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Martin Armstrong Explains Why The Richest 1% Get Richer
Submitted by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,
The socialists love to tout that 1% of the world’s population will own more wealth than the other 99%. From the socialists’ viewpoint, this justifies stealing from one group to give to another, despite this model failing in the past. It is also in clear violation of the Ten Commandments. But why does this trend even happen? Is it that the 1% suppress the 99%? Or could it be that government suppresses the 99%?
We have to look closely at how wealth is even measured. This is not cash in the bank, but market value of assets. In other words, unrealized gains. It was this way of thinking that destroyed the independent farmers. The land values soared and estate taxes came into play, the government valued the land at levels as if it was stripped mined for housing. Farmers had to sell off land to pay the taxes.
This standard of measuring wealth is really dangerous for it amounts to unrealized gains, not cash. I donated my time trying to save Social Security by transforming it into a real investment account back in the 90s. The money should have been invested in equities. The Dow Jones Industrials would have been about 3500. The rich get richer from investments – not salary. I was trying to transform Social Security into an investment fund. I gave up because politicians could not agree on who the managers would be because they effectively wanted kickbacks. Social Security is now broke; the 99% paid into the fund and now its gone. Had the money been invested in equities rather than pretend U.S. government debt, they would have made almost 500%. There would have been real assets for individual retirement.
The 99% cannot get richer because government robs them every day. What should have been put into savings and investments, was squandered as usual by politicians. So is it the fault of those who actually invest on their own? The socialists want to blame the rich and rob them, handing more and more assets to the political class who waste it on themselves.
The 99% need to wake up. It ain’t the 1% – It is those who pretend to be on your side who deprive you of your real right to economic freedom.
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True dat.
I'd bag that hippy chick
I'd love to make her my future ex-wife.
her pitts are shaved, not a hippy.
Could be a fashion slave though.
Not that I'm complaining.
"Or could it be that government suppresses the 99%?"
Eye candy and ADHD display aside, this is complete and utter Yak SHIT!
The fucking 1% (red-blue-white-black-asian) OWNS the "government"....globally!
The US oligopoly government is THE BEST MONEY CAN BUY!!!!
https://www.opensecrets.org/
Yeah, number-fucking ONE!!!!!! Yeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!
Only "you" have the power to stop being a fucking, obedient, zombie consumer of the matrix.
Vote Blue Team,Yay! The Best! Red Team Sucks.
Vote Red Team! Yay ! The Best! Blue Team Sucks.
Divide and conquer.
That Jewess is hot!
divide, conquer and insist that an electoral system like First Past The Post is adequate
"The fucking 1% (red-blue-white-black-asian) OWNS the "government"....globally!"
We the people need to foreclose.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Outside of the sheeple's "hearts and minds," red and blue, and left and right are merely players on Zion's stage.
the one percent does not own, really, anything, way too many of them, and many of them rode in on the rise of this age. Same very old families rule from on high, there ARE extremely powerful men alive. They own and have -permanent- title to vast everythings. WE can only have that temporary -title- to "own". The media slaves, militaries, nsa slaves, silent cooperators everywhere, HAVE NO IDEA WHO THEY SERVE.
She thinks she's Free.
Wish she was, but doubt she is. ;-)
Her titties certainly aren't free inside that bra. Let's see some nip!
-Chumblez.
You'd be liable to get fucked for a chicken
"It ain’t the 1% – It is those who pretend to be on your side who deprive you of your real right to economic freedom."
That would be the 1% (or better, the .01%), or is Soros (et al) now a 99 per center?
For me it's love/hate with Martin.
For people who think they are so clever and ahead of the pack, the inability to understand what Martin writes is just amazing.
So many here must love the state and it's agents given all the attempts to excuse them and blame what they do on others.
You're awfully smart. Thanks for explaining things for the rest of us.
It isn't how much wealth someone has, but how they got it.
If it weren't for government, 99% of the wealthy would not be wealthy, and remaining 1% would be far less wealthy.
Government is a tool to redistribute wealth. Since its victims are so enamored with it, anyone who wants government should just shut the fuck up.
So in those places without government everyone is better off then? The poor don't get abused and exploited by the wealthy in those places without government?
There is no such thing as a place without government. Your point is moot. As in, you don't have one.
Poeple fall into populist confusion thanks to the dust thrown into their eyes by political opportunists.
Those on the right are quick to conflate genuine free market wealth earned by actually satisifying consumer demand that is free from coercion, where the consumer volutnarily parts with his own income in exchange for something valued that improves his standard of living... conuse that with Lord Blankfein and banking cartel types who earn their $ billions by free-riding the monetary policy train, while their crony capitalist brethren earn their loot by regulations that force consumers to buy their wares either directly as government contractors, by limiting consumer choice to their regulatory approved solutions to some politicalized problem, or via regulatory complexity that requires their services to navigate. The "good conservative" jumps to the defense of the blankfeins as if they're heroes, when in reality, these "heros" have their fists so deeply up conservatives asses they are puppet masters.
Meanwhile, the typical progressive is so enamored with government as the hero to all things, they can't see that the regulations they support are written by the mega businesses that are screwing them, and at the same time they label anybody in business regarldess of of how they earn their wealth - legitimately or looting -- as "the rich screwing the poor", while defining any ability of the legit biz keeping some of their money untaxed as "corporate welfare".
In part because we tax capital gains lower than wages, and because we basically don't tax wealth (except real property at the local level). I am not advocating that we do. But if you are a rich industrialists you would prefer that the government tax the income of any upstart that may challenge your domain. The more their income is taxed the less capital your growing competitors will be able to spend to build out and compete with you. Why should you care if income tax is 100%? You already have yours, and it isn't taxed, and that would prevent anyone from overtaking your place in industry.
"In part because we tax capital gains lower than wages"
Which, for most people is just inflation, so it shouldn't be taxed anyway.
The only legitimate role for government is to protect its citizens' liberty from those who would violate it.
Other than that, government is merely a monpoly on force, and that's why it is why its quickly hijacked by the corrupt who find it as the only way they can force free thinking people into their bright ideas, which they'd otherwise never go along with. (e.g., if they're such good ideas, people wouldn't need to be forced into them...)
Hence the conclusion that Martin (or his handlers) is so afraid to utter: the incestuous marriage between government and oligarchy, a.k.a. fascism.
This cancer has already reached metastasis.
BINGO!
Yes, but what is "it" and what do "they" actually have? Armstrong is one of the few with his own blog that points out that one of the most common measures of "it" is unrelaized gains. Then there all those marked to myth derivative valuations. Then there is the artificially inflated wealth of the 99% - through home ownership or entities like CalPers.
Or as I wrote yesterday (most recently)
Wealth destruction is far more probable than wealth redistribution.
Normalization of insane public equity ratios, finally writing down the debt that can never be repaid, and the .gov and FED crutches that pop up unsustainable housing prices... all compunded by the USD dominance and over-valuation going the way of dying empires.
Buffets's Wells/BofA "wealth", Larry Ellison's pending multi-billion margin call, Zuckerberg's Twatter-non-product "wealth", and the average American's home equity will all take a hit.
Never mind what happens when the EBT and SNAP redistribution is either actually cut, or simply inflated into oblivion.
The pie will simply shrink. And without easy credit (and banksters to facilitate it) the mirage of having a piece of that pie will simply evaporate.
"the inability to understand what Martin writes is just amazing."
Maybe becuase he is so fucking transparent in his apologist diatribe for the 1%....deflect, redirect, obsfucate.
We don't like trolls, either.
So, you and your butt-buddy pal, "Martin", can spread your sell-out, paid-shill, treasonist drivel somewhere else...like under a bridge.
All those in favor of a world without a "ruling class", say "aye"!
Martin is a NWO hack. His lies to truth fuel mixture has never changed, even post prison.
Martin is selling to the big money and has his own pretty good reasons for hating the government.
Armstrong doesn't have a clue. Who does he think owns the government? It sure ain't the 99%, and it sure isn't doing any harm to the 1%.
He also seems to believe that an unrealized gain is valued at what he says it is. I'm sure he was quite pleased when mark to market went to fantasy in 07, validating his premise of privatizing social security.
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nice titties !!!!1111
Really? hmm i've never seen Martin with his shirt off.
I love summer protests! She knows classical literature too. Makes for good conversations in between.
Red tank-top chick is smokin hot. I'll bet she's popular at the sign-painting party.
I dunno about smokin. I giver her a 7.5
I'm sure that male chimps think that some female chimps are hot too.
So let's bring the discussion down to the chimp level.
OHH AAAHHHHH OOO
Scratching balls.
7.5?? You are a hard marker, or are awash in pussy. Or both.
I'll bet she'd be a great mother too, if she isn't already. Does anyone know who she is?
WTF? LOL
One Percenter or not: a nice pair of tits will still get you anywhere. In fact, when you get right down to it, natural tits are the True Equalizer. For women anyway.
Beautiful women have always had a comparative advantage.
nice titties
Seriously, can we grow the fuck up a little?
Not without bringing back the math problems. Sure was nice back when you had to prove you were a real human with a functioning brain before you could post.
oh please
Ive been on the ZH for 6 years
Dont get all snotty because I comment that some chicks titties look luscious.
What r u ...some Feminzai fag pajamboy?
You can't even see the tits. Just another image to shut off higher brain functions.
The meat-puppets are so fucked up it's like they haven't left the animal world. Oh, that's right, they haven't.
better 2 be a meat puppet than a pseduo intellectual pajamaboy fag
:p
Your comment makes my case.
Thanks, now go back to your monkey cage.
There's always the first pic with granny knithat for you to sober up and get back on topic
Sorry, but that is a lie, lordbyron You have not been here for 6 years.
Seems like you would know how easy it is to check this by now, but maybe you have been too busy with purile distractions.
you got some on your chin there marty
Yeah, I can agree with Marty that the gubbermint is the facilitator, but he fails to take the next step and tell us just what the politicians do with all the taxes. Who gets all those great tax breaks and "exceptions", and all those fat gubbermint contracts, and gets to create all that money and build up the war machine. Who truly lines their pockets at the fiscal trough?
That's his point.
Make sure the government doesn't know about it.......
Nothing changes until the vast majority of us stop using the only thing they control, fiat of all forms.
Want to create money? Show me the collateral motherfucker. Banks have not been banks, they have been useless overcompensated middlemen stadning between the printer/computer and the real economy (producer/comsumer).
Oh for fuck's sake, fiat doesn't only mean paper. With a commodity in a small enough supply like gold, it is not only possible, but likely for a cartel to corner the market. Silver is less manipulatable, but look at what the Hunt Bros had done to them. Fiat = by decree; required by law; backed by really fucking big guns. The ruling blood suckers don't only own the paper. They own the entire system of exchange and will guard it jealously. It is the most powerful tool of societal control & wealth confiscation. Gold, silver, bags of dope, Amero, RMB: it doesn't matter.
Yeah, let us forget the two major haircuts in equities since 2000 after Glass-Steagall was repealed. Only the insiders or the lucky got out and back in at the right times.
The need for Glass-Steagall was the consequence of previous government action.
the rich get richer [in an economic system which employs loans at interest, and fractional reserve/checkbook currency creation] because they have more capital in the first place.
___________
The Banksters War on Cash
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/the-banksters-war-on-cash/
The politicians only give a shit about "the skim" and the socialist's system allow for the most skimming. So the politicians love socialism. Fuck politicians. :P
How true, how true. It's the inevitable devolution of the "trade".
An image from the early Occupy days:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sd6YSeFqASc/Tozzn3mCP9I/AAAAAAAAAGI/czX2xNFb7k...
.
Hellooo screensaver!
"The 99% cannot get richer because government robs them every day. What should have been put into savings and investments, was squandered as usual by politicians."
New flash Martin, The 1% own the politicians too.
AMEN TO YOU DOCTOR! UMMM...DOC, DO YOU TAKE OBAMACARE - I HAVE THIS PAIN SEE.....?
New flash Martin, The 1% own the politicians too.
Your decimal point is in the wrong place. It's the top 0.01% who own the pols. The 0.99% are forced to pick up the check for most everything. OWS was either clueless or a psyop. It doesn't matter which; the end result - the masses pissed off at the wrong folks - is all that's important.
Exactly. And let it be said that they get their money’s worth; those trick ponies really know how to perform.
If your household income is $400,000 you are part of the 1%. Hey doc, you are one of the 1% but I bet you anything you don't own any politicians. Now if you were one of the 0.01% you might own a politician or two.
Pretty soon if you make $300,000 you will be part of the 1% - that is the plan. Then it will be $200,000 etc. etc. until we are all serfs.
Where would the US be today if they hadn't stolen the land of the native Americans.
All land ownership in the US can be traced back to theft from its original owners.
In Europe millenia of war and conquering foreign lands again means all land has been taken by force at one time or another.
Trace all land ownership back and at some point it will have been taken by force.
Most of the old money families in the Southern US will have acquired their fortunes through the crime to humanity that is slavery.
Most old money fortunes in the old world have been stolen off someone else through war; colonization and slavery.
What is really earned through honest endeavour?
The criminal bankers fortunes?
The honest hard working citizen can easily be spotted by his lack of wealth.
Who "owned" it before the native Americans? And where did the "native" Americans originate?
I've been called a racist for years for telling people there is no such thing as a native American. Most Americans really are stupid.
"Native Americans" is another libtard-neocon invention. "Indians" is more historically accurate as India actually is in Asia, their land of origin.
Careful there... by your logic present day Americans are "allogamous Europeans".
They came across the Asian-Alaskan land bridge and conquered the deer and buffalo.
Yeah but the poor folks are dirty and don't smell too good. That's why I like rich people better. And they don't steal in public like them folks in b-more. Rich people have the decency and comportment to loot behind the scenes discreetly. They're classy that way.
You will probably find most of the big land owning families in the US are descended from the most psychopathic of the colonists who had no empathy for the indigenous population and were quickest to take what they wanted.
From these psycho's, today's leaders emerge.
It's in the genes.
Why is America always at war?
(see above)
Rubbish...provide evidence dingbat. (Nice try with the "probably" too)
For the record, in terms of sheer percentages (out of total population size), the tribes of new Guinea (along with other hunter gatherers) kill in war more than any other group or nation in the history of mankind. Read Jared Diamond's traditional societies for more on the topic.
I thought War Before Civilization by Lawrence Keeley was better.
However, the comparison with the past, while still valid. suffers from the fact that in the past, those attacked were concentrated in a very small area and fought very hard, because, for non-fertile female captives, losing meant death.
In the modern era, combatants and collateral damage are mostly separated, and only war with nearly universal destruction (nuclear) would give very high fatality rates because of inclusion of the entire "tribe".
The savage, psychopathic behaviors of bygone alphas are alive and well in the savage, psychopathic rulers of today. The difference is that the current goal is one of subjugating rather than eliminating.
Tribes were restricted in growth to maybe 150 individuals, Today, empires have the structures to encompass the entire world.
In a nutshell, the indigenous populations, who had a really weak concept of property, were conquered by those who had a different but equally flawed concept of property, leading to the failed system we have today.
That's what I call progress.
How can you steal something from someone that is neither guarded nor recorded anywhere? Just because some folks happened to have put a couple tents in the woods temporarily doesn't mean they had a legitimate claim to the land. The more progressive Indians had civilisations in Arizona and New Mexico for example and guess what, they still own that land. They even put a couple casinos there.
I'm really not sure what your point is.
The Native Americans had no concept of land "ownership." They thought 7 generations ahead and treated the land as sacred.
Pick up a history book sometime.
You obviously have an excellent grasp what it means to be a good fellow. That's a great justification for stealing...ummm if they didn't want me to have it, it should have been locked up.
I have no pity for Indian claims on wealth. They were worse than those asshats in Baltimore. They were not nature hippies. They were people you never wanted to run into and who went out of their way to kill, loot, burn and steal.
America’s primary story is the victory of expanding civilization over the wilderness, overcoming and conquering an untamed land.
The West’s history has been revised to misrepresent its white culture; it is not a one-sided venture as depicted by the revisionists--primarily open-border Jewish liberals who wrote the 1965 Immigration Act; it fails to report on how the numerous Indian tribal nations that dwelt on the continent fought and annihilated other Indian tribes. War was the way of life for many Indian tribes. In short, the American Indians did not live as one peaceful tribe in harmony with each other and Mother Earth.
And "in almost every war the white man fought against Indians, he was aided by other Indians who joined to fight against traditional enemies,” i.e., enemy Indian tribes.
If you want to know what cruelty is, take a look at Indian torture: like inflicting thousands of tiny cuts in a man’s body and waiting patiently over days while he is tied to a pole in the sun, watching him die, or spread eagling and tying a man upside down to a wagon wheel in the hot desert sun, letting the ants eat him alive…
White folks, on the other hand, steal, loot, kill, burn and rape with class and dignity.
Especially them banker and Wall Street types.
This whole argument is like two people swimming around in a cesspool and arguing over who smells worse. Let's face it - man is, generally speaking, pretty shitty to his fellow man. White folks have just developed more sophisticated and more indirect ways of shitting on their fellow man.
You incorrectly ascribe to Americans alone, that which has been SOP for H. Sapiens since the dawn of time.
Land IS one of the keys indeed.
Today it has been rolled into "capital gains" tax breaks for the rentier elite.
Classical economists defined rent as unearned income, a property claim that did not reflect a corresponding expenditure of labor, which was the sole source of value. But as our postindustrial society has evolved into a “service economy,” the national income and product accounts count interest and rent as a product – an output of services. Landlords thus are depicted as providing a useful service, not merely charging access fees for sites created by nature and given value by the community’s overall prosperity.
http://michael-hudson.com/2014/04/r-is-for-rentier/
The folks on the left and the right get it wrong.
So does Armstrong.
http://michael-hudson.com/2015/02/u-v-usury-to-vested-interests/
God created the earth, not man. Even the Bible says it is for all. We need to end "privilage."
UNEARNED INCOME.
Think you're safe huh?
Incremental theft.
Simmering Frogs.
That was a nice try, but I am not buying it. Money printing and interest rates provide the 1% with unlimited free cash to play any and all spreads. QE boost the equities in an artificial way that makes the equity holders, the 1%, ever so much richer. Tax laws and tax havens free the 1% from most taxes. So forgive me if I fail to bite on the idea that the 1% are not riding a nearly free garvey train. Oh, hey, give me 1 billion at ZIRP and let me play some spreads! Oh, let me put all my money offshore and pay no taxes, hey take what little equities I can afford to own and juice them 300% or more.
Nice try though, deflect our anger. QE, ZIRP, Market Manipulation, Money Printing, it is all a 1% 'er welfare program. An we know it!
Tax laws and tax havens free the 1% from most taxes.
And there's NOTHING stopping you from doing the same. Do it!
It will still concentrate wealth and destroy society CH1. It is theft.
Henry George was right, that's why the elite created neo-economics.
This book covers how they did it. Get it.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Corruption-Economics-Georgist-Paradigm/dp/0856...
This is how to remedy it.
http://www.amazon.com/After-Crash-Designing-Depression-free-Economy/dp/1...
http://www.amazon.com/Mason-Gaffney-Reader-Solving-Unsolvable/dp/0974184...
http://www.henrygeorge.org/isms.htm
Combine the above with with banking, regulatory, law, institutional, and monetary reform. Prosperity would follow. Wake up.
See my 'Hand and Glove' post above.
Pols don't do shit without the 1% approval. The 1% account for 90% of all campaign contributions and quid pro quo legislation and judicial rulings. It's time for some guillotines in the USSA......until that day, NOTHING will change.
The politicians have become an elitist class of grifters, lacking any morality or virtue, selling out their countrymen for shekels. Capitalists are not blameless as they seek to undermine labor at evey turn. Bringing in uncontrolled numbers of immigrants to drive down wages, labor needs a seat at the table and part ownership if things are to work out. Usury is being used to replace entreprenuership.
Hey, I like Goethe too! Isn't that a shopping website?
no it is a fashion statement
What I find hysterical is those defending the current bunch of crooks...including the NYT and other liberal rags
Bull-fucking-shit!
how unoriginal....the "eat the rich movement" has been around forever.... the nice looking young lady is clearly sincere, but perhaps she shoulda studied history as much as literature. (or engineering, in which case she would probably be part of us evil 1% types who lurk at our desks happily working for a living).
Why dont you pour another one, dude?
The 99% need to wake up. It ain’t the 1% – It is those who pretend to be on your side who deprive you of your real right to economic freedom.
It ain't the HAND that is smashing your face, It's the GLOVE.
They got richer by not taking Armstrong's advice about anything, and not putting money into his ponzi scheme.
The one with the Goethe quote... TAKE IT OFF - It's for the people - haha
The black fingernail polish hides the blood of all the weak men who's eyes she has gouged out.
http://www.geolib.com/
Learn Grasshopper.
http://www.geolib.com/util/links.html
The 99% will not wake up, not with about 55% dependent upon the nanny state in one or more ways.
Pigs never turn on the farmer as long as they are fed. Stop feeding the pigs though and if they can figure out a way, they will eat you.
I just wonder what happens when this house of cards collapse and the nanny state falters.
As for the 1% my recommendation is to read the book "The Peniless Billionaires," by Max Shapiro (1980). There are a few, oddly at $0.75@ + postage. In 2009 you couldn't pick one up for less than $60. Though the book is largely about hyperinflation Shapiro does a dynamite job showing how the elite (the 1%) become wealthy from the period of 1964'ish to 1979, a somewhat mirror image of exactly what is going on now, transference of wealth to the 1%.
As for Armstrong I enjoyed him much, much more when he was in prison, I'm sad to say. Now it's pretty much "pay me..." Oh well.
The debate does not distinguish between 2 VERY DIFFERENT categories of the wealthy:
1. those who inherit what their predecessors have earned - to me these are a kind of cheater and social parasite, I would BAN inheritance and force EVERYONE to earn their own
2. those who earned their wealth, especially starting from poverty, as I did, and they all damn sure deserve to keep every cent
I would also ban
ALL forms of taxation based upon earnings
and
ALL forms of entitlement programs and earnings redistribution
The proper role of government must be to FORCE EVERYONE to earn their own, or be removed, then a huge number of society's problems and governmental corruption, ie dictatorship of the proletariat, would be eliminated.
make the Pentagon live by the same rules and youve got yourself a deal
ban inheritance?
and just who, pray tell, would recieve the fruits of a mans entire life if not his children?
"Oh, sorry kids, daddy bought the house but hes dead now so fuck off and find somewhere else to live"
I dont think youve actually thought that through, have you?
"who, pray tell, would receive the fruits of a man's entire life if not his children?" allow me the witticism: his wife?
slightly more seriously, I think there is, in the US, a sub-section of women that nods when it comes to "ban inheritance"... but not when it comes to divorce settlements
might be I'm mistaken
The above Goethe quote and the the one attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild sum up perfectly the the state of the world.
"Give me control of a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws."
That line says it all but you misread it :
"Give me control"...Mr Money Bags ASKS the King of England to "give him"; aka accord him the privilige of owning the money line...in the King's name...
That was the historic deal. In order to give him something it means that man who WIELDS power and "divine rights" admits he needs the skills of Mr Money Bags to make him even stronger.
Francis Drake did not say it any differently to Queen Elisabeth facing the Armada and Nelson facing Napoleon's Navy at Trafalgar to Pitt, PM of George III.
Neither Drake nor Nelson ran England. The same is true for the Rothschilds and for the FED today.
Power lies with the Head of State. It is his to "give". Once its given then power is shared BUT it can always be taken back by the Head of State.
Its that dysfunctioning TODAY, as always, that allows corrupt, impotent Heads of State to be bypassed by those to whom they have "given" that power which they wield symbolically and legitimately, in the case of elected heads of state.
Our democracy is dying and thats WHY Mr Moneybags is thriving.
I respectfully disagree but appreciate the feedback!
And the statement of Goethe is just a restatement of the paradox of existence : We all want FREE WILL but we don't want to assume the responsibility that it entails of us; aka freedom is not a low hanging fruit we just pick at will as a natural right. Its the TREE itself that we HAVE to nurture or else it dies.
Something people don't realize until its too late. Civilization means living with others and free will will always thus be constrained by that, equally legitimate, of your neighbour.
The Political Economy for the 99%
A short self paced slide show.
http://www.henrygeorge.org/mannahatta/
THANKS - THIS IS WHY I LOVE ZH.
Wonder who owns all the cash, stocks, bonds, real estate and the such..oh..the rich.
I'm voting for Hillary. She'll take care of the poor people.
END PRIVATE CENTRAL BANKING. It's the root of much evil in our current financial and political world. It is a cancer on the body politic. It is a relic from our authoritarian and industrial past and must be abolished. It is anti-democratic -- it undermines and corrupts democratic institutions (ex. U.S. Congress). It places far too much power and money in the hands of far too few. With their great wealth, they are able to own and control the media, and most essential resorces and businesses.
Private central banking should be replaced by central banking that is owned and controlled by the people and their democratic institutions pursuant to the peoples' constitutional and inherent powers to create and control their own money supply. Central banks should be chartered to act in the public interest and be entirely transparent. Do that and see how the world changes.
Our material world is controlled entirely by money. Therefore, those who control the money, control everything in our material world. In a truly democratic society, control of the money supply must reside with the people, not a handful of private and extremely wealthy individuals and families with no loyalties to anyone except themselves, and their view of the way the world should be (one big ATM machine for themselves).
Like the dictators, kings and queens of the past (the ones who generally made our lives wretched and miserable), they won't give up this power voluntarily or easily. It will have to be pried from thier grubby, clutching, dirty little coniving hands. Like all revolutions, it will be accomplished either by obtaining enough votes or, failing that, at the point of a gun.
One can either produce and consume, or steal and consume.
A wealthy producer is a benefit to society, and cannot benefit by his production if there is no other production to trade it with. He will nourish us, the Golden Goose.
A wealthy thief on the other hand, does not need to trade, and will just up his level of thefts and violence as his schemes, scams, and grifts afford him less and less loot. He will kill us, the Golden Goose.
So it is not "wealth inequity," or the 1%, but the thieves and their thievery that should be our concern. That is the error of the proponents of Marxism, socialism, fascism, and nationalism, they espouse giving MORE power to the thieves, instead of taking it away.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
" I donated my time trying to save Social Security by transforming it into a real investment account back in the 90s. The money should have been invested in equities."
Translation: "They should have invested the loot stolen from the people by threat of violence in equities, instead of letting the people decide for themselves what to do with the fruit of their labors."
Always a laugh when I see it, but it's never funny.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
"Uncle Scam! Uncle Scam! Please Massa, take my hard worked for product, and invest it for me in war and poverty so as to make me as good, wonderful and rich as you."
So Martin must think that the 1% does not completely control the government. Who believes that?
That's Janet yenta time traveler from 1942 dummies
I donated my time trying to save Social Security by transforming it into a real investment account back in the 90s.
I did the socially secure thing. I took the money that the government left me after stealing for my social security and provided for my own retirement. And what do you think happened? When I went to apply what I had saved towards my sustainable retirement, the government attacked me. They took what they could get their hands on from my bank and put a lien on my property for the rest. They then proceed to take 15% of my social security in perpetuity.
"The 99% cannot get richer because government robs them every day. What should have been put into savings and investments, was squandered as usual by politicians. The 99% need to wake up. It ain’t the 1% – It is those who pretend to be on your side who deprive you of your real right to economic freedom."
Idiotic. I'm definitely not a socialist, but I recognize the idiocy of that oversimplification.
Who is actually in control of those governments "who pretend to be on your side who deprive you of your real right to economic freedom"? Worldwide. Not the 99%! A 2014 Princeton study:
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens
http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_an...
Excerpts:
A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
...the preferences of economic elites (as measured by our proxy, the preferences of “affluent” citizens) have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do. To be sure, this does not mean that ordinary citizens always lose out; they fairly often get the policies they favor, but only because those policies happen also to be preferred by the economically-elite citizens who wield the actual influence.
If she cites Goethe you will need to find another date, Z/H. Chicks that read Goethe are not likely to care too much for Cutty Sark or Jack Daniels IMHO.
well pinot grigio will have to suffice then.....
Tragically, the article above, as well as most of the comments upon that article, demonstrates the degree to which false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals dominate the ways that people think.
I repeat the basics:
Human beings, as soon as we perceive them as separated from their environment, necessarily operate as robbers in that environment. There never was anything else, and never could be anything else, than the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. The ONLY things that have happened throughout human history have been the development of bigger and better organized crime gangs, which were able to take advantage of a fresh planet to exploit. However, while that was happening, the biggest of those bullies were able to promote a totally backward bullshit view of what was happening. In particular, those who were the biggest forms of organized crime were able to call themselves governments, while those who were the best forms of organized crime were able to control those governments.
The line of thought that recognizes the basic facts that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, should NOT collapse back to the bullshit that presumes it would be possible for no organized crime to exist. Rather, organized crime must necessarily exist, and therefore, the biggest and best organized forms of that will emerge as being dominant. Those then will tend to get away with presenting their bullshit world view, namely that there are some magical ways in which they are NOT actually based on the principles and methods of organized crime.
The basic problems are that people want to continue to think using DUALITIES, which means think using false fundamental dichotomies, and therefore, propose "solutions" to problems based upon impossible ideals that are related to presuming those false fundamental dichotomies in the first place. Martin Armstrong's series of articles republished on Zero Hedge are constantly overflowing with basically stupid assertions of "socialism versus capitalism," etc. ... Most of the comments upon those articles merely propose slightly different versions of the same basic mistakes.
What I recommend is that more people should start using UNITARY MECHANISMS. More people should attempt to understand things using the concepts of general energy systems. However, that could not be done enough without a radical critique of the degree to which the philosophy of science has been a victim of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, the same as every other social enterprise has ended up being. We currently understand the concept of entropy backward, because that was consistent with what the biggest bullies wanted. The fundamental processes are SUBTRACTIONS. The biggest bullies' bullshit world view has subtracted the subtractions, without that being recognized or admitted. Hence, all the bullshit based upon magical words whereby some sort of system of organized lies operating robberies has acquired "legal rights" to do so.
The ONLY thing that actually happens is that human laws are based on being able to back up lies with violence. Those who are the biggest and best at doing that become governments, and those who control governments. The ONLY genuine solutions to political problems are change the dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies. There are no ideologies or religions that do not continue to actually exist as entropic pumps of energy flows. There are no genuine fundamental differences between any political systems, supposedly based upon different ideologies, with different labels. There is nothing but organized crime, operating fractally at different levels. There could never be any final solutions, there can only be on-going changes in the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies.
All private property is based on backing up claims with coercions. The most abstract form of that is money, which is measurement backed by murder. There is no private property outside of some system of public violence. There is nobody who guards the guardians. The rule of law suffers from its inherent paradox of enforcement, that only the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals can implement their rule of law, by backing up their lies with violence. Nothing that apparently "legalized" those lies and that violence ever actually changed anything real.
Those who getting richer are primarily doing so because they were able to control governments, to effectively privatize what were theoretically supposed to be public powers. Through systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, the power of governments to rob, and to kill to back up that robbery, were effectively made to serve the interests of those who could most successfully control governments, by the persistent and prolonged application of the methods of organized crime to the political processes.
The wealthiest 0.01% were particularly able to successfully corrupt governments, to legalize them having the extraordinary privilege to legally counterfeit the public "money" supply. After they achieved that supreme goal of organized crime, then they automatically were able to reinvest the profits from that fraud in more frauds, while the legal fictions known as corporations grew up around those privately controlled banks, whose frauds were enforced by governments.
While many people who read Zero Hedge already know that, most of them continue to indulge in the ridiculous false fundamental dichotomies that somehow that should be stopped. Since that is an impossible ideal, promoting that impossible ideal always actually makes the opposite happen in the real world. The paradoxes are much more intense that everyone lives as robbers, to the degree that everyone perceives the world by subtracting parts from the whole. Everyone has some power to rob, and some power to kill, which were assembled and channeled into the form of governments, while those who were the best at being professional liars and immaculate hypocrites became the pyramidion people in the overall social pyramid systems, based on being able to back up lies with violence.
The production of destruction always controlled production, and must necessarily continue to do so. The rich were the best robbers. The wealthy tended to have been those were descendents of the best robbers, while the poor tended to be the descendents of those who were most robbed. The only possible solutions are to change the rates of social robberies, because there is nothing else which actually exists but various systems of organized lies operating robberies. Any realistic solutions are going to require robbers robbing robbers. However, the awkward problem is that the biggest bullies' bullshit world view has become way too totally dominant, built into the structure of the dominate natural languages, such as English, as well as into the enormous errors present in the currently dominant philosophy of science. Hence, there is now almost nothing but triumphant organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition groups, which both promote the DUALITIES of false fundamental dichotomies, and related bogus "solutions" based upon impossible ideals.
There is nothing new other than the progress in physical science ... providing technologies which have primarily been applied to get better at being dishonest and backing that up with violence, inside of the same old social pyramid systems for thousands of years. There are no genuine solutions to those problems than to continue to do that, by developing a better political science, which is made to become more consistent with the progress in physical science. However, the paradigm shifts that would take in political science would have to integrate, and so surpass, the paradigm shifts that have already been achieve in physical science.
Articles by guys like Martin Armstrong are basically old-fashioned bullshit, while most of the comments are similarly nothing more than various other brands of bullshit, all of which tends to be stuck too much inside of taking for granted the overall biggest bullies' bullshit world view. There continues to be grossly unscientific labels based on presuming DUALITIES, where there are none, instead of using UNITARY MECHANISMS, because it is all the same energy flowing through.
To do better, first we would have to correct the huge errors in the dominate philosophy of science, due to its history of having compromised with the biggest bullies' backward bullshit world view. Then, we could begin to develop political science which could advance towards resolving real political problems in real ways, which addressed the essential issues of how to back up the debt controls with the death controls. There are NO genuine solutions outside of perceiving that the only things which exist are different organized crime gangs, and therefore, the only way to have better government is to develop better organized crime.
However, there no longer appears to be enough time left for enough people to go through enough paradigm shifts in order to accomplish that, before civilization madly destroys itself first ... But nevertheless, the only way that a technological civilization could survive is by developing a better philosophy of science, that could enable a better political science.
It is also in clear violation of the Ten Commandments.
I suggest you read the entire Old Testament. Then you'll discover:
1) Interest is forbidden between fellow countrymen (Deuteronomy 23:19-20)
2) Debt forgiveness is commanded every 7 years (Deuteronomy 15).
3) The return of agricultural land to its original owners is to take place no later than every 50 years (Leviticus 25). This meant families had farms that could not be permanently lost.
4) The poor had gleaning rights on private property.
5) Restitution is commanded for theft and the government-backed banking cartel has cheated almost all of us.
Modern Protestant churces seem to think the Old Testament is mostly about sexual sins. It isn't. It is largely about social justice.
Some of the most typical sliding scales found in different books of organized crime gang rules (e.g., the Bible) are the degree to which those rules are different for people who are members of that crime gang, versus for people who are outside of that crime gang.
The overall trends in American history regarding that have been described by George Carlin as being:
"It is a big club, and you and I are not in it."
Those who were successfully able to corrupt governments have less and less in common with those who can not. In particular, a tiny fraction of 1% of the population can legally make the public "money" supply out of nothing, while that is still a crime for the vast majority. Both coming and going, the government enforces the banksters' frauds, by demanding payment of taxes be made in that form of legal tender, while prosecuting and imprisoning anyone else who counterfeits that fiat "money" supply.
Usury was held to be both immoral, and illegal, for a long time. NOW, it is the foundation of the political economy, where almost everything has been based upon enforced frauds for more than a Century, which has automatically been getting worse, faster ... Those who were nearer the SOURCE of the public "money" supply being made out of nothing as debts became more wealthy, while those who were further away from that SOURCE became poorer. Tragically, while some sort of debt jubilee appears as one way to resolve the debt slavery systems driving their numbers to become debt insanities, by far the more probable outcomes are for those debt insanities to provoke death insanities.
There is no longer any sufficiently coherent community or culture which can agree upon doing anything based on any one book of organized crime gang rules. By and large, it is NOT possible to have any rational debates about any important public issues, because most people cannot agree on even the basic facts. While one might wish that we would agree upon being more scientific, large groups in the general population would not agree upon doing that. Instead, the ruling classes are able to rule by backing up lies with violence, while those who they rule over have adapted to accept those huge lies, no matter now absurdly those lies violate the laws of nature.
Armstrong is not qualified to comment on social issues, the markets or the bible.
Nice breasteses!