''Looking Forward'' not only cleared war criminals Bush and Cheney, but the Banksters, as well.

[Octafish]

70. Hollingsworth Hound and his fellow capitalists control the cash.

The financialization of the American economy

Greta R. Krippner

Abstract:

This paper presents systematic empirical evidence for the financialization of the US economy in the post-1970s period. While numerous researchers have noted the increasing salience of finance, there have been few systematic attempts to consider what this shift means for the nature of the economy, considered broadly. In large part, this omission reflects the considerable methodological difficulties associated with using national economic data to assess the rise of finance as a macro-level phenomenon shaping patterns of accumulation in the US economy. The paper develops two discrete measures of financialization and applies these measures to postwar US economic data in order to determine if, and to what extent, the US economy is becoming financialized. The paper concludes by considering some of the implications of financialization for two areas of ongoing debate in the social sciences: (1) the question of who controls the modern corporation; and (2) the controversy surrounding the extent to which globalization has eroded the autonomy of the state.

From Exit Capitalism:

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." -- Leo Tolstoy

...and:

"The global oligopolies that at present dominate the world economy , are fully financialized. Actually we can not speak of a pure "financial sector" (banks, insurance companies, etc.) by one side and a "productive sector" on the other . The global corporatocracy, composed by a few industrial and financial giant oligopolies, control the technology, the natural resources, the finance, the communications, and the information all over the planet." ... " Many analysts talk about an allegedly separated artificial, negative "financial capitalism" and of a supposed positive "real capitalism", creator and producer of real use. But it is the two side of the same coin. The same oligopolies have large industrial corporations and large financial institutions." -- Ravi Bhandari, The Corporatocracy and the Global Crisis

For those new to the subject of the role of finance in the disappearing middle class:

The rape of Detroit: Deindustrialization, financialization and parasitism

By Barry Grey
28 February 2014

The Workers Inquiry into the Bankruptcy of Detroit and the Attack on the DIA & Pensions was held Saturday, February 15 at Wayne State University. The World Socialist Web Site published an initial report on the meeting on February 17. Today we publish an edited version of the report to the Inquiry delivered by Barry Grey, World Socialist Web Site US national editor.


SNIP...

As manufacturing was dismantled and economic activity shifted more and more to financial manipulation, the enrichment of the financial-corporate elite was increasingly separated from the creation of real value through the process of production.
[Click for slide 10]
Here are some indices of the decline of manufacturing in the US in general, and Detroit in particular:

* The United States lost approximately 42,400 factories between 2001 and 2010.
* The United States lost 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010.
* Since 1979, 267 of the 447 auto manufacturing plants in the US have been closed, or 60 percent. Of those that closed, 42 percent shut down between 2004 and 2010.
[Click for slide 11]
* The number of manufacturing jobs in Detroit proper fell from 296,000 in 1950 to 27,000 in 2011.
* In 1960, there were 35 major auto plants in and around Detroit, including the Ford Rouge complex, GM’s Cadillac plant and Dodge Main, employing over 110,000 workers. Today, there are 14, employing less than 22,000 workers.
* Since 1989, auto-related employment in Michigan has declined by 70 percent.
* 61 auto plants, large and small, have been closed in the Detroit metro area since 1979.
* From 2000 to 2008, metro Detroit lost 150,000 jobs due to downsizing in the auto industry.

Corporate America laid waste to industrial cities across the US. The epidemic of plant closures and mass layoffs undermined the financial position of the cities. Mass unemployment and declining population depleted income and sales tax revenues. The shutting of plants and urban decay sapped property tax revenues.

At the same time, both federal and state aid to cities was repeatedly cut.

CONTINUED...

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/28/barr-f28.html

I know you know, HughBeaumont, but it needs restating: The game today -- financialization -- requires capital. Those who have capital, will get ahead simply by having it. Finance makes for a bigger profit margin than manufacturing, so buh-bye factory jobs.

The rest who don't have large sums of capital to invest or deposit, from the Upper Middle Class down through Labor through the unskilled workers to the unemployed and poor, are S.O.L. The former dominant sector, manufacturing, no longer exists as the means of support for a middle class.

Too bad, as making stuff was the means for building lasting wealth -- from new roads, bridges, schools, communities -- to the high wages that made it possible for the workers and middle class to buy what they made -- from cars to homes and all the rest.