A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Obama and his Republican soul mates have pulled another fast one, passing a “JOBS” bill that provides no jobs, but instead further deregulates Wall Street’s crisis-making machine. The president has joined his big business backers in an attempt to repeat Bill Clinton’s brief and unstable “boom” by “ inflating another hi-tech bubble to keep the casino wheels spinning for a few years.”
Obama Signs a Phony – and Dangerous – “JOBS” Bill
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“Organized labor was adamantly opposed, seeing no jobs in the bill.”
President Obama is ramping up his phony progressive campaign rhetoric, trying to once again masquerade as something other than a Wall Street servant. But this time around, he is weighted down by his actual record in office, which shows Obama to have been a savior to the bankers and money speculators. Now, the president has joined with Republicans to create a whole new class of con men and corporate criminals who will further fatten the fees of banksters by blowing up another multi-trillion dollar bubble of doomed and fraudulent hi-tech firms. To add insult to injury, Obama, his congressional Democrats and his Republican soul mates had the nerve to set the stage for this disaster by passing something they called a “JOBS” bill.
Of course, there are no jobs in the bill. The acronym stands for “Jumpstart Our Business Start- Ups Act,” and it's an invitation to a con game.
The new law, passed by 73 senators with Obama’s enthusiastic endorsement, allows corporations with less than $1billion in revenues – that’s a billion , as in a thousand million – to avoid hiring a professional auditing firm for five years after the company begins selling stock to the public. That means five long years of taking other people’s money without having to tell the truth about how your business is really doing. The scheme is designed to encourage what the money guys call “crowd funding” on the Internet, with little oversight by regulators.
Make no mistake: this is not an opportunity for those of you who want to open up a restaurant or a bar or a bookstore. Companies making less than $75 million can already avoid being subjected to professional audits; this bill extends the privilege to corporations at the billion dollar mark, who can now ensnare investors in their webs for twenty consecutive quarters without backing up a word of their sales pitch.
“The scheme is designed to encourage what the money guys call 'crowd funding' on the Internet, with little oversight by regulators.”
Of course, the banksters that handle these transactions and the Wall Street gamblers who bet on them will get over like fat rats – for a while. And then it will all come tumbling down, just as President Bill Clinton’s Dot.com bubble did at the end of the roaring Nineties. The collapse destroyed $5 trillion
Where did this phony “JOBS” bill come from
The lesson here is: late stage capitalism, which is incapable of creating real jobs in the United States, is pinning its hopes on inflating another hi-tech bubble to keep the casino wheels spinning for a few years. When the bubble bursts, they are confident that a bailout will be made available, no matter which party is in office. And the public will pick up the pieces.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
The grassroots movement to put a Cop City referendum on the ballot came closer to becoming a reality when a federal judge denied the city of Atlanta's appeal to stop the petition drive.
The people of Haiti are once again facing attack, now with the use of Black nations as a cover for an impending invasion and occupation. Haitians are still resolute in fighting for their freedom.
In this week’s segment we hear about the origins of Black August with a former political prisoner, and we hear analysis of the U.S. response to the recent military coup in Niger. But first we discuss…
Leah Goodridge joins us from New York City to talk about that city’s loss of its Black population, 200,000 people in the last 20 years.
In August 2020 the late Glen Ford spoke to former political prisoner Jihad Abdulmumit of the Jericho Movement about the origins and importance of Black August.
