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Guest Post: Wealth Inequality In America, Understanding The Source
Submitted by Arkady of The Right Condition
Wealth Inequality In America, Understanding The Source
With the OWS movement leaving many Americans confused as to whether they should support or stay away, one thing is for certain, Americans are aware of a certain truth that is happening in our country. We have a certain combination of events that is leaving many people struggling and asking very good questions.
The truth is this; We have structurally high unemployment, salaries are stagnant, debt burdens are rising, costs for education, health and energy are on the rise and we are increasingly overwhelmed with clear and present danger coming from every corner of the earth.
To make matters worse the ruling elite of this country and the very wealthy are continuing to benefit while the remainder of the population struggles. This is the appeal of the OWS movement despite the fact that the members making up the movement are advocating entirely unappealing solutions in the form of wealth distribution, punishing success and other hard left ideologies.
Of course in a country where American Idol and the Jersey Shore are better known than who currently runs the Federal Reserve it is hardly a wonder that cries for Socialism just sound appealing. To further exacerbate the overall ignorance of the populace our education system and emphasis on history and economics appear to be tilted in the direction that highlight correlation and anecdotal evidence rather that fundamentals. I understand it does not behoove me to openly ostracize a large segment of the population, but until we address core understanding of our economy and core principles of what makes our society tick then the partisan rifts will continue.
So let us tackle this "explanation" of inequality which is now being circulated on the internet and shared on Facebook with proud posters feeling rather enlightened about their "discovery". Unfortunately the explanations are nothing more than illusory and are further fueling the partisan divide and the protests against the "haves" of the society. The explanations either blame capitalism or Congressional policy favoring the rich.
Consider for example: Plutocracy Reborn by Business Insider which attempts to convince the readers that it is our policy that is causing another Great Depression in America. Without digging deeper than the surface they present for most people what appears to be a very convincing argument as to why the current Congressional taxation policy has created our wealth gap.
Another example: It's the inequality, stupid by Mother Jones showing a combination of pretty charts, graphs and bubbles that all attempt to convince the reader that the policies of America are entirely responsible for all the inequality in this country.
Too bad both sources are wrong. They are showing the effect, without any explanation.
It is easy to scratch the surface, notice a correlation and run with it. So stick with me for a little bit and I will show you the simple truth. Yes, we have inequality, but this inequality is neither driven by the free market nor by tax policy.
I have taken the plutocracy picture and placed two graphs under it:
What you are looking at:
Top - Average income and the uncanny relationships between inequality and economic calamity.
Bottom left - Monetary base from 1918 to 1930 (amount of money controlled by the Federal Reserve)
Bottom right - Interest rates from 1954 to 2010.
I have also added green and red lines that clearly demonstrate the relationship between the amount of money in the system and income inequality.
Unfortunately we only have interest rate data going back to 1954, so the monetary base will have to suffice for the earlier years and while this comparison is not exact - the idea is the same, price of money.
If you treat money as a commodity, which it should be, then like any commodity there is a price. We can measure the price of money by either looking at its value as it relates to other money (Euro vs Dollar) or its purchasing power or the rate of interest. Interest rates are always a measure of how valuable money is at any given time. If money is scarce then the interest rate is higher, if money is widely available then interest is lower. Right? Good.
As you can plainly see our centrally planned authorities dictate the price of the most vital and precious aspect of our economy, our money. When these authorities incorrectly price our money we develop massive distortions.
Why does this happen?
Because money is priced through the banking system. That is, the quantity of money increases (when rates are low) through the banking system first and then into the general economy later. Therefore banks benefit first and foremost as they are the recipients of newly created money, while the rest of us poor shmucks see this increase in money through price increases. If you think about it, provided production capacity remains the same then the price of all goods invariable increase *if* the supply of money goes up. Yes?
So what does that look like?
Observe the massive price increase that began to occur around the 1970s. There were two things that happened in the past 40 years that contributed to this jump.
1) 1971: End of Bretton Woods and the US Dollar disconnecting from any material store of value (gold).
2) 1982: A thirty year prolonged effort of systematically lower and lower rates, thus making money/credit cheaper and more plentiful. As you can see in the first chart, we have now reached the floor at 0% interest rates or in more simpler terms the price of money is the lowest it has been in history.
Are there other effects of cheap money other than price increases?
Yes, salaries tend to go up.
Unfortunately the rate of salary increases does not keep up with the rate of price increases. You can tell in fact that at the moment of the writing real income is now lower than it was before the recession of 2008, yet price increases are at their highest!
Why does that matter? Because of the following:
Rise in prices affect the lower income families the most. It is useful to look at the expenditure ratio of things like gas and food because these items are required for survival.
You need food and energy in order to produce and build capital. Without capital there is no wealth.
Visually the picture is starting to coalesce. The lower income families are having a harder and harder time building capital because they are spending at least half of their entire income on survival! The bad news does not stop there unfortunately because the price of money causes yet another distortion. It forces people to move potential capital into acquiring tangible goods instead of actually saving the money for more prudent purchases or investments.
This is the sad state of our society over the past 30 years:
As money becomes cheaper and more plentiful the rate of savings declined with it. This was happening DESPITE the fact that prices for all items were going up. Essentially this means that Americans were spending more and more, but getting less and less for it while diminishing their capital formation (wealth).
You could argue for instance that purchasing items can be translated into wealth, but that is only true to a limited extent. Most items that you buy depreciate and this is is precisely why gold was always used a store of value, it never depreciated. Housing was another popular item for storing wealth, but houses also depreciate and the past few years demonstrated just how sharply prices can decline in what appears to be a traditional "store of value".
So what is the conclusion here?
In order for more and more Americans to participate in the American dream, there needs to be an accumulation of wealth. Wealth is accumulated through capital formation or more simply put, saving money. Saving money is effective only when the savers are guaranteed that the money saved provides the same purchasing power before the saving, as it does after the saving. In a climate where the amount of money is constantly expanded the saver gets no such guarantee. Incidentally, people chasing stocks, houses and other risky mechanisms for capital formation are doing so precisely to mitigate the hardship of saving in the western world.
In order for money to be saved there must be excess income generated after the staples have been purchased. As we saw up above, due to massive price increases due to money expansion the amount of disposable income is constantly getting reduced. The days where a man could provide for his family and send kids through college are long gone, price increase cause this and nothing else.
The last consequence of cheap monetary policy, credit. Because money is cheap, debt is spurred. Therefore people can much more easily accumulate debt because the interest paid on this debt is "negligible". So not only are Americans not saving, but they are spending more and more on goods that they technically should be buying. Whether that is electronics, cars or houses matters not. As you can see, the appetite for consumption has steadily increased:
Credit expansion causing housing bubbles is nothing new, consider for example the Florida housing bubble of the 1920s.
Unfortunately when large portions of income are spent on survival items, savings are destroyed and debt obligations rise - you are left with nothing, hell, nothing would be preferable to the mountains of debt that people have accumulated.
This is the source of our income inequality, this is what happens when the free market and capitalism are replaced with central planners and cronyism. This is our America.
Now what will you do to change it?
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http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/22/health/homeless-veterans/
CNN has picked up on a nice homeless Vet story - 8k without homes, looking @ 400 acres of prime real estate intended for their needs, with the 'heiress' of the family who donated the land squarely blaming government. CNN is practically cying out for Vets + OWS = coverage, and even mentions it in the piece to attempt to prod them into action (what could go wrong when the police forcibly evict 8,000 vets, 45% with traumatic stress / mental issues, 70% with some kind of addiction? Nothing like crazed trained killers meeting helpless homeless people to get the front page).
Lines are being drawn, indeed. (I'm sitting on another 7 interesting links, but not going to splurge).
Hint to all the detractors: OWS is an open movement - if you go down there & convince them that big government is so in bed with big money that its part of the problem, well... they might listen. Signal to noise ratio in here desperately trying to smear the OWS so that doesn't happen is huge. Just, please... leave Rand out of this, unless you're about to write Greenspan's obituary.
"Lines are being drawn"
Correct. The clueless do not see popular discontent mounting before their very eyes. and why should they? Life is good, stocks are up, and the disenfranchised should just be good little sheep and suck it up.
Won't happen. Like a spark in dry tinder this will be.
Correct but insufficient. To say that tax policy has no effect on wealth distribution is absurd on the face of it. What if the top tax rate were 99%? Due you think that would have any effect on our gini coefficient? It is tax policy, it is deregulation, it is Feg low-interest strategy, it is all of these things and more. None the less, a good article and valid points.
One needn't look too hard to find the cause of America's financial problems. It all boils down to greed and corruption. Millions of jobs (and the attendant manufacturing technologies) were shipped overseas so a few wealthy individuals could embellish their bottom lines, leaving the creators of America's wealth holding an empty bag. I side strongly with the disenfranchised bagholders of OWS.
It all boils down to greed and corruption.
Let me offer what I know will be an unpopular angle on your thought. What if the "successfully greedy" are the very wealthy, and the "unsuccessfully greedy" are those who aspire to be wealthy but overextended/indebted themselves in the effort to do so?
Fraud is an evil accelerant in this, but the inception is in greed, which is common to all. Just look at all the rage - it is not divorced from envy, is it?
is it envy to demand some justice? maybe it is?
.
it is not enough to know that it is greed and
corruption until you have identified the mechanism
of the use and accomplishment to the techniques.
as abstract principle it is useful but the manner
needs to be identified. where exactly is
the greed manifest. what is being unjustly
distributed? and how? is it systemic and fundamental?
is greed really corrupt? or is it the actual law
that applies to the process of money creation in
the legal system? can it be changed? should it be
changed? i have my own conclusions.
Fraud is an evil accelerant in this, but the inception is in greed, which is common to all.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
No. Greed is common to all US citizens because greed is a trait of the eternal US citizen nature.
But greed is not common to all.
He's got a good story. But if you fail to address the mechanisms of a system you won't be able to analyze it.
The housing bubble is a mechanism of the system. It's there because the system relies on attempting to legally countefeit money. It does this through housing commercial real estate and black ops units who just take notes to banks and walk out with cash.
Since principle never equals principle plus interest the system does not counterfeit enough to sustain itself and relies on house flipping to recreate the countefeit money at ever higher amounts. The government helps out with this countefeiting operating by countefeiting money to pay soldiers and postmen and the like. The second problem is valuation. Since the primary countefeiting happens along real estate then you have a nasty problem of making housing and commercial real estate more and more valuable as they corrode and wash through their life cycle. Life cycle of a house in the 1800's was about a 100 years and moves onto 70 years and then 50 years and with the junk they build now it would be shocking if it lasted 30 years. Trailer homes and caravans and that kind of thing have life cycles approaching 15 years.
Property taxing and taxing are simply ways to landlord over people under an illusion of freedom. ANY amount of property tax is too much and as the system detoriates property taxes become nearly as significant as rent. The amount of money spent on this is OUTRAGEOUS. With state governements flying fleets of small airplanes and helicopters guzzling massive amounts of oil simply to photograph any improvements you've made to a house or structure to charge higher taxes. You are in a sense paying half to the people who fly around and document and half to the people who contracted them to fly around and document. But when the inevitable real estate bust occurs there's never any tax reductions.
Taxes are a wealth distribution and claw back of the rich. The rich give you lots of money to perform a job and then claw it back. It's to make you think you are being given to generously but they take it back with the other hand.
Listen to me very carefully here. Social security is simply a tax. It's a long timeline ponzi but it's a FREAKING TAX. Obama when he hit office wanted to change the healthcare system. The healthcare system didn't need changing very much other than doctors who pass you around like a fucking whore with a handshake and wuts your name who then go and bill medicare for a consulting fee. Or a doctor who helps a person out for not much money becaue they know the person doesn't have it will also "refer" you to a buddy who will charge you way too much fucking money. That way they get to be the good guy and let someone else shark for them which they pass the favors back. Healthcare has simply become a billing network between all hospital participants with medicare as the cookie jar so hell ya it's going broke.
But the healthcare reform and the mandatory nature of it is simply setting up the exact same social security ponzi only with a system that will enevitably fail on it's promises much much more rapidly. This is the level of desperation. Attempts to set up a system knowing it will fail horribly in just 4 or 5 years is how far down the morality ladder they have sunk. The entire system is fraudulant from the start and they don't educate you on the fraud. They make every attempt to make you follow rules without explaining them, vote without enough information, give up rights without telling you have those rights. It's a simple system. A system of sorta half ass willingness of the participants based on lying deceipt and treachory. Ruling through false pretenses. It's the exact same thing as ruling through force and cruelty it's just combining cruelty into a physical function cops and soldiers and a mental function lawyers and polticitians. Knee breakers and head fuckers.
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2011/10/money-as-debt-full-leng...
Money As Debt-Full Length Documentary
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http://maxkeiser.com/2011/10/22/occupy-sydney-day-8-steve-keen/
Occupy Sydney Day 8 – Steve Keen
Posted on October 22, 2011 by maxkeiser
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I spent here whole day, i read almost every comment. I m overwhelmed ;) thank you
You know, when you're unemployed, or employed with a sub-living wage, debt ceases to be a problem. It's not a moral decision as to whether to pay back what you owe, it simply becomes impossible to do so. Either the uber-rich start paying their employees a living wage or the whole house of cards comes down under its own weight. When prices rise and wages do not, as has been the case for 30 some years now, it leads directly to the mess this country is currently in.
Awsome. The pyramid complete, dum da da! Great now neee to move on to 4d without killing each other in ignorance.
Some folks should keep in mind that the truly "ignorant" are in vast numbers. Many of them have been taking the red pill for ages. They will keep on doing it until...they lose hope...when that occurs - God help us all.
Try reasoning with an ignorant maddened crowd...
The folks on top should take some time to read about the initial stages of the French Revolution - then they should go on and read about the Terror that followed. There were lots and lots of very reasonable and less powerful members of the aristocracy...it didn't matter to the crowds - or to the truly ignorant who set themselves up as judge/jury/executioner.
Not to mention the political radicals that are always lurking in the woodwork - just waiting to channel a movement into mayhem.
I will bet almost anything that the majority of Iranians that revolted against the Shah never thought that they were going to be living in a hardcore theocracy for the rest of their lives.
You're still fooled.
There is no logic to OWS. It's primarily left wing. But it has all kinds of nuts chillin, drinkin and smokin with the protesters.
It's a bullshit movement. In fact, it's not a movement, unless you consider it a bowel movement.
Do they have a point? No.
Do they have a solution? No.
They are just looking for a party.
A typical clueless remark on this phenomenon. Funny. But OWS is a symptom of a far greater discontent. Ignore it at your peril.
He's missing the big picture. The big picture is loss of power. Every government is facing it all at once. Does it matter if OWS which has nearly turned into occupy world has a point or a list of demands. No It's important that they are being forcibly listened to. Because none of them are ever going to be a lying anchor man or woman.
The video clip of the "maverik" threatening russia and china for being dictatorial is funny as hell. Cause he's just not fucking looking out the window.
Does it matter if OWS which has nearly turned into occupy world has a point or a list of demands. No It's important that they are being forcibly listened to.
Are you listening to yourself? You are saying, paraphrasing, that "we're successful in that we're being listened to even though we have nothing to say." I can go to a nursery and forcibly listen to a squadron of newborns cry randomly and get the same effect.
GET A MESSAGE. It works better that way. :D
Yes that's perfect. Let's replace the existing force ordering system that keeps talking about worker paradise and productive citizen and all that nonsense with another one.
I think it's time for a ceo hell and government worker hell and I think it's time for all the shitty customer service to get thrown back in their faces. I think it's time to just be demaning and unreasonable and probably hypocritical and even deceiptful.
OWS is just bitching about what they want to bitch about when they want to bitch about it. It'll eventually umbrella the whole shit ball.
But let's get real. It'll fail and there will be a mass exodus a mass population reduction because this place will understood as a pimp my mansion fuck fest. Entire continents will fall into the ocean because there's not sense in people providing the energy that provides the material that supports the illusion of gaia if they are going to come here and be treated like fucking renters.
Everybody will just tell the ignorant fucks who run this place to go home and stop inviting me over to clean your fucking house and provide for your solid gold toilet.
That'll turn this place into a landlord delusion crazy house with no renters and no way to make a vaction hotspot
If you're trying to fix this place then you're investing in this place and getting yourself glued here. It's probably time to just flush the place and let the fuckers fix themselves. CEO's and politicians without servants. They'll start to get eaten by wolves in 2 generations.Territorial predators across the board in every animal species.
This is going to end up like every relationship that falls apart. Long involved bitching about what is wrong and then leaving. There's no cohesive message about that. Everybody hates this fucking place differently. But if you haven't learned in a 5000 year epoch that the people who run this place are unreasonable fucks then you are likely never going to learn. It doesn't teach any valuable lessons. It's just gang banger training camp.
Turn off Fox News and/or right-wing radio. it's rotting your brain
American Express just had great numbers........somebody out there's spending fer sure.
I see the Anti - Occupy Wall Street trolls are in full force tonight.
Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin.
Josiah Stamp
But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.
Josiah Stamp
It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.
Josiah Stamp
The Government are very keen on amassing statistics - they collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams.
Josiah Stamp
The individual source of the statistics may easily be the weakest link.
Josiah Stamp
The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing.
Josiah Stamp
Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.
William Lyon Mackenzie King
Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_lyon_mackenzie_ki_2....
remember? especially min. 3:35
Quantitative Easing Explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k
.
ji,
the structure of this debt money and the mechanisms for its creation require a collective adherence to an unrealistic and unsustainable growth speculation. the intoxication of expansions is always followed by the degradation of contraction. one group alone is targeted to to experience the degradation phase,
the many who suffer the bubblenomics of the central bankers and there system of fiat money lent at interest.
remember this one?
La Ricotta - Orson Welles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_od3BxJ2W0&feature=related
.
"it's a big club and you ain't in it." g.c.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0
"the structure of this debt money and the mechanisms for its creation require a collective adherence to an unrealistic and unsustainable growth speculation."
Economic systems are about the distribution of goods and services. Goods and services ALL rely physical resources. The ROOT, then, is that economic systems ARE about the extraction and distribution of physical resources. Debt is an obligation to extract and distribute physical resources. The expansion of debt, therefore, is an expansion of the extraction and distribution of physical resources.
Debt, the "economic system," it's ALL ABOUT GROWTH, growth that directly equates to growth in the consumption of physical resources.
Nearly everyone misses this elephant, and instead only sees the elephant turds. We run around blaming everyone for the turds, claiming that there's TOO much, that it stinks, and that, perhaps, we should get someone else to clean it all up, OR, we need to get BETTER turds (perhaps nice smelling turds [technology]).
It's ALL based on GROWTH. Pretending that we can have infinite growth on a finite planet is madness.
m,
you have the broadband? can do video? if so,
here some links.
Toroidal Vortices and the magic of stillness…
October 23, 2011
by anadianant
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/toroidal-vortices-and-the-mag...
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Extraordinary Toroidal Vortices
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHyTOcfF99o
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we are fast approaching the "let it be" moment.
no? the moment where the momentum is exhausted
and inertia takes over and people collectively
look around and change direction, or am i dreaming?
.
Pepe Escobar - NATO in Libya forever Syria next
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2011_10_23_archive.html
Decent article, but still stuck at the "symptoms" level. No definitive cause-effect relationship. No doubt Y moves with X, but it's unclear which is Y and which is X, as is usually the case in hindsight views. That is, are the effects of negative real interest rates and the resultant explosion of the monetary base the cause of the squeeze on disposable income...OR...has indiscretion and overborrowing forced the hand of monetary policy to a position of fabricating negative real interest rates in order to try to keep the system afloat?
It is incredibly easy to blame the elites for profiting from manipulated monetary policy, but it's not so easy to make a definitive case that the profiteers fully engineered the inception. There is a big crowd at ZH that refuses to consider that possibility...that the masses are large contributors to their own plight.
As I've posted before, I've been at the polar ends of the spectrum (not at the demonic .01%, but much further on the high side than most here I suspect), and never carry the victim or the victor flag.
My two cents.
Hm... which CLASS do you think is most likely able to understand the concept of exponential function? Which CLASS created the debt system? Which CLASS created the Federal Reserve? (Which CLASS created the govt?)
Sorry, but it appears that you're firmly planted in ignorance or denial.
There are NO CLASSES. The notion that there are is a myth you've bought into.
the source of wealth inequality is
the distribution dynamics associated
with the structure of the money system
and its functioning, in time, in this
country. that is, wealth is next to
central banking, everything else is
subject to rape and pillage. regardless
that central bankers and central banking
caused the misallocation and inflated
the value of the currency away, enabling
the financial sector of the economy to become
from 15% to 40+% of the economy, creating
fraudulent securities for export and local
pension destruction, contributing to
production and manufacturing loss and unaffordable
living conditions, unaffordable education, etc..
deflation means debt destruction in an asset
inflated, bought on "time", environment. the
liquidity is now limited to the bankers. there.
the basis of their system is a confidence game,
a con, and it makes itself known in every aspect
of the culture that adheres to it. that is why
there is no wealth, only debt, in the system.
the response of the central bank? it is stealing
by ideology in total denial of the conditions
on the ground on main street. the source of the
problem is usury at the root of the speculative money
system. and the usury doesn't even go to accomplish
anything for the taxpayer other than to allow the
few to speculate with free taxpayer money in emerging markets.
the train is off the tracks here.
people are dying in the dark but a few are shining
light on topics of immediate importance. we are
so easily distracted by the experts. are they paid
to make people stupid?
It like everyone is coping my blog. I wrote about this months ago.
http://usa-wethepeople.com/2011/09/income-inequality-explained-for-robert-reich/
WTF take another one.
Not everyone's copying it. Thank goodness. It's a weak rant mixed with some analysis.
the mis education in america is evident
when the schools refuse to teach the children
at a young age that "money", fiat currency,
legal tender, dollars are all really different
things but they have one thing in common.
the terms and the items themselves will be
misused and used to turn
the student into a slave of the ignorance of
the worst elements of their society. children
should know that about their parents and their
peers, about their teachers. somehow they learn
it anyway but the price they pay to learn it
is dear. it could be so much cheaper.
debt destruction and the psychological effects,
very interesting and horrible. anyway..
.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/coming-derivatives-crisis-could-des...
The Coming Derivatives Crisis That Could Destroy The Entire Global Financial System
Submitted by ilene on 10/21/2011
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Tying It All Together (For Tom And Others On The Right)
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=196348
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=196363
In Explanation Of The Last Paragraph
It seems there's some confusion over the last paragraph of this ticker:
..
"..This is what the media means when they say "the private economy is de-leveraging" -- they're only really speaking about the "1%", in this case the TBTF institutions.
The statement on balance is false when applied to the entire economy: You may think you're de-leveraging but the economy as a whole is not; instead you're having the private obligations of a small number of people, in this case the TBTF banks, forced upon you as taxpayers as the government levers up to counteract private credit contraction among the big multi-national and national banks!
In short every citizen of this nation -- man, woman and child -- has been robbed of $10,000 which was taken from you and given to the TBTF banks to prevent them from blowing up, with the obligation to pay in the future shoved in your face at literal gunpoint by the government.
So much for "de-leveraging" of the private economy, at least as it applies to the 99% of the nation!
The government didn't "expropriate" or "extort" anything from the TBTF banks as is commonly said by the right-wing side of the aisle -- in fact government actively conspired with the TBTF to steal your money and give it to those very-same institutions while it was lying about helping you.
The Fed Z1 - a simple compendium of mathematical facts - does not lie."
Infinite growth on a finite planet and people think that we need MORE growth? Do you all see how STUPID this is? I mean, most seem to agree on how stupid the notion of resolving debt problems by creating MORE debt is. You see, the common word is MORE, as in GROWTH.
Sigh, I had hoped that folks here would be smart enough to figure this out. Instead, we get pious rants against others for not "getting it," when the "it" that is preached is, itself, FUCKING WRONG!
No, it's NOT inequality, it's a lack of intelligence, insistence on systems that are modeled on an infinite world.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...
"To make matters worse the ruling elite of this country and the very wealthy are continuing to benefit while the remainder of the population struggles. This is the appeal of the OWS movementdespite the fact that the members making up the movement are advocating entirely unappealing solutions in the form of wealth distribution, punishing success and other hard left ideologies."
Whoever wrote this piece is, indeed, a partisan hack.
What Operation Wall Street wants is an end to Corporate Socialism/Crony-Capitalism/The Merger between Big Business Elites and their Washinton, DC Toadies.
Guess, what? Income distrubution rates of 275 to 1 - from highest paid employees to lowest - was unsustainable. 75% of Corporate Profits going to Corporate Officers - NOT R&D; pensions; health care; capital reinvestment - was not sustainable. The predatory/self serving policy of "out-sourcing" jobs - resulting in the elimination of the working/middle class in the U.S. - was not sustainable.
No, the Plutocratic Dip-Shits had really good for way to long. What the writer of this piece doesn't mention is that THE U.S. ECONOMY IS THE LARGEST SOCIALIZED ECONOMY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. And, Capitalism and Socialism are COMPLETELY CO-DEPENDENT. The question stands, who will benefit? And, to what degree?
the left right paradigm is strong.
watch this clip that was made in the seventies- there is no right, there is no left.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukpsdzjl9jc&feature=related
another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ELleCQvew&feature=related
last one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu-7SPM835E&feature=related
It still amazes me that public employees make twice what a private employee makes...approx $122,000 for government workers as opposed to $54,000 for those working in the private sector.
I wonder.....
this has been proven false.
were they comparing salaries for government lawyers vs private sector service jobs? no one knows. the hell knows, because they didn't go in for direct comparisions.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/feb/03/scott-brown/politifact-debut-brown-says-federal-jobs-pay-twice/
btw: the cato institute is Koch funded.
either way, private sector american wages have been fucked, a part of that is do to deunionization. goverment workers are still represented.
What’s left after you pay for food and fuel?
after you pay the rent, and the hospital bill, NOTHING.
how is it that half of all working Americans make less than 27k a year?
Over the last 30 years, the median wage has doubled- CEO pay has gone up 300x.
While GDP, management, and executive pay have exploded, more than half of the country made NOTHING!
Aside from the median wage, what else is only worth double what it was 30 years ago?
Food, housing, medical care?
Sadly, I think that "left over" is really about excess, that it's like "interest," something that really doesn't exist anyway. Having ENOUGH is good enough. 2/3 of the world's population lives on $3/day or less! Think about that for a moment! Clearly no one in the US could really live at that kind of level- ask yourself why. Keep asking questions. Ultimately it WILL come down to the realization that our entire paradigm is unsustainable, and that trying to equally distribute unsustainability is pure madness.
The elites are working WAY outside the realm of sustainability. I'd say the best approach is to let them continue and for the rest to walk away from the system that subsidizes their behavior. You see, our views are completely upside down. The BIG TRICK has been to lure everyone into thinking that we desire to have THEIR life, but our struggles to do this only holds THEM "up" and keeps us "down." I put "up" and "down" in quotes because, well, everything is upside down! If you want to be "up" then, based on it being further removed from sustainability, means that you're looking to head "down" (crash).
Attacking the elites because we want what they have, when what they have chains them to the unsustainable, well... THEY represent the status quo. The status quo is dying. Why attempt to cling on to the status quo when that will only take you down?
NY police need to learn from their Australian counterparts how to clear these Occupy scum off the street. No pussyfooting down there. Check out these clips of the dirty filthy hippy slackers being cleaned off the streets of Sydney and Melbourne by local cops - including macing some libtard bitch right in the face!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBvCWJc1iD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrRZBVqioeU&NR=1
When the hell are US police going to start clamping down in the same way on the pinko/punko socialist rabble who think they can camp out in our public places and challenge our way of life?
SP500 weekly chart shows megaphone wedge and looks bullish.
Market consensus became clearer on Friday so back to the original bullish analysis and SP500 weekly chart reverts to bullish/neutral.
More info:
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
Propagandists enabling other propagandists. US trick.
This guy is simply trying to pull the covers over to himself. He is right, the others are wrong and he'll show why, cherrypicking data to support his propaganda.
As usual, the usual canards like the gold standard in the 1970s story.
The US move was successful. It allowed US citizens to consume much more they should have.
Djadjajdaj etc Same trick. US citizens do not want to admit they are not the solution but they are the problem so kind of drivel to be expected until the end.
It's alot simpler then that. You need $ to make $. When mkts go up, people with capital gain income/wealth at a rate 5x those without capital. When mkts go down they loose it about 2x faster.
With economic miracles in 80s and 90s (just look at US GDP) and falling interest rates (higher multiples due to lower rusk free rate) and inflation. Mkts have gone up more then down. Tax cuts helped too.
If you want economic equality the only choice is to collapse everything so we are at the same shitty level. Can't get there with taxes because my tax lawyer is smarter then your IRS agent and I can always move. Etrade works in the Caymans, Jeresy, Mantua, Cyprus, Singapore, HK and Monaco.
Can't get there with taxes because my tax lawyer is smarter then your IRS agent and I can always move. Etrade works in the Caymans, Jeresy, Mantua, Cyprus, Singapore, HK and Monaco.
Hiding in another jurisdiction is a 20th century thing. Wherever you can go, the US Government can go even faster. If anything, you just made yourself that much closer to whatever black hole the US has in the region.
You can run, but you cannot hide from the United States of America's government - for they have effectively infinite jurisdiction.
A vehicle that's been lengthened.
If you're tired of hearing all the lefty OWSers prescribe more government as the cure for too much government then perhaps you'd enjoy a more libertarian set of demands. Enjoy! http://67.208.112.48/brotherhood/index.php?topic=3.0
I just ran throgh it quickly, but at a first glance this seems to be one of the best posts on the subject. I will be sending it out. I got something from Huff post, which I think should add 5to this and give additional insight
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ismael-hosseinzadeh/quantitative-easing-wall-street_b_1022600.html
the article is called what QE really means!!
@ link above
"..The answer is that while from the viewpoint of national or public interests the two policies contradict each other, they are quite consistent from the viewpoint of Wall Street gamblers; both the supposedly expansionary monetary policy and the brutally austere contra-actionary fiscal policy serve the nefarious interests of the financial aristocracy. It is hard to believe that economic policy makers do not see the obvious: that their monetary and fiscal policies contradict each other. But, then, it is perhaps not so much a matter of economic know-how or policy expertise as it is of wicked preferences and warped loyalties to the powerful special interests to be served."
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comment: that is it.
Here is a group that are taking the OWS to Wall Street at the other end of the Business model
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBp5Tb0M7X0
Occupy Wall Street becomes Occupy Everywhere
Excellent observation and commentary. As if earning and saving money isn’t difficult enough, protecting what you have saved from the wolves, sharks, and pirates on Wall Street is even harder. The big lie of the financial industry over the last 30 years was that investing in the stock and bond markets was a safe way for individuals to save for retirement. And, they’re still trying to sell the lie, because, they have no idea what else to say.
Growth in the money supply is only a partial explaination for wealth inequality and as such should be viewed skeptically. The money supply isn't the only thing that is growing. Population growth for just the past 50 years nearly eclipses the number of lives that have ever lived in the rest of human history combined. Thats alot of downward pressure on wages.
We have fiat currency systems and giant central governments worldwide that need to create inflation like a blind man needs a dog. The problem is, if they let much of all that money they need to print get into the hands of the masses it would instantly result in hyperinflation. Only letting most of that debt creation go to 1% does not cause hyperinflation because that 1% is only able to consume a small amount of the daily sustainable production of goods and services(energy).
BTW, a gold standard has never stopped bankers from lending out more paper than gold in reserve, why do you think it would be different this time?