Why are Americans so angry?

Are you angry? It seems to me that those who are not angry are blissfully ignorant of what is really going on. I have had readers of this blog complain that my illumination of the truth tends to shatter their “reality.” I am interested in helping people grow and protect their wealth. One of the biggest sources of risk to our wealth is our lack of financial education. That lack of education can be blamed on primarily two reasons. The first is our own laziness. However, that laziness is exacerbated by the second reason: too much confusing and misleading information.

We are constantly bombarded with information about what we should be doing to “invest” for retirement or college or how to finance a car etc. The problem is many times the information that is being marketed to us is not the whole truth. Let me give you an example. It is a well known fact that a significant portion of the profits for major car manufacturers comes from car financing. Here is the question: How can a company make a profit on car financing when the rate is 0.00%? The answer is: they raise the price of the car to include the interest charges and then say it is 0.00% financing.

The sources of other misleading, or not complete information are endless. The media is one of the biggest sources. You always have to ask, how does the commercial benefit the originator of the commercial? (Ask that about what I write as well.)

Recently there was a surprised admission from “Too Big to Fail” Wall Street firm Bank of America, the American peasants are informed about a reality with which they are all too familiar. That the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve Bank bailed out the rich and powerful, while leaving average citizens high and dry.

It always amuses me when I come across a mainstream media headline to the effect of: “Why are Americans still so angry?”

Why are Americans so angry? Let’s see. Perhaps it’s because one of the greatest heists in American history was just perpetrated against them by their own government in collusion with the largest multi-national corporations and the country’s most undemocratic institution, the Federal Reserve Bank. Are you angry? It seems to me that those who are not angry are the very people I talked about above – financially uneducated.

Continuing why Americans are angry; because not only were the individuals who caused the most severe financial crisis in recent memory not punished for their crimes, but they were showered with trillions and trillions of dollars in bailouts and taxpayer backstops, and made far wealthier than they were before the crisis they caused.

Because 99.99% of the population have been crushed by this policy of “socialism for oligarchs” and they feel the intense pain of this decent into poverty every single day of their live.

That’s why Americans are still angry, and if more of them understood what actually happened, they’d be much more angry. If I have anything to do with it, there will be more American angry – or maybe better said thus: better informed.

Moving along, Bank of America essentially admitted the above in a recent research report. As explained by Bloomberg:

Wall Street is counting its winnings from seven years of easy money.

In a report sent to clients on Sunday, Bank of America Corp. strategists totted up the results of 606 global interest-rate cuts since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the $12.4 trillion of central bank asset purchases following the rescue of Bear Stearns Cos.

The results represent a clear victory for Wall Street over Main Street, according to the team of Michael Hartnett, BofA’s chief investment strategist.

For every job created in the U.S. this decade, companies spent $296,000 buying back their stocks, according to the New York-based bank.

An investment of $100 in a portfolio of stocks and bonds since the Federal Reserve began quantitative easing would now be worth $205. Over the same time, a wage of $100 has risen to just $114.

Zero rates and asset purchases of central banks have, thus far, proved much more favorable to Wall Street, capitalists, shadow banks, ‘unicorns,’ and so on than it has for Main Street, workers, savers, banks and the jobs market,” the BofA team wrote.

My motivation? I want to help you help yourself. As I help you, I am helping myself. Plain and simple.
Jason@financialtailwinds.com