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As The Middle Class Evaporates, Global Oligarchs Plan Their Escape Form The Impoverished Pleb Masses
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
The middle class has shrunk consistently over the past half-century. Until 2000, the reason was primarily because more Americans moved up the income ladder. But since then, the reason has shifted: There is a greater share of households on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.
– From yesterday’s New York Times article: Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up
At a packed session in Davos, former hedge fund director Robert Johnson revealed that worried hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said.
– From the Guardian’s article: As Inequality Soars, the Nervous Super Rich are Already Planning Their Escapes
So the other day, President Barack Obama once again demonstrated his contempt for the American public by using his State of the Union address to pejoratively blurt out meaningless phrases such as “but tonight, we turn the page” and: “The verdict is clear. Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don’t get in the way.”
Sorry, but why are “we turning the page” tonight? Weren’t you elected over six years ago? Why didn’t you turn the page in 2009?
Meanwhile, I’m astounded by the phrase “middle-class economics works.” Perhaps it does, but how would anyone know? The only thing I’ve seen from his administration is a laser focused determination to consolidate all American wealth and power into the hands of a tiny group of oligarchs and their lapdogs.
Indeed, the following articles published in the last two days by the New York Times and the Guardian show the true results of Obama’s oligarch-coddling legacy. The Obama years have been nothing short of an oligarch crime scene.
First, from the New York Times:
The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century.
In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets.
But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the main reason being that more people have fallen to the bottom. At the same time, fewer of those in this group fit the traditional image of a married couple with children at home, a gap increasingly filled by the elderly.
Remember, middle-class economics works. If the goal is its total destruction.
These charts from the New York Times do not tell the tale of a thriving economy:

Even as the American middle class has shrunk, it has gone through a transformation. The 53 million households that remain in the middle class — about 43 percent of all households — look considerably different from their middle-class predecessors of a previous generation, according to a New York Times analysis of census data.
In recent years, the fastest-growing component of the new middle class has been households headed by people 65 and older. Today’s seniors have better retirement benefits than previous generations. Also, older Americans are increasingly working past traditional retirement age. More than eight million, or 19 percent, were in the labor force in 2013, nearly twice as many as in 2000.
According to a New York Times poll in December, 60 percent of people who call themselves middle class think that if they work hard they will get rich. But the evidence suggests that goal is increasingly out of reach. When middle class people look up, they see the rich getting richer while they spin their wheels.
One of the main reasons we have seen such a low level of resistance to this historic oligarch theft, is due to the successful brainwashing of the American public. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, 60% of what is left of the middle-class still think they are going to get rich. They have no idea that they are really just a bunch of deluded plebs unable to see how systematically and catestrophically they are being played.
Meanwhile, the Guardian describes how many global oligarchs are already planning their escape. These people know full well they are being enriched criminally. Their response is to take as much money as possible and flee before the pitchforks emerge (see: The Pitchforks are Coming…– A Dire Warning from a Member of the 0.01%).
With growing inequality and the civil unrest from Ferguson and the Occupy protests fresh in people’s mind, the world’s super rich are already preparing for the consequences. At a packed session in Davos, former hedge fund director Robert Johnson revealed that worried hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said.
But as former New Zealand prime minister and now UN development head Helen Clark explained, rather than being a game changer, recent examples suggest the Ferguson movement may soon be forgotten. “We saw Occupy flare up and then fade like many others like it,” Clark said. “The problem movements like these have is stickability. The challenge is for them to build structures that are ongoing; to sustain these new voices.”
Clarke said: “Solutions are there. What’s been lacking is political will. Politicians do not respond to those who don’t have a voice In the end this is all about redistributing income and power.”
She added: “Seventy five percent of people in developing countries live in places that are less equal than they were in 1990.”
Welcome to the recovery suckers.
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"Upper Lower" class is the new "Middle Class."
"These charts from the New York Times do not tell the tale of a thriving economy: "
I'm not so sure if those charts are relevant, and I was always a bit skeptical of lower/middle/upper class definitions around income instead of net worth. are those dollars nominal or adjusted?
but anyway, if those charts were useful and attendable, then they would be telling a great story of a thriving economy... if you compare with 1967
lower class down from 40% to 34%. that's 6% more in the middle class
middle class down from 53% to 43%, that's 10% more in the upper class, counting the previous 6%, it's 16% more in the upper class
upper class up from 7% to 22%, here you see the 15%-16% increase
(which, btw, looks more and more like the power-law distribution postulated by Pareto. and if this is true, then this would mean that income from work has become less important in the determination of total income. as in the 19th century. but this would be a longer story)
anyway, what is the theoretical thing of the author about a declining lower and middle class in favour of a rising upper class exactly? only that the major trend has had an inflection since the year 2000
what is missing, here, is a comparison to the rest of the world. then, this inflection would be more visible as a "return to normality"
I looked at the charts and wondered the same thing.
Purely anecdotally I can confirm this - heard about NYC hedgies that were keeping a fueled 747 ready to go way back in 2008 because they had more cash than they knew what to do with, old planes are relatively cheap if you are that loaded and well why the fuck not? Destination was reputedly NZ but the great thing about a jet is that you can point it anywhere.
They can be shot down upon departure.
Target the engines. All it takes is 26 Dynes of Kinetic Energy and the automatic Bird Strike shutdown happens.
Or a Yacht
It's the same in the UK. I have a great business that has grown and grown, and still I have no money. No holiday in five years, and no way to ever pay off my mortgage. They should be making plans, because at this stage of the game, I would rather be in the angry 99% than the 1%!
"I have a great business that has grown and grown"
Despite not always making a load of money running your own business, you only have to work part time: choose any 12 hours per day you want
;-)
New Zealand? Go to any high end restaurant in new Canaan or a half dozen high end bars on a Friday night in Greenwich.
The issue isn't even the one percent as it is even more extreme. That and increasingly we are making it more and more challenging for affordable, high quality state college fees for even in state residents.
The name says it all:
O ligarchs &
B ongo
A dministering
M iddle-class
A nnihilation
It's a small planet... the only way for them to be "safe" is to emigrate to another one.
And what the hell are they going to do in New Zealand? Enslave the people over there to keep their standard of living?
The people will give a shit about the money of those hedge fund managers and take whatever they want from their 'properties'.
"And what the hell are they going to do in New Zealand?"
What immigrants have always done.
Ask the sheep if you don't know
The moon might be a safe place.
It seems that Obama's handlers aren't even bothering with having his speeches make sense anymore. They're just throwing in as many knee-jerk emotional-context words into the same sentence as the can. "Who cares what the masses think - let's see what the word algos throw up as a word map".
The fact that the 1%-ers are preparing for a getaway shows that they KNOW they are doing something that is wrong on every level: morally, ethically, legally, and financialy. The thing is that they are trapped (so far) on this planet and even a Jody Foster fantasy won't change that. Unfortunately, we can't tell the bad 1%-ers from the good ones and all will likely fall if the financial road (of good intentions - know where that goes?) we're on keeps going in the direction it has so far.
When France had their revolution..they killed a lot of people..and not all of them were BAD people...
'From the impoverished plebes,' not form the impoverished plebes...
Oligarchs will be hunted down...run they may but they cannot hide
Articles such as this are always entertaining, because they invariably bring out ZH’s “best”.
If all goes to Hell, who do you think wins? History, even recent history, holds clues. Do you guys think your Love Muffin Putin was a union arc welder in the USSR, struggling to service a mortgage on a 2-BR ranch dacha? His oligarch buddies were truck drivers renting duplexes?
The Darwinian Fittest ALWAYS win. No matter the coming iteration---Commie, Cap-Pig, Fascist, Mad Max, or Status Quo---those at the top of the heap today will be at the top of the heap regardless of what tomorrow brings. They have what Al Campanis called “the necessaries”. The rest of you lost the Birth Lottery, though for the Buddhists and Hindus amongst you, better luck next time.
All those posting here with a belly full of bile and fantasies of chasing down the Davos crowd, what are you going to do, book an economy seat on the Gossamer Albatross to pedal to “New Zealand” carrying all of your “guns and ammo”? Go all Kon-Tiki, stock your raft with freeze-dried Turkey Tetrazinni, and float over?
Maybe some of the more aggressive Hedgies will even be coming after “Stackers”, and doing that in squadrons of surplus A-10 Warthogs, their magazines full of 30mm depleted uranium rounds, competing with each other to see who can take out the most “useless eaters”. Maybe some of them are as psychotic as many of you, and have as much contempt for the likes of you as you have for them, except they can deliver, and not just engage in impotent bluster.
Best to just lighten up, Francis, and count the blessings you DO have (vs. half the rest of the species).
So I take it ZH's 'Best' aren't up to your standards. Maybe we should all go out and shoot ourselves so elitists like yourself won't be bothered reading the drivel of mundanes that never had a chance
"those at the top of the heap today will be at the top of the heap regardless of what tomorrow brings." Like Hitler,Mussolini, Nappy Napoleon and the rest that ended up shot, hung or jailed.
.And just what does "Love Muffin" Putin have to do with the article at hand? Please let us plebs know who the real hero is,,, (Obama? lol) but until your long awaited momentous announcement puts us on the right course, the 'love muffin' who out classes any leader the great west has to offer in the past 50 years will have to suffice. IMHO as a plebe.
The concern troll is concerned.
There old masters will send blackwater after them if they have anything of value. After alll they didn't get invited to the underground siesta for a reason. They'll have fun with that fantasy...lol
They will be dead in a year or less.
It shows the lower incomes growing after 2000...well think about it..if you add 40 million illegals to the base..that is going to screw up the curve dont you think.....but for some reason the Politicians want a bunch of illegals....I dont know why....I guess its the liberal thought process of saving the world one illegal at a time I guess....to bad it will kill them in the end..but they never see that...
why all the class envy? if you think you are getting fucked you are.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein is showing how it’s done.
The US Postal Service plans to sell 56 buildings — so it can lease space more expensively — and the real estate company of the California senator’s husband, Richard Blum, is set to pocket about $1 billion in commissions.
Blum’s company, CBRE, was selected in March 2011 as the sole real estate agent on sales expected to fetch $19 billion. Most voters didn’t notice that Blum is a member of CBRE’s board and served as chairman from 2001 to 2014."
so in your face, corzined and btw they are jews. well they call themselves that but I call them yews..the people of the reptile, THEY LIVE.
and this gal is for the people democrat..some people just need killin.
I'm sure it's all 100% above board and Mr. Blum is worth every cent that he gets.
/sarc
Funny that you attribute the poor illegals on Liberals. Historically it is fairly obvious that both sides are happy with the solution and have both taken part in its creation.
Who do you think those gardeners work for? Middle class?
Both parties are the cause and the sooner that works its way into your brain the better off you will be.
On the one hand you have the Scylla of greedy business owners wanting to weaken the position of the working class and on the other the Charybdis of natiion-wreckers wanting to dilute and debase the White gene pool and overall dumb down the masses. As Lenin said, 'a nation of white niggers will be easily controlled'.
Middle class forgets how to use Grammar Check on titles of artiles.
and spell check
Financial armegeddon is much like the nuclear version. Mutual Assured Destruction. We are seeing this in slow motion. It has been caused by theft. The productive classes have been robbed by the political classes and their crony allies ( which include bankers, politicians and welfare recipients ). It has caused the productive class to shrink as it could no longer bear the burden. The more it shrinks the more obvious the illusion of wealth becomes.
In the end these financial gamblers, politicians and welfarists don't make anything. They have no trade or craft beyond that of thievery,collusion and deception. There is no escape for them. They have sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind.
We are heading back to a time of feudalism , but this time it's from the point of knowing something better. There will be no place for these thieves to hide. No one will defend them. All their graft and cunning will be of no use. If they cannot produce they will not eat. They will lose everything they have.
Until humanity realises that theft, murder, false god worship, bearing false witness and all that good stuff will bring down the sword on all of civilisation as surely as any Biblical flood then we aren't going to make it. The meek will inherit the earth, but it won't be us.
Would love to think you're right. But are you? Seems to me the people you refer to always have the angles covered. Ask yourself how many of those financial parasites have bitten the dust. Very few and those that do (Milken, Belford etc.) always seem to bounce back better than ever.
I want to hope that the predators and parasites do eachother in before all hell breaks loose. If so, climbing out of depression may not be so bad after all.
While the sheeple are asleep, the biggest enemies the 1% have are themselves.
Hedge farms wont save them.
Kind a like what the surviving Nazi's did, no? Boys of Brazil and all that?
The Caesar classes are nothing if not predictable.
They will rely on private security to keep them safe from the pitchfork brigade. Let's call them the Praetorian Guard.
And then the Praetorian does what it does, and the oligarch is gone along with all his wealth.... And the former Praetorians don't want to call themselves Caesar. Instead, they call themselves "Count, Duke, Marquis, King, etc..."
Gez, PREPPERS!
These guys need to be reported to DHS. Immediately.
No, wait................
Instead of a "bug-out bag" these guys have a bug-out Gulfstream!