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One of the more intriguing recent developments has been the whole GameStop story and how a bunch of neophyte traders on Reddit spanked the greedy hedge fund pirate plutocrats of Wall Street and beat them at their own game.

We won’t go into depth on explaining what happened. We’ll let this article explain the proceedings. Or you can let Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World explain it in cartoon format. But in a nutshell, a group of investors on Reddit, a group called WallStreetBets or WSB, decided they were going to teach the greedy hedge fund managers a lesson. One tactic hedge fund managers use is to short sell stocks. They look for stocks that are failing and basically bet that they’ll continue to die. So they borrow shares to sell and buy all the stock at a lower price before paying off their lender and usually make a fortune. GameStop is a brick-and-mortar video game retailer whose days are numbered because of online video gaming and the pandemic, so they were on the hedge funders lists of future profits. But WSB stepped in and bought stock so that the stock price rose precipitously, which means that the hedge fund managers, who were betting that the stock prices would fall, lost money, BIG TIME. We’re talking billions of dollars. The trend continued for other failing businesses like AMC, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Blockbuster, whose stock price rose 3,990% in a week.

If you say this sounds like rigging the system like that of a casino, you are absolutely right. The WSB people showed that the hedge fund managers have been using Wall Street as a casino for years to get filthy rich with absolutely no repercussions. Of course, now that WSB did the same thing, plutocrats are crying foul and proclaiming that there needs to be regulations in place. You see, only plutocrats are supposed to win money on the stock market, while the rest of us working stiffs just work our asses off making these avaricious assholes richer. So, the greedy corporatists are fine with no regulations until they’re beaten at their own game and then they cry like babies.

We’re looking forward to see what kind of regulations Senators like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have in store for the greedy fat cat capitalists in the next couple years. It could get interesting, folks.

A well heeled member of the plutocracy expresses his utter disdain that common peons are making money at the Wall Street casino.
A well heeled member of the plutocracy expresses his utter disdain that common peons are making money at the Wall Street casino.

Plutocrats Rule; All Others Drool

One of the big pieces of news recently outside the ever expanding vortex of the House impeachment inquiries is the announced candidacy of Michael Bloomberg running for President as a . . . wait for it . . . a Democrat. Yes, that colossal, egotistical billionaire plutocrat. former Democrat-Republican-Independent-Democrat mayor of New York City and corporate media mogul has decided in his infinite wisdom that only another plutocrat with a gargantuan ego can possibly defeat America’s CEO/Dictator and megalomaniac man child Donald Trump. He’s already bombarding the Internet, television stations and all other media outlets with salvos of ads touching all the Democrat’s talking points and, like Trump, has a bottomless pit of money to spend on the campaign.

But will Bloomberg really be a champion for the middle class, something Trump promised he’d be in 2016 and then gave massive tax cuts to the wealthy in 2017? We’re incredibly skeptical of Bloomberg. We’ve commented many times on how Bloomberg and the other plutocrats in America’s oligarchy or the 1% actually run this country. Now the plutocrats are scared that they might actually have to pay their fair share in taxes, something they’ve been avoiding thanks the generous tax cuts offered by every administration since Reagan. The tax cuts from the Republicans in 2017 have massively helped the 1%ers become richer. But as usual, it hasn’t trickled down to the rest of us. Farmers are in crisis mode right now thanks largely to Trump’s trade war. But the realistic possibility of social democrats Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic nomination is scaring tycoons like Bloomberg witless. Even computer magnate and greedy dickhead Bill Gates (worth $107 billion) whined recently that if he has to pay one hundred billion in taxes, that would be too much. For the math impaired, he’d still have seven billion dollars even if he did have to pay one hundred billion. Awwwww — poor Bill! He’d have to live on just seven billion dollars. How can any person do that? We here in the middle class have no sympathy for the greedy assholes who proclaim that they can’t live on a few measly billion dollars while most Americans struggle to live paycheck to paycheck.

We agree with others who say that the best way Mr. Bloomberg can help out this country is by buying Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network. That lie machine has been pumping out disinformation, deceptions and crackpot conspiracy theories for almost a quarter of a century and is the main reason we have a cult of evangelical Trump followers running our democracy and rule of law into the ground. Bloomberg and fellow Democratic plutocrats Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang could pool their resources and do it easily. This would be the best use of the plutocrats’ billions: ridding this nation of the real fake news once and for all.

Plutocrat Michael Bloomberg announces that only another billionaire with a colossal ego can defeat Trump much to the delight of other plutocrats, oligarchs and members of the 1%.
Plutocrat Michael Bloomberg announces that only another billionaire with a colossal ego can defeat Trump much to the delight of other plutocrats, oligarchs and members of the 1%.

Another Blameless, White Plutocrat


The big news last week was the rather weak sentence handed down to former Trump campaign chairman and ostrich suit aficionado, Paul Manafort. Federal guidelines recommend 19-24 years sentences for the kind of crimes Manafort committed.  But T.S. Ellis, a right wing conservative judge seated during the Reagan administration, took pity on Manafort and gave him an ostrich feather light 47 months or one month shy of 4 years. Only 4 years! Talk about your privilege for white plutocrats.

Needless to say, there is some uproar about the lenient sentence with many stating that people who’ve committed far less offensive crimes have gotten far stiffer sentences. But the bitter pill to swallow in all this is that other than his tax crimes, Ellis stated that Manafort lived an ‘otherwise blameless life’. Blameless! Are you freaking kidding!!! This man rubbed elbows with brutal dictators and deflected criticism of their regimes thus amassing millions of dollars. Even Manafort’s daughter said he has no moral compass. There is nothing blameless about him. He and Donald Trump are the epitome of the worst of American greed and the capitalistic lust for power, money and material possessions.

Manafort is up for sentencing this week for his other charges linked to conspiracy and illegal lobbying related to the Mueller investigation. Hopefully, the judge, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, will throw the book at this greedy piece of dung and let him rot the rest of his ‘blameless’ life in jail.

United States District Court Judge T.S. Ellis boldly mollycoddles blameless fraudster and ostrich suit aficionado Paul Manafort by finally giving a poor, white plutocrat some justice.
United States District Court Judge T.S. Ellis boldly mollycoddles blameless fraudster and ostrich suit aficionado Paul Manafort by finally giving a poor, white plutocrat some justice.

The New Flake In Town

The new members of the Senate and House have been sworn in and with it an old familiar face is back on the American scene. Utah’s ‘new’ Senator replacing useless, senile fossil, Orrin Hatch, is none other than Spiff Romney, 2012 GOP presidential candidate and used car salesman extraordinaire. The Spiffster dominated our Conathon 2012 coverage with his gleaming white Pepsodent smile and promises to serve the people, and by people we of course mean corporations.

Romney appears to be taking up the mantle of his departed fellow Mormon, Arizona’s own Jeff Flake, in that he immediately wrote a ‘scathing’ article critical of Donald Trump. Really???!!! Even Trump saw through that one, calling Spiff the new Flake in one of his temper tantrum tweets. It didn’t take long for Romney to show what a feckless adversary he would be by remaining mum on of the current border wall bullshit.

As if on cue, the corporate media announced that Romney and Nebraska’s Ben ‘Sassy Boy’ Sasse are the GOP’s new ‘mavericks’.  Really???!!! And people still think the corporate media is liberal in bias? Only conservative entities would brand these two stick in the muds as ‘mavericks’. So we’re wagering that in the next two years both Romney and Sasse will be promoted as ‘sane’ alternatives when the S.S. Trump eventually sinks and corporations are looking for new lackeys to promote the Republican, plutocrat and corporate media mantra of ‘tax cuts for the rich, screw all others’. Ahhhh! The capitalism con game continues!

Former GOP candidate and new feckless Senator, Spiff Romney, proclaims himself to be the new Jeff Flake who will bloviate against and then boldly cave in to every demand of America's CEO/Dictator Donald Trump.
Former GOP candidate and new feckless Senator, Spiff Romney, proclaims himself to be the new Jeff Flake who will bloviate against and then boldly cave in to every demand of America’s CEO/Dictator Donald Trump.

The Corporate Lackey

Spiff Romney made it official Saturday as he selected Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan to be his vice presidential running mate in the cruel joke that is…Con-a-thon 2012. Media pundits on both side of the aisles are ‘energized’ by the picks, which means that there’s going to be plenty of BS thrown around for the final three months of this election, that just won’t seem to end. The pick pretty much proves that the ol’ Spiffer doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the middle class or moderates and if he and Mr. ‘Starve the Guvment, Feed the Rich’ Ryan get into office, we can look forward to reliving those glorious years of the Middle Ages when feudalism held sway over humans everywhere. Remember… your corporate overlords know way more than you do. So just shut up and let them run the country.

America's corporate, elite, plutocrats approve the selection of jug eared, ultra conservative, Paul Ryan, as Spiff Romney's Vice Presidential GOP running mate.
America’s corporate, elite, plutocrats approve the selection of ultra conservative, Paul Ryan, as Spiff Romney’s Vice Presidential GOP running mate.

 

 

Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires

Author John Steinbeck famously observed that “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” We think this insightful comment best explains why anybody in the United States would vote for putting Republicans back in charge of the country after eight disastrous years of Bushonomics (tax cuts for the rich, spend the country into bankruptcy and the middle class foots the bill). Oh, that’s right. Spiff Romney is rich and he’ll make us all rich, too. Ah, the trickle down myth lives on!

A couple of temporarily embarrassed millionaires contemplate their march to grandeur under a Spiff Romney presidency.

Corporations Are People, Too

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt(or Spiff, as we at the Bucket call him) Romney was heckled, jeered and hooted at in Iowa the other day when he said in a speech that ‘corporations are people’.  We applaud this fine gesture but we think, since there are many farms in the Hawkeye state, the people should have also heaved some manure at the ol’ Spiffster.

Speaking of heaving crap, in 2010, the Supreme Court said basically that ‘corporations are people, too’ when they ruled that corporations should not be limited in the amount of money they can contribute to political campaigns. So this means that corporate America can use their immense wealth to greatly influence elections so that lackeys(Teabaggers anyone?) who support their agenda(tax cuts anyone?) will get elected. This kind of government is called a plutarchy, which is a combination of plutocracy and an oligarchy. And a plutarchy pretty much means the average citizen is royally screwed.

Depending on your source, it’s estimated that 50-60% of corporations pay no income taxes. In 2009, companies like GE, Bank of America, Citigroup and Valero paid no income taxes whatsoever while making billions of dollars in profits.  Now that’s patriotism!  So much for that saying ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Well, we say if ‘corporations are people, too’ then they can start paying more taxes. Teabaggers keep blathering about returning to the good ol’ days of the ’50s. How about the 90% tax rate that the top tier paid during the Eisenhower(Republican) administration for starters. That would surely jump start a lot of infrastructure projects. But then again our corporate overlords wouldn’t get their million dollar bonuses and we absolutely need our tycoons happy or else they won’t create jobs for us peons. The Corporate States of America: for the corporation by the corporation, with liberty and justice for plutocrats.

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts wears the new NASCAR inspired logo robes which will now be worn by all conservative justices.