

By Danielle Kucera, Sanat Vallikappen and Christine Harper - May 11, 2012 

Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill.

Facebook plans to raise as much as $11.8 billion through the IPO, the biggest in history for an Internet company. Saverin’s stake is about 4 percent, according to the website whoownsfacebook.com. At the high end of the proposed IPO market capitalization, that would be worth about $3.84 billion. His holdings aren’t listed in Facebook’s regulatory filings.

“Eduardo recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” said Tom Goodman, a spokesman for Saverin, in an e-mailed statement. Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship ahead of a possible increase in tax rates for top earners. The Brazilian-born resident of Singapore is one of several people who helped Mark Zuckerberg start Facebook in a Harvard University dormitory and stand to reap billions of dollars after the world’s largest social network holds its IPO.

Saverin’s name is on a list of people who chose to renounce citizenship as of April 30, published by the Internal Revenue Service. Saverin made that move “around September” of last year, according to his spokesman.

We refer you here and here.

And we've been looking.

Whoever this guy is, he's my new personal hero.

Here's just a little more nonsense resultant from our nonsensicle tax code.

From Rueters, this FAIL like much of the rest of our system of taxation is the consequence of trying to work social policy through the tax code, which should be an instrument for raising revenue for the government and nothing else.

From The New York Times, here's yet another lesson on the consequences of our dumbass tax policies.

As always click on either photo for the entire piece.

Recommended.

How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Global Taxes

Published: April 28, 2012  By CHARLES DUHIGG and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI

Speaking of abusive police.

From the Guardian.UK.

As always click on the photo to link up with the entire piece.

The TSA's mission creep is making the US a police state

The out-of-control Transportation Security Administration is past patdowns at airports –  now it's checkpoints and roadblocks

Jennifer Abel guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 April 2012 10.42 EDT

A TSA 'viper' (VIPR) team patrolling mass transit

Ever since 2010, when the Transportation Security Administration started requiring that travelers in American airports submit to sexually intrusive gropings based on the apparent anti-terrorism principle that "If we can't feel your nipples, they must be a bomb", the agency's craven apologists have shouted down all constitutional or human rights objections with the mantra "If you don't like it, don't fly!"

This callous disregard for travelers' rights merely paraphrases the words of Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano, who shares, with the president, ultimate responsibility for all TSA travesties since 2009. In November 2010, with the groping policy only a few weeks old, Napolitano dismissed complaints by saying "people [who] want to travel by some other means" have that right. (In other words: if you don't like it, don't fly.)

But now TSA is invading travel by other means, too. No surprise, really: as soon as she established groping in airports, Napolitano expressed her desire to expand TSA jurisdiction over all forms of mass transit. In the past year, TSA's snakelike VIPR (Visual Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams have been slithering into more and more bus and train stations – and even running checkpoints on highways – never in response to actual threats, but apparently more in an attempt to live up to theinspirational motto displayed at the TSA's air marshal training centersince the agency's inception: "Dominate. Intimidate. Control."

Anyone who rode the bus in Houston, Texas during the 2-10pm shift last Friday faced random bag checks and sweeps by both drug-sniffing dogs and bomb-sniffing dogs (the latter being only canines necessary if "preventing terrorism" were the actual intent of these raids), all courtesy of a joint effort between TSA VIPR nests and three different local and county-level police departments. The new Napolitano doctrine, then: "Show us your papers, show us everything you've got, justify yourself or you're not allowed to go about your everyday business."

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee praised these violations of her constituents' rights with an explanation asinine even by congressional standards:

"We're looking to make sure that the lady I saw walking with a cane … knows that Metro cares as much about her as we do about building the light rail."

See, if you don't support the random harassment of ordinary people riding the bus to work, you're a callous bastard who doesn't care about little old ladies.

Seemingly, TSA's mantra, "If you see something, say something" is changing to "If you see something film something".

And what people are seeing is not good for anybody.

The following is taken from Zero Hedge.

With apologies to Tyler Durden, I took for all practical purposes the entire post as I couldn't figure a way to abbreviate it and still suck you into clicking through to read it all.

Following the all time record high February budget deficit of $232 billion, the US March budget deficit number is in, and in addition to being bigger than expected, coming at $198.2 billion on expectations of "only" $196 billion, the government outlay in the past month also is the largest March deficit on record.

This brings the total deficit in fiscal 2012 to $779 billion, which is to be expected for a country gripped in total political chaos and which is unable to either raise revenues or lower spending.

What is more disturbing is that over the same period (Oct 1 2011 - March 31, 2012), the US government issued $792 billion in debt, a trend that will continue.

What is most disturbing is that the comparable tax revenues net of refunds, "matching" this increase in deficit and spending, are only $693 billion, in other words the US government is funding well more than half of its cash needs with debt rather than with tax revenue. 

The chart below speaks for itself ...

... as does the long term chart.

Now, from Learn Liberty.org who typically do a very nice job of explaining economic issues in terms most civilians can easily understand, a two minute vid boiling the conversation about the deficit down to terms practically anybody can grasp.

Followed by an incomplete (IMHO) conversation having to do with the historical fact that over the past 50 years, massive changes to the tax rate and code have made very little difference in the government's total take as a percentage of GDP.

That which the left seemingly finds impossible to grasp is the notion that people make decisions about work and money and subsequently change their behavior in response to the tax code.

Raising capital gain rates influences some people to hold assets who would otherwise be sellers.

Reduced sales of financial assets yields a reduction in federal tax receipts as assets become locked in place while dampening economic activity as new endeavors find it more difficult to obtain capital.

Raising marginal rates on labor causes some people to work less as work becomes financially less worth the extra effort.

Fewer hours yields lower incomes along with reduced income and payroll taxes.

Which is why lower tax rates and a simplified tax code will always inspires economic growth and subsequently provide enhanced funding for government.