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There Is Class War, and Rich Are Winning
A University of Chicago law professor created a firestorm of controversy last month when he blogged that he and his wife are barely making ends meet with their $250,000-plus combined salaries.
The 80-year old billionaire said: “There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Professor Todd Henderson was protesting President Obama’s plan
to let the George W. Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 per
couple expire at the end of the year while extending the cuts for
everyone below that threshold.
Needless to say, the good professor didn’t get much sympathy. As well he shouldn’t.
The couple live in a nice house, send their kids to private schools, employ a nanny and a lawn caretaker plus have compiled a sizable retirement account. Lots of folks -- 97 percent of American taxpayers, in fact -- would love to be in that position and most probably wouldn’t mind paying the tax rate they were paying back in 2000 before the Supreme Court made George W. Bush the president.
Yet, thanks mainly to a united Republican minority in the U.S. Senate and a handful of nervous Democrats, Congress cannot bring itself to vote on Obama’s plan that would lock in the tax cuts for a huge percentage of the people and begin tackling the budget deficit by raising taxes on the rich. Republicans claim it is important to reduce the deficit yet hypocritically oppose the Democrats’ effort to do so by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for individual incomes above $200,000 a year and couples’ earnings over $250,000.
Everyone should get their tax cuts extended, insist Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, yet they offer no plan for how they would make up the $700 billion the treasury would lose over the next 10 years if the cuts for the upper echelon are allowed to continue.
Some insist that increasing taxes on the wealthy would hurt job creation in this economy, but that ignores the simple reality that the Bush cuts didn’t do a thing to help the economy the past several years. George Bush left office in 2009 with the number of working Americans essentially the same as it was when he took over in 2001 -- roughly 137 million -- and the economy in a shambles. During Bill Clinton’s eight years the tax rate on the top income bracket was increased, but millions more people went to work. By the end of his second term, the budget deficit had been essentially eliminated.
Perhaps it’s all coincidental, as many Republicans argue, but there is not any more proof that the GOP’s formula of lower taxes on the wealthy creates more jobs and spurs the economy than there is for the Democratic formula seeking to have the wealthy pay progressively more.
Besides, the rich should pay more because they get more from the government. All those Wall Street and S&L bailouts, the funding of regulatory agencies, and the public school training of workers aren’t services used by the middle and lower classes. There are some studies that have estimated that the tax breaks and services that benefit the wealthy add up to $400 billion a year, compared to the $116 billion spent on programs for the poor.
Class warfare?
One of the richest Americans, Warren Buffett, replies to that notion:
“There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
As Richard Thaler, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed: “The question comes down to whether we want a society in which the rich take an ever-increasing share of the pie, or prefer to return to conditions that allow all classes to anticipate an increasing standard of living.
“Demanding that the rich get a tax cut as a condition for tax relief to others is simply elitist.”
But, hey, as his colleague professor Henderson pointed out, it’s tough getting by on $250,000 a year.
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121 Comments so far
Show AllIt is probably not too much of a stretch to imagine the Koch brothers and other rapacious ultra-wealthy types hissing "Class traitor" in reaction to Warren Buffet's honesty in the splendor of their mansions and penthouses.
Revising the "are winning" to "have won" will make Buffet's statement more accurate.
Buffet made the "we are winning" remarks quoted in this article about 10 years ago. So it is in need of an update.
To say "have won" implies that Americans have reached the level of exploitation that the upper class wants. Unfortunately, that's not true. The level they want is for people to keep working at a level just sufficient for work and survival -- and that's yet to come if the people don't revolt. The unbridled capitalist system is worse than it was under slavery -- at least under slavery the workers were fed and housed. Under unbridled capitalism the upper class don't care if workers have shelter or not "that's their concern." One just has to remember Victorian England, or today in the "banana republics" where people make just enough to survive -- $2 per day without any shelter or social protection (but who are at least rebelling while those in the US are still blinded by the system).
JJR
Ya, they probably give him the cold shoulder at their country club!
Just because the professor made $250,000 a year does not make him one of the rich.
He does not own anything, he has no capital, he doesn't make any policy decisions, he has no power, he is not an oligarch.
Ultimately he is one of the proletariate just like the rest of us and to include him in the same class as the likes of Buffett is laughable.
So yes, this is just another article written to divide the masses.
and here's a thought
If the average wage had kept up with inflation and increase in productivity over the past 40 years the average wage would be close to $100,000 per year.
I always have respected Warren Buffet, he is an example to all americans, both rich and those wishing to be.
That UC prof should try it on $20,000 a year. A likely reason for their retirement account(s)is the fact their taxes are lower. As so many have tried to make clear, the rich don't put tax savings into their businesses. They keep the money. Stock options as legal tender for executive compensation have skewed corporate management to beating the last quarters' results - not making long-term decisions for sustainable growth. It was revealed recently that although corporate profits are up significantly, no one is hiring. Big biz is sitting on piles and piles of cash. More piles than a proctologist's waiting room. What really makes me laugh is the second UC prof remarking about economic elitism. Their economics department made elitist economic policy a science.
smipypr, great comment, all.
Per your last truth on how the economics departments and 'science' (sic) made fools of us all with their elitist preference/bias, you will be very interested in Yves Smith's fantastic new book, "ECONned".
Best,
Alan
Oh I know I'm probably stating the obvious but having some familiarity with university benefit packages I would hazard a guess the good Prof doesn't have to worry about health insurance his premiums are no doubt minimal, deductables small and limited co pays.....all money in his pocket. Money FROM the pcokets of some hard working poor.
Big biz is holding on to its piles of cash: so much for the Repugnants' claim that Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy should be maintained, as this will promote job creation.
One problem with the ever widening gap in wealth in this country is: The wealthier they get, the more "entitled" the rich seem to feel. They seem to think wealth equals worth.
Robert Reich has a new book out After SHock. He says the problem leading to the collapse of our economy is the same now as it was in 1929---the rich have all the money. The top 1% had 24% of the income of the nation in 1929 and the ecomomy collaped. The same thing is happening now. THe top 1% have 24% of all the income in the nation by statistics from Internal Revenue on our tax forms.
He also says that our system of enriching the very rich has been made to include people like the good professor and doctors and lawyer is to get these people to be on the side of the very rich on matters of taxing. The professors and other highly paid professional people are the people giving advice on how our nation should be run---and with them doing well, they say everything is just fine.
Well, it ain't. In my immediate family I have two sons and one grandson out of work and two neices who have been forclosed out of their homes. I am barely making it on my teacher's pension.
We need to tax the rich to give our government the funds to maintain our domestic programs. Of course we also need to cut the military budget and end the endless wars.
So many people out of work!
I suspect Americans across the board would support measures to keep manufacturing jobs in the US.
Many would support higher wages for the few remaining domestic jobs.
Predictably, politicians go for the divisive solution instead--Higher taxes.
Only the corporations win.
The public is duped into thinking one political party represents them better than the other.
In reality, with reasonable solutions, everyone would win except a handful of CEO's.
We have had a real economic/employment crisis for several years now--
I have yet to hear a politician suggest we stop sending jobs overseas.
I have only heard a few suggest the wars are crippling our economy.
The right suggests that lower taxes is the solution.
The left suggests that doctors and lawyers are making more than $250,000, therefore they are stealing from the ever increasing poor.
Just a game to keep us from recognizing the real culprit.
Class warfare? Of course, the nature of capitalism is class warfare and war against nature: exploiting labor and natural resources. Debt-peonage and destruction of the earth is the result.
Class warfare is not a recent event. We don't need the richest asshole in the world to tell us that. If Buffy were a good man, he would donate 90% of his hoard of money to worthy causes.
Ingvar Kamprad (few even know who he is) has given away more money than Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffet and many others combined. At least ol Ingvar, capitalist as he is, has somewhat of a social conscience.
Bill Gates and Buffet (and many others), while trying to sound like they have a conscience, ought to be stripped of their assets, or worse.
You want class warfare? Get out the shotguns and torches, a big vat of tar and a truckload of feathers and let's get to it. The elite whould mess themselves with fear, the f-in cowardly hypocrites! Or....roll out the guillotines.
They are ready for your "shotgun" rebellion.
Yes of course, the coercive power of the state will always violently protect the interests of the economic elite. However, if enough people participated (like in Spain recently where MILLIONS of people went on strike and protested). Even the govt. does not have the resources or ability to stop it. Howard Zinn and many others have written about this. Guillotines and shotguns are symbolic, all we need do is shut down the country for a few days and damage profits thereby striking fear into the Corporate Mafia and their political puppets.
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/9823/16-06-2010/spain-millions-of-public-sector-workers-strike-over-brutal-cuts
Any alternative suggestions?
Yes, maybe just leave out the violent "symbolism" if you want millions to join you.
Of course we wouldn't want to rile folks up or offend their complacent bourgeois liberal sensibilities. Don't worry though, for many reasons, we aint gonna see any massive strikes or protests round here any time soon.
There does not exist in America any viable counter force to the plutocracy. There is no significant or even symbolic protest against even the most draconian discipline that the ruling class is imposing on the powerless. The rich are fierce and the poor are meek and compliant and gullible. The land of the free and the home of the brave. What a laugh.
THE government (it's not mine or ours) is armed and dangerous. Force is their game. As long as capitalism stands, the rich will be winning, it's part of the game. Without massive numbers an armed revolt will lead to a glorious defeat for the bottom dwellers.
What to do?
Stop playing their game.
Buy nothing but absolute necessities.
Take your television and smash it in the busiest intersection in town or in d.c.
Nonsense. This is nothing so trivial as marketing some product to consumers, and so using the best sales techniques.
There is a very small segment of the population that harps on the need for being polite, being civilized, and not advocating scary things. They claim that this is a tactical concern, but that is not true. They are looking for any possible pretext for standing with the rulers and dismissing and attacking the working class, the critics and dissidents. Demanding that people adhere to bourgeoisie manners is not politically neutral. It is a clever and deceptive defense of the ruling class.
We are not talking about "millions joining" us - that, too, is a bourgeoisie conceit. We are talking about joining and fighting for millions - in their service (actually all of our service), not "selling" them nor recruiting them to follow us in our crusade. Projecting that agenda and motivations onto those you disagree with betrays and aristocratic and authoritarian mindset on your part.
The blandishments of Dale Carnegie are entirely inappropriate in this context.
The Class War may become a shooting war in the USA with all the power and modern weapons the government has ready to counter with in a real war and it will be a slaughter.
If you are not interested in millions following you I understand. We have "War" on everything these days, so if the violent symbolism helps you cope, it is the American way, so far.
But you won't win war anymore than the military is winning war, and if this is being too nice, go do your thing.
Symbols are very important, like images of people displaced from their jobs, and homes, Living in the street. These are quite violent as far as I'm concerned. Repaying the favor with lead I can't see as being an extreame view. As the song goes.
My last dreams have been taken.
Along with my wife, kids and home.
Somedays I wish the sun would just expolde.
And when jebus comes to to take me, I'm gonna bring all you son's a bitches with me.
Couldn't have better captured the feelings of so many, who'll wake up in their cars in the back of Wal-Mart tomorrow morning.
>^^<
The coercive power of the state protects the person making $150,000 a year from the person making $20,000 a year just as much as it protects the "economic elite."
The purpose of the state is to protect property and keep people subservient to property, less valuable than things, and the purpose of that is to protect the people with the most property. That is the only purpose of the state, the only reason modern states exist. Property is valued over people, but what that really means is that people with more property are valued over people with less property.
If people are not willing to see and to work to overthrow the rule of property over human beings, any and all opposition to the rulers is meaningless.
No they aren't. They never are. They are already teetering, losing control, and struggling to keep a lid on things and we have not yet even begun to resist. We are not even talking about it much yet.
History is replete with examples that refute your cynical contention here. Creative and desperate resistance against overwhelming odds very often wins the day, and ultimately always wins. Were that not true, the human race would have long since gone extinct. The militant and successful defense of cooperative society from tyrants who seek to beat that cooperative nature out of us and destroy community is the very essence of what it means to be human. I am on our side on this one. You may take another position.
socialist: "Bill Gates and Buffet (and many others), while trying to sound like they have a conscience..."
That puzzles me, too. Buffet and Gates keep collecting brownie points for the clever observations, but they continue their hegemonic behaviours. When buffet says hisclass is winning - is he proud? embarrassed? regretful? Or just distant, as though he had no role in or guilt in this class war. The ultimate hypocrite.
The term, "elite" suggests those folks are better than the remaining 95% of teh population. Clearly people with such an underdeveloped social conscience are anything but elite. What they are more than anything isself-interested, solipsistic to a criminal degree.
I like the idea of a vat of tar and a truckload of feathers very much. Worse probably would be a year or two in a Vietnamese shoe factory for them and their kids.
The entire culture is based on dominate or be dominated, control others or be controlled. It is not merely Gates and Buffet who are trapped in that system. Money is the tool for controlling and dominating others. At every level of society those with more property are dominating and controlling those with less property. For example, the same hierarchy exists in local party offices as exists in the national party.
Why is the same behavior when used to generate $150,000 a year, and to dominate and control those around you OK, but in the case of the super wealthy it is "to a criminal degree?" The right wingers say "why should it be a crime to succeed, as liberals want to claim?" and they are right.
The "hegemonic behaviors" are the basis for all social interactions and arrangements at all levels of society. The "elite" are merely those who have clawed their way to the top (or were born there.)
People are more than willing to throw marshmallows at Gates or Buffet, taking no risk in doing so and having no effect, but not so willing to challenge the "rights" of the bosses, the landlords, the owners and managers that control every aspect of out lives every day. One reason for that is that liberal and progressive circles are dominated by people who are bosses, landlords, owners and managers, or who strongly identify with them and with the social arrangements and conventions that create that hierarchy of control and domination.
Agreed. People who throw marshmallows are being duped.
It's a kiss-up, kick-down world. But it's really much worse than mere managerial power games; it's a profound, fatal moral failing. What you describe is merely a symptom.
I'd throw shoes if I could get close enough.
>^^<
I see it the other way around. The "moral failing" is a symptom of the conditions. In religion people are concerned with improving the moral tenor of people and thereby hopefully improving society, and blame "sin" for our suffering - moral failing. In politics we are concerned with improving conditions, so that people have a chance to develop in other ways. In politics we say that a person's moral state does not make them a slave - it is not a failing on their part - and changing a person's moral state does not liberate them. I recommend reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin" on this issue.
It is not a kiss-up, kick-down world or human beings would never have survived. We are cooperative social beings. It is a kiss-up, kick-down system of social and political arrangements and conventions. Those can be changed, and have in the past. Improving humankind has always been the business of religion, and the results are at best mixed.
I don't think people need to be fixed or improved. I do think that the arrangements and structures within which we are forced to live need to be fixed and improved.
EXCELLENT comment! wow!
Fortunatly for mankind untill recently we had other places to go. Other things to try, the last 50yrs has seen the closing of the last frontier America. Now we have to live with eachother somehow,, If we have jobs at all they are low wage, deadend type of positions. surounded with other furstrated people who use each other for thair entertainment.
As the last opertunities go overseas, people either go into denile or stew. Neither fixes anything, so all there is to do is watch the pressure build.
As has been said until there is some violent adjustment nothing will change, it may be awar, or a natural event. Right now we are surrounded by walls, that we are afraid to break. We all know it could get worse.
We are not at all sure it can get better.
>^^<
Ingvar Kamprad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ingvar Kamprad
Ingvar Kamprad lecturing a group of students at Växjö University (23 March 2004).
Born 30 March 1926 (age 84)
Älmhult, Kronoberg County
Occupation Entrepreneur
Net worth ▲US$23 billion (2010)[1]
Spouse Margaretha
Children 4 children: sons Peter, Jonas and Matthias; daughter [2]
Ingvar Feodor Kamprad ( pronunciation (help·info); born 30 March 1926) is a Swedish business magnate and the founder of IKEA, a retail (specialty) company. As of 2010, he is the eleventh wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of around US$23 billion in 2010.[3]Contents [hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Early life
1.2 Career
2 Net worth
3 Stichting INGKA Foundation
4 Works
5 Nazi involvement
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
[edit]
Biography
[edit]
Early life
Ingvar Kamprad was born in Pjätteryd in Älmhult Municipality and grew up on a farm called Elmtaryd (now spelled Älmtaryd), near the small village of Agunnaryd in Ljungby Municipality in the province of Småland, Sweden.
He is a second generation German from Sweden, his grandfather having first moved the family to Sweden.
[edit]
Career
Kamprad began to develop a business as a young boy, selling matches to neighbors from his bicycle. He found that he could buy matches in bulk very cheaply from Stockholm, sell them individually at a low price, and still make a good profit. From matches, he expanded to selling fish, Christmas tree decorations, seeds, and later ballpoint pens and pencils. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a cash reward for succeeding in his studies.[4] He used this money to establish what has grown into IKEA.
The acronym IKEA is made up of the initials of his name (Ingvar Kamprad) plus those of Elmtaryd, the family farm where he was born, and the nearby village Agunnaryd.
Kamprad has lived in Epalinges, Switzerland since 1976. According to an interview with TSR, the French language Swiss TV broadcaster, Kamprad drives a 15-year-old Volvo 240, flies only economy class, and encourages IKEA employees to always write on both sides of a paper.[5] In addition, Kamprad has been known to visit IKEA for a "cheap meal." He is also known to buy Christmas paper and presents in post-Christmas sales. While Kamprad's frugality is well documented, it is also an important part of the carefully managed image presented to IKEA employees and the general public. He less frequently mentions that he owns a villa in an upmarket part of Switzerland, a large country estate in Sweden, and a vineyard in Provence, France, or that he drove a Porsche for several years.[6][7][8]
[edit]
Net worth
According to Swedish business weekly Veckans Affärer,[9] he is the wealthiest person in the world. This report is based on the assumption that Kamprad owns the entire company, an approach that both IKEA and the Kamprad family reject. Kamprad personally retains little ownership in the company, having transferred his interest to Stichting INGKA Foundation and INGKA Holding as part of a complex tax sheltering scheme that leaves his actual degree of control vague.[10]
As of March 2005, the sliding value of the United States dollar put Kamprad ahead as the richest person in the world in another report. In March 2010, Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at US$23 billion, making him the 11th richest person in the world.[1]
[edit]
Stichting INGKA Foundation
The Dutch-registered Stichting INGKA Foundation is named after Kamprad, and owns INGKA Holding, the parent company for all IKEA stores. The charitable foundation was reported by the business newspaper The Economist in May 2006 to be technically the world's wealthiest charity – with an estimated value of at least US$36 billion in 2006 (larger than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) – but its primary purpose is believed by some to be corporate tax-avoidance and anti-takeover protection for IKEA.[10] Kamprad is chairman of the foundation.
[edit]
Works
While generally a private person, Kamprad has published a few notable works. He first detailed the IKEA concept of frugality and enthusiasm in a manifesto entitled A Testament of a Furniture Dealer. Written in 1976, it has since been considered the fundamental ideology of the IKEA furniture retail concept. He also worked with Swedish journalist Bertil Torekull on the book Leading by Design: The IKEA Story. In the autobiographical account, he further describes his philosophies and the trials and triumphs of the founding of IKEA.[11]
[edit]
Nazi involvement
In 1994, the personal letters of the Swedish fascist activist Per Engdahl were made public after his death, and it was revealed that Kamprad had joined Engdahl's pro-Nazi New Swedish Movement in 1942. Kamprad had raised funds for and recruited members to said group at least as late as September 1945. When Kamprad quit the group is unknown, but he remained a friend of Engdahl until the early 1950s.[12] Kamprad devotes two chapters to his time in Nysvenska Rörelsen in his book, Leading By Design: The IKEA Story and, in a 1994 letter to IKEA employees, called his affiliation with the organization the "greatest mistake of his life." [13]
unfortunately ..i can't recall where I stumbled on a few articles a few years back: online.
but a couple stood out in my impression:
1) there was an interview given by a very rich man..very reclusive american, i think in the northeast (nj, ny , connecticut area) who agreed to give some young reporter the tidbit: apparently the rich man owned quite a few businesses (i think they mentioned something about some concession in the NYC airport?) . that man gave away all his money ALREADY..and left himself and his family 1 million dollars (just in case). he left his children nothing except that 1 million dollars for their family. he said that he expected his children , with already a good head start being his family, to work themselves if they wanted to be like him. and he said that he owed it to society to give his money away. and then he explained ..the words stood out for me: "making money is so easy..i can make a lot of money again starting from almost nothing..what is more difficult is to give it away where it can do some good".
2) a very successful company somewhere also in the northeast (i think near rhode island or somewhere there) engages in crafts, pottery, things like that..and has been around for a 2 or 3 generations. and the company ..although without a union has held on to its workers , generation by generation, earning their loyalty throughout their lives. and the owner who still ran it when i read it , maybe 2 years ago, said that through thick and thin ...it never was a consideration for him to ever fire anyone because of finance..but taht if the company or economy was difficult he always gathered the workers and told them honestly what was the situation and himself would start by denying himself any pay and profit until the company could recover...and the workers would help keep the company keep on...even agreeing to take pay cuts ..and then when business would come back...they'd get their raises or restore the regular wages..basically...they were "covered" in their medical...whatever their needs were ..somehow he and they made it work...and it remains one of the more successful, stable companies . he said:
"my workers are the life of the company, without them...what are we really? so i have to run it like we are a family...and I will do anything I can to protect my workers' welfare".
the thing is, if one made some cursory research online...there are PLENTY of companies, usually perhaps "middle size" or more focused on particular products .. or services that have been thriving despite the hard economy..stay local as much as they can...and have good relations between workers and owners ....AND THEY ARE AMERICAN Companies..that , even within the INDECENT CAPITALISM..somehow DO try to remember they are comprised of human beings.
still something to think about ....to remind ourselves that america is also just like anywhere else...it has its bad people and its good , decent people who DO try to function as best they can under the system.
i wish it was much easier to FIND these so they can be the ones people can go to as "customers" to support them , buy their products.
I like all these thoughtful comments. No need to post the entire artilce just a link.
Teddy: I take your point, I was simply trying to point out that Kamprad is rarely if ever mentioned in the US media (that's how he likes it as well), however he is a hugely wealthy man and deserves a bit of scrutiny as well. Clearly these folks are not to be looked up to, but rather examples of a corrupt capitalist system that needs to be broken down.
To use the words of this filthy, immoral asshole, Warren Buffett ('liberal'): "There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Words are not 'War'. Guillotines are.
Do not miss reading this article by Kay Petrini: ! ! !
http://www.kaysreportcard.com/site/Kays_Report_Card/Entries/2010/10/1_The_Golden_Arches.html
Not to mention; Al Gore's class?
That fat mouth piece for the Builderburgers, telling everybody about overpopulation and how we're destroying the world. Like we controled the power plants and we owned the factories.
But to convince we live too well, and don't breed only their class gets children. I got it the first time, those phony eco-freaks are all funded by the CFR and the illiminati.
>^^<
This is terrific. I used to say Americans are the cash cows for BigPharma, because they can't get away with all that crap in Europe. I guess we're the cash cows a/k/a stupid sheep for McDonald's and all the other corporates that have to play by different rules elsewhere. What a hoot.
This article should be printed out and handed out in front of all the McDonald and Wal-Mart types. One would think this illustration would gain some traction, maybe even among slave-wage Repubs.
Yes, the people of Europe are under siege by the economic elite, but the people are not taking it lying down -- they are in the streets. No sedate "March to Nowhere," as Chris Hedges put it, for Europeans (BTW, excellent article, read it yesterday on Truthdig).
I don't eat at McDonald's, but I venture into a Wal-Mart (where there is a Golden Arches) reluctantly every now and then. I am trying to figure out if I am balls-y enough to print some of these out and leave them on a table, so that when one of the wage-slaves went to clean the table they would see this and maybe pass it on.
I would reply to professor Henderson's complaint about how spartan his lifestyle is on a $250,000 a year pittance: "Life's a bitch, then you die."
This whiner's mentality reminds me of the "let them eat cake" crowd prior to the French Revolution. Comments of the sort that this twerp Henderson made are becoming more frequent. The signs are all around us. Bloody revolution cannot be far away.
reminds me of that woman in florida -- whO , when the stock market crashed recently...and she lost plenty ...althoug she was herself a highly paid professional and successful author..created a BLOG , and lo and behold used her AUTHOR expertise to... whine and whine and whine that she now has to just be satisfied with FEWER VISITS to the expensive beauty clinic...and now has to be satisfied with having her visiting maid come only a few times a week instead of daily...etc. etc. etc...
some people , simply have LOST it, or never "had it".
How do the rich bastards (D's, R's,& Obama) intend to make up the $700 billion the Treasury would lose by extending the Bush tax cuts? Simple: they intend to take away Social Security from the rest of us.
The obominations Cat Food Commission is working on how to sell that right now, I hear the first part of their Final Solution is due in November..
So is triage, or Soylent Green?
How do eliminate the surplus?? ANOTHER WAR might just do the trick! But we need a better enemy, Iran and Packistan are too small.... mmmmmmmm I don't know starts with a (C) maybe.
>^^<
I think the recent episode on 60 minutes that claimed Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were giving away billions and billions of $, in fact most of their fortunes, was a way to mollify the vast majority of Americans. See, capitalism is good; war profiteers are good; greed is good,the ultra wealthy are really good guys. Their magnanimity on this 60 minutes program proves it!
American capitalism has spawned a new life form: Homo greed.
First and foremost, its not "class-warfare" but "Empire-warfare"!!!
It's actually an Empire-war against the working-class which uses the old red-baiting term 'class-warfare' to make the working-class demand for reasonable economic treatment sound somewhat 'socialist', if not downright 'Commie'.
If we let the bastards pull the Frank Luntz word-lie of calling it 'class-warfare', rather than what it truly is; "Empire-warfare", then they have won the word battle --- just as the bastards did with 'death-taxes'.
Second, the result of the 'empire-thinkers' winning in this guilefully disquised "Empire-warfare" is not merely that the working-class gets soaked ---- but the real threat is that Empire winning always leads to a country and its people dying.
'Empire-warfare' winning and firmly establishing a reign of Empire, rather than democracy, always, as Hannah Arendt warned in the Nazi Empire means that "Empire abroad, entails tyranny at home".
'Empire-warfare', if not successfully confronted by the vast majority of average people who believe in 'democracy-thinking', will inexorably lead to the financial, political, and total destruction of any country that allows the cancer of Empire to spread.
This truth is easily seen in what the ruling-elite global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE, which hides behind the facade of its Two-Party Vichy sham of faux democratic government, has already done to the human, educational, financial, industrial, and ecological death-spiral of our once great country.
Third, the real economic oppression of the vast majority of average 'democracy-thinking' people in America is already worse than anywhere in the world ---- except Zimbabwe --- as proven by economist's 'gold standard' of judging income inequality.
The GINI Coefficient of Income Inequality in the global Empire today (which still poses as America) is literally 'off the charts' compared with all other real advanced democratic countries. All of Europe and Japan have GINI Coefficents of Income Inequality between 0.23 and 0.34, while the American Vichy Empire has a GINI of 0.49 --- almost matching Zimbabwe's and exceeding the former Soviet Empire (Russia's) and China's.
WOW! We can start cheering for our team (actually the Empire's team, on which we are 'played').
"We're number one! We're number one! We're number one -- in income inequality!!"
Great chant, mindless fans. Get used to cheering that if we don't start confronting the ruling-elite global EMPIRE that has us by the ____s.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Class warfare in a 'classless society'? Impossible!
All the exceptionalist self-portrayals of U.S. mythology are coming unglued at once, but the masses will cling to their self-deluding dreams a while longer. The rats at the top, on the other hand, are leaving the sinking ship in droves, at least in terms of their 'financialization' investments. Even the banks are threatening divestment and relocation if and whenever they may be subjected to any constraints on their 'deregulated' piracy.
Bye, bye American pie. But take heart. Your advanced weaponry and ignorant cannon fodder, if nothing else, retain considerable value for continuing their corporate globalization processes under the banner of 'Freedom and Democracy' and legitimated by the votes of those delusional masses.
If there is one economic lesson to be learned from the last 100 years it is this: No matter what governmental system is in place, the enemy of freedom is greed. Marxism failed in Russia because of the greed of leaders within the system. Democracy is failing in the US because of the unbridled greed of those who claim to be patriots. Socialism in northern Europe shows signs of failing because the richest people in the society want to be free of their obligations to society.
Seizing the assets of the rich only serves to begin all over the distribution of huge amounts of wealth to the state, making it possible for the greediest to take it once more to themselves.
Arguing about what the wealthy will or will not do with their wealth gains nothing. When those who write the tax laws dare to publicly accuse the wealthy of greed and selfishness for shirking their fair share of responsibility, essentially calling for all out class warfare, then fair taxation has a chance. But that would require legislators who themselves are not greedy.
Only the last 100 years?! In fact, greed appears to be the one eternal driving force in human society thoughout the ages.
The neat thing about empires is their ability to persuade their own masses about their 'patriotic duty' to help their elites to satisfy that greed by raping the rest of the world. The most intersting phase occurs when those loyal and dutiful masses ultimately discover that they themselves are included amongst the rape victims. If they ever actually do make that discovery, it's almost always too late to avoid the consequences, of course.
RV, good comments about elite empires (oxymoron).
Sounds like most CDers have made, what you aptly term, the "discovery that they are included amonst the rape victims".
Perhaps it's not too late to do something about it --- but I am concerned that so many apparently intelligent CD posters are predisposed to "do something about it" through violence.
As one insightful poster (Jim) accurately notes, "They are ready for your "shotgun" rebellion."
Certainly the ruling-elite global Empire (which controls the military) would be delighted with an excuse to begin a violent confrontation here, and bring the 'point of the Empire's spear' to bear on we undesirables "at home" (as Hannah Arendt warned).
Fortunately, there is another course that rebellion can take ---- education.
Empire-thinking and elitism go hand in hand in their downward arc of history toward extinction, while only socially conscious popular democracy leads toward sustainable life.
Confrontation with the lies of Empire is essential for sustainable life, but that confrontation needs to be through education, rather than violence.
If anyone, including any nation of people, confronts Empire with violence then it turns them into Empire. Andrew Bacevich alludes to this truth in "Washington Rules", while other historical realities certainly point to and even prove it (such as our current global Empire having morphed out of America’s violent dispatch of the Nazi and Japanese Empires in WWII). But if Empire is confronted with education, then the winning outcome is real democracy.
Whether Empire, after two millennia, will be successfully confronted by some Messiah as a 'teacher' or posing as a conquering general/King is still debated ---- but displacing 'empire-thinking' with 'democracy-thinking' certainly portends less existential violence than trying to dispatch all imperialists and suffering significant 'collateral damage' among fellow humanist democrats.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine