Obama's cheap-labor "promise zone" fraud

In a White House speech Thursday promoting his supposed offensive against inequality, President Barack Obama will formally name five communities as so-called "promise zones." ... Besides the "promise zones," these measures include a restoration of three months of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and a small increase in the federal minimum wage.

This compares to the trillions of dollars handed over to the banks and corporations in the form of taxpayer bailouts and the tens of billions in monthly subsidies to the financial markets provided by the Federal Reserve Board. The Democratic-controlled Senate this week ensured the continuation of this policy by handily confirming Obama's nominee and Wall Street's pick, Janet Yellen, to succeed Ben Bernanke as the next Fed chairman....

Obama's singled-minded focus on covering the bad bets of Wall Street and further enriching the financial elite, in part by driving stock prices and corporate profits to record highs, has fueled a staggering increase in social inequality. The total wealth of billionaires has more than doubled since the stock market hit bottom in March of 2009. Since then, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index has risen by 170 percent. More than 95 percent of all income gains in the US during Obama's first term went to the richest 1 percent of the country....

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/09/obam-j09.html