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The Billionaires Want More, More, More
The billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more.
In 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23.5 percent of all income -- more than the bottom 50 percent. Not enough! The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent nearly tripled since the mid-1970s. Not enough! Eighty percent of all new income earned from 1980 to 2005 has gone to the top 1 percent. Not enough! The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Not enough! The Wall Street executives with their obscene compensation packages now earn more than they did before we bailed them out. Not enough! With the middle class collapsing and the rich getting much richer, the United States now has, by far, the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth. Not enough!
The very rich want more, more and more and they are prepared to dismantle the existing political and social order to get it. During the last campaign, as a result of the (Republican) Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, billionaires were able to pour hundreds of millions of dollars of secret money into the campaign -- helping to elect dozens of members of Congress. Now, having made their investment, they want their congressional employees to produce.
Republicans in Congress, needless to say, are all on board. The key question is whether a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate go along to get along, or whether they draw a clear line at protecting the interests of the middle class and vulnerable populations of our country while tackling our economic and budgetary problems in earnest.
In the next month, despite all their loud rhetoric about the "deficit crisis," the Republicans want to add $700 billion to the national debt over the next 10 years by extending Bush's tax breaks for the top 2 percent. Families who earn $1 million a year or more would receive, on average, a tax break of $100,000 a year. The Republicans also want to eliminate or significantly reduce the estate tax, which has existed since 1916. Its elimination would add, over 10 years, about $1 trillion to our national debt and all of the benefits would go to the top 0.3 percent. Over 99.7 percent of American families would not gain a nickel. The Walton family of WalMart would receive an estimated tax break of more than $30 billion by repealing the estate tax.
That's just the start.
The billionaires and their supporters in Congress are hell-bent on taking us back to the 1920s, and eliminating all traces of social legislation designed to protect working families, the elderly, children and the disabled. No "social contract" for them. They want it all.
They want to privatize or dismantle Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and let the elderly, the sick and the poor fend for themselves.
They want to expand our disastrous trade policies so that corporations can continue throwing American workers out on the street as they outsource jobs to China and other low-wage countries. Some also want to eliminate the minimum wage so that American workers can have the "freedom" to work for $3.00 an hour.
They want to eliminate or cut severely the U.S. Department of Education, making it harder for working class kids to get a decent education, childcare or the help they need to go to college.
They want to rescind the very modest financial reform bill passed last year so that the crooks on Wall Street can continue to engage in all of the reckless behavior that has been so devastating to our economy.
They want to curtail the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy so that Exxon-Mobil can remain the most profitable corporation in world history, while oil and coal companies continue to pollute our air and water.
They want to make sure that billionaire hedge fund managers pay a lower federal tax rate than middle-class teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers by maintaining a loophole in the tax code known as "carried interest".
We know what the billionaires and their Republicans supporters want. They've been upfront about that. But what about the Democrats? Will President Obama continue to reach out and "compromise" with people who have made it abundantly clear that the only agreement they want is unconditional surrender? Or, will he utilize the powerful skills that we saw during his 2008 campaign for the White House and bring working families, young people, the elderly and the poor together to fight against these savage attacks on their well-being? Will the Democrats in the Senate continue to pass tepid legislation, or will they use their majority status to protect the interests of ordinary Americans and, for a change, put the Republicans on the defensive?
The time is late. The stakes are extraordinary. While it is true that the billionaires and their supporters are "fired up and ready to go," there is another more important truth. And that is that there are a lot more of us than there are of them. Now is the time for us to stand together, educate and organize. Now is the time to roll back this orgy of greed.
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141 Comments so far
Show AllYeah, and Bernie helped bring home the bacon for billionaires when he voted for a corporate For Profit Health bill, modeled on more, more, and more profits for Health Ins executives void of public option. Remember the 'so called' Public Option was itself a compromise for those advocating for Single Payer. When the Bill finally meandered its was through the various corporate filters (aka Lobbyists), suddenly, Public Option found itself on the cutting room floor. Sander's had no problem enriching the Fat Cats (no CEO left behind) when it came to TARP, and Health Care and now signing the blues about it.
His hypocrisy knows no bounds, apparently. Sanders is really the worst kind of Janus faced politician who publically decries corporate hegemony while voting on its behalf when the Bill finally hits the floor of the Senate.
Anyone ever heard of the mythological story of the little boy who keeps crying wolf?
The Health Care bill isn't what I would have liked it to be but it did allow millions of people to get insurance when the insurance companies were looking for any excuse to deny them coverage. Voting NO on the bill would have left approximate 32 million people without coverage. You think that would be better?
There were problems with TARP but try wrapping your small brain around all those companies going out of business and having to lay of millions of people in one batch? There were problems as with all things but watching my local banks collapse and fire all their employees and me having to wait for the FDIC to give me money would not but a good thing.
Oh... yeah... (eyes rolling) none of us have ever heard that story about the boy crying wolf. But really... how does that fit? Bernie keeps warning us about ......???? but nobody listens and when ?????? really does happen nobody listens.
Maybe you get paid to troll Common Dreams and write this crap because that makes a lot more sense then you actually being a stupid as you sound.
"The Health Care bill isn't what I would have liked it to be but it did allow millions of people to get insurance when the insurance companies were looking for any excuse to deny them coverage." If you believe these swine can't deny coverage now, you're listening way too much to DLC Democrats. WE, the taxpayers, are either going to be mandated to pay private companies for our own lousy insurance or to subsidize the with worthless, private policies for the poor, rather than putting them on Medicare. Don't you get it?
"There were problems with TARP but try wrapping your small brain around all those companies going out of business and having to lay of millions of people in one batch?" Wow, talk about brainwashed. If we hadn't given the billionaires more and more of our taxpayer dollars, the world would have exploded and the heavens would have rained fire. The truth is, TARP was the biggest Treasury theft in the history of the U.S., and now they want to give our Social Security safety net to Wall Street, too. Are you going to be the first to say: "We have to take from our elderly or the banks will be out of business and no one will have a job!!!" Truth is, we should have let the big banks go down and made the Wall Street bankers beg other countries to accept them. The big banks are parasites and should be exterminated.
"The big banks are parasites and should be exterminated."
Yes, and don't forget the health insurance companies.
Dear WideofVision,
The health care bill is NOT the best Dems could have done for us. Why did the party refuse to even let singlepayer be discussed??????? Hmmmmmm? Instead the "care" we got makes us all poorer. The health care bill that passed was fascist, imho.
The TARP money could have been spent by bailing out the TAXPAYERS with THEIR money, and they WOULD have paid down their debts, and that is how the banksters COULD have had money TRICKLED UP to them. However, that would not play along with the scheme to level American citizens down to the level of developing nations rather than lift others.
I believe that a Kucinich or a Sanders really does want in their heart what they say they do. Their votes going the other way are a mystery to me. Do they think it's too soon to work with a third party because of fear there would not be enough grassroots support which could kill it? I just don't know. All along, for a long time, though, I have felt that we are meant to find our way through the Endarkenment via ourselves and not any leader.
Small Brained and Narrow of Vision
It is hilariously ironic that a right-of-center Obamabot/Sanderbot be accusing those of us who are left of Sanders/Obama/and the Democrat Party as being right wing trolls, when it is in fact they, who ought to stand accused!
Stupid is as stupid votes: a two year legacy of the Obama admin with helpful votes from Sanders,
*Voiding habeus corpus
*Rendition via proxy states
*For Profit Health Care
*Interminable war
*A fantasy called "clean Coal"
*Environmental agenda with nuclear/coal hegemony leading the way, and lip service to sustainable options
*Carte Blanch oil drilling in pristine oceans and attacks on whistle blowers who said the so called clean up was a sham. (Dispersents are one molecule away from anti freeze which only submerges the oil keeping it out of sight and mind; in years to come, people will exhibit health issues related to this mismanagement.)
*Unlimited mountain top removal permits on behalf of coal lobby
*Interminable occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan
*Covert drone strikes on non-combatants which wiki papers asserts has killed over 50 thousand innocent lives of woman and children
*Not a single prosecution of the banksters who perpetuated fraud in the housing market.
*TARP: No CEO left behind.
*Obama's proclivity to CAVE to the neo cons on every issue: and now word is he will extend tax cuts to the top 2% of wage earners
*Promises to close GITMO in the first year of presidency on hold
*GATT, NAFTA, and G-8 commitments honored which have destroyed our manufacturing base in the US.
*Moving education toward a For Profit model
What exactly don't you understand about any of this? :)
First, no subsidies kick in until 2013, but employer provided health insurance becomes taxable income next year.
ObamaCare will make matters worse as the blaoted health insurance industry sucks up more resources than ever. When this happens all hell will break loose and Obama will be as hated as Bush was in 2008.
All the better, I hope the Republicans savage Obama so that he will not run for re-election.
Obamcare requires the uninsured to buy McInsurance individual policies that will still leave real healthcare out of their financial reach.
If anybody's writing a lot of partisan crap, it's you WideofVision. Do you really believe the corporatist Democratic Party's propaganda or you a schill.
"... but employer provided health insurance becomes taxable income next year."
Ah, but not union employees.
delete
32 million people got coverage. No, they will get drugged.
To WideofVision,
32 million people without coverage, it’s awful! Thanks to Bernie, Kucinich, Democrats, Lobbyists, President Obama and etc. we now have closer to 32 millions with coverage, right? The Healthcare companies will continue to make billions, whether we like it or not, Period! I finally have to give up my S/S Medicare and prescription drugs. I am virtually uninsured, at the mercy of God/mother nature.
I am truly sorry my small mind cannot comprehend many things. The Big banks did not fail, continue to make billions and the CEO making hundred millions and no criminal charges brought against them. The Banks received almost free money and virtually pay no interest for saving accounts, but charge huge interests to vehicles, students, Mortgage loans and etc... It's a win, win win, for the Banks. I am going to share a secret with you! Not many people aware and MSM keeping quiet to protect the Democrats.
Banks and Corporations silently slowly shredding workers, here and there a bit at a time. No one seem to notices it. My wife works for one of the Company and since 2008, they shredded thousands workers all over the Nation. She herself finally she got the pink slip and her last day will be end on November. Three days after Thanksgiving, what a Thanksgiving! The unemployment remains constant 9.6% for the long time. These figures don't include people who stopped looking for jobs.
I don't get paid to be here, I am really sorry if you think it's a crap. I am truly stupid in your eyes just like ekobe and others who disagree with you. Don't eat too much on Thanksgiving otherwise you will end up in the Hospital and blame me. Hope you keep your job, young and healthy. The job market still look real bad!
This was a long thread with a lot of bickering and ranting that started off with an ad hominem against Bernie Sanders. Pretty sad.
It is pretty clear that you have no idea of the difference between a legitimate political critque based on Sanders voting record along with his various capitulations to the DNC and Obama, vs. a personal attack. So please let me demonstrate the difference in light of your own personal attack.
Then again, that is all your ilk can offer: a Status quo apologetic on behalf of those who are fleecing you while picking up bread crumbs off ground and then liking it.
You remind me of a character in a Dickens Novel. At the end of a long table sits a forlorn lad who timidly sits with his empty bowl. Slowly, almost apologetically, he moves toward the end of the table with his empty bowl and growling stomach; there his Master sits with disproving eyes and knowing what is best for him! Nevertheless, with eyes downcast toward the floor, the poor lad raises his empty bowl and timidly - almost inaudible asks - "Please Sir, more gruel?"
Regarding last paragraph.
How?
or should I ask How without dividing and conquering ourselves?
My answer would be to withdraw from the consumer system and construct for ourselves a community system.
any better ideas given that politicians are never going to help us?
"With the middle class collapsing and the rich getting much richer, the United States now has, by far, the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth."
Thanks, Bernie! You said it about as well as it can be said.
Do any of these greedy bastards remember the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution? Perhaps they figure they can control the homeless, hungry masses when they've had enough and finally take to the streets.
They are going to bank on their big guns. So, guerrilla war will have to be the revolution.
Dear vaialdiavolo,
In my heart of hearts I believe that, for once, as ever, bloody revolution is not the way. What revolution so far has "succeeded?"
We are not going to get it right until we get it right. Let's NOT participate or enable any more of THEIR stupid wars and killing!
Bernie is right. We outnumber them all. We need to find common ground and start there and fight the way MLK Jr. taught. Peaceful actions, nonviolent measures. STRENGTH THROUGH PEACE as DK says.
What revolution so far has "succeeded?"
The US in 1776, France in 1789, Haiti in 1791, Mexico in 1810 and again in 1910, Russia in 1917, Ireland in 1919, Cuba in 1959, Nicaragua in 1979, East Timor in 1975, finally realized in 2002...
You call Daniel Ortega, who keeps surfacing in the corrupt and incestuous world of Nicaraguan politics like some kind of incurable fungus, a revolutionary success? Or Stalin in the post-revolutionary Soviet Union?
I'll take my chances with Bernie Sanders, thanks.
My! Are you a victim of corporate media propaganda or what? How old are you? Too young to remember much from those days?
The Sandinista revolution was a lot more than just Daniel Ortega - who only became a new-age kook (and, alleged underage womanizer) much later. We will never know what would have been accomplished if the Sandinista government was not immediately pushed into a state of war by the murderous US-CIA contra thugs.
But at any rate, a brutal dictator was deposed and Nicaragua is now some semblance of a democracy. I call that success.
Same with post 1917 Russia, we will never know what could have been accomplished if the Bolsheviks hadn't been intermediately subjected to the white-Russian war and subversion from the west. It was these conditions of this war that facilitated the rise of the brute Stalin.
Lots or revolutions has messy post-revolutionary periods, Ireland had its bloody civil war, France had its Jacobins then Napoleon, Bolivar declared himself dictator of Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru in 1820-something, but in the long-term, the result of the revolutions was positive.
First off, our 'revolution' of 1776 was not a revolution, it was a rebellion. France in 1789 looked good for a while but it wasn't long before they had Louis Napoleon in the saddle. Russia in 1917 overthrew not the Tsars, but the Kerensky government, a republic, and the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' never came about.
Your definition of 'success' is woesomely loose.
Does revolution have to be bloody?
"....Do any of these greedy bastards remember the French Revolution...."
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-
leaders/ww2/mussolini.htm
I wish Sanders would tell us why he's sniffing around the remaining sums in people's 401k plans.
Ask the Magic 8-Ball:
"Will President Obama continue to reach out and 'compromise' with people who have made it abundantly clear that the only agreement they want is unconditional surrender?"
● It is certain
"Or, will he utilize the powerful skills that we saw during his 2008 campaign for the White House and bring working families, young people, the elderly and the poor together to fight against these savage attacks on their well-being?"
● My reply is no
"Will the Democrats in the Senate continue to pass tepid legislation?"
● It is decidedly so
"Or, will they use their majority status to protect the interests of ordinary Americans and, for a change, put the Republicans on the defensive?"
● Don't count on it
OS,
Thanks for the laugh!
perfectly put
Sanders sez: "The key question is whether a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate go along to get along, or whether they draw a clear line at protecting the interests of the middle class ... "
***
Um, that question has already been addressed.
I'm afraid you may not like the answer.
(The Magic 8 Ball provides it, in the preceding post)
And as long as their millionaire toadies in Congress, the White House & Supreme Court continue to write and enforce THEIR laws, the billionaires will continue to get it.
What are we to do?
Yes, and I didn't appreciate Sanders voting to give insurance companies millions of captive customers. I have a hard time with any Congressperson who did that and rails against "the man." Bernie, are you really an Independent or are you firmly in the veal pen now? You're always so supportive of Obama and the Democrats when you do "Lunch with Bernie" on Fridays on Thom Hartmann.
Yes! Sanders (and Kucinich in the house) should have joined the Republican in voting "no" on the health care bill. Then, the good Republican would have immediately proposed what we really need - single payer! The more extreme Republicans, like say, Jim Bunning or Ron Paul, would have gone even further and proposed a British NHS type system, right?
Sanders and Kucinish fought the best fight they could, then voted the only way they could with the minuscule power they wield in Congress. The bill provides Medicaid for everyone below 133% of the poverty line, and provides an advancable subsidy for every who needs to buy personal health insurance up to 400% of the poverty line. This is something.
And while I don't like it either, there is nothing all that extreme about an individual mandate, most European countries and Japan have quasi-privatized syatems that require everyone to buy insurance - albeit at a heavily subsidized, far lower cost.
The somethings that you promote are miniscule.
The medicaid for the poor will be subject to budget battles and scorned by most as welfare.
The subsidies will diminish over time and they flow directly to the insurance criminals in any case.
The mandates in other nations are requirements to buy decent insurance at a regulated price from non-profit institutions. This is a far cry from the McInsurance individual policies that ObamaCare requires the otherwise uninsured to purchase in order to pump up corporate profits.
ObamaCare is a complete sellout and there is no excuse for Sanders and Kucinich's support for it.
Of course the Republican plan would be worse, but Obama and the Democrats betrayed their base on this issue and censored single care advocates out of the debate.
And so it goes, Obama and the Dems spend more energy squelching the Left than they do fighting the Republicans. This should tell you something, No?
It is infuriating that Obama gave a stage for Republican let the poor die radicals at his health care meetings but blokced any mention of single payer.
I dont think that single payer, however, is necessary to achieve goals of getting profit out of the system, and multipayer is an easier sell for a country so antipathetic towards some centralised system. All we need is a public option that takes the same people as private insurance and competes directly with them. The public option would provide a better value, lower cost, and therefore those who are sick of profiteering can get non profit insurance. The private insurance companies would be forced to lower their profits to compete. So it lets us get our non profit insurance in a way that wont evoke so much backlash.
People not taken by the mainline insurance due to hiigh risk should automatically be on medicare.
Single payer should have been brought up and used anyway as a starting point, The first main proposal should have been full blown medicareObama should have started with that plan and then negotiated towards public option, instead of starting with a plan which the only direction to go was towards no public option. Obama is a dumbass for not doing things that way. he has set him self up for failure, intentionally or not, led things right into the hands of the wealthy. The wealthy while on one hand manipulating the insurance debate to make sure that it would favour them, they were also funding efforts to repeal it completely, either way, they would win and would make out like bandits. They had their bases covered.
I don't exactly agree with your position, but I do respect it.
A strong public healthcare option was a reasonable fallback compromise for Obama, but he had negotiated away the peole's position in then secret deals with the healthcare exploiters.
Obama has always been overly polite to the Republicans. I missed O's now famous convention speeches. My first view of him was watching him during the John Bolton confirmation hearings for ambassador to the UN..
He strived so hard to find common ground with Bolton, who is a no bones about it imperialist killer. It was sickening to watch Sen Obama trying so hard with his patriotic centrist Harvard consensus building.
At the time, I thought he was a delusional idealist for believing that he could honestly engage Bolton. Now I think that he was just trying to smooth his way into the powerful club of imperialist killers and torturers, to show that he could provide the reasonable rhetoric that the Empire was in such dire need of after 8 years of W.
What Ron Paul would have done would have been to limit the power of the FDA to regulate alternative, natural medicine. Then costs would start to plummet. Keep your eye on the goal--low cost health care for all, not a subsidized, overcharging, underperforming, medical monopoly.
The only way to stop the monsters is to stop the monsters, not acccommodate them to get a few crumbs. And for everyone who dies without health care there's 2-3 who die because they have health care.
Some of us have goals that are different than yours. I want a completely subsidized, no-cost to the patient, government run, national health care system. I keep my eye on that goal.
I'm not sure I stated my goals but all you will accomplish with yours is to subsidize a greedy semi-competent monopoly.
And, did it ever occur to you that by allowing natural medicine to flourish or, for example, giving Medicaid recipients Medical Savings Accounts so they can see whatever licensed practitioner they choose from oral surgeon to naturopath, to masseuse, and purchase supplements as well as drugs, that costs would plummet and the monopoly would be broken? Then you can talk about how to make sure everyone has medical care. The gov't, in the the form of the NIH and FDA is currently a major barrier to cost reduction whether or not you remove the insurance companies.
what is natural medicine?
richsmith2: Natural medicine/nutritional medicine/functional medicine are close to synonymous. All begin with the premise that, in order to treat "dis-ease" you have to find the root cause. Usually the first thing to be checked is digestion and problems are corrected with HCl and digestive enzymes. (See: "Why Stomach Acid Is Good For You" by JV Wright, MD and L Lenard, PhD.) Patients are also evaluated for allergies, adrenal/thyroid funtion, toxicity loads (heavy metals like mercury), nutritional deficiencies like omega 3 fats.(vitamin D should be on everyone's go to list to evaluate. www.vitamindcouncil.org offers a home test for $75).
Drugs are used in acute situations, for example, your blood pressure is 210/100. But they continue to evaluate for vitamin d status, magnesium status, allergies, bad diet etc., etc.
The federal gov't, via the NIH (research lies) and the FDA (owned by Big Pharma) has major responsibility for the status quo. Also, the AMA operates like a guild, punishing members who use these "unapproved" methods. The real reason for the Codex push is that slowly but surely, more MDs are coming around to the root cause perspective on healing and so are people. But they're often scared by the official fear-mongering.
Dr Nicholas Gonzalez has written a book "The Trophoblast and Origins of Cancer" The NIH deliberately misrepresented his research and published it without his name or consent. He may have taken them to court.
I hope you will seek more info, especially if you have any trouble with digestion which is a root cause of untold ailments. Try going to an ND (naturopathic physician) rather than an MD. Mark Hyman, MD is a pioneer in functional medicine. He testified in Congress that diet, supplements and allergy testing/treatment can cut the costs of treating ADHD by 80%. That is my point about single payer. Until the "practice" of medicine is changed, most money spent will be just one more transfer payment from us to the wealthy and the benefits will be minimal to negative.
Yes I see I did state a goal--low cost health care for all. You are supporting a solution not a goal.
And where are poor, paycheck to paycheck medicaid recipients going to find toe money to put in medical savings accounts, in order to spend on naturopaths, "alternate" healers, homeopaths, outrageously expensive "raw vegan diets" and other outright quackery?
Educate, organize and educate and organize--wherever you are! Organize a rally/march and sit -ins where ever you live, no matter how small your community no matter how regressive. Think of it as similar to when the French underclass people of color rose-up in France. Sparks all over town. The media will not be able to ignore it. Do it now!
Good plan.
"The rich want more, more and more and are prepared to dismantle the political and social order in order to get it."
THAT was Mission Accomplished back in the stolen election coup of 2000. Now it's just pedal to the metal time for the top 0.3%income earners and their Congressional/Supremes/Boy-toy Presidente Cabal to FINISH THE JOB.
I have used the following offensive metaphor before, and I will keep on using it no matter what.
The elected Republicans serving in the federal government of this nation are Jews wearing Nazi armbands at an Extermination Camp, the center of which is a large building with two wings and a tall dome with a flag on top. The camp is run by the priapic and psychopathic One Percenters which Bernie Sanders describes. They want MORE.
The Republicans hope to survive this Holocaust of Insatiable Capitalist Greed by herding other Americans =particularly the poor= into gas chambers, while pointing wildly at their Swastika armbands so that no Nazi puts THEM into a gas chamber.
The Republicans have myriad, self-deluding and obfuscating terms for this situation and their plan for the American People, provided for them by pro-Nazi Economists, also in hopes of not being gassed. Nothing smells worse than a gassed economist.
Average, middle class Republicans outside the Beltway hope that their vote for the Exterminators will save THEM from being turned into soap and lamp shades at the whim of the One Percenters.
And the collective illusion of 330 million US citizens is that democracy 1) continues to exist, 2) still results in a government that performs the functions and duties outlined in the Constitution, despite a Niagara flow of money to secure the MORE desired by the One Percent Plutocrats.
This circumstance sets a new record in American stupidity. The three counter-balancing branches of U.S. government are in a contest to see which one can become the most subverted and perverted by manipulation. President Obama is a hand wringing gelding who now probably wishes he'd never shown the least interest in occupying the White House. The U.S. Supreme Court has shown us they are "for sale" - a case I never expected to see in my lifetime. Their opinion on anything has ceased to be of the least interest to me.
Here's my guess. At this writing there are at least 100 million Americans who want to wake up tomorrow as full citizens of either Norway or New Zealand.
Trylon
At this point, anyplace in East Asia, Australia/NZ, Canada, or Europe is looking pretty good. In a few years, at this rate, we'll be emigrating to Latin America!
If the 99% of us non-billionaires just disappeared from the face of the planet, would the remaining 1% (all billionaires, that is) start going after each other?