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Record Social Inequality And Its Violent Aftermath, Explained By A Three Minute Cartoon
With the new medium of mass communication in all matters financial and economic having been recently discovered to be cartoons (as the penetration of written text discussing such arcane topics as the Fed, debt and addition ends up being trapped within a very narrow echo chamber), we present the latest and greatest 3 minute summary, which even a third grader will understand, of what is gradually becoming accepted as the most troubling social, economic and political development in America - record social, income and wealth inequality... and its very disturbing consequences, which at last check have resulted in some form of social upheaval in almost every situation.
Courtesy of John Lohman
And some demographic commentary from Harry Dent:
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I Want to know how the pentagon "Cannot track" 2.3 trillion of taxpayer money!!!
http://fedupmontrealer.blogspot.com/2010/12/defense-vs-wall-street-cost-comparison.html
maybe it has something to do with the accountant
Ken Lay is green with envy...or maybe that's just natural decay
leveraged decay is "totally" natural.
The Department of Defense announced something like $2 TRILLION unaccounted for, on September 10th, 2010. It was kinda forgotten about the next day. Fortuitous timing though, thats for sure.
The income inequality video was spot on, while Harry Dent has only got it half right. Yes, the demographics picture indicates a stagnant economy for a generation, or so. I agree with that. But to then say we will have deflation, and cash producing real estate is the best investment besides holding onto cash? Someone tell Harry that the Bernanke (aka Zimbabwe Ben) is set on debasing the dollar, as the solution to all unfunded liabilities and sovereign debt issues.
There's also a derivatives time bomb, just waiting to be set off by any raise in interest rates, so don't look forward too much to rising interest rates!
http://psychonews.site90.net
PsychoNews: Exposing the Oligarchy, one Psycho at a time.
that was rumsfeld, year 2001
This rotten buncha graphs remind me of Mark Twain:
"There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Mark twain admitted the phrase came from Benjamin Disraeli. I want to make sure he gets the credit because he is not that well known here in the usa.
Sure he is. Cream promoted him with their 1967 album Disraeli Gears.
Yeah Clint, I don't believe this either...
Why, the Rich pay MORE in taxes every year, not less... their generosity toward their fellow countrymen bounding UPWARD through the decades. These stoic soldiers of Free Market Capitalism™ face their civic burdens with a smile on their corpulent lips and a song in their sclerotic hearts for YOU and ME brother! (many are ex-hippies: fact)
If the Rich seem sunnier in amerika these days it is simply because they are more Christ-like than you and I.
"The fault, dear Clint, is not in our elites,
But in ourselves, that we are their underlings."
btw, i can practically smell the Rightists cries of "REDISTRIBUTION!" in the comments below.....
It aint about "redistribution"...it's about putting an end to their embezzlement, graft, fraud, wealthy-fare, bailouts, WARZ™ and crony capitalism.....
What there needs to be is a reeducation. Starting at the top.
well said
Somehow typed 2010, instead of 2001!
Perhaps to provide covert funding of massive chemical attacks on the American people (aka chemtrails)?
Chemtrails are just a distraction so you don't pay attention to the Reptilians kicking it at Dulce.
.
LOL. Level seven baby...All aboard the maglev express- next stop white sands.
Next you'll be posting about fluoride in the water. Geeze you people. Trust and obey your masters.
Video doesn't play on iPad ??? YouTube ??? ITS A CONSPIRACY I TELL YA
Did you lift that from the VXX or SRS prospectus?
Or working on his tan in Argentina ;)
funny guy. ;)
nahhhh, ya' think...?
/off
The ant works hard, in the withering heat, all summer long.
He builds his house and stores supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks that the ant is a fool.
He laughs, dances and plays the summer away, preparing nothing for the coming winter.
Winter comes, the ant is safe and warm.
The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and fed, while others are cold and starving!
CBS, NBC, ABC & CNN show up to provide pictures of shivering grasshoppers, next to a video of an ant
in his comfortable home, with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast! How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer this way?
Obama the Pelosi appears on Oprah, with the grasshopper.
Everyone cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green".
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house, where the news stations film the group
singing "We Shall Overcome".
Jesse then has the group pray for the grasshopper's sake, and reminds the group to contribute to his group, so that he can "continue the fight" for grasshoppers, everywhere!
Harry Reid & John Kerry exclaim, in an interview with Tom Brokaw, that the ant has gotten rich, off
the back of the poor grasshopper!
Both call for an immediate tax hike, to make the ant pay "his fair share"!
Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity For Grasshoppers Act", retroactive to the beginning of the
summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire the proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to
pay his retroactive taxes, his house is confiscated by the government.
Hillary Clinton gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper, in a defamation suit against the ant.
The case is tried in federal court, with a jury comprised of unemployed welfare recipients.
Surprise! The ant loses the case!
The story ends, as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food, while the government house he lives in (which happens to be the ant's old house) crumbles around him,
due to lack of maintenance!
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found, dead, in a drug-related incident.
The house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders, who terrorize this once-peaceful neighborhood.
The moral of this version? Don't ever get fooled by liberal socialists.
My version: I substituted Banker for the grass hopper and working stiff for the ant, allow me to junk your rant, have a great weekend!
Bankers that don't deserve their bonus, UAW workers on fat pension and losers trapped in overpriced mortgages are all grasshoppers.
Guys that mark my post as junk need to chill a little.
I junked you for being stupid enough to fall for the partisan B.S. that's actually at the root of this country's problems (as opposed to "liberals").
a union worker on a pension that was specified by contract and a banker protected from the rigors of capitalism by treserve bailouts only marginally approved by congress are not both grasshoppers. one is a worker and one is an aristocrat (see sarah silverman for more detail).
p.s. i never worked as a union member and i did retire as a bank vice president/senior investment officer (not much of a distinction in most banks).
p.p.s. i sweep my eyes from one end of the obama administration to the other and the closest to liberal socialists i see are in the department of defense.
Jeff
The new America
#1 Criminal Bankers, untouchable by the law, perhaps by the noose.
#2 Mandarins- Government Employees, with contracts granted by other Government employees, funded by milking the private sector.
#3 The untouchable Dinosaurs- Private Sector Unions with enough political clout to have their outsized wages and pensions protected by the Mandarins.
Otherwise, you are absolutely correct. The Dems and the Reps play the game to provide cover for Banksters and Mandarins.
We need a third party to bring competitive free market capitalism back and get rid of this Fascist Crony Capitalism we have now.
I know numerous government employees and government employees that collect pensions that are TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS to the depression we are in.
Three parties wouldn't work. Neither would four, or five, or six. At least not in the long run.
In a three party system two of the parties would eventually start working together to make the third irrelevent. Effectively giving you a two party system, just dressed up as a three party. Which eventually leads to the pretty much one party system we have today, just dressed up as two parties.
Add as many different parties as you want, they'll all eventually merge into something similar to what we have today.
p.p.s. i sweep my eyes from one end of the obama administration to the other and the closest to liberal socialists i see are in the department of defense.
Aren't you getting just a little bit overly concerned with who is carrying the flag with the deepest hue of red?
Grasshopper
Uh... Little Dick
I am a free enterpriser that has worked all his life, earned, lost, and earned some more moolah.
I am disgusted that the work ethic has been destroyed in one generation.
More people are making dough trading paper than those that make products- real value added wealth.
The pyramid is upside down my friend and some of your comments (many ad hominem) simply add to the division in this country.
Trading paper is what is destroying this country.
*deleted*
Bingo!!
anthropomorphizing the humanity out of humans...wow, what a great idea, but wouldn’t that be open to abuse of some kind? Cant quite put my finger on it, but i am sure someone tried that trick before. I never knew capitalist propaganda was so puerile and obvious, you would think the free world could come up with something more sophisticated to teach its children?
You sir are a grasshopper
You sir are a grasshopper.
Did you think of that all by yourself, or did your Mom help?
"eat this pine cone, it will amuse me"
Carter Pewterschmidt
What exactly is it that the super rich know how to do? What fantastic skill do they possess that the rest of us rely so heavily upon, that such income disparity is justifiable? Do these super wealthy grow food? Do they build homes or make clothes? Fuck, could they make their own breakfast if tasked with such a chore?
We all know what the super rich do. They commit crimes. They either use government cronies to appropriate public monies for them, or they use fraudulent financial practices to create money via electronic wizardry.
These highly productive "ants" of yours, would die if legions of grasshoppers weren't growing their food, heating their homes, and stomping their champagne grapes for them.
Grasshopper
Hey there now Little Dick
Go wash that smegma out of your mouth.
We'll see who is productive and who is the parasite, when people like you come begging me for eggs from my chickens, crops from my fields, or meat from my smokehouse that I killed and gutted myself.
thay wasn't jesse jackson, it was al sharpton
that wasn't jesse jackson, it was al sharpton
Thanks for pointing that out. Will post it in corrected form the next time grasshoppers complain about "rich not trickle down enough free lunch wealth down" to them.
would that be doubling down?
I've waited to comment. Your insect analogy falls very short of being valid, but no need to go into detail. I've got other stuff to do, like split some firewood. The quick problem that came to mind is that you've compared two disparate species. There is no interaction between them unless a grasshopper happens to die, whereupon the ants have something to drag into the hole. You'd be hard pressed to compare the ant colony alone with a human civilization. You've also assumed a "higher order" than the grasshopper/ant relationship (shall we call it government/media mix?). Back to the grasshopper/ant thingie: The ants are doing their best to kill off the witless grasshoppers and are feasting upon them. What happens when the grasshoppers revolt/move/retaliate/disappear? Work up a little fable on that one.
My son inlaw works 16-20 hrs a day as a heat and air installer and maintenance .
6-7 days a week and he has alot of extra money. He not only does that but he makes sure all his customers want him back by trying to do a good and inexpensive Job for them.i on the other hand have lately been working one job for a city , i make decent money but can't get any overtime so i don't have extra money in fact i have not been able to pay all the money back yet for the new heat and air my son in law installed in my house. i could be jealous because it's embarrassing owing him money when he's married to my daughter but i am thankful and am paying him as i can. i need to find extra work to get ahead or start my own business .i used to have friends who would invite me over to their house to play video games but i was busy going to school and couldn't, but later i got promoted and made some of them jealous because i was getting ahead , i am seeing alot of jealousy in some of these comments here in this comment sections .
Good for your SIL, I wouldn't be embarrassed that your daughter was smart enough to find a strong character/hard worker. You should be proud of both of them - and celebrate family success..
Even though he has ample means, doesn't count you out to encourage more time with his family... kids... who knows. One thing I do know is that money does not make you smart, or even smarter - usually quite the opposite.
Trust me, money is the least fun to talk about at Christmas dinner.
Oh yeah? Well MY son in law works 24/7!!
He doesn't eat, sleep or bathe..(no time!)
his name is..... "chicken"
Remember Bush asking some woman where she worked and she replied; "I work three jobs". Bush, unrattled, gushed, "Only in America"!
Your son-in-law has a great work ethic, but why does he have to work that long? Have you asked yourself that question? Why do you need to work over-time just to pay for your basic necessities? Have you ever asked yourself that. If not, you are obviously content with the outlandish stripping of property rights through labor extraction by the ultra-rich from you to them. Worker ants are useful idiots. They get to spend time with their families and live the high life, whilst you get to do the heavy lifting for them.
My son inlaw works 16-20 hrs a day as a heat and air installer and maintenance .
6-7 days a week and he has alot of extra money. He not only does that but he makes sure all his customers want him back by trying to do a good and inexpensive Job for them.i on the other hand have lately been working one job for a city , i make decent money but can't get any overtime so i don't have extra money in fact i have not been able to pay all the money back yet for the new heat and air my son in law installed in my house. i could be jealous because it's embarrassing owing him money when he's married to my daughter but i am thankful and am paying him as i can. i need to find extra work to get ahead or start my own business .i used to have friends who would invite me over to their house to play video games ,but i was busy going to school and couldn't, but later i got promoted and made some of them jealous because i was getting ahead , i am seeing alot of jealousy in some of these comments here in this comment sections .
dear dlmaniac
can we assume that you are a paid employee of FOX NEWS or some other organization of Rupert Murdock's with its destroy " America with it's own hate and fear " dogma?
Has everyone forgotten that when Mr Murdock came to the USA he near screamed how much he hated us? Everything about us? How we lived? How we did things? Well, he has taken most Americans by the nuts now, and I don't mean the ones between your legs.
there was a movie about that
"Dickus Does Dallas"
Grasshopper
Okay. Enough already.
Supreme moron post of the day.
The top tiers of society produce nothing. They get rich on the backs of the working class. You might want to rethink that story on about every level possible - you have most of it backwards.
I give the last sentence of the post a stay of execution... but for the rest of this post...Junk baby. Pure junk.
Grasshopper
dimaniac
I agree with your theme, BUT
THERE IS ONE HELL OF A LOT OF PEOPLE IN AMERICA STUCK BETWEEN
WELFARE BANKERS
AND WELFARE RECIPIENTS.
It must be nice to divide people up into tidy little groups-
the ants (work ethics, moral)
the grasshoppers (lazy, needy)
How about criminal, deceitful - the Banksters
How about amoral, myopic - the Corporate Outsourcers
How about burned, angry- the American private sector middle, working class.
Carry on with your children's view of the world. You either have more to you that you are hiding, or you are a shill for our Overlords.
2.3 Trillion in 1999 and then another 1.1 trillion in 2000. Rumsfield bullshitting his way out of it. This is old news but a regular occurence (misplacing money). Fucking 3.4 Trillion in 2 yrs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RvLL--vSsA&mode=related&search=
thats right rick! i'm glad someone for crying out loud pointed out that it was 2 years in a row! prior to 9-11! 3.4 trill! insanity! the frustration is ...makes me insane. in relative terms. people laugh at you, people like robot et al. for having a sense of fucking fairness? go fuck yourself! you got kids go home and play with your kids, you want to work here, close!
i aint worried about my fucking fico!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=103AYigJSDs&feature=related
All that dinero is in an underground base in Area 51, everyone knows that! :>D
I laugh at you too, grasshopper.
"I Want to know how the pentagon "Cannot track" 2.3 trillion of taxpayer money!!!"
Pocket change...
Yet another Hitler parody - Hitler as the CEO of a multinational corporation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq0OKWmP5kA
Ok...so what is the "solution?"
Oh, I know..."re-distribution of wealth."
Oh, no info in that snappy little video about how much in TAXES the top 10% pay?
FUCK this shit...
Would you rather it be re-distributed through violence?
LOADED QUESTION...I guess its all those RICH people who have been rioting in UK and Greece, huh?
Yes, I know...being wealthy is now EVOOOL.
No violence, just let the New World Government take their wealth under the guise of "social justice."
Oh, wait...
Oh that WILL happen, casue the NWO is coming for the rich next. They've already taken everything from the rest of us. You didn't think they were going to treat you any differently then they did us right? First they came for the poor, but fuck the poor. Then they came for the middle class and fuck them too. Wait what they are coming for me! Class war I say!
You better start speaking against the NWO and not for them, they are coming for you rich folk next. I promise. TD gets it and that's why he posts what he does. He's rich (former hedge fund manager isn't that the rumor?) but he's figured out what's going to happen next. TD is a smart person.
As the rich old ranch owner in Texas used to say "I only want the ranch next to mine."
no video link found :(
you ask some of these "rich people" if they thing they are rich, and they say NO. Why, because there is someone who is richer than them. I don't even think it is about anyone being rich...it is about destruction of anyone who is not rich, elite and powerful, already.
Everyone wants everyone to pay their fair share...it is time for that , and that includes all these churches with their gross wealth.
I forget where it comes from, but it goes a bit like this:
"It's not enough that I win, but that you lose."
In every discussion of this type, it seems to escape people that the most prosperous era of American history for the average worker, was from approximately 1950-1975. This was a time when unions and financial regulations were strong, and taxes were high by today's standards. What nit-wit Libertarian types don't seem to understand is, when everybody does better, everybody does better. And we end up having a more civil society in every respect.
The prosperous times from 1950 - 1971 is the reason why Nixon had to close the gold window. Sure, everybody is happier when the central bank prints lots of money - but it's not a perpetual motion machine - but Nixon kicked the can down the road when he made it impossible to redeem gold for dollars at a fixed rate.
Ludwig von Mises explains the wealth cycle very well. In a centrally-controlled economy with fiat money the DESTRUCTIVE times ARE the GOOD times. The BAD times are simply the free market getting back into equilibrium.
Nixon wanted expand the vietnam war that is why he closed the gold window.
Nixon was a progressive peace-nik on today's scale.
It's wild how times change.
The reason there was a good run from 50-75 was b/c the rest of world had to recover from the rabbles of WW2 while US was the only industrial power left standing. Once Japan and Germany caught up while US was dragged down by huge union and welfare spending, Dollar was killed throughout the 70's and a good run no more.
Funny how union parasites could never run out of excuses.
"Nixon wanted expand the vietnam war that is why he closed the gold window."
Yup. Warz™ are what make gold standards impossible. War knocked every major western nation off the gold standard, one by one, until we were the last man standing (previous to Nixon, everyone else simply pegged to our "gold backed" dollars)
And taxes were high because we were paying off WWII debt, and we were prosperous because we were the only manufacturing country in the world.
We got lazy and greedy and the fat baby-boomers thought it would last forever because that's how they grew up. Welcome to the new realty...same as the old realty.
and the debts from ww2 were incurred because the "winners" of ww1 were too vindictive to allow the "losers" a reasonable chance at recovery. that many of the losers were looking to blame their defeat on someone else (beside their war time opponents) didn't help.
deflationary depressions often end in war because people unjustly used get belligerent.
capitalism unregulated or very poorly regulated (like now) tends to put too much wealth in too few hands to maintain sufficient consumption vs. production, which looks unjust to the unemployed worker. war "helps" raise wages and bring production down to available consumption by destroying both the workers and the means of production. oh well, it's a system.
Nearly spot on, Capitalism unregulated or in regulatory capture as now is a dangerous and malevolent beast. Regulated by a bureaucratic class that takes pride in minimal intervention and regulates power seeking behaviour it works pretty well, I know pipe dream.. I hope war is not required and we can get control of the Government back in the peoples hands through process. If not all bets are off as the NWO forms on the back of the old system. SSDD
++
I agree with you and a lot of the "nit-wit Libertarian types" might also.
Also saw this totally off topic stats vid t
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojohat
Thanks for the vid, I enjoyed it.
Great clip...but when did Ikea start doing stats?
Very cool, though if the x axis was more to scale, it wouldn't look so equal in the later years as western countries still have like 10x gdp/capita then say china.
It seems to escape the ken of people who quote this period as so wonderful, is that this is known as the Post World War II period. The rest of the world was bombed flat and we owned most of the world's productive capacity until everyone else could rebuild. We couldn't help but make money, even with arrogant blood-sucking corrupt unions and strangulating regulations to deal with. But then the rest of the world started making products more efficiently with their brand-new state-of-the-art factories employing the latest technologies, and our 1930's-era factories manned by union gorillas became uncompetitive.
This stupid video never once mentioned the fact that the rich get richer thanks to the simple fact of COMPOUND INTEREST. Once your living expenses are taken care, even extravagant ones, all your unspent money (called SAVINGS) gets invested and compounded year after year. After 50 or 100 years it adds up to a huge pile of money. Even if you can save $2,000/year and let it compound tax-free in the stock market at the historical rate of 8%, you end up with over $1 million in 50 years. But I'm sure this concept is lost on you as you probably spend every nickel you make and expect the other taxpayers to take care of you. What nit-wits like you don't understand is that everyone does better when everyone takes care of themselves without expecting others to take care of them like some baby.
Was it your intention to give a great argument for progressive tax?
no, its actually the opposite. progressive tax rates hinder the growth of personal wealth and income mobility -- think of it as setting an escape velocity into the wealth stratosphere. once you've cleared a certain threshold of assets you're free and clear to enjoy the wonders of compound interest. but first getting up to that escape velocity is a huge effort, made difficult precisely because the government punishes productivity with increasingly punitive measures as you earn more. in terms of after-tax disposable income there's very little difference between making $60K and $120K -- your marginal rates shoot up and you lose all sorts of credits and refunds that would have been available to you at $60K.
Exactly!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I couldn't have said it better. It's good to know that some people out there get it!
Without a boot on your throat it would inhibit the market for boots.
+1
Unions are a wasteful luxury.
Lord Koos--Unions and taxes could afford to be strong then ONLY BECAUSE the rest of the productive world had been wiped out by World War II. Germany and Japan eventually rebuilt far more efficient infrastructures, because they had to, and they wiped us out accordingly. We spent very little comparatively during that period on infrastructure, because we felt we didn't need to. We also had the world's reserve currency linked to gold, and that gave us a huge cushion. It blew wide open in 1971, when de Gaulle demanded gold for his trade dollars. Volcker--yes, the Volcker everyone here likes to think is God on a breadstick--advised Nixon that the game was up, and he needed to cave. Nixon was stupid enough to accede.
I'm not saying that Volcker didn't understand financial reality--he certainly did, and always acted upon it. But there were other moves that could have been made back then, that TPTB felt were unacceptable politically. Those moves are infinitely more unacceptable now, and need to be implemented even more urgently. We are truly toast. Koos, do yourself a minor favor (and a major one to the rest of us), and read some economic history that hasn't been totally tainted by the Marxist du jour. You might start with the Mises.org site.
Horsefuckingshit
Unions were strong because they had the upper hand on labor monopoly.
And so they forced executives to give up the profits.
You idiots who think what you think about fucking unions...wtf? Would you RATHER all those corporate profits go into the pockets of the executives? Because THAT'S WHERE THAT SHIT IS GOING NOW that the unions have sold out and been NAFTAfied.
BUSINESS is still very profitable on Chinese labor...and those profits GO TO EXECUTIVES NOW. EVERY worker fired, take a $40k salary. The executives divide that guy's former paycheck up amongst themselves as "cost cutting" bonuses.
Your post is RIFE with bullshit; German and Jap labor was NEVER CHEAP and the cost of labor was NOT the problem here. Germany STILL has high quality products and a trade surplus despite some of the costliest workers in the world. The DIFFERENCE is that the executive class was not PERMITTED via trade policy by bribed legislatures to OUTSOURCE all of the labor!
For some reason most people here disagree with your common sense.
Nice reduction. Yes, it was and is pretty much just that simple.
Short version: There is an inverse relationship between plutocratic mercantile feudalism and autonomous free enterprise industrial capitalism.
They like to complicate it Trav, well said
I think the first sentence regarding labor monopoly says it all. However, over time more labor became available, hence more supply reduced the cost of labor.
Why is that so radical that wages in a world with free trade should equalize across the globe in the long run?
Unions wouldn't be able to help you with that; the only thing we have now is legally mandated unemployment where unless someone is worth minimum wage, then they cannot be legally employed. And since not everyone can be a whiz-bang Excel spreadsheet analyst, that's why most of the stuff you see in 99c (and up) stores are made in Asia.
Of course, this whole argument omits the corrupt monetary regime where simple folk are forced into the equity market - whether directly or through a fund - which just serves to blow up stock price and, as Schiff said, serves nothing but to transfer wealth from shareholders to management.
As for your remark about preventing outsourcing, how does that exactly work without wage reduction if we assume free trade and a foreign competitor can produce the same items for less?
Spot on. GM execs just told their minions, the President and Congress, that execs need more cash in their pockets, since they want to hire and keep the best executive "talent". I'm not hearing them say anything about giving workers more money to keep the best worker talent. And the execs will get more cash, more bonuses and more perks, and the workers will get less in wages and less in benefits.
NAFTA and other policies that have cleared the way for jobs to be shipped offshore were the incredibly creative solution to dealing with corrupt unions becoming too powerful and too politically influential.
And you know what? It worked. And it's awful but, face it: offshoring is the product of the Unions's insatiable greed and corruption.
I want jobs in America. I buy American every chance I can. But Unions are a corrupt institution that has out-existed their one-time very necessary purpose.
Once unions are completely broken, my guess is that you will see jobs return. But not a moment sooner.
You'll get flamed for this, but yeah. How about this: the miracle of the Renaissance was the growth of the middle class from the poor, knowledge over superstition, humanism over religion, logic over beliefs, rights over heredity. Safe streets, civil society, all that come from a flatter wealth distribution. Slavery gets you the best army, and you can build stuff like Pyramids and while conquering everybody else.
It's amazing how many people are utterly ignorant of basic history.
The growth of the middle class "from the poor" in the Renaissance was more directly attributable to the Black Death than to any other factor. It wiped out 30% of the population of Europe in the 1360's and made labor so valuable that the average working man could literally write his own ticket. And it was not a single event but occured every ten to twenty years, with lesser lethality, into the late 1400's. It was the failure of the Church to "protect" them from the disease that led to the rise of humanism and the search for objective knowledge. it was the death of so many church-educated support staff for the nobility that led to the education and hiring of commoners for those roles. It was the development of the long bow and crossbow that enabled the common people to begin to challenge the hereditary class for political power.
"All that come from a flatter weath distribution". Huh? No, all that comes from the Black Death.
Your last sentence doesn't make any sense at all.
and Gates is out their vaccinating as many people as he can, some people just don't appreciate history
If anyone is interested in a good historical read of that event I recommend "The Black Death" by Robert S. Gottfried. It would make a great Christmas present.
Yes Virginia, there is a Grim Reaper
None of what you said contradicts anything I said.
Basic supply and demand. And today we are seeing the same thing in reverse. The worldwide pool of educated labor exploded by about 1 billion souls after the collapse of the USSR and the opening of China. Two business-friendly Presidents, Nixon and Reagan, led the charge. Clinton reaped the one decade "peace dividend", and Bush oversaw the inevitable hollowing out of our industry through offshoring of our labor needs. When the limits were reached in 2000, monetary policy was used to drop the cost of incurring more debt, which worked for a time because debt creates demand. But it was a Willie Coyote solution ---- driving our economic so far off the edge that by the time Obama looked down there was no getting back to sustainability. We are now in the freefall and all of the stimulus efforts are merely slowing our rate of descent.
So who is to blame? Who the fuck cares. There is no going back because the laws of supply and demand cannot be violated. Delayed, yes, but not forever ignored.
Ye of little faith in the abilities of a citizen-empowered government to kill things like offshoring.
I was under the impression (read: learnt in class) that the middle class truly began to be something in the mid to late 1800s, when farming was the place to work in America. What is this Feudalism age nonsense you speak of?
Well, the US creation of middle class mirrored the social promotion in Europe. Not everyone was born a noble, you know. A D day when noble titles were distributed and after that, nothing.
The social promotion achieved in America was enabled by governments handing out land taken from the Indians.
Absolutely not different from the way Nobles promoted commoners to their ranks.
"Black Death" to the food supply, is the way i think we will be taken out. why, in florida the citrus orange tree groves have a deadly little parasite bug, i think from Asia. the big developers back in the RE heyday of mid 2000's bought up these orange groves to develop housing, GC's etc. they went bankrupt and left the orange trees for dead. now the neighboring grower has the damn parasites jumping over to his healthy trees and causing disease and death to orange crop. so this damn, RE boom and bust is devastating to our food supply.
One of my very favorite books is "The Prince." Machiavelli does not recall the Renaissance being such a rosy time. In fact, the treatise he wrote was, in his mind, designed to help end needless suffering that was the byproduct of substantial political instability and the wars caused therein.
Your take on the Renaissance is certainly different from his. With all due respect, since he was there, I will take his word for it.
I was just reading about this. Fuck you junkers~
The black death, although yes it must have been horrible, it allowed
the peasants to break out of feudalism, as landowners were forced to pay them
better wages, and ultimately rent their land.
Umm, what libertarian doesn't want everyone to do better? You think unions and financial regs were the reason for prosperity? Try the post-WWII economy where we were essentially the only manufacturing economy left. We are in the shit precisely because we have abandoned free-market libertarianism and sound money for crony capitalism and fiat currency where the well-connected gets richer, the banks manipulate the currency to their advantage, and the middle class gets smaller and more distant from the rich people they aspire to be.
Past the Manufacturing Economy, into the Information Age, now mining the IP-rich manufacturing to control domestically and completely weaning off the generic builds in favor of Asian labor arbitrage. The Corporate welfare system naturally needs to work on de-funding Enforcement or otherwise SRO-ing the space safe for Monopolies. Corporate world sheds jobs in Information Age, least able to understand what the job seeker appears to be wanting but in peeing up such a rope ought to be figuring out what's needed besides smartPhone hardware. No need to separate the People who would mostly choose to be rich and don't think about living where that prospect is Not Available by birth and/or neighborhood.
The focus is on Human rights before Corporate rights or the talented Tiger of Capitalism we need to be riding eats us along with lunch.
To your point, the Corporate education system still turns out the ones that choose last year's right answer and don't ask too many questions that have no easy answer.
i.e. safe robots to enter their world.
"What nit-wit Libertarian types don't seem to understand is, when everybody does better, everybody does better. And we end up having a more civil society in every respect. "
Oh god, this again. What sophmoric people like you do not seem to understand is that game theory is basically the very PREMISE of the libertarian principle. Your statement "when everybody does better, everybody does better" is EXACTLY the point!!! How you people fail to realise that we all want the same ends but have different (and correct IMHO) means to those ends is quite beyond me.
Free market people don't worship wealth. We just realise that economics and counter-economics (yes, I am an Agorist) are the only viable means to the end that we all want - an equal footing, and opportunity for everyone to live life how they see fit - without relying on stealing from others. (Because obviously that prevents others from doing the same)
Take me for instance. I come from nothing - literally. I grew up in a trailer park, dropped out of high school (to work fulltime) at sixteen, and have no degree. I'm in the middle of the 28% tax bracket now, because I'm smart as hell, and work my fucking ass off. I am not married, and have no kids, and do not own a home. (Couldnt afford one if I wanted one) Hence, I pay for the lifestyle choices of something like half the country, be they a nuclear family, or a welfare queen. I'm the one taking it in the ass every April for your benefits.
Because of this taxation I am unable to elevate my station in life. Hello, glass ceiling! The more I make to try to better my life the more people like you take away from me to the point where I don't even try to earn more money anymore; no matter what I do, because almost half of my paychecks when all is said and done is stolen from me, I will always be some middle class shmuck barely scraping by. I'll never be a small business owner, that's for damn sure. (Which is my dream; well that, 10 acres, and a modestly sized craftsman.)
Does that seem fair to you? Come take look inside my fridge in my one bedroom apartment and tell me that I'm "rich" and deserve to pay tens of thousands more in taxes than most of the country, simply because of the number of zeros on the end of my annual salary (that I EARN!). People on subsidized housing and food stamps have more disposable income than I do, once you do the numbers.
Gah. You people are beyond understanding. You don't even realise that without my tax burden I'd be able to open a business tomorrow and help fix this unemployment problem we have.
Assuming that your income is in the middle of the 28% tax bracket, thats roughly $128,000 per year, you have no house payment or other financial obligation (children etc)... yet you claim you are "barely scraping by".
GET A GRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!! If what you are saying is true, you need to get your uneducated, ignorant "behind" into see a financial counselor. You have money management issues. Further, you have no clue how the rest of America lives!!!!!
Reading your post, I concur, that this issue is indeed beyond your ability to understand!
If you can "barely scrap by" on only $128,000 per year (as a footloose bachelor), you are not capable of running a business.....
I have a pretty good clue of how the rest of America lives, or did you miss the part about me being raised dirt ass poor? I also spent the majority of 19-21 borderline homeless, so don't give me that bullshit. I have a pretty good grasp on my finances, thank you.
You have no idea what the cost of living in my area is - because you have no idea where I live. You must live somewhere in the south or the midwest. (If I did I'd be balling, I miss $500/m rent, but I wouldn't be making nearly as much, if I could even find work) I pay 50% of my net income on rent alone, so that I'm not shot while walking around at night. Throw a car payment into the mix (a VW, mind you), along with all the associated expenses, the outrageous amount of money I pay for food and utilities in this area, all the other expenses associated with my career (cell, internet, computers), and I'm no better off than the majority of the country.
If I had credit card payments on top of that, I'd be fucked. One paycheck at best away from homeless. I consider that barely scraping by. I don't have a big ass TV, an XBox, nice furniture, an ocean view, or anything luxurious. If being able to eat regularly, spend $50 at the bar once a week and having a roof over my head isn't how the majority of Americans live, then I must be living in a different country. I'll tell you one thing - those people using SNAP cards in the checkout in front of me can afford better clothes, a TON more food, and usually are wheeling that grocery cart to a much nicer (and usually more expensive in gas and upkeep, like a large SUV) car than I have.
You should check your assumptions at the door.
Mssr. Thrashaholica
I agree with much of what you say for I have had a very similar experience regarding life and taxes. I must state that you gotta get your head straight dog. If you can pull yourself outta the hole that you were probably born into then you can move on up. A wise man once told me, I'm paraphrasing, the amount of effort it takes to get from nothing to something is about the same amount of effort it takes to get from something to something extraordinary. I don't have a specific fix and don't mean to come across as dwelling in a pipe dream (unicorn crayon drawings pooping skittles and cotton candy), but some of us do have perseverence, momentum and creativity to assist us.
No taxation with fucked up representation (C).
You pay 1/2 your net income in rent? Dude, read "Your Money of Your Life" by Joe Dominquez- its not a magic plan book or anything, but it could get you thinking a little differently. In all honesty, it can be done.
I understand where youre coming from so your message is more in context than any other random message i'd reply to, but unless youre in living in Manhattan, i just don't see how 50% of your (gross or net? i hope net...) income goes to rent alone.
Youre getting fucked and, not to sound like an IA, id suggest thinking twice about owning something where YOU can charge folk to live those ridiculous as you say prices.
The drama must have taken priority over the math in this story.
It speaks for itself. Too bad the dramatic flair is wasted on painful auto-mythology that overwhelms his recognition of the clearly visible next step(s).
Keep telling yourself that.
There are fewer and fewer "elevated stations" every year. No matter how brilliant or hard-working you are, if the actual number of affluent/wealthy individuals continues to decline, your chances of becoming one of them goes DOWN.
This is not complicated. What else can be happening?
Most of the people who were affluent/wealthy in 1985 decided to stop working? They got dumber? Their TAXES WENT UP so much they're now working class?
Take a look at the figures again.
The wealthy from 1985 are likely still well off; the "wealth" metrics have changed largely due to the funding of parasitic sectors of the economy through that 40-something percent of my income that I never see - namely the MIC and the financial/banking "industry." Someone who made 500k in 1985 was rich by most people's metrics, yet in 2010 you have people who are bringing in hundreds of millions in bonuses a year on Wall St. (Also partly due to fleecing those not-millionaires blind too, I'm sure.)
You can't deny that there's a vast difference between bringing home around 68k and bringing home around 120k, and that it does wonders for an individual's ability to "make their money work for them," as they say.
You can quibble over one specific stat. You can't quibble over the trend--there are fewer and fewer Americans today who'd qualify (by ANY fixed measure) as "wealthy."
So you start with the "wealthy" population of '85 and say they're still "well off," and I'd say you're agreeing with my view. Most of them used to be "rich" and now are "upper middle class." You think this helps your claim?
Either way, it doesn't bode well for a healthy society.
For what it's worth, though, "the wealthy" from 1985 are not still well-off. I know personally a few folks who saw their business-models destroyed by the demo-shift to the developing nations.
Not to suggest this is in itself proof of a big problem. Only that what you're saying isn't true.
Your claim that what's "keeping you down" is taxes is just bullshit. It's not even funny that you don't understand this.
"Parasitic..." Some of the rich are getting richer at a faster rate because they no longer have to get our money from us one person at a time; they have government to take it from us en masse (e.g., Blankfein). Others of the rich create wealth.
We can't lump all rich into the same category.
The uber rich also have access to political input that provides them with circumvention of ANY tax scheme. They either receive special deductions for this activity or that activity, or have special trust and estate devices built into law (Kennedy), or gifting, etc. I would argue that we need a Fair Tax or a Flat Tax to avoid some of that.
Also, there was a wonderful study done about how the upper income strata churn as people become successful or fail. Not all those who achieve well can keep it. Wish I could find it to share.
holy cow! I've been scolling thru all the arguing about justifiable wealth and actions and accusatory BS about the slobs being "jeolous" & lazy & blah blah blah......... FINALLY somebody hits on the root. Thank you. It's the FUCKING TAX CODE, bitchezz. Written by & for: guess who? And even to access the fine points and properly exploit, ya gotta have plenty o' cash to pony up.
Thrasholic, your story is full of holes, which you conveniently fill up with BS.
First, the statement, "I'm smart as hell, and work my fucking ass off" is complete nonsense, because if you were "smart as hell" you'd have figured out how to better your condition.
Sure, I understand the bit about being single and paying an unfair share in taxes, but then you complain that half of your paycheck goes to rent. Ever think about starting up a business - anything, just file a DBA ($20-50 in most areas), go out and buy some equipment, etc. and write off 30-40% of your rent as expense, along with maybe 20% of your car expense, etc., lose money at it and reduce your tax liability. There are more ways to use the tax code to your advantage, but you haven't figured that out yet, so I'm assuming you're in your 20s or early 30s.
So, really, you're not smart as hell. You're just another renter kid with a cell phone, car payment, iPod, and probably a whole bunch of shit you don't need (watch the first few scenes of "Fight Club" and grow a pair). Spending $50 at a bar is simply futile, dude. You'd be far better off investing that $2500 a year in something other than satiating your (fill in blank) ego, libido, self-delusion, etc.
Starting a business - again, anything, shoe repair, a blog, anything - is your first path toward true freedom.
Believe me. I gave up the corporate world at the age of 22. Was already moving up so fast that superiors were fucking with me, so I just quit and moved on. Never regretted a minute of the businesses I started, failed, succeeded, and grew. Since 1982, I've only worked for anyone other than myself part time for 2 years in the mid 90s.
Stop playing victim (and BTW: if you're single, under 45 and are paying health care premiums, you're a fool) and start making the system work for you.
Yes, 1950-75 was a great era economically. Up through 1970 US oil production was increasing, and approximately the same time frame the US was the largest oil producer in the world (as well as consumer). It didn't hurt that nearly all industrial production outside the US had been obliterated shortly before 1950. Took some time for other countries to re-tool and start to challenge us. And challenge us they did.
But, for fear of oversimplifying, all you really need to look at is domestic energy production, particularly oil production.
1950-1975 didn't have a MONSTROUS GOV'T LEVIATHAN EITHER
AND the fucking tax code was only 40% (or less) its way to present shitpile
[...everybody does better, everybody does better...]---Lord Koos
I might say, When more people are productive, more people benefit.
(edit - I see now that Mad Max above has basically covered my points below)
Lord Koos -
You do NOT understand correlation nor causality, buddy.
The reason AMERICANS did well from the 50's on is because so many other developed nations had seen their political systems completely uprooted and their infrastructures destroyed during WWII.
Germany, Britain, France, Japan - decimated by WWII. Roads, bridges, electricity grids, factories, etc. bombed all to shit.
Even China and Korea were impacted severely (as the Japanese invaded both).
The U.S. & Canada were developed, prosperous, educated nations that emerged unscathed in the aftermath of the carnage wrought on Europe & parts of Asia.
So North America caught a huge bid as a place to build the factories that would build the things that the rest of the world needed, as Europe and Japan were rebuilt under the Marshall Plan.
I'm not that old, and even I can remember when the Christmas lights we put on our tree were made in the United States. This would have been around 1979, and I was a real young boy.
Imagine that.
“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”
– Plutarch
Pantheist you don't have the balls to redistribute my wealth through violence. The Koreans took out fifty rioters in socialist California. In the south where I live we will be even less politically correct. The police will shoot to kill if you point a knife at them or throw snooker balls and malotovs like the brits students.
Dicky Junky why aren't you hanging out at Stormfront?
Institute one of the Five Pillars of Islam: Zakat.
This will require implementing a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Take #16 and change "income" to "wealth." Pass and ratify ASAP.
Zakat is obligatory. 2.5% of wealth is donated to the poor annually.
Taxing income has failed. The top tier can bribe legislators endlessly. They sell out cheaper than a Christmas wrapping paper in February.
Taxing wealth ??? Everything but the first $500,000 of your house ?
Yes, a portion of Sharia Law.
The best of it.
Fuck that.
"Yes, a portion of Sharia Law."
Can the jizya be far behind?
From a practical standpoint, how would the government fairly determine their wealth?
they will form a committee
Tuff, say it ain't so:
We can implement a pilla thing and be limited to only 1/4 of a tithe (aka 2.5%) to the poor.
AND STOP!!!!
bring it.
- Ned
Dude, you're in the wrong country for that--most US citizens are overwhelmingly Christian still, and those who are religious are required to tithe 10% of their income to their church.
Anyway, as far as a nonreligious contribution is concerned, the socialist asshats in Europe did that ages ago, and guess what? People voted with their feet. They went to live anywhere but there. Pour ne pas souffrir d'impots, it faut naitre a Monaco...Monaco suddenly realized that all it needed to do to find a tax windfall was to slightly adjust its laws, no longer requiring birth in the Principality. Bjorn Borg became Monagasque forthwith. And so it goes--look at Singapore! Enough said.
I have no issue with people finding a way for us to help our fellow man and build a "net" s to speak under our society. Heck, it might stop my kids or yours from getting shot in the head or mugged at some point. Creating desperation, like the country is so good at, is not a good thing.
But fuck religion.
So Jamie Dimon, George Soros, Al Gore, Bill Gates, Lloyd Blankenfein, Warren Buffett, John Edwards, Donald Trump, et al, would leave the USA and you're up-in-arms about how horrible that would be?
Good point.
Well, hey, omelettes, eggs, you know that sort of thing.
How many innocent women do you hope to stone to death?
Islam is a cult of death.
Mohammed was a pedophile.
Allah is a pimp