Wednesday, April 13, 2011

of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%...,


Video - Joseph Stiglitz addresses the growing class divide taking place in the United States Part 1.


Video - Part 2. of Joseph Stiglitz interview.

Cafe Americain | The pigmen are going to be unrelenting in their attacks on the middle class and the poor. The attacks are threefold:
1. resisting financial and political reform which caused the crisis in the first place. Three years after the crisis and no major player has even been indicted, the bonus system is flourishing again, and politicians are taking many millions in funds from the bankers and wealthy elite to promote their agendas.

2. blaming the victims, and compelling them to take the greatest pain of the bailouts, and continuing bailouts and subsidies to the financial class through spending reallocations. The bailouts and spending on the military industrial complex are crowding out the public functions of government. There are even people trying to justify the theft of the Social Security Trust. Look, the funds are gone, we've taken them and given them to the banks! So no use crying over spilt milk, suck it up, and let's move on and take your cuts.

3. shifting the impulse to reform from financial reform to 'tax reform' that further supports the monied interests. Cut taxes for the wealthiest as your primary agenda using a variety of deceptive means like promoting a consumption tax, or a flat income tax but with offshore havens and loopholes, so the burden falls most heavily on those who spend the greatest percentage of their labor on subsistence, their basic needs.
Listen to what Stiglitz has to say, and think about it. He is not perfect, the documentary Inside Job was not perfect, but start thinking for yourselves, and stop taking the easy route of allowing others to think for you, and mouth their slogans. They are only too willing to tell you what to think, what is real even if your eyes say no, if you let them.

10 comments:

nanakwame said...

Debt:
1989 - Reagan 2.9 T in debt (Grenada – Nicaragua)
1993 - 4.4 T
2001 - 5.9 T Bush II
2008 - 11.9 T
Now 14 T
Tax Cuts of the Rich and Paying for the Costs of War
Debt level rose 70 times since 1962


Our oligarchy has been shaped and spoiled by the subterfuges of both parties and the atrophic of the political middle class. Capital was allowed to go wherever and Conscious Labor was not; and the majority is in a quagmire.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/the-blowback-world-of-chalmers-johnson/

CNu said...

Really good stuff Nana, thanks!!!

umbrarchist said...

What CAN I say???

Where have the NITWIT ECONOMISTS been talking about the planned obsolescence of the so called DURABLE CONSUMER GOODS in the last FIFTY YEARS?

Galbraith wrote about it in 1959. But he did not say anything about the DEPRECIATION of all of that junk. We are running the world economy on DEFECTIVE ALGEBRA! But in 1959 the global population was less than 3 BILLION. Now the world has more than double that. More people want to be consumers. So the effect of the defective algebra is even BIGGER. The economists still don't talk about it.

But that video is about TAXES and therefore it is about GOVERNMENT.

But NOBODY in Authority is talking about MANDATORY ACCOUNTING for ALL HIGH SCHOOL KIDS though they blather about education forever. Explain to all of those kids how their parents and grandparents have been kept ignorant and ripped off and see how they react. Now they have to deal with the accumulated stupidity and the NITWIT economists are still not going to the heart of the matter.

http://www.spectacle.org/1199/wargame.html
http://www.toxicdrums.com/economic-wargames-by-dal-timgar.html

That essay is 12 years old. I first put it on the Internet in Feb of 1999. I have had professional economists call me a Loony and an Idiot. The Laws of Physics don't give a damn about economics. The Laws of Physics can't tell the difference between a Capital Good and a Consumer Good. Cars purchased by consumers wear out, therefore they depreciate but our economists want to play magic word games and treat a $30,000 automobile just like a $3 hamburger because they call both of them CONSUMER GOODS.
.

nanakwame said...

Anytime - conscious folks must stay attuned

Uglyblackjohn said...

But Umbra - Things DO wear out.
Let's say that a car is good for about 10-15 years.
Who keeps them THAT long?
Who wears their clothes until they have holes (and then wears them as work clothes)?
Who eats ALL the food they purchace?
I think we'd be a lot better off if we first learned to get the most out of what we already buy.
Making products to last is too big a step for business to make unless consumers expect them to.
IF people wanted only the best and longest lasting products - companies would make them.

Dale Asberry said...

Here you go Umbra...

Open Source Ecology Wiki

Dale Asberry said...

Here ya go Umbra...

Open Source Ecology

Dale Asberry said...

(Hmm, disqus keeps deleting this comment)
Here you go Umbra, useful things built to last.

Open Source Ecology

Dale Asberry said...

(Hmm, disqus keeps deleting this comment)
Here you go Umbra, useful things built to last.

Open Source Ecology

Dale Asberry said...

Ok, this is a test. Disqus keeps deleting my comments on this thread.

What Is France To Do With The Thousands Of Soldiers Expelled From Africa?

SCF  |    Russian President Vladimir Putin was spot-on this week in his observation about why France’s Emmanuel Macron is strutting around ...