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Inequality In America: The Richest 20 Own More Wealth Than Half The Population
By Eric Zuesse, author of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of Christ's Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity.
Inequality in America, the Fish that Rots from the Head
Inequality of wealth is inequality of power. A study just released finds that "America’s 20 wealthiest people — a group that could fit comfortably in one single Gulfstream G650 luxury jet — now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households.” How much political power do the people who would be inside that jet — and their friends — actually have?
The first-ever thorough scientific and academic study of whether the U.S. is a democracy was published in 2014, and it finds, as an overwhelming statistically established fact now, that the U.S. definitely is not a democracy. This landmark study, by Gilens and Page, finds that, "When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
Conservatives tried to deny the very meaning of this study by saying such things as that “America is a republic, not a democracy,” but they were just trying to distract from the findings, which are: the U.S. is a dictatorship, not a democracy. A republic is simply another word for a “democracy.” Every democratic nation functions by means of elected representatives. So what? The “republic” matter is raised only to distract away from the reality, not in order to understand the reality.
No matter how much the conservatives try to cheat or lie their way out of the reality, America is a dictatorship. There is simply no getting around the fact: America is a dictatorship, by and for the richest. The landmark Gilens-and-Page study found the elected representatives in America don’t actually represent the public nearly so much as they represent the people who finance the political campaigns that sucker the voters to vote for the aristocracy’s preferred candidates. America’s reality is rule by the richest, rule by the people who finance those TV commercials and political operatives who make a political winner a political winner in this republic of the richest, this government of the people, by the super-rich, for the super-rich, who make the actual decisions about which candidates will have a chance to win, and which won’t.
Just the way that the Grand Ayatollah in Iran chooses which candidates there will have a chance to win the Presidency, etc., America’s few super-rich here choose which candidates will have a chance to win the Presidency etc., and which won’t. In Iran, the Grand Ayatollah is chosen by, and serves, the mullahs; and, in America, the Party chiefs etc., are chosen by, and serve, the super-rich.
In America, the aristocracy wanted Saddam Hussein removed and replaced in Iraq, “regime change in Iraq”; so, it was done — the public were suckered into supporting an invasion (and then into re-‘electing’ the man who did it).
There is no accountability for the aristocracy’s agents (such as President Bush, or President Obama). None were prosecuted for the tortures and murders and destruction that were done to Iraq, and for the trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that were spent by us to perpetrate that destruction of Iraq.
America’s aristocrats and their agents call America ‘the opportunity society.’ (Read all about it there, from Obama, and also from self-acknowledged Republicans. But, of course, Obama is playing the ‘good cop,’ to their “bad.” The man who was Obama’s chief economist, Larry Summers, does the same. Their propaganda-line sounds as if it comes from central headquarters.) As if equality of opportunity can actually rise while inequality of wealth is rising. It can’t really happen. The PR line is only for fools. The aristocracy enjoys playing the public for suckers. How else could the aristocracy continue to exploit the public? How much longer can it continue?
Ron Fournier headlined in National Journal on Thursday December 2nd, "The Fish Rots From the Head in Chicago,” and he opened:
President Obama needs to mail Rahm Emanuel a dead fish in a box. Hillary Clinton should deliver it. For the integrity of the party that represents a vast majority of black voters, Democratic leaders everywhere need to send the Chicago mayor a message: You’re dead to us.
A longtime lieutenant for the Clinton family and former chief of staff in the Obama White House, Emanuel never hesitated to muscle weak or disloyal Democrats out of power. It’s time to flip the script on the enforcer nicknamed “Rahmbo.”
Emanuel once sent a pollster who was late delivering a survey result a dead fish in a box. The night Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election, his aides were celebrating around a picnic table when Emanuel picked up a knife and shouted the names of politicians who had “f****ed us.” After each name, Emanuel declared, “Dead man!”
I’ve got nothing against Emanuel. I’ve known him since 1992 and benefited from his strategic leaks in the Clinton White House. And I know this: Emanuel epitomizes a brand of politics that puts loyalty and electoral success above all else. He was educated in the school of Clinton, where the ends justify the means, and ruled the Obama White House when it capitulated to the culture of Washington that his boss had vowed to fight.
Then, Fournier summarized the lengths that the Emanuel Administration went to cover up their murder of this Black — for which cover-up they charged Chicago’s taxpayers $5 million.
Obama himself has been the biggest cover-upper of American corruption. He refused to prosecute Bush, Cheney, the banksters, the torturers, etc. He lied by saying “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” and the U.N. called him on it. (Aristocrats don’t mind that; the U.N. has no teeth; and aristocrats own the ‘news’ media, so America’s public won’t know anyway.) This is how the aristocracy works. It is non-partisan. Most aristocrats are right-wing, but some are left-wing; and, yet, when it’s the aristocracy versus the public, the aristocracy are united — and the public get conned worse than ever. For example, the U.S. aristocracy were united not only on seizing Ukraine, but in slaughtering Ukrainians who rejected the seizure. America’s elite Brookings Institution even urged the U.S. government to step up the slaughter. The U.S. line was that the victims there were simply ‘terrorists,’ or ‘pro-Russians.’ They were actually the residents of the areas that had voted overwhelmingly for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom the U.S. aristocracy overthrew. The American aristocracy said he was “corrupt.” So were all other recent Ukrainian Presidents — but the U.S. ‘news’ media politely avoided mentioning that fact. And Ukraine now is more corrupt than ever — and a lot more in debt: bankrupt.
When the American government is prosecuting a blue-collar crook, it doesn’t “look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” but, when prosecuting a white-collar crook, especially if that’s an aristocrat, then, for some mysterious reason, it does. “Looking backward” is only for blue-collar crimes — the type of crimes that the aristocracy want to be prosecuted, because that type isn’t the aristocracy’s specialty (which is generally fraud). What ‘justice’ is this? It’s ‘justice’ to fool suckers.
The fish rots from the head, in Washington.
No matter, Republican or Democrat, the American public’s Commander-in-Chief is the American aristocracy's Commander-in-Cheat. He or she is the head, in Washington, and it smells much the same, either way: like rotten fish.
Said one American Judge, in issuing his verdict:
Today’s reality is that the voices of “we the people” are too often drowned out by the few who have great resources. And when the fundraising cycle slows (it never stops), lobbyists take over in a continuing attempt to gain influence over and access to elected officials.
This is not a left or right, liberal or conservative analysis, but all the points on the political spectrum are increasingly involved in shaping this country’s political agenda. In today’s neverending cycle of campaigning and lobbying; lobbying and campaigning, elected officials know where their money is coming from and that it must keep coming if they are to stay in office. Ordinary citizens recognize this; they know what is going on; they know they are not being included. …
The Court is bound, however, to follow the Supreme Court and Second Circuit's clear guidance. Accordingly, the Court holds that the limitations contained in New York Election Laws §§ 14-114(8) and 14-126, as applied to independent expenditure-only organizations, cannot prevent quid pro quo corruption.
Of course, those higher-court ‘Justices’ had themselves been appointed by corrupt federal officials, including U.S. Presidents. The U.S. aristocracy holds iron control.
And, so, the fish keeps stinking, and the aristocracy keep lying and pretending that America is a ‘democracy.’ And the public are told that the only problem is inequality of opportunity, not inequality of wealth — no matter how enormous that inequality of wealth is. After all, there’s a self-sustaining aspect to any aristocracy. Their children even get “legacy admissions” into the elite’s colleges. So: the more extreme the wealth-concentration is, the more-extreme it will be in the future. But, no matter: “America is the land of the self-made man.”
And the suckers keep on believing it. People just get accustomed to the smell. The preachers tell them that it’s somehow ‘the will of God,’ and so must be ultimately good. The preachers and teachers know where their money is coming from, too. And, if it’s not coming from the right people, there won’t be much of that sweet smell to cover over the fish-stench. So: worshipping The Almighty is taught — even though it actually means ‘Might makes right’ (which everyone knows to be wrong).
So: everybody does what he must do to “go along to get along” — with “the right people,” of course.
And this is called ‘the free market,’ and ‘democracy,’ though it’s neither. It is, instead, as bad as it smells, even if its direct victims, such as Iraq and Ukraine (just to mention two nations that America’s aristocracy destroyed), smell even worse.
If you want to know how bad and how scary it really is, see the documentary on the Edward Snowden case, Citizen 4; but, even that documentary pulled its punch by limiting to only a single enigmatic sentence its bare reference to the international aristocracy behind it all, whose agents are stealing the public’s freedoms, in order to expand those aristocrats’ now-unprecendentedly sophisticated network of control over the publics throughout the world. It’s no longer just government, and the press, and the ‘intelligence’ agencies, and the military and the police. This is no longer science fiction — it is control over the mass-public, the termination of democracy, in all but name. It is already, and frighteningly, science-fact. This is why the last American President before our new system started to become instituted, Jimmy Carter, recently despaired in public, that America has become a dictatorship. And this is an increasingly global dictatorship. It’s where the global fish-head stinks the worst.
Not to expose it is to hide it — to become part of what promotes the stench, not part of what would reverse the rot that causes it.
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Free Warren Buffett!!! ;-)
Looney
All enabled by the corrupt illegal Indonesian kenyan alien muslim fudgepacker & the equally corrupt elected career political turds. Off with all of their heads.
All of it.
Limit wealth to $10M, anything over goes, NOT to the government, must stay in country.....more to follow.
I dislike your solution, as socialism always leads to starvation.
Consider the simple solution of sortition.
One year term limits, and make bribery of a politician punishable by public hanging, for both parties, the following Saturday.
The statistical mathematics involved with forecasting the future gains of the top twenty wealthiest Americans, merely based upon their principal wealth (total asset value) and the available options to politcally allocate those funds, is what truly concerns me.
That is to say, I watch with love and concern as the 'creation' of fututre funds, so to speak, will have better odds of having been captured, invested, and reinvested by the wealthiest twenty (or ten, or thirty, or what have you) vis-á-vis the new base population participants (the new kids on the block). However, it is only fair to say that this outcome is greatly dependent on the notion that, ceteris perebis, We do nothing.
I would be for huge progressive taxes on income and wealth over a couple $10 million or so but I don’t trust the people who collect the money any more than I trust the less than one percent who are stealing the money.
If Americans wanted to they could eliminate the power of the Gang of 20 in a day without bloodshed. Simply empty their bank accounts and buy PMs. Fiat currency is the source of power of this group.
I think you will find mpst of them would have a hard time coming up with more than a few mil (if that much) in fiat paper. Their wealth is on computers as 1s and 0s.
So I suppose Zuckerberg is on that TOP 20 list & what was it again that he was up to last week? No agenda here, NONE WHATSOEVER. I now return you to your regularly scheduled media programming.
If Americans wanted to...
A memoir of What Is
By: -.-
Thank you, Stuck on Zero, for providing me the title of the book that I will not write discussing to readers how suggestions, albeit as positive and intelligent as they may be, such as, "...eliminate the power of the Gang of 20 in a day without bloodshed..." requires a system of communication that is transparent and transmissable as well as an established sense of individual accountability.
Unfortunatley, the relationship between technology and human communication has only been successful on the surface, the 1's & 0's and physical infrastructure; which is to say, the appearance of the Internet and photocopied versions of professed Religions. Whereas religous texts and dogmas acted as one form of ancient, societal communication, today we have the 'internet' as our inverted version of communication---the twenty-first century's appearance of effective change in the world's ability to speak and be heard!
Taxing wealth is much closer to the problem than the solution. Not trusting the tax collectors is definitely part of th problem.
Gerald Celent pointed this out years ago. When the middle class was growing in the 50's, 60's and 70's tax rates on what we would consider the rich were very high ranging from 50% to upwards of 90%.
Now that this same group of rich people pay 10% and 15% tax rates with unlimited tax loopholes its obvious they are not willing to reinvest in new plants, employees, raises, etc.
Remember when Pres. Bush promised if the rich got lower tax rates they would hire more people and invest in the U.S. What a crock! Instead they bought their 7th mansion in the Alps.
So it's still Bush's fault after almost 8 years of Obama?
What a tax rate is and what is actually paid are two very different things.
In the 50's, 60's and 70's tax rates when the tax rate were upwards of 90%, very few of the rich actually paid those rates because of all the tax shelters, credits, and loopholes that were available to them.
Back in the 1950s, the government wasn’t actually collecting any more in tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. Tax receipts from personal income taxes have consistently been between 7 and 9 percent.
However, the percentage of taxes paid by the highest quintile of income earners has steadily gone UP since 1980.
In 1980, the top 20 percent paid about 55 percent of all income taxes. Today, it’s just shy of 70 percent. The same goes for the top 1 percent, which went from about 15 percent in 1980 to just shy of 30 percent today.
https://mises.org/library/good-ol-days-when-tax-rates-were-90-percent
@ZD1 : Choose your Republicrat or Demopublican carefully. I always laugh becaue both of these parties agree on moar' war, bailing out the rich, moar' debt, moar' pork, bigger govt, moar' lobbyists and moar' campaign contribution $$$$. Everything else they tend to fight about..
I just stated the above fact about Bush because it was a horrible joke played on the middle class but agree he was probably better than current administration. Which isnt' much of a statement. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. That was one of the biggest lies pushed by Obama. See I play fair.. Happy now?
Obummer is simply a continuation
of the Bushit regime - 15 years and counting.
Article: The Richest 20 Own More Wealth Than Half The Population
Article, 5 years from now: The Richest 20 Own More Wealth Than 4/5 of The Population
Article, 10 years from now: The Richest 20 Own More Wealth Than the Entire World
Not possible?
Did you check Mark Zuckerberg wealth lately by sharing pictures on the internet?
I wonder what the downvotes are for. Do people think this trend won't continue on the current trajectory? As long as the general poplulation isn't saving and can't earn interest on what's saved, the gap between those with passive income and those without will only grow wider.
2% of nothing is nothing. 2% of 1 million is... I don't know, math is hard.
...... it all boils down to three letters EMP.
--Uncle Joe
more to follow: forbidden to give any excess to socialist….more to follow…..
We could always just forbid people and corporations (because the vast majority of this corruption is from corporate entities) from giving money to a politician they dont posess the right to vote for.
AKA, corporations cannot vote for anybody so....
Seriously, how many fucking times does it take to repeat- SOCIALISM DOES NOT WORK.
This ideology and the people that support it always drive me up the godamn wall. All you have to do to figure out that this line of thinking does not work is READ A FUCKING HISTORY BOOK. Or even better, LOOK AT VENEZUELA!
But noooooo noooooooo, this time it is going to be different. This time, we are going to make it work! They just did it wrong when they tried last time. We have the right way to make it happen now.
The very fact that a great percentage of people still believe in socialism is insanity. I have no hope left for this place by this point.
Socialism: The idealogy of fast-lane career politicians and the fucking greedy dipshits who support them.
How many times do people have to repeat the same stupid misuse of that label "socialism" ??? The social facts and the dictionary definition of "socialism" have almost nothing in common! But nevertheless, it is routine for various mainstream morons and reactionary revolutionaries to blame "socialism," or whatever other silly, stupid, superficial labels and terms they like.
ALL of the relatively popular "isms" are BULLSHIT!
The more that more people believe in that kind of BULLSHIT, the more politically impossible it becomes to deal with what actually exists, which is that civilization is necessarily controlled by applications of the principles and methods of organized crime. Political processes are the development of the dynamic equilibria between different systems of more or less organized lies operating robberies. The currently established systems have become so extremely UNBALANCED because the vast majority of people have been conditioned to not want to understand that.
The fake "democracy" is supported by a fake "education" and biased "information," so that enough of the masses of muppets will vote for the political puppets which are the best available professional hypocrites. Pretty well all of the publicly significant "opposition" is controlled, especially because they continue to think using BULLSHIT LABELS & TERMS. By and large, the social facts have NO good labels or terms, because of the intense paradoxes that governments are necessarily the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. & I REPEAT, THAT IS NECESSARILY SO!
The main point that Welfare Tycoon made that I tend to agree with is that: "I have no hope left for this place by this point." There is no reasonable hope for the foreseeable, finite future of systems of organized lies operating robberies which become so detached from relatively objective realities that they are controlled by increasingly psychotic psychopaths. But nevertheless, there is always transcendental hope, as well as irrational hopes. After all, human beings and civilizations continue to operate as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows, and that does NOT stop merely because the combined money/murder systems become based upon such excessively successful organized crime that the degree of IMBALANCE in those established systems becomes criminal insanities.
There are NO good labels or political terms to describe the actually existing social facts, because people want to think in using the dualities of false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, which those BULLSHIT LABELS & TERMS are designed to conceal, in order to enable professional hypocrites to dominate the public "debates." Meanwhile, the closest to reality English language phrase that I use to describe the existing social facts is that there is a RUNAWAY FASCIST PLUTOCRACY JUGGERNAUT. However, that phrase too is misleading, because the main source of the "wealth" of the plutocrats is ability to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts. Generally speaking, there are NO good words to use available in the English language, due to the degree that English developed as the biggest bullies' language par excellence.
For several decades, I have been practicing the development of my use of the English language to use through a genuinely better political science, which endeavours to make political science become more consistent with advances in physical and biological science. The history of the progress in physical science has been the history of profound paradigm shifts. It would also be required, IF political science was going to advance, for that to go through series of profound paradigm shifts that integrated and surpassed those paradigm shifts already achieved in physical science. Meanwhile, all of the old-fashioned BULLSHIT "ISMS," found in every previously existing, dominate religions or ideologies, are mostly obstacles in way of accomplishing that!
The article above was superficially correct in identifying the problems due to the vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS. However, as long as most people continue to think using BULLSHIT "ISMS" based upon false fundamental dichotomies, then they will continue to misunderstand the real mechanisms in absurdly backward ways, and therefore, their spurious "solutions" will continue to backfire badly. The social situation in the USA has NEVER be anything remotely close to "socialism." Various incompetent political idiots on Zero Hedge commonly continue to parrot that increasing "socialism" is the problem to lay the blame upon. Indeed, that is one of the contributing factors regarding WHY "I have no hope left for this place by this point." Of course, that dismal prognosis is yet again reinforced by the degree to which people who like to blame superficial labels, like "socialism," tend to NEVER actually look at the dictionary definition of that term, and then compare that to the actual social facts. If they did, then they would see that America manifests fake "socialism," the same as it operates fake "democracy."
There is one scientific reality and that is how human beings and civilization operate as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows. When one examines the concepts of general energy systems, and applies those to the human energy systems, one can then theoretically understand what corresponds to the empirically observed social facts, namely, that civilization is controlled by the methods of organized crime, and that must necessarily be the case, because the death control systems are the central core to everything else, and have always been, and will always be ...
However, the social successfulness from doing that depends upon the ruling classes brainwashing those they rule over to believe in BULLSHIT ISMS, so that they can be lied to more effectively. That level of BULLSHIT was built into the dominate natural languages and philosophy of science, for such prolonged periods of time, that almost everyone automatically takes those various BULLSHIT ISMS for granted. Indeed, there is almost nothing which is publicly significant but the BULLSHIT OF THE BIGGEST BULLIES. At the present time, there is almost nothing but the central core of triumphant organized crime (which is primarily bankster controlled governments), surrounded by layers of controlled opposition (which includes those who stupidly blame "socialism.")
Citizens are actually members of an organized crime gang, called their country. The degree to which they do not understand that, because they do not want to understand that, is also the degree to which they act like incompetent political idiots. That is manifested in many different ways, through many different religions and ideologies. One of the typically, standard stupidities, which are often repeated on Zero Hedge, is to blame "socialism," parroted like the proverbial Pavlovian dogs salivating.
As far as I know, the dictionary definition of "socialism" has NEVER actually existed in ways which were consistent with the social facts of any society, anywhere, at any time. The deeper reasons for that are that human beings and civilization NECESSARILY operate as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows, which NECESSARILY correspond to the principles and methods of organized crime. Any impossible ideals, promoted through any possible "isms," that contradict the ways that human beings and civilization necessarily operate as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows ACTUALLY CAUSE THE OPPOSITE TO HAPPEN IN THE REAL WORLD, BECAUSE THEY ARE BASED UPON MISUNDERSTANDING THE REAL MECHANISMS IN ABSURDLY BACKWARD WAYS.
The almost total triumph of various BULLSHIT ISMS dominating all public political debates is why we are living more and more inside of Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds, where everything is manifesting more and more blatant anomalies, appearing as increasingly absurd and backward situations ... To realistically resolve the real problems would take enough people understanding that enough. However, that is politically impossible within the established systems whereby POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS have become runaway vicious spirals. Enough people would have to suffer through enough cognitive dissonance to be able to comprehend how and why governments are NECESSARILY the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, in order to make it perhaps possible for some better democratic republic operating through the rule of law to actually exist and survive.
Basically, what actually happens is that all private property is based on backing up claims with coercions, where the most abstract form of that becomes money is measurement backed by murder. What has happened is that the vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS have resulted in the public powers of governments becoming effectively privatized. The powers of governments to tax, and to enforce that taxation, have become the basis of the ruling classes being able to systematically defraud everyone, while transferring the apparent "ownership" to the ruling classes.
The most wealthy own so much because the entire system is NECESSARILY based upon more or less organized lies operating robberies, while the most wealthy have effectively captured control over governments to ENFORCE FRAUDS. The primary ways that works are through the governments enforcing frauds, by privately controlled banks, and the corporations that grew up around those banks issuing the public "money" supplies as debts. Those enforced frauds are symbolic robberies. There is no private property outside of some systems of public violence. The government was the primary source of the public violence that backed up the ownership.
I am NOT thereby asserting any impossible ideals that there should not be any violence, backing up any lies. Positing politics without violence is like promoting physics without force. Such impossible ideals NECESSARILY cause the opposite to happen in the real world. Indeed, the impossible ideals manifested in so-called "socialism" would continue to backfire badly. However, most of the people who somewhat superficially see that tend to never go any deeper into how and why what exists necessarily amounts to organized crime, whereby the debt controls are backed by the death controls.
THE ESSENTIAL POLITICAL PROBLEMS ARE HOW TO OPERATE THE HUMAN DEATH CONTROL SYSTEMS, WITH THE HUMAN MURDER SYSTEMS AS THE MOST EXTREME FORM OF THOSE. Historically, that has ended up being most successfully done through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries, which then became the basis for financial success based upon ENFORCING FRAUDS. Great wealth is necessarily based upon great crimes. As soon as we perceive and define human beings as separate from the environment and each other, then human beings necessarily live as gangs of robbers. America became the greatest yet flourishing of Neolithic Civilization, which was always based upon systems of lies backed by violence, that became more sophisticated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. Those systems were how and why it was possible to end up with social facts that 20 Americans could own more than half of the rest of Americans.
The only things which actually exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. Therefore, the only genuine solutions to political problems must be changes in those dynamic equilibria and/or those systems of organized lies operating robberies. As long as the vast majority of so-called "citizens" do not understand that, because they have been conditioned to feel like they do not want to understand that, then the existing systems will continue to automatically become more UNBALANCED!
At the present time, the established and entrenched systems are all operated by the best available professional hypocrites, who continue to promote BULLSHIT ISMS based upon the dualities of false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals. While "socialism" was one of the manifestations of impossible ideals, every other "ism" was too! More of us should start using unitary mechanisms, to better understand human beings and civilization as general energy systems. However, doing so would require series of intellectual scientific revolutions, and series of profound paradigm shifts in the ways that we perceive politics.
what he said!!
Sure, I do agree with your viewpoint on current day -isms. But my main issue was that Socialism itself (as most interpret it) is one of the most easily defeatible and backwards ideaologies there is. It is such an obviously flawed structure that it is appalling to see people still touting as a legitimate way to solve our issues.
I have written about this in regards to Liberal vs. Republican parties as well in a previous comment. While both sides and their representatives are nothing more than bought out oligarch whores, it is still puzzling nonetheless to see a great amount of people who believe in Liberal/Progressive idealogies. I say this because it only takes a small amount of critical thinking ability to expose its idealogies as false. At least I can give Republicans some slack, because alot of the harmful idealogies they do tout actually take a degree of investigation and more focused critical thinking approach to uncover as wrong.
And while most -isms and labels are meant to turn us against eachother nowadays, you have to come to the fact that they will always exist, no matter how good or bad the idealogies they are attached to are. The reason for this is that human beings have to compartmentalize things in our minds to not save just time, but also protect ourselves. -isms and -ans are way to do this on a political/idealogical level. If you did not have discriminating mechanisms (such as -isms and -ans) in place , you would die an early death. An example would be if you walked into Compton shaking the hand of every tatted-up guy that loiters on the side of the street thinking "he is just a black guy with a bunch of tats" rather than compartmentalizing/desciminating and thinking "he looks like a thug- I should probably stay away".
So yes, I do agree with you in the sense that most -isms and how they are used today are bad, but I disagree with you on how they should not exist in general. You would essentially have to defy biology to not to apply labels or -isms, so it is not reasonable demand such a thing.
Regardless, I do appreciate the argument.
I agreed
with this:
I also agree that:
Human beings live by telling stories to themselves and each other. We build mental models of our world, with mental models of ourselves within those mental models of our world. We then somewhat base our behavior upon those mental models. THE ISSUES SHOULD BE HOW GOOD OUR MENTAL MODELS ARE, AND TO BUILD BETTER MENTAL MODELS. However, the history of civilization operating through social pyramid systems whereby relatively small ruling classes controlled much larger groups, through backing up lies with violence, and thereby keeping the people ruled over afraid and ignorant, has resulted in the DELIBERATE creation of BULLSHIT ISMS by the ruling classes in order to control others.
The history of civilization based upon successful warfare, then successful finance, through systems that backed up deceits with destruction, and then enforced frauds, are publicly presented in absurdly backward ways by those who benefit from those systems of organized lies operating robberies. The maximum leverage exists through the POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS, whose social successfulness has resulted in the international banksters recapturing control over the American monetary systems, and then amplifying that to capture more and more control over everything else, such as the schools and mass media. Therefore, the vast majority of Americans have become the victims of the most scientific brainwashing that money could buy, for generation after generation.
The banksters' song and dance about how the political economy works is BULLSHIT, however, the ways that social successfulness flowed from being able to ENFORCE FRAUDS have resulted in the manners that people think about and communicate regarding the problems with respect to the political economy being almost totally dominated by BULLSHIT social stories, which were DELIBERATELY made and maintained to be bad models of the world, in that they are deliberately as NOT CORRECT as they can possibly be. But nevertheless, that kind of BULLSHIT works to make the ruling classes become more and more wealthy and politically powerful, so that the vast majority of successful politicians become their political puppets, who are voted for by enough of the masses of muppets, that the schools and mass media have misled and misinformed during their entire life, and indeed, for generation after generation!
Within that overall context, of the war on consciousness that the ruling classes have waged against those they ruled over, "Socialism (as most interpret it)" is DOUBLE BULLSHIT, since the way that most people interpret what "socialism" means has become such that that interpretation does NOT care that the social facts do NOT match the dictionary definitions ... To point that out was why I posted my reply to your comment. To be frank, I am surprised that you responded in a rational way, with valid points ...
I did NOT mean my reply to imply that systems of understanding "should not exist in general." I agree that "you would essentially have to defy biology to not to apply labels or -isms, so it is not reasonable demand such a thing."
What I recommend is building better mental models. However, overall I think that appears to be doomed to failure, since, at the present time, the most socially successful people tend to be the best available professional hypocrites. The social successfulness of controlling civilization through applications of the methods of organized crime has become intensely paradoxical, and full of sets of consistent contradictions, due to the best organized crime hiding what it is really doing under the maximum possible BULLSHIT, while that kind of social successfulness then feeds the vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS to continue to automatically get worse, faster ...
Ideally, more people should understand better how the world really works. However, the ruling classes have a vested interest in making sure that the vast majority of people do not do that, but rather, that the majority of people continue to not only believe, but also, feel that they want to continue to believe, in the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories, which have primarily become the banksters' bullshit about how the political economy is supposed to work. Therefore, I repeat my basic view, that I agreed with your opinion, as expressed in your first comment, that there is no reasonable hope for the foreseeable future in North America, due to the degree that the excessively successfulness of controlling Americans through applications of the principles and methods of organized crime have resulted in American society becoming too criminally insane to recover from the degree to which there are now runaway vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS.
My current conclusions are that the only consistent features that follow from learning more about how the world works, and thereby building better mental models of that world, are that THE MORE ONE LEARNS, THE WORSE IT GETS. Therefore, I totally agreed with the conclusion stated in the articles above:
North American society has become terminally sick and insane. The monetary system has become like a totally metastasized cancer, for which there are no treatments but some palliative care, because any effective treatments would kill the system, while that system continues to kill itself anyway, like parasites that are killing their host. That primarily works through the vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS. After one learns enough about that, the most realistic conclusion is the one I already have indicated, that the excessive successfulness of controlling civilization through applying the methods of organized crime, (through those vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS feedback loops) has resulted in that civilization becoming runaway criminal insanities.
The established debt slavery systems have driven the development of numbers which have become debt insanities. Since the debt controls were always backed by the death controls, debt insanities are going to provoke death insanities. The American government is now almost totally controlled by a Deep State Shadow Government, that is engaged in more and more genocidal wars, while it prepares to impose democidal martial law. The established and entrenched systems are dominated by increasingly psychotic psychopaths. At the same time, it is politically impossible to operate any better debt controls, backed by better death controls, due to the degree to which the vast majority of people do not understand that, and feel like they do not want to understand that.
Since I am Canadian, for a few decades I have focused my efforts upon the issues regarding POLITICAL FUNDING, which included two long court cases against the government of Canada regarding the laws that control the funding of registered political parties, and I continue to "work" on that through Canadian Electoral District Associations.
The only thing that I have thereby done is PROVE how bad things are, and continue to PROVE that those are actually getting worse, for all the reasons that the article above regarding the SOCIAL FACTS:
The same sets of social facts work in Canada, although those are way, way worse in America than in Canada. Indeed, all NATO countries follow the same patterns, of almost totally bankster controlled political puppets, as the best available professional hypocrites, whose job is to successfully "sucker the voters." Collectively, the international banksters, and their buddies in the big corporations that grew up around those bankers issuing the public money supplies, as FRAUDS ENFORCED by governments, are a group of TRILLIONAIRE MASS MURDERERS! Given their relative advantages, it continues to be way too easy for their political puppets to continue to fool enough of the muppets, enough of the time.
There IS an oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, based on the ruling classes using science and technology to control those they rule over through becoming better and better at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence. Overall, those systems have become globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs. Civilization has therefore become trillions of times more criminally insane than it ever was before in human history. The first generation that grew up with those systems of globalized electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, is still alive today. However, those MAD Money As Debt, backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction, are automatically getting MADDER and MADDER! That is especially the case because, beyond the social polarization driven by governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks, what will be even more important in the longer term was that "money" made out of nothing was "paying" to strip-mine the planet's natural resources. Therefore, by the time that the MADNESS gets bad enough for the social polarization to become too extreme to contain without the ruling classes attempting to impose democidal martial law, along with starting more, much worse, genocidal wars, the on-going basic destruction of real wealth will have also become OVERWHELMING!
The already established debt slavery systems automatically drive greater and greater levels of debt insanities. Hence, that entire system is headed towards series of psychotic breakdowns, and crazy collapses into chaos, since the pressures keep on building and building, while the ruling classes have responded more and more by welding shut the safety values on those social pressure cookers. (E.g., look at what really happens to whistle-blowers, or whomever else significantly challenges the oxymoronic scientific dictatorship's ability to tell bigger lies, and back those up with more violence.)
THE ARTICLE ABOVE WAS CERTAINLY CORRECT. Therefore, for all the reasons outlined in the article above, as well as in my replies, I continue to have to most agree with your comment, Welfare Tycoon, that "I have no hope left for this place by this point."
Bud: How much is enough, Gordon?
Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons – and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now, you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you, buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it.
Don't forget, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
There’s no money. It is all debt.
Second, you don’t’ understand the essence of ism.
State Socialism is capitalism for the public.
State Capitalism is socialism for the rich.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT4VXF1XJYk
So what exactly does that make Dilma Rouseff? ;-)
Primarily State Capitalism. Just look at all the corruption that it generates.
So, please tell us Escrava, what is your solution then? This is a serious question, I am not taking the piss out of you, truly.
Crickets, as I thought, see all of these bobble heads have nothing but down arrows for anyone with a differing point of view, they post inane links to kooky sites and cite that as proof positive...how about using your brain for a change!
lol...Dilma is "primarily" a fucking socialist Escrava, a damned Marxist. Graft, greed & corruption does not reside within neat little ideological lines called capitalism or socialism, so it does you (or anyone) any good to attack ism's as a way to deflect attention away from your (or anyones) chosen ideology.
It's a neat little trick when you can but it's always transitory ;-)
nmewn, dammit, YOU get it sir. I like critical thinkers, it's the bobble heads like escrava that get to me. Always after me lucky charms.
nmewn,
You and your isms. Will you ever learn to focus on the issues?
Let me give you an example of State Socialism vis-à-vis State Capitalism.
Let’s use the US. Easier for most to grasp it. Let’s use the 3 US counties that get the largest US subsidies.
Brevard County Florida, the home of the Kennedy Space Center. (State Socialism)
Arlington Virginia, effectively part of the Federal Government. (State Socialism)
Cobb County, Newt Gingrich’s conservative constituents in their wealthy Atlanta suburb. (State Capitalism)
Cobb County receives more federal subsidies than any suburban county in the country, with two exceptions: Arlington Virginia, effectively part of the Federal Government, and Brevard County Florida, the home of the Kennedy Space Center. When we move out of the state system itself, Cobb County is the leading beneficiary of the “nanny state.” Its largest employer is Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company, which is designing the F-22 advanced tactical fighter and other military aircraft. 72% of the workforce are in white-collar jobs “in expanding areas of the economy like insurance, electronics and computers, and trade” — all carefully tended by “the nanny state.” It’s remarkably easy for conservative entrepreneurial values to flourish while one is feeding happily at the public trough. Meanwhile praises to market miracles reach the heavens, notably where “conservatism is flowering among the malls.”
http://chomsky.info/199505__/
lol...Cobb county!? Where do you think the well paid & pensioned employees of the state of Georgia live, in downtown Atlanta and they are conservative?...lmao!
The F22 line was shut down a few years ago. Old news. And freaking Chomsky, Chris Hedges and the like want to take my money and give it to those, for a myriad of reasons, that won't get off the couch and earn a living.
no thanks, shim.... I'll keep mine for mine
Escrava, say what now...
Without capitalsim, socialism cannot manifest itself. and visa versa. Let me ask you this:
If it were not for free markets (which have been dead for quite some time), how did America become the richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known.
There is no perfect 'ism'...NONE! But Free Market Captialism, true free markets are the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry/
Unix,
how did America become the richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known.
what is your solution then
Oversimplified. By the way, these are not my opinions but, US history:
US became the most powerful nation by killing the indigenous population. Stealing California, Arizona, New Mexico and about half of Texas from Mexico. America did not conquer Canada and Cuba as colonies, because of the British army and navy. Also, the founding fathers were very imperialists. Learned from the British.
America's exorbitant privilege (Charles de Gaulle) became the richest nation after WW-2.
Bretton Woods: Dollar as World’s Reserve Currency. It means: United States would use the convertible financial system to trade at a tremendous profit with developing nations, expanding its industry and acquiring raw materials. It would use this surplus to send dollars to Europe, which would then be used to rebuild their economies, and make the United States the market for their products. This would allow the other industrialized nations to purchase products from the Third World, which reinforced the American role as the guarantor of stability.
A trade surplus made it easier to keep US armies abroad and to invest outside the U.S., and because other nations could not sustain foreign deployments, the U.S. had the power to decide why, when and how to intervene in global crises. The dollar continued to function as a compass to guide the health of the world economy, and exporting to the U.S. became the primary economic goal of developing or redeveloping economies. This arrangement came to be referred to as the Pax Americana, in analogy to the Pax Britannica of the late 19th century and the Pax Romana of the first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system#Dollar_shortages_and_the_Marshall_Plan
However, America exorbitant privilege started to decline in 1949, when China left the system. Followed by other Asia nations late 50’s and 60’s.
Another way to learn more about how US became the richest nation is to look at dollar carry trade. Where you borrow cheap dollars and take it abroad. The locals, say in Brazil, can not compete because their interest rates are way over US rates. Also, when US financial system crashes their currencies, that might start happening by raising interest rates in the US, if their currencies crashes by 50%, now they would have to produce a lot more to make up the difference.
Solution: To learn about these issues. Understand how money gets to be. Then, change it. However, if/when there is a change, America will be the biggest loser, because America(ns) gains the most of the current global system.
Sorry that I have made this post longer that I wish.
There are some valid points in there, I will admit that. But tell me something, give me one country that has not gone to war to gain, or paid off to influence, or have had imperialistic tendencies? What country or ism, is not corrupt? There are none. The problem is people, who cannot get along, and those that try to control.
My question still stands, what is your solution to this mess? Change how? To what?
chirp chirp chirp...crickets as usual.
I never heard of Andorra having imperialistic tendencies. Ditto Iceland, at least since the end of the Viking era.
There are always exceptions, but your point is well made regardless.
None at all to anything like the extent of the USA over the last 60 or 70 years, with a distant second the British Empire in it's heyday. Americans were lucky in that time as they were thrown more scraps from the table of their elite from their theft of resources and human labour from developing countries than similar peasants in any other western country. That's all coming to an end right now!
Of course, nobody measures America's wealth by her land mass. And back in reality, America is very much larger than those states and the notion that America stole those states is just so much leftist anti-American blather. Oh and if America stole those States, then Mexicans stole the land in the first place and it didn't belong to them by your own definition. And neither does the rest of Mexico or Brazil or any of the other Latin American countries with substantial populations that aren't Indians. And since the entire planet is nothing but a mishmash of conquest changing lines we call countries, then how did every other country throughout history become so much poorer because of their conquest? See, leftist anti-American blather.
Oh and America was already the wealthiest country on the planet before Bretton Woods. Bretton woods is a bubble that's coing to cost this country dearly.
Nice try with your anti-Americanism tho.
Nice reply Pickleton. Also, he leaves out the fact, most of the indians here were killed by the Spanish, British and French Colonialism...which our Founding Fathers broke away from, doesnt fit the narrative does it.
As to the Bretton Woods and modern power and corruption, he does have a valid point to a degree, but yet leaves out all the other countries doing the same thing!
Other People's Money = Debt
You could rebate it to anyone filing a tax return. This would make more people file even if they had nothing to pay. You could call it the prosperity dividend check
Only as much as the rest of the people give them.
Boom.
Succient. Lack of bloviating and wordsmithing.
Straight to the point.
Clearly the only solution to this mess.
Bullshit.
What these 20 know best is divide and conquer. Even people who recognize what is going on by and large will continue voting, because some "new" guy says what they want to hear on war, guns, abortion, taxes, trade, etc. The wedge issues keep people voting for the selected candidates even when they know the candidates are bought and paid for.
Think about Trump. The guy inherited the current equivalent of around $1B, yet he goes on Alex Jones and the first words out of Jones' mouth are "you're a self-made man." He talks about more spying and more military, but even many here see him as some kind of savior. He is a wealthy elite whose main talking point is that wealthy elites have corrupted the politicians.
The bottom line is we're screwed. The wealth divide is fully institutionalized into every aspect of the political system and nothing is going to change it, except for the worse.
"He is a wealthy elite"
Hardly. He is in the bottom rung of true wealthy people who don't even make any 'lists'.
Trump is in the ghetto class of billionares.
He is like the big labowski.
He was given that wealth so he can do what he does.
Keep the goyim entertained.
Eric Zuesse is engaging in some divide and conquer himself.
vs. what I said at the beginning of the year (with the 2.6 people per household calculation added)
Now given all the shit that is talked about the FED and the debt ponzi around here, how many Zerohedge members have a have more wealth than the bottom 60 million American combined???
Eric Zeusse should have his throat slit in an ISIS video.
You've been propagandized well by your oligarch overlords. The point of the article/study is that the 20 families have all the power by virtue of a political system in which politicians do the bidding of those families in order to get on the national stage. The guy in his basement with the gold eagle has no power. Most Americans could give two shits that some have much more wealth than they do, so long as there is real opportunity to climb the ladder. It's the power created by concentrated mega wealth and the lack of upward mobility in what has become a de facto feudal system that is the problem. America worked well when there was a vibrant middle class that had political power.
I haven't been propagandized by anyone. You, however, appear to have been propagandized by Eric Zuesse. 20 families don't have all the power (as I pointed out to you elsewhere), and thus the premise of the article is wrong. That 20 families can purchase and exert such undue influence in a country that claims to be not-totalitarian (regardless of the distinctions between Republics and Democracies, and Federation vs Unitary States) is destructive to society and undermines the social contract.
Garbage in, class warfare garbage out.
I can see with my own eyes that we have become a neo-feudal system, with the average person having essentially no say in national policy such as monetary policy, war policy, tax policy, trade policy, surveillance, and so forth. Talking about that reality is not to invite or advocate class warfare, and yet the response of the oligarchs whenever it is raised is to make your argument exactly, as though it is "class warfare" to have an issue with a group of unelected oligarchs and bankers (many of whom exist in the shadows such as the Rothschilds) controlling the country.
The average person has no say in national policy because we live in a representative democracy/republic where the only say the people have at the federal level is which of the elite to would like to nominally represent their interests at the table.
The rise of the federally regulated indoctrination system to the detriment of education, the consolidation of the media in various corporate M&A frenzies, the regulatory capture of the FCC, DOJ, Commerce Depatment and the rest of federal executive departments, the Supreme Court insanity of Citizen's United and "Corporate Personhood" are all diseases which infect the State. The expansion of wealth disparity to obscene levels is merely a symptom of those (and other) diseases, facilitated by the indoctrinated belief and Statute facilitated preferences for perpetual debt over increasing equity by those very "average people" while the wealthy take a more sophisticated approach to the strategic use of credit.
The people will never have any significant say without actual Democracy at the federal level (and without education and morality that extends beyond the self and membership in the FSA that is an admittedly dangerous proposition). But the system is working as it was designed to. Correcting the State sanctioned FRB monopoly of the money supply that effectively bypasses the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (except at the most superficial levels) and the repeal of Glass-Steagall would go along way to correcting the automated systemic transfer of wealth (in the absence of "fixing" the people). However, the I don't see anything in any tax policy proposals that would effectively address the extremes of wealth disparity- they all appear to be efforts to steal from 80-99.99% to pay for the untermenschen allowances while the 0.01% pillage with NIRP and in-debt the children of everyone else with their handouts from the State.
Rand, your post is very good, I will agree with this. +1
Greed, corruption, power and usury are the problem. There is no middle class anymore.
Actually, both of you have good points...no need to denegrate each other, all of it is valid.
This fairly recent inequality is enforced by the police state first set up by LBJ after he had his associate, "Mac" Wallace, gun down JFK. Rule by the law of the gun. Currently, arch-terrorist Obama cannot risk sending his kill squads into areas of America where citizens have the right to bear arms. There is always the chance that the target is armed and will shoot first when he or she sees Obama's hitmen closing in for the kill. Obama's solution: staged false flag attacks to justify disarming all Americans.
Nonsense.
Jackie Onasis was a jesuit jew-cia stooge who took out JFK personally.
Just like Lincolns wifey.
http://youtu.be/IlFQTL8A_b8
Speaking of noteworthy headline making billionaires... And Snowden, mentioned at the end of this article...
Trump...
Wants to execute...
Snowden.
Make Murica great!
WTF?
Pretty much all of the "candidates" are in favor of at the least life imprisonment for Snowden. Trump just took it slightly further by saying "you know what we used to do to traitors."
Bernie supports prosecuting Snowden even. Such a good guy he is too!
Interesting: Rand says he would have Snowden and NSA perjurer Clapper share a jail cell. At least that would be funny/
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/rand-paul-says-no-pardon-for-snowden-or-the...
You know what we do to traitors? We quietly release them (e.g. Pollard) from prison whilst everybody is distracted by some false flag or other.
Really? This shit again?
The people reading this page have more money than most of the people in this country. Are we all worked up about it?
What the Christ?
Hmm if your'e well off you don't have to concern yourself about your neighbour. All for one, and one for one.
Divided we stand, dived we fall.
Cant believe that comment is serioius. Because you got money, forget about whoever else got/gets raped.
Well until they come to bail your money in. Dont scream then when comes to your turn, since you believe you don't have to concern yourself with gross systemic economic corruption in your own backyard. lol
I'm not sure what he means by more money than most Americans. My point being that comparing wealth to your average American who has negative net worth is meaningless. If you had 500K and no debt you would far surpass the real wealth of the masses.
Some people are so poor all they have is money.
Easy solution - put them in that gulfstream and fly it into a volcano.
Check this legitimate ways to mak? money from home, working on your own time and being your own boss... Join the many successful people who have already used the system. Only reliable internet connection needed, no prior experience neccessary, that's why where are here. Start here... www.wallstreet34.com
To the top 1% of the 20 mentioned.
I have someone on 1600 Penn Ave who begs to be your bitch. Will you accept?
Get them all on a G650. That is a great idea!
Charles Grodin: "These things go down!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBxPJe1nk-0&index=1&list=RDsBxPJe1nk-0
(sorry for the ad)
Naw. They will just get off and run....serpentine.
http://youtu.be/A2_w-QCWpS0
I think the law needs to widen its definition of stealing.
But that would require "big govment regulation" Deregulation = decriminalization
Let me fix this headline....
The 20 Wealthiest People in US Own All of the Politicians That Rule You.
They just work harder than you.
Exactly - “Arbeit Macht Frei”
...when they ass rape you
Kochs worked extremely hard to inherit.
you do know one of them is a liberal, go look it up.
Maybe I'm a bit slow, but I can't for the life of me figure out what this post has to do with either Steph Curry or Kim Kardashian.
The bullshit system is why I'm looking for an out - houseboat, 3-10 farmable acres somewhere with mild winters and lax zoning, a camper / trailer, anything.
Unplug and let them play their games, I'll have no part in it.
You need to lower your sights a bit.
Think San Blas Islands and a canoe.
You do have a point there, but how would one eat?
"Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't men politics won't take an interest in you."
- Socrates
It was all "acquired" fair and square...
""America’s 20 wealthiest people — a group that could fit comfortably in one single Gulfstream G650 luxury jet "
Hey Tyler, sorry for calling bullshit...but...even a G650ER can only hold 11-18 people.
Two of those are pilots.
And even 16 is a lot of people in a small space, so not really 'comfortably' either.
*and that is a thin 16 people as most 'mericans are corpulent.
Yes, that was the key point of the article.
It's called bloviating, and it's a distraction from the larger flaws in the author's argument. As to the article's faulty premise, wealth and power are two very different things. Look at the people who actually wield powerc, like Brzezinski and Perle, whose net worth is literally a handful of millions, Dick Cheney weighs in at well under a hundred million (thanks to a Haliburton golden parachute and the P/E ratios of publicly traded equities) but he couldn't buy his own power with all his own wealth, the David Rockefeller's are the exception that proves the rule. Wealth allows the wealthy to buy influence instead of earning it. You can have no wealth but wield great influence and power, but the vast majority without wealth, they have no influence beyond their immediate surroundings.
Good answer, though I imagined a Gulfstream packed with billionaires like one of those 18th century slave ship drawings. In this way the billionaires might at least attract some sympathy.
I'm amazed they can amass such wealth while paying unfairly high taxes (that need to be lowered) all the while!
In 1980, the 1% income class paid 33% of all Fed tax and possessed 25% of all U.S. wealth. Very healthy.
Today, the 1% class pays 38% of all Fed tax but possesses 45% of all U.S. wealth (including dark / offshore). This terribly unhealthy ratio continues to worsen, mostly a result of supply side policies. We're already back to inequality ratios not seen since 1928, and heading towards 1933.
The .01% class pays an average 14% Fed marginal. The average 1%-er pays 24% Fed marginal. The main reason for the gross difference is Cap Gain and Div income v. regular wages, interest, retirement, rents, etc. (recall Soros's 9% tax on $75M and Romney's 11% on $25M). A lesser reason for this tax gap is the carried interest rule.
The 1% "investment class" requires a disproportionate amount of liqudity. We know that. But we've grossly overshot a "healthy" proportion, and it's getting worse. Gut your middle class and destroy your liberty, and your nation.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/
Notional wealth. Isn't that a big part of what the 1% owns? What is Facebook and Uber really worth anyhow?
They're worth zip if the electricity goes off. Talk about all your eggs in one basket...
Spoctor Din
I think all of society today would be worth zip, not just the rich.
You're right, society (or civil society) as we know it would be toast. We're back to the 1850s...and if you don't think this is possible, 50 insurgents with 100 RPGs (smuggled in from Mexico) could take down the N. American grid for the count.
Transformers > 240 KV are not easily replaced...
Spoctor Din
OBTW: You can thank the greedy self-serving power companies for this insignificant oversight. If we had started implementing amorphous distribution systems in the mid-90s when I offered up the idea, we wouldn't be in this situation today.
yep, you're right. I do not know this amorphous distribution system you talk about, do you have some info for me? i'd like to learn about it.
There's not any. I never published my findings. The current grid is based largely on 100 year old engineering schema. With the current technology, the bulk transmission system is no longer necessary. In fact it should be well on the way to retirement except that the utilities insist on keeping it alive for their market security. Like a drowning man, they are screwing the future for a little cushiness today. The regulators should have embraced bi-directional metering and give large, generous, and permanent incentives for private individuals and businesses to install generating capacity. Wind, solar, fuel cells, whatever... Instead the utility reps lobbied intensively for renewables at the bulk level requiring the continuation of the bulk electric grid.
So, every home and business has solar panels, wind generators, fuel cells, what have you and a bi-directional meter allowing transfer to the local distribution system. At the distribution substation level there would be a large fuel cell or gas turbine to provide what additional power is needed for that distributino system. Eventually every home or business would be able to provide all of it's power. When things break, you borrow from your neighbors or the distribution powe supply until you are back online and then pay back in kind or just fork over some money. The bulk transmission system needs to go away!!!
This is coming regardless of all the effort and billions of dollars wasted on bulk renewables. That was nothing more than a very very expensive boondoggle.
F$CK the TBTF utilities!!!
Spoctor Din
Giz, I see you conveniently leave out the part about all the jobs these people provide? How disingenious of you...carry on Comrade!
EDIT: You do have some valid points in there though, they do hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, I'll give you that. You can thank the Progressives, they did indeed come up with our current tax system, and all the other boondogles we now face.
Progressives are anti-constitutionalists, and every one of their stupid ideas must me mandated, don't ya know!
EDIT: anyone who downvotes my post here, is part of the problem, you just downvote me for the sake of it, because you hate me. Great day in the morning, put your freaking thinking caps on, please!
You are downvoted because you see the world in black and white. We had wealthy "job creators" in the period 1950-1980, but we also had a strrong middle class. Today (via the last 30 years) the middle class has been deeply gutted due to disproportionate supply side upward wealth redistribution. Today's gross inequality is not a result of "natural free market behavior" -- it was designed. The reason you get massive downvotes is because you simply parrot talking paper sound bites from the Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, Heritage Foundation, and AEI.
I know this is from fuckbook, but worth the listen and the laugh:
https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.m.tooley/posts/10204919284284164
Shoot that jet down NOW !
The Rothschilds probably own more wealth than the rest of the world combined.
They owned a third of all wealth in the early 1800's I dont think they would have given it away.
Yeah. Probably. Or you could do some homework and state a fact instead of randomly suppose without knowing a damn thing.
They're worth between 1-2T, which sounds like a lot, until you recognize that the world's wealth is estimated at 250T.
You sound like you eat too much of your product.
The rothchilds along with the blue blood monarchy are the richest family on earth.
They own all the banks and all major countries.
They own you.
Sorry.
Ghost, they don't own all the banks, a lot yes, and certainly all the central banks, BIS, IMF, etc...
You do have valid points!
You sound like you read like a 3rd grader.
GM, it is what they (Rothchilds) do with that money and to people, is where I have a problem!
Me too; also how they *make* the money is an issue, but pretending they alone are responsible is the end of thought and a source of power for many.
Come on writer, pouring some water down your throat is not torture. Pouring boiling oil on someone is, the rack is, and anything that maimed or killed is, none of these asshats died as a result of waterboarding. These camel jockeys put themselves in the bad position they were in.
The Muslims have been chopping off heads for centuries, they collected slaves for the new world, Europe, etc...they are just as complicit in any evil that has happened in the world. There are many countries that have held slaves too, not just America, but Europe, Asia, Russia, Israel, Africa, S. America...so please spare me the one sided approach, that America is the only evil in the world, k.
OBarry is letting them go to fight some more, so I ask are we safer now or then, sans 911? I guess an argument could be made there too. Prior to 911, who in the ME were we bombing again? Who had we invaded there prior to that? I am going back to just after WWII, now...after that.
War crimes, really? I guess an argument could be made for that, as the windshield cowboy did rush to judgement, but was fed false info. On top of that it was about Saddam selling his oil abroad outside of the petrodollar...it was about the oil alright.
Am I saying America has no guilt, in a word no!
The Muslims are the 30,000's stooges. The goal tgere is to destroy Judaism outside Israel and Christianity everywhere. Short-term, Islam will make a better slave-morality than Christianity or Judaism ever did.
Long term, in the end the Muslims will be exterminated too.
I had to upvote you on this post Niall.
I do believe all religions have done bad things over time, but it is a false dichotomy. Evil men to things in the name of their God, and for that they will burn in Hell for eternity. That is not the true meaning of religion.
BTW, Islam is a political organization, not a religion.
Let's strap you down and pour water down your throat. I'm willing to bet your definition of torture will change then.
REJOICE, deluded Neo Con wannabe Amerikan! When the gubberment eventually turns on you and rounds you up to "not be tortured" at a black site for "national security", there will be others who will be completely ok with it. Just like you are right now. "He put himself in that bad position", they'll say.
A little perspective is a good thing.
We’re not a democracy we’re a Republic – well we’re supposed to be anyways …..
We are in a Republic. Too many people read the Cliff's Notes version, or even worse the internet version. A Republic is rule by the elite.
definition republic: a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
definition democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
Sounds kind of the same doesn't it? I mean, think about it, if a REPUBLIC is the solution, and the US at one time was a republic but then magically changed to this 'different' democracy, then being a Republic wound up in the same place didn't it?
The fact that this guy doesn't know the difference between a republic and a democracy is pitiful. In a republic, you are ruled by fixed laws that protect EVERYONE's property, life and liberty. In a democracy, the majority can vote to loot the productive members of society and the law changes depending on what group of losers have the vote. Third world countries are all either dictatorships or democracies. There's little difference.
Too bad the US is neither. Oligarchy or plutarchy are both more appropriate characterizations of the current status quo.
GM, pray tell, what created this oligarchy? Was it not Progressivism?
Stop bending down picking up nickels in front of steamrollers. It's a bad idea.
In the confines of your tiny mind, I'm sure progressivism (at least the definition you hold dear) is responsible for every ill on the world, but that's because you've got all the critical thinking skills of your icon.
Progressivism didn't build the MIC or put up bases around the world to protect the corporate interests of a small number of Americans and their European partners, it didn't destabilize governments around the world for the benefit of multinational corporation's bottom lines, and didn't insist on having the very concept of regulation of financial markets thrown out the fucking window.
Now take your dipshit Rush Limbaugh script back to kiddie school or wake the fuck up and start counting real enemies.
sure it did you fucking moron, we have had nothing BUT progressive presidents and CONgresses since Woodrow Wilson. But since you are the uneducated fool, I will waste no more time with you fuckhead.
Whatever, you self-polarized mental midget.
Yeah the writer seems to be technically inefficient with truth in writing but can copy and paste.
Weekend tyler for you.
In a republic, you are ruled by fixed laws that protect EVERYONE's property, life and liberty....which laws are determined how exactly? It's either determined by a collective group of people voting on something, or REPRESENTATIVES voted in by said people (ie. a democratic process), or these laws are determined by people not representative of the people and done because they know best. Choose your poison, but this idea that a republic is somehow different sounds good on paper, but that's about it. A republic is a democratic form of government where representatives are voted in by a democratic process.
Of course, the US is hardly a republic or a democracy.
Sssshhhh. Don't mention wealth. Stay fixated on income taxes and how unfair it is for rich people to have to pay so much of them (while they accumulate coupons tax-free and call it something anything but income).
The "Use It or Lose It 1% Wealth Tax" would never get past the gatekeeper's puppetshow, but it sure would help offset some of the cost of all that no-bid largesse they collect off the backs of the middle class.
shhhhhh, don't mention welfare and the mic. Stay fixated on social justice, and equality for all...scum sucking Progressives are the problem fella. But I guess you would have us all driving VW's and living in Dachas...what a miserable existance for ALL!
I have never obtained a job from a poor person. America is one of the last places in the world where one can have a great idea, and make something from it. To demonize all who are rich is not correct. It is the one's who are in bed with the govt, manipulating things, not all rich people are scum suckers, nor are all poor.
It is this all or nothing proposition that hacks me off!
welfare/warfare are funtions of debt money...............end the jewsury and it all goes bye bye........
There ya go with the generalizations, not every banker is a Jew, not every bad person is a Jew, there are plenty of Gentiles, and many others, to go right along with them.
If you had said end the banksters, politicians, governments, now that I can get on board with you.
Unix all jews and christians and muslims are bad people.
They all bow down to the jew god.
And take away the jew god and what do people bow down to?
You like it that way dontcha
Sir, my Christian God, has absolutely nothing to do with the illegal Fed, or our (and all) corrupt Govts.
I don't subscribe to what you are saying.
I bow down to my God, for my eternal salvation and believe in His word, to treat others as they would treat me...that is about how I live my life.
Don't equate my beliefs with the god of mammon, the worship of money is evil sir
Gary North
''The Bible establishes civil laws governing money. These laws rest on a specific theory of money. Theologians do not recognize this. Neither do economists, who would not care even if they did recognize this. Today's monetary policies violate the Bible's laws governing money.
The Bible is clear on three legal principles: (1) monetary debasement is wrong (Isaiah 1:22); (2) multiple indebtedness, which is the basis of fractional reserve banking, must not be allowed (Exodus 22:26) ; (3) weights and measures must not be tampered with (Lev. 19:36). All three are violated by modern economic policy.''
http://www.garynorth.com/public/512.cfm
I whole heartedly agree with what you just wrote Usurious, good post. Honestly, we need to throw the money changers and corrupt politicians to the wolves!
Oh, NOW you're too good to work for Mammon.
Can't have it both ways, jackass.
I work to feed my family sir? Is there any other way, sans going off the grid these days? Please do tell me how you live your life? I guess you don't use money eh? Who is the jackass now, do tell.
I know it's fashionable to render unto Caesar and pray for Providence, but some of us are debt-free and strive to educate others as to the benefits of eschewing the banking sector to as great a degree as their lives allow.
No worries, that jackass is still you. So you rationalize capitalism and Mammon, by saying is is to "feed your family" and that you "never got a job from a poor person", but you're not actually doing anything to end that set of circumstances and calling out others for the very same sins.
I wonder if your religion has any advice on casting stones.
I think it is you who is casting stones. Where have I rationalized mammon? I merley indicated we are all slaves to the debt system. And to say you have no debt? What a crock, every dollar in your wallet and bank account is DEBT.
You can't think past the surface of things. Karl Marx is your hero, just admit it.
Rendering unto Caesar, if Caesar was not corrupt, is not bad...It is when you render to Nero. There is a difference you know. Look it up.
BTW, you are pretty good at casting stones yourself.
Lookit, you can believe in what you want, it won't change the fact we are ALL screwed. As soon as we stop fighting each other, we can focus on the problem at hand...greed, corruption and usery. Until that happens, all of these flowery and unsavory words mean NOTHING!
You'll do nothing to end greed and usury until you correctly identify the source; start with a false premise, and you may as well chase your chimpanzee tail.
What a difference 2% can make.
that would be 3%, but that is splitting hairs...I have identified the source but you refuse to believe me, as you are just as stuck on your side as I am on mine.
until we get over that, there is no fixing anything...
and i did not call you any names, or put you down, I AM DEAD SERIOUS.
you still have not answered my question, are you NOT in DEBT today yourself? every dollar you have is DEBT...answer that one smart guy? you cant
Radical Marijuana
''If Jews account for just 2% of the general population, then, all things being equal, there would be a 1/50 chance of a single Jew being selected as Fed Chair. The odds of FIVE consecutive Jews would therefore be 1/50 x 1/50 x 1/50 x 1/50 x 1/50 = 1 in 312,500,000!"
call me when u get stanley fishers cock out of ur mouth
LOL, so five have been Jews, and you make that comment? Was Volker a Jew?
End the illegal Fed, can you at least get on board with that? Let's put the head of the snake where it belongs please.
Yup. And to continue your logic, if less than ONE percent of the US population are lawyers, then why is CONgress made up of 50-60 percent of them ?
I thought CONgress was a representation of the people.
The general population does not have the same composition as the pool of candidates for Chairman of the Federal Reserve System. Your odds are wrong.
Call us when you get a proper high school education.
"I have never obtained a job from a poor person"
Do you make lamborghini's then? Gulfstream jets? Luxury Items?
If you make somethng that is bought by poor people, a poor person has helped give you a job. An economy needs buyers as much as sellers, and wealthier someone is, the less they spend as a proportion of their income, and they bleed the economy dry.
And if you look at the sales of antidepressents in this country, it becomes clear that a fairly large portion of the population finds living in Mc Mansions and driving SUVs to be a pretty miserable existence.
Rostale, When did I say I was rich? You have twisted my argument right there. Did I say poor people don't buy stuff? Please, take another look at what I wrote, you might find it enlightening, if you would critially think about it. Just sayin'
Type "layoffs" into google news...see plenty of rich people/corp destroying jobs daily.
So you're a whore with a low price to boot. You go, Girl!
You can call me any name in the book, and it won't phase me, ya - I've done the same.
Everyone has an opinion, just like they have an asshole. So what is your fucking point communist?
That you're a sell-out who points fingers when he should be looking in a fucking mirror.
...and you're not, marvelous.