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"To My Fellow Filthy Rich Americans: Wake Up, People. The Pitchforks Are Coming"
Excerpted from Nick Hanauer's OpEd in Politico (read more here),
Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor.
I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine.
...
But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.
Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; I’ve had many of you tell me to my face I’m completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.
Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us.
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They will be shot down during takeoff.
It is far too easy to target the engines of the jets at the regional airports, bitch.
Law Enforcement will be busy elsewhere.
nuts. not gonna happen....we have way, way, way better control of the peasantry here thru the media, the communications systems, and the system of welfare payments.
never gonna happen cause we can nip it in the bud...toot sweet.
Just cause they're rich doesn't mean they're smart ... they don't want to pay taxes just so a huge number of Americans can ride around on their rascals and buying stuff with their EBT.
They'll take away the bread and circuses eventually and that will be the end.
they don't want to pay taxes
That's a good point. The rich want the middle class to pay for the entitlements either through direct taxation or through stealing their wealth through QE. But the midde class is dying. Already there are almost as many adults not working in the U.S. as there are working. Pretty soon, the middle class wont be able to pay the welfare bills and what then? Additional printing doesn't help at that point. Welfare will have to be continually increased to keep a subsistence level. The rich won't pay for welfare because they're too fucking greedy. That's when it will all end.
What, no Breaking Mad? No Mad Man Walking? Darn!
Long moats....
longboats.
Yup
Remember when the masses came for the Frankenstein monster with their torches, weapons and anger? Don't forget your BIC lighter.
I've been long pitchforks for years...
Entrepenuers like this guy are not the problem. Find the bailout trails of money that eminate from DC. That should be the pitchfork trail when it happens. Not Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Zuckerberg et al, but people like heads of banks, bailed out car companies, big pharma who has bought off congress poisoning our medicines and hiding cures, monsanto for poisoning our food while running the FDA and SCOTUS
"Entrepenuers like this guy are not the problem. Find the bailout trails of money that eminate from DC."
True that! Career politicians are and always have been (will be) the problem. With no end in sight to greed, graft, pork, waste, and worst of all voter apathy and fraud, the tide of corruption will roll on period! End of story. Tth - th- that's all folks!
I second that, koaj:
"Entrepreneurs like this guy are not the problem."
I repeat one of my favourite quotes:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/silent_weapons_quiet_wars.htm
Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars
"Energy is recognized as the key to all activity on earth. Natural science is the study of the sources and control of natural energy, and social science, theoretically expressed as economics, is the study of the sources and control of social energy. Both are bookkeeping systems: mathematics. Therefore, mathematics is the primary energy science. And the bookkeeper can be king if the public can be kept ignorant of the methodology of the bookkeeping. ... In this structure, credit, presented as a pure element called "currency," has the appearance of capital, but is in effect negative capital. Hence, it has the appearance of service, but is in fact, indebtedness or debt. ... if balanced in no other way, will be balanced by the negation of population (war, genocide)... They must eventually resort to war to balance the account, because war ultimately is merely the act of destroying the creditor ... War is therefore the balancing of the system by killing the true creditors (the public ...)"
We are living inside of a system where the triumph of backing up lies with violence, focused primarily through the funding of the political processes, have resulted in our living inside of a monetary system which has become our STATE RELIGION, which is a bizarre mixture of mathematics and magic, to create mathemagical accounting, that superficially contradicts the basic laws of nature, such as the conservation of energy and matter. The "money" to pay for services and goods is allowed to be created out of nothing, as debts, by private banks, and that magical "money" can also disappear back to nothing, if those debts disappear. Under that system, if there were no more debts, then there would be no more "money." In that system, the mathemagical bookkeeping is done by the FRAUD KINGS, as the private banking systems, whose frauds are enforced as the STATE RELIGION, that everyone must worship and obey.
I EMPHASIZE AGAIN:
"In this structure, credit, presented as a pure element called "currency," has the appearance of capital, but is in effect negative capital. Hence, it has the appearance of service, but is in fact, indebtedness or debt."
NEGATIVE CAPITAL operates to negate "capitalism." "Capital" is not being accumulated and invested, except on the margins. Capital is primarily being created out of nothing, the way that the "money" is primarily created out of nothing. There is NO "free market," but rather an almost totally rigged market, from the interests rates on down. It is that debt slavery system, backed by wars based on deceits, which is driving the runaway social robberies to get worse, faster, because the basic foundation of the system is government enforced frauds by the banks, around which have grown up corporations that operate inside of that system.
What has happened is that the methods of organized crime were applied to the political processes, in order to legalize lies, and have those backed up with legalized violence: FRAUDS WHICH WERE ENFORCED BY THE GOVERNMENT. At the present time, about 99% of what the government of the USA does is THAT, which system has been automatically getting worse at an exponential rate.
There are a few people who may still be considered to relatively be acting like entrepreneurs, or capitalists. However, the fundamental system itself is NOT that, and so, they were NOT actually operating inside of such a system, because it NO LONGER EXISTS! What actually exists has no good labels, but I call it a runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut, where the main "wealth" that the plutocrats have is the legalized counterfeiting of the public "money" supply. In fact, what that oligarchic plutocracy makes out of nothing is NOT "money," but rather actually the opposite of money. However, they have gradually been able to transform everything in a Bizarro Mirror World, where the language we use is their bullshit, which tends to be proportionately backwards to what it should be.
The American money supply was supposed to be backed by gold and silver, whose value was set by Congress. Instead, the power to make "money" out of nothing, backed by nothing, was transferred to the biggest gangsters, the banksters, around which grew up the kinds of big corporations that were adapted to that social situation.
The best way to understand what happened to America is to follow the history of the funding of the political processes. The most recent examples were that, for a while, so-called health care businesses became the biggest funders of the political processes, while that resulted in Obamacare, as a consolidation of the fraudulent "health care" that is actually a runaway profit from disease system. The same pattern applies to the FDA, and so on and so forth, as well as to foreign affairs, as much as domestic affairs. FOLLOW THE MONEY TO THE SOURCE, THROUGH THE NEXUS OF THE FEEDBACKS IN THE FUNDING OF THE POLITICAL PROCESSES!!!
If one does a detailed history of the funding of the political processes in America, one will recognize a relentless process of bribery, and intimidation. One should also include paying for assassinations of those significant politicians that could not be otherwise bribed or intimidated into that overall pattern of the funding of the political processes, however, obviously, that is almost impossible to do. But nevertheless, if one looks long and hard at the history of the funding of politics, one will see every way in which the political processes became almost totally corrupted and crazy to the core, by every different kind of special interest group.
In that context, this guy is NOT a genuine entrepreneur capitalist because it is IMPOSSIBLE to be one of those inside of a system where there is privatized creation of the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts. He may well be right that the runaway triumph of controlling civilization with huge lies, which succeeds inside vicious spirals of political corruption, drives that society insane, so that it becomes madly self-destructive. However, almost everything that I read in that article above revealed either disingenuousness, or gross ignorance. In this case, I would bet it was the latter.
Ironically, I no longer believe that the plutocrats still control the plutocracy that they had made and maintained. I no longer feel that the oligarchs actually control the systems that they originally created. Their systems have become runaways, even from them! The debt slavery systems have generated numbers which have become debt insanities, and those are going to provoke death insanities. Too bad, so sad!
While this guy has been making businesses that made "money" inside of the established systems, I was spending my time for several decades attempting to understand the nature of those criminally insane systems, and wondering about what kinds of intellectual scientific revolutions MIGHT be able to cope with the development of globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of the force of atomic bombs.
However, gradually I have been forced to accept that the most probable futures are sort of what this guy is warning about, except MUCH WORSE, in ways which result in way more mass murders of the lower 99.99% than proportionately in the 0.01%. Of course, I like to day dream about a series of political miracles, to enable technological miracles to be systematically implemented. However, I less and less find any reasonable way to expect that to happen. Instead, I think that this guy's article theme was basically correct, except to the degree that he grossly understates how bad the collapse into chaos of electronic frauds backed by the force of atomic bombs could become!
Guys like him are NOT "the problem." Rather, that even guys like him are abysmally ignorant about what the problems really are IS "the problem." That even guys like him have a similarly dismal level of political understanding, like the general population of Zombie Sheeple, IS THE PROBLEM!
and politicians!
I prefer my trident if u don't mind. It's a Siva tool with a nuclear MadMax war load. Hare Krishna!
White, rich, libtard guilt. Nothing less, nothing more.
What does LawsOfPhysics always say?
Until then, nothing changes.
Why is everything always divided into liberal vs. conservative to unimaginative fucks like yourself?
Can you not conceive of any other way to view people but for that narrow, misguided lens? Has the MSM kool-aid so thoroughly rotted your feeble mind?
No, I actually read the article.
Don't give up on him. I had a Fox News addiction for years, until I detoxed through a marathon of Ron Paul literature and 9/11 investigation.
Maybe reading comprehension and critical thinking just aren't your bag.
Because it doesn't take an imagination to realize that the world absolutely is divided between liberal and conservative values. Maybe you should stop using your imagination and face reality.
Just another hippy pinko who hates everything American stands for, and the troops !
Forgot the Sarc tags, or having fun?
I support the troops, provided that they are not in someone else's country, killing people.
Kinda just leaves...the homeland...to play in.
I really don't care so much for that either.
ZH'ers are just jealous that they aren't filthy-rich. ZH'ers don't want to change the system, just the people at the top.
Oh yeah, quoting Jamie Dimon is really gonna make you sound like the voice of fuckin reason...
There is a big difference between honest wealth that comes from hard work and investing than there is just from being close to the printing presses.
you'd have better luck teaching a walrus how to perform brain surgery than you will trying to get people like him to look beyond their sycophantic fetishes.
The wealthy believe they can buy immunity by demanding wealth redistribution at the top of their voice. It will work for a while but as we saw with the French revolution, the vengeance will eventually turn back on them as well. The problem is that the destruction of the wealth class does nothing to resolve the plight of everyone else. It is simply vengeance, and that, once pursued is not easily satisfied.
What is needed is for people to become productive again. The corruption and criminality have destroyed societies drive to produce, minimizing their remaining power and leaving the rich to simply divide the remaining spoils.
The only solution is a return to the rule of law, not of men. Rules that pertain to everyone, not just those who cannot afford lawyers or K street.
All equal under the law, including Obama, all the way to the homeless person.
Of course. But good luck in growing your business (scaling your biz model) to a decent size in a reasonable time, w/o lots of cheap capital and powerful Door Openers.
Welcome to the Shark Tank.
Some see pitchforks and others see mass graves.
"If we do something about it, if we adjust our policies in the way that, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression—so that we help the 99 percent and preempt the revolutionaries and crazies, the ones with the pitchforks—that will be the best thing possible for us rich folks, too. It’s not just that we’ll escape with our lives; it’s that we’ll most certainly get even richer."
It was a good article until I read the last line and it became clear to me that he either doesn't get it or he is lying. FDR just threw the masses a few bread crumbs to keep them at bay. He didn't address the institution that enables this kind of inequality and that's the people who inflate away people's buying power through the control of the currency. Get rid of the fed and a lot of these problems go away.
This creep just wants to insure he remains plutocratically rich. Which policies does he advocate? Probably just increasing the dole so keep 'em down on the farm (e.g. Roosevelt). He has zero interest in changing the crony capitalist system in which government gives people like him favor. He's pretty much just expressing openly the thoughts all these creitins have in private.
FDR institutionalized some of the mechanisms of class division and dependency.
Yeah, like MOAR government control is ever a solution to anything.
This guy is but Piketty 2.0.
What's funny is that he isn't a "real" 0.01% club member, but instead, is just some rifraff who got rich. Must be why he realizes he won't make it to his jet, whereas the true 0.01% will be ushered out in advance.
In other words, he's just the latest tool.
Well, Dr Engali, regarding your observation that:
"It was a good article until I read the last line and it became clear to me that he either doesn't get it or he is lying."
My feeling is that he just doesn't get it.
Pitchforks make for a good mental image, but a baseball bat really does the job much better...and the sound is FABULOUS.
Which do you prefer? the 'CRACK' of the wooden bat, or the 'PING' of the aluminum bat? I prefer the 'PING'.
While I realize that the aluminum provides more "bang" for the buck, I gotta admit to being something of a traditionalist on this. I'm gonna have to go with the good ole Louisville Slugger 34/31. I guess I'm just a romantic at heart.
White ash is easier to manufacture, greener, and is a renewable resource.
Hey man, I ain't Bo Jackson snapping bats in two over my knee. Recycle a baseball bat? Shit, I've got a 24 year old LS that I still use. My idea of recycling is to not buy shit I don't need.
But your point is well intentioned and well taken.
A piece of 3/4" rebar makes a nice "THUD" without stinging the hands.
Sharp machetes are even better. More blood!
Do you really want to risk getting bankster blood on you?
The elites have the MRAP, drones, eaves dropping, mass media, courts., scientists, education. The slaves are about to loose their gun rights and are watching bread and circuses.
I don't see it working. At most the slaves demand a new ruler. That ruler will immediately be bought by the same old gang.
None of the small steps to tyranny in itself will justify an uprising.
that's a useless article. i should have quit when you said you can't write a lick at the beginning.
inequality doesn't matter so long as the 99% are fat, dumb and ignorant.
There will be a faux New Deal and a heapful of lies first. The rich will try to negotiate. It's hard to say if that'll work and for how long.
This guy was in a documentary with The Midget... er, Robert Reich, in which he expounded on the rich buoying the economy in the wake of the middle class collapsing: "I drive the best Audi money can buy... But I can only buy one of them. There is a limit to what we can spend."
you cant get to that level of wealth in an existing system without having some dirt on and blood your hands , so your voice of consciousness doesnt sound too sinsere
A broad overgeneralization, and quite incorrect. I happen to know a few very wealthy individuals (I do personal errands for them), who are rather good people and have treated me well in my dealings with them. In my experience what it really takes to become extremely successful are three things: willingness to take risks, good idea/product, right place/right time (luck). Of the 3, I would say the last is the most important. After all, if Gates comes up with DOS a year earlier or a year later, or if IBM had any visionaries working there at the time, no one would have ever heard of Bill Gates, or Microsoft.
sir you judge by your personal experince and that is perfectly understandable , i just think that in order to generate an extreme ammount of wealth at some point you'll have to be involved in politics/economics/banking/subsidies/offshores/bribing one way or another and at the minimum that would make that person a statist. i understand that those people that you have buisness with treat you with respect and dignitiy but it doesnt mean that they would be honest about all the unpleasent stuff or reveal some sencitive info to you. i dont like generalizations its just seems that the path to the tfinancial top lies thru direct or indirect dirt...
otherwise no disrespect , maybe you do know some exceptional people.
But even assuming you are correct; "have to be involved in politics/economics/banking/subsidies/offshores/bribing", do you vilify them for working within a system not of their own creation. What I took exception with, in your original comment, is your implication that in order to become wealthy you necessarily have to do some evil wrong. And while I can think of some very good examples where that might very well be the case, I do not believe that to be true in the majority of instances. Our quarrel should not be with the people that have amassed great wealth because of the current system, but with the people that created and maintain the system that allow them to do so (although I agree that in many cases they are one and the same).
our conversation becomes a little more philosophical and i have to admit that i dont posses an ultimate answear to that question. i just think that if you were intelligent or lucky enough to make the current system work for you , you wont be interested in the change and you wouldnt be questioning much the legitimacy of it. people like that are the pillars of the system they are just ''doing their job'' or they think ''pull yourself by the bootstraps'' cause i was able to do it...
anyway agree or not , thank you for not calling me names ))
No problem. I just get a little irked when we get into these 'let's eat the rich' arguments. I maintain that our true enemies are those criminals, elected and appointed, that have torn our Constitution to shreds. They're the ones the pitchforks should be aimed at.
i dont know man , even kim jong un wouldnt be worth shit if for the people who comfortabe enough with the regime. the desire to aim at the top is naturale but we need to understand that the top is nothing without the support of people in top positions of industries, military , law inforcement, education etc. .. anyone who is silent or benefiting - is complicit. thats what i think , but im drunk and stupid so who knows....
You might be drunk, but I don't think you're stupid, because you are correct. Corruption and evil governments cannot continue without the consent (implicit and otherwise), of the masses. As someone once said 'societies get the type of government they deserve'. Someday our society will wake up, but I fear that by then it will be too late. An ancient Chinese curse goes something like 'may you live in interesting times'. I'm afraid that we live in interesting times indeed, and they are about to get even more interesting. And by the way, drunk is not a bad way to go. Doesn't hurt as much when they break down the door and put a .223 round through our thick skulls.
White guilt.
Go buy an evil eye pendant. It'll keep the envious away.
Amazing how it ALWAYS has to be mentioned, or lied about when inconvienent.
Business careerAfter earning his philosophy degree from the University of Washington, Hanauer got his business start at the family-owned Pacific Coast Feather Company, where he continues to serve as co-chair and CEO.[2] In the 1980s he co-founded Museum Quality Framing Company, a large West Coast franchise.[3]
In the 1990s Hanauer was one of the first investors in Amazon.com (where he served as adviser to the board until 2000). He founded gear.com (which eventually merged with Overstock.com) and Avenue A Media (which in 2007, under the new name aQuantive, was acquired by Microsoft for $6.4 billion).[4]
In 2000, Hanauer co-formed the Seattle-based venture capital company, Second Avenue Partners. The company advises and funds early stage companies such as HouseValues[5] Qliance,[6] and Newsvine.[7] He is from a Jewish family.[8]
To be fair, I like this guy. Only ever removed TED talk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI
Didn't say I didn't like him. He looks like he's brought up some good points. How genuine he is about them is another story.
He's been pushing this agenda for several years.. I'd say he is pretty genuine on it, need consumers to consume... Other than most ftse 100 wins these days which are often down to financialisation (see Cisco taking on debt to buy back shares rather than losing tax on moving money).
Sure, but he talks about the middle class. The average person works about 2,000 hours a year (50 out of 52 weeks x 40 hours per week). So, he's talking about seeing that some folks on the bottom end get to $30,000 a year. Is that middle class?
And what happens to the guy making, say, $22 an hour right now? He's going to find that he's going to have to pay more for some of the things he buys because now there's more demand for some of them with more lower income people making closer to his pay. Is that good for him? And will the government actually push clients off its power base? Not likely.
I hate the fact that the stat he cites about CEO pay being 500 times the average worker pay is true. But his idea doesn't really do anything about that. And it's a bit of a statistical lie to try to say, "See! San Fran and Seattle did this and they're fine!". He knows that there are a ton of other factors at work in those cities. How does he think it would work in Cleveland or Duluth or Detroit? He knows his argument was not completely serious.
And that's my big problem with the $15 minimum wage idea. It's not completely serious. I'm ambivalent about it. But I'm not ambivalent about the people proposing it because I think it's mostly to make them feel good. Other people can't eat out on his feeling of self-satisfaction.
He didnt mention money, just said you need consumers to consume.. you just grew a big (minimum wage ) straw out of your ass. He said that the job creators are the customers not the CEO's.. where is the fallacy in that?
Everyone should move to consuming as least as possible. Help move this shit show along until it collapses. Peaceful disobedience to wreck a government who rules over its subjects.
How can you say he's genuine on the issue of unequal wealth causing problems in our society when he chooses to keep his wealth? He holds the key to his own prison cell.
Agreed Machoman
"Only ever removed TED talk."
That's just because it was so bad...
Pitchforks are sooooo last century, Nick.
Now M-16s, AK-47, 9mm - You get the idea
Sad yet probably certain.
You kidding me. Med Evil will never go out of style ala Mussolini. Or try this on for size:
Hang them upside down, set them on fire for a few seconds then slice thier throats ear to ear & watch them drown in thier own blood. Actually, slice their throats first. Wouldn't want them flareling around while on fire. Would make the slicing of their throats much easier. One nice clean cut.
I dunno, Chupacabra....
The Nicolae Ceau?escu (+ wifey) execution photo stills I've seen look extremely satisfying.
There are plenty of them. I think we can mix it up a bit to keep it interesting.
NOTE: When one files the tips of a pitchfork one should push the file evenly along the edge of the tips. Do not pull the file over the steel as that tends to dull the file. Always push the file and then lift the file off the steel before beginning the next stroke of the file to
sharpen the edge of the tines. If one follows this method of sharpening the pitchfork you will have better results with the action of the pitchfork when you impale the Zillionaires for their
greed. Furthermore, this is the most humane method to relieve
the Zillionaires of their ability to function as faux human beings.
Q: what is easier to load into a truck, dead babies or wheat?
A: Dead babies - you can use a pitchfork!
Unusual for a wealthy entrepreneur to be motivated by fear.
Usually entrepreneurs are motivated by understanding that profit is a function of risk.
pitchforks = emotional sentimentality = bullshit = fake/counterfeit
OR
poor old Nick lost his (not golf) balls somewhere
He lives in Seattle. has a degree in philosophy, fears the lynch-mob, and speaks nothing of the underlying cause, the destruction of the purcashing power of the currency. I hate to generalize, but he's a fairly average example of his environment.
All in all, I can't see where he's ever had balls.
If you like your concertina wire....you can keep your concertina wire
It's lonely up on Mt. Greed?
www.livejasmine.com
Hillary's Book A Bust, Hope Springs Eternal, Boycott the Mofos
http://winteractionables.com/?p=12994
Unfortunately the biatch has already gotten a 15 mil advance, and she doesn't have to give it back because the piece-of-shit didn't sell.
I was friendly with my economics professor back in the 70's. At the time, game theory was a little-known branch of economics, and sneered at by the macro "kings of the universe".
He told me that when simulated under game theory, any quasi-capitalist society always ends up in a steady state where one set of hands controls all the capital.
So I asked "Well, what happens then?"
He just smiled as he said "Forcible reset".
Mark those words, fellows, because you'll hear them again.
Re: quasi-capitalist
By "quasi-capitalist" do you mean: competative? Just wonder what other "type" of society there could possible be.
Otherwise, totally agree. What other outcome could ANY game have? There's got to be some winner at somepoint.
By quasi-capitalist, he meant any system that allowed (ostensibly) private hands to control the majority of capital. So, it runs the gamut from pure capitalism (seen as often as unicorns), to mixed capitalism (e.g. some of the West from 1950-1975), to the crony capitalism we have now.
And, for those who wonder, he was NOT a Marxist of any variety. because he said the ultimate outcome of any command economy (call it what you want - communist/socialist/"socially just") fell to subsistence levels, since with no incentives, most players made the minimum effort possible.
His personal view (not then backed by any research, so take it with a grain of salt) was that there would be a cycle of capitalism/quasi-capitalism, forcible reset (i.e. redistribution of wealth at point of gun), a primitive society (feudal), followed by a rise of a new quasi-capitalist entity. He said it wasn't as terrible as it sounds, since we were unlikely to have another dark ages, and thus would always be building on the technology of the previous capitalist one.
Contrary to Fukiyama, there is no end to history, just a big wheel turning.
Mostly in line with my thesis as well, certainly on the inevitable outcome of various economic systems over a short/medium duration (over the long term, all things considered, there is no practical difference between the economic systems - in the end, humans behave as we will, and the attempts to curtail certain behaviors are ignored). Cycle after cycle after cycle.
We had a huge middle class and an open stairway to it for the poor. The gov't whittled the middle class down to nothing and destroyed the open stairway for the poor. It's not capitalism, it's Statism, and yeah, "quasi-capitalism" that lead to the problems we see now. The "Rockerfellers" and other rich folk didn't want the uncertainty that a true free market brings so, voila, central banks and gov't regulations out the wazoo to help the rich stay rich. And as they own the educational machine, they got by with still calling it free market capitalism.
We must have had the same professor. I seem to recall having a similar conversation with a professor of mine at a CS business school. It still amazes me that game theory isn't more common in economic studies.
Game theory puts economics squarely back into "Humanities / Social Sciences" which undermines the mathematical aggregate based Keynesian nonsense.
I doubt you'll ever see it anywhere except as a tangent off of some greater theory.
I stated in a separate thread that economics refuses to acknowledge that it has been consumed by, and is merely a subset of, psychology... People wonder why economics models fail to accurately predict behavior, but if you base your reasoning solely on the quantifiable aspects of life (and reasons for acting), then you'll probably miss something along the way.
I think even Keynes - who I have great respect for, even though his work has been sullied and co-opted by various predators, trolls, and thieves - was cognizant of this. His many references to 'animal spirits' were evidence of this.
And your second sentence is bang on - most economics texts assume that we are 'utility maximisers' and acting in our own rational best interests, but, as the recent election in Ontario shows, current 'free' money from the gubmint is valued much more highly than the eventual and total cost of the debt incurred. Like alchoholics looking for a drink or junkies looking for a fix, the next four hours are much more important than the next four years (months, weeks, days.. )
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us.
That is stating the obvious. Most 1/.1/.01 percenters know this and probably do not care one lick. Unaddressed is the question: What is this "something" that you suggest they do?
This is the question that the Libertarians and "Conservatives" can't ask, and the Socialists and "Progressive" love to ask. Resulting in perpetually wrong answers.
Is there a right answer? or just a less bad one?
The question should perhaps be framed differently: Where do we start to address this issue? on the "Socialists" or "Progressive" side, they most definitely start on the wrong end. Mr. Hunsuaer, wherever he may fall, starts on the wrong end of the conversation as well. That is -- government-based solutions via taxation.
Thoughtful libertarians are often much closer to the mark -- the debt-based money system and private-cartel central banking system(s).
The Fed and its conduit, the Government, are the lynchpins of this inequality. I have worked in politics unfortunately. It is nothing more than a "who will look after Mr. Boodle" system of patronage and baronies (to paraphrase Dickens's Bleak House.) It is disgusting; It is institutionalized; and any for any change to occur, the institution must cease to exist.
Raise the dole.
Which FEMA region is this guy going to be appointed Governor of?
That would be Region X, of course. Gotta love the Roman numerals... so imperial, so NFL.
The major problem facing the Criminal UNITED STATES, CORP. INC. is the utter & complete lawlessness that swept through at all Political, economic, reglious & educational levels.
The complete contempt of the rule of Law by The Global Criminal Oliagrch Religious Bankster Intelligence Crime Syndicate openly conducting gblatant Crimnal activity for all the world to see. What was once "hidden in plain view" is now out in the open.
Laws are for children. The adults of the world live by duplicity. Now, try to figure out a system were you can regulate the adults KNOWNING they are duplicitous assholes.
You can't. We are governed by Children. Sick, Megalomanic individual hell bent on Total Complete Full Spectrum World Domination.
It's not a Justice System. It's a legal system. The criminals at the top get to write the laws, judge the laws and pay off everyone else. It's called corruption.
It's called the inevitable conclusion of human competition.
He thinks what FDR did during the depression (that FDR helped extend) was a good thing and is the type of thing that should be done this time around too. Sure, more gov't spending, that'll do it. I do wonder how some of these "filthy rich" guys remain rich. There will be a huge transfer of wealth in the near future (years), and it won't take pitchforks to transfer it. Keep stackin.
Or maybe the execution of a select few rich folk (preferably conservative) to placate public outrage. Anything but an actual remedy.
Hanauer is 100% correct. The majority of the ultra-rich are blissfully ignorant of the precariousness of their situation. Some, like Buffet, are aware and occasionally spout off some platitude about raising taxes on the rich, while at the same time fighting the IRS for unpaid back taxes. In my line of work I occasionally have contact with some very wealthy people. Recently, I had the opportunity to have a small chat with a very rich guy (multi-billionaire), and I actually asked him if he had any concerns about the inevitable class warfare that was bound to happen because of the widening income/wealth gap. He looked at me like I had sprouted a third eye and told me with a straight face that there was very little difference between the classes now from 20 years ago, to 100 years ago. There will always be very rich and very poor. Always has been, always will be. Besides, he said, this is America, even the poor do fairly well. What could I say, technically he was right. What he seems to be missing is that the poor do OK as long as they remain anesthetized by the small weekly, or monthly, checks they receive from the government. Once that is curtailed, or stopped all together, all bets are off. It will get really ugly really fast. It will indeed be bad for all of us, but especially for the rich, because right or wrong the pitchforks are going to be aimed directly at them.
As long as the poor are able to have cell phones, cable TV, and warm place to poop, there will be nothing heard from them other than gunfire in their own neighborhoods.
The contempt that the 'Anointed' have for them and the middle classes, is easily financed and will continue to be.
There is nothing like what goes on in other countries where the masses have no education, no work, live under religious oppression that they agree to as in Afghanistan, Africa, and other countries that periodically or continually experience daily violence.
Ultimately the poor have been seduced into a 'lazy' existence. You can't get a revolution going with pitchforks.
What is needed is Jihad aimed at the 1% by trained paramilitarists who know how to use a sniper rilfle, have good intiell as to how to get to the members of the 1%.
Once the 1% start being picked off one by one, and they start with the POTUS, Senators, Supremes, and the Wall Street MAfia, you may see some marginal changes. Otherwise, hit the remote for a re-set because that is all you will be able to change.
even all those feared "jihadists" can't figure that out
"What is needed is Jihad aimed at the 1% by trained paramilitarists who know how to use a sniper rilfle, have good intiell as to how to get to the members of the 1%.
Sorry, but that has already been tried in Europe by the RAF (Red Army Fraction), Brigada Rossa and several other comunist left wing, 'let's go after the 1% and have a blue collar revolution' type of groups.
They all failed (thank God!), but I doubt that any of those groups would stand a chance in today's Western Big Brother-style 'democracies.' The only terrorist attacks that would be 'allowed' to succeed, would be there in order to scare the masses into giving up even more of their civil liberties, instead of invoking a pichfork revolution.
What is needed is to win over the 1% so that they contribute whole heartedly to the advancement of the species, themselves included. Manure has the right idea but his precept is entirely megalomaniacal.
The space race brought everyone together because everyone who contributed got something out of the deal. As did the steam engine, the automobile and the many iterations of telecomm. Sadly, wars do this too, and some of the beneficiaries of these developments should not have been allowed to participate. Technology is a double edged sword. Our leadership has handed ours over to our enemies because they were flattered or bought. The fault is not theirs alone. "I got mine bitchez" just doesn't cut it. "I was only following orders"... with much enthusiasm.
This is why the FDA got a choke hold on US medical research and supresses it, as the NSF polices academic and commercial research. You may only do research they approve because they taxed the independents out of business, priced equipment out of reach and took the purse strings. Do your research; just don't do it on their equipment. The blunt skulls can't do it, they need us. They didn't invent the bomb, or the airplane, hell, ambitious Krupp stole the British steel manufacturing technology to sell cannons to both sides of every conflict the hand could gin up, including the global wars. Don't give them anything. Fuck the money, its not worth it. You'll regret it. If you know too much they kill you.
The wealthy are as clueless as anyone else. many will sell their soul to get on the right lists to the stairway to monetary heaven, but they will be the first casualties when shit goes sideways. They are being set up to take the fall. Everything is for the eventual aggregation of ultimate power. Allowing this obvious cronyism and corruption puts the potential "perpetrators" up front and center.
Obamacare started out as a direct attack on insurance companies. Many of these companies initially spoke out about what they saw as disaster coming to healthcare and were quickly silenced with threats at first and then complicity. Today insurance companies are hauling large, but they are also having the target fixed to their heads. When healthcare reaches pricing crisis, there will be but one to blame...the insurance companies.
The same has been true of banking. We saw rampant corruption that was enabled by bad laws and weak or non existent enforcement. They were demonized and then bailed out, with only the "unfavored" punished. They are now being rewarded richly again and you can bet when the shit hits the fan this time the preselected perpetrators will be "brought to justice". Meanwhile they country, the economy, the societies ability to survive without direct government subsidy, will decline, providing the power and control that they MUST HAVE.
Everyone is being used, from the very poorest to some of the wealthiest to refine society to its final state of tyranny.
I can guarantee you that if/when the revolution finally comes, it won't be the .01% who suffer and die. It will be the upper middle class, with some small but visible affluence and without the means to adequately defend themselves, and whoever the selected scapegoat minority of the day is. The real corruption and power will remain intact and out of sight.
The real corruption and power will remain intact and out of sight.
..America always does the right thing, after they have tried everything else.. W.Churchill.
You are right, just like the Occupy movement altho with a general idea of what needs to be done of course were easily mis-directed and contained by the very oppressors.
The catylist for revolution if one occurs, is only after a figurehead for change has been selected by the Oligarchs- someone they can work with to take out vengence on the proxy while furthering their control- the successful of society.
-beware of the trojan savior.
"You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising."
Right now we have the police state: gearing up, arming up, militarizing.
When SHTF it won't matter how many bullets they have.
No capitalism, no markets, just a kleptoligarchy.
No admitting that lots of humans are self-serving sociopathic assholes and no capitalism (or any other ISM EXCEPT fascism).
The problem isn't the ISM, it's the fact we've allowed the self-serving sociopathic assholes to win.
What system prevents the self-serving sociopathic assholes from winning? Why?
So his solution is more communism. No thanks!
Exactly. A communist state with a protected wealthy oligarchy. What is that? Crony communism? We need some new definitions.
The accumulation of firearms and ammo, over the last few years, in the hands of the people, speaks volumes of where this Country is headed. Pitchforks is an interesting metaphor but it's high speed lead that will be hunting down the people who are destroying our Country. Make no doubt about it.
No, it will be government hunting down anyone who resists. Lead in private hands is primarily for the populace zombies and The Last Stand against oppression. There won't be any winners, maybe a few survivors but no winners.
I see the internet has dawned on you mate.
No, we, the people will not put up with the gross mismanagement much longer, the graft, the lying, the filth you lot push our way, while destroying our collective countries 'You' live in. We are reaching a tipping point son, a point of no return.
Pitch forks are the very least of your worries. You are devaluing, by the day, with not just inflation, but obscene money printing to keep the insolvent, solvent, of the mode we use for comerce to live by.
10% + inflation year on year? Falling wages, lack of demand through no money or work? Failing infrastructure, rotten roads, shocking health care, food banks, desperation and no where to turn? Heating your home, or eating food?
I make no game here son, its all to keep the unjustified in the life style they think they dersevre, living off our backs, with interest, while never doing a proper days work in their lives. Like you.
The internet has allowed those that never knew what had hit them personally, had this depth and scope, of pure and unadulterated fucking 'Graft'.
Pray for pitch forks son, pray for them, because when this shit-show collapses, there will be no place on earth, you, and likes of you will be safe.
You have probably never felt real rage. You will mate, but it wont be from you.
;-)
Great rant as always 96, but you forgot to use your favorite word and call them the "cunts" that they are (-:
Fucking hell mate, what in Dogs name has gotten into me?
For SmallerGovNow2.
Listen you cunt, never mind bleating on about pitchforks and such like, 'cos pitchforks wont be used on the likes of you cunt faced robbing bastards.
I would torture you for as long as Dog himself would allow you to take it, I would bathe you in acid, skin you alive, garrott you within an inch of your life, day in, day out you cunt.
You, and those like you, have ruined perfectly good nations for nothing more than greed and personal benefit. And when you failed, as you fucking did you immoral cunts, you expected us the 'Plebs' to pay for it?
Fuck off cunt, I pay nothing, not a jot, not a bastard jelly bean so you cunts can live large on our backs? I wont laugh when you get yours son, I wont even point and take pity. I will join in you utter piece of shit.
My two kids will thank me for it in the long run, letting them know what you greedy bastards did to their futures.
And all for bits of green paper, printed from thin air.
Utter fucking cunt.
:-)
Hows that mate?
;-)
+100
Yep he is one of my fave ZH'er and you have one of the best avatar's on ZH.
So just exactly what does this braggart recommend? Or is he just spanking Hank in front of a crowd?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI
I find it ironic that he does not mention that the cause of the acceleration in inequality is not due to unequal gifts, but to unequal influence of centralized public policy.
Re: unequal influence of centralized public policy
What system has ever prevented "unequal influence of centralized public policy"? You'd have to be a dumbasses NOT to consolidate power; it's easier to control. So what system prevents the smart-n-savvy people from "centralizing public policy"?
cointelpro
The constitution. Granted it has been perverted and ignored, but that was its intended role.
Stick a fork in ‘em, if they squeal they're not done!
Blacklists and bloody boardrooms bitchez.
Behind every great fortune, there is either a known crime----- as in drug dealing, investment bankstering, oil, government ---- OR an unknown, unindictable one which made it possible.
If I could, I would be one of them, due to a larcenous heart, and I wouldn't look back. The least thing I'd be worried about is the 99% doing a re-set on me and my peers because I am able to afford this:
http://theweek.com/article/index/218393/libertarian-island-a-billionaire...
and this:
http://www.mnn.com/leaderboard/photos/7-billionaires-and-their-crazy-ing...
and this:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/06/21/article-0-13B2D4E3000005DC-116...
No one sees the problem with capitalism. This guy hugs the knife even as it cuts him, but we all do i suppose. Capitalism- excess capital- is a joke. It only works as there are excess "resources". Life. Land. Trees. Water. Minerals. OIL. And people deluded enough to trade those "resources" for promises. Those days are over. The only excess is the abscess of paper. Don't worry about the pitchforks, Nick. We'll all be on the same page soon enough. Now isn't that more terrifying than the rowdy rabble?
My pitchforks have 10, 20, and 30 round magazines.
My shed is full of them.
The top 1% own more than the other 99.99%.....
Hmmmm...... must be the new common core math.
While Mr. Hanauer is correct, no revolution will happen as long as there is:
1) Cheap food
2) Cheap entertainment
3) Cheap psychoactive drugs
At some point, probably the next time oil prices go high, or there's an economic bump of some kind, one or more of these will become unavailable. That's when revolution starts and not before. The French and Russian peasants were literally hungry. In the Arab world, people were suffering physically as well as politically. Never underestimate the power of human discomfort.
Answer
RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS
REVERSE CITIZENS UNITED
This is the attitude that got the 16th amendment passed in the 1st place. Everybody in the south, midwest and far west wanted to tax those rich New York bankers and ... well ... you see the result.
Raising taxes is never the answer. It will always come back and bite you in the end. To quote Sun Tzu: "Find another way".
Ya know, I don't even think that even he gets it. When it comes time, those who are really in charge (and not some guy who thinks he is a big time "financier" because he has been PERMITTED to use the financial system to his advanatge, but in reality is just another useful idiot) will throw the useful idiots under the bus and watch them burn, cackling all the way.
He does not need to save his ass from us, the people. He needs to save his ass from those who made him possible. To quote Obama: "he did not do it alone". If he is not personally creating money from thin air, then financially speaking, he is just another useful idiot, who thinks he is important, elite and privileged.
No... he DOES need to save his ass from us. THEY will throw him to the wolves. The masses will gut him with their pitchforks and think they've won the war, and then go back to watching Dancing With the Stars.
Bullshit, fuck the fed/cb.
Give me your 5 mins...
Before you guillotine Nick, please watch this. He has been running this since 2012 easy, only TED talk that ever got ban hammer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI
We all know he is right..
i don't think it will go like that at all. pitchforks isn't what scares the maggots, what scares the maggots is that some day they won't be able to get people to do their bidding for clownbux. the day people laugh in their faces is the day they too will have to survive amongst the zombies with no help from anyone else.
There's not much he can do about FED policy or the tax code
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-pr...
Here is the real future for American created by your .1%. And you wonder why the pitchforks are coming? Nothing these Barry Goldwater neocon say, besides incite the illinformed, will change the cause. Russia can only try to dissuade local residence for a popular uprising and then turn off your gas. Besides, Russia will be a non player in 20 years. Our dark age will continue for 20 past that.
Good Luck and Good Night.
I'm curious. Why do you lump Goldwater in with them?
First you need to remember the 1964 Presidential Campaign, "Daisy" commercial. We were warned about his politics as causing nuclear war which I now believe meant against the middle class. Second, you must realize that Barry was an early moderate Liberitarian and an ultra nationalistic John Birch supporter. His early rants can be heard in many of this site's and the "Tea Party" rantings.
Can we dig him up so I can vote for him?
I think Nick is looking to get laid this weekend.
Please forward your pics to Nick@Politico.
Too late Hanauer, too late!
From the website, it looks like he is pushing his book.
"Nick is co-author of The True Patriot, an acclaimed work that presents a forward-looking, progressive definition of American patriotism."
http://www.truepat.org/
fuck that shit
More from his website:
"Eric Liu is an author, educator, and civic entrepreneur. Eric co-authored The True Patriot with Nick Hanauer, and together the two have created the True Patriot Network to advance the book's ideals of progressive patriotism."
"Eric served as a White House speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and later as the President's deputy domestic policy adviser"
double fuck that shit
So I posted information off his website. What's it to you? Do you own the place now Mr. 19 Weeks? If you're so enamored with him, go buy the book.
WTF!