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The most destructive untruth in America


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2012 Jan 23, 3:47am   27,757 views  39 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

From Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut:

America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question:

If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?

Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.

Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

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2   uomo_senza_nome   2012 Jan 23, 3:57am  


Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.

The Food Stamp Speaker epitomizes this.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/01/the-food-stamp-hypocrite.html

http://www.youtube.com/embed/SHMEC8Xk9cg

"Don't Blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!" - Godfather.

3   leo707   2012 Jan 23, 6:50am  

Reminds me of a great Mr. Show skit.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/aF8wLg5Asgo

4   Patrick   2012 Jan 23, 7:01am  

To be rich is to control the labor of other people. To be rich is to have other people serve you. Everything else is an abstraction that obscures the fundamantal division into masters and servants.

If you just think about that for a minute, it becomes obvious that we cannot all be rich. Who then would be the servants? No matter how hard we all work, no matter how smart we all may be, it is mathematically impossible for everyone to to be rich.

So if we're going to have rich people (and I think we should have some) the question becomes this: What is the proper qualification for being rich? Here are your choices:

1. Being born into wealth and accumulating more via your mere ownership of assets.
2. Personally creating useful products and services.

If you agree that number two is the answer, that argues strongly for high inheritance taxes, and high taxes on unearned income from mere ownership, and low taxes on actual work.

There are some other options though, by thinking beyond national boundaries:

3. Importing people from Africa and making them your hereditary slaves.
4. Exporting work to poor countries, the way the US is doing with China.

5   Patrick   2012 Jan 23, 7:05am  

leoj707 says

Reminds me of a great Mr. Show skit.

That is brilliant! Spells it all out quite clearly.

6   Jersey   2012 Jan 23, 8:13am  

Central bankers are not free market capitalists. They are communists/socialists who intentionally abused free market capitalism and circumvented its laws in order to purposefully create capitalism's downfall. They then used their control of the media to "educate" people that capitalism was to blame. It is corrupt socialism/communism that is to blame, instead.

If you don't like being poor, than don't vote for a central banker-backed candidate such as Romney or Newt or Obama. It is their own party that created the power divide in America today. Once their party is in total control, you will really have a true understanding of what poor is about.

Socialism never results in redistribution of wealth to elevate the poor. It always results in a lower standard of living for everyone, including the poor. The real wealth goes to the corrupt leadership, the people running the socialist dictatorship. History repeats itself in this way, over and over.

7   uomo_senza_nome   2012 Jan 23, 9:03am  


Playing Monopoly is actually a pretty good example of how it works.

Totally true. Free market is never a fair market, because the 1% don't like to play a fair game.

8   Jersey   2012 Jan 23, 9:06am  


Central bankers are definitely against a free market for interest rates, but they never blame capitalism for anything.

No, they don't say it themselves. They use their controlling stakes in the mainstream media, to get the media to say it for them...

MSNBC
"American Capitalism To Blame For Financial Crisis"
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mike-sargent/2009/03/31/msnbc-american-capitalism-blame-financial-crisis

Michael Moore
"Capitalism, A Love Story"
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705331832/Capitalism-not-to-blame-for-financial-crisis-and-low-income-woes.html

The New Yorker
The real reason that capitalism is so crash-prone.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/05/091005fa_fact_cassidy

Townhall.com
Capitalism and Financial Crashes
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2008/11/05/capitalism_and_the_financial_crisis/page/full/

and on and on and on and on and on...

9   Â¥   2012 Jan 23, 9:07am  


4. Exporting work to poor countries, the way the US is doing with China.

I don't have a problem with exporting our work to China. They seem to need the work more than we do.

However, I do have a major problem with our $300B/yr trade deficit with China. That's where the current neoliberal arrangement is bullshit.

10   Â¥   2012 Jan 23, 9:09am  


Playing Monopoly is actually a pretty good example of how it works.

Which, as I've said before here, is no accident since Monopoly was originally designed as a teaching aid by the OG Georgists back in the day.

11   uomo_senza_nome   2012 Jan 23, 9:14am  

Bellingham Bill says

Monopoly was originally designed as a teaching aid by the OG Georgists back in the day.

I love Henry George. I thank pat-net (specifically Billy and Patrick) for highlighting Georgism.

“What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power”

“The fundamental principle of human action, the law, that is to political economy what the law of gravitation is to physics is that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion”

“Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.”

12   Patrick   2012 Jan 23, 9:20am  

What does "OG" mean?

Jersey says

No, they don't say it themselves. They use their controlling stakes in the mainstream media, to get the media to say it for them...

I think you've gone off the deep end. I'm a bit paranoid myself, but the mainstream media in the US has very little if anything do to with central bankers. Got any evidence for said connection?

The best example we have of an evil influence in the mainstream media is Rupert Murdoch. He is pretty evil, but staunchly capitalist though.

13   uomo_senza_nome   2012 Jan 23, 9:29am  


What does "OG" mean?

Original Georgists?

Elizabeth Magie Phillips invented the Landlord's game and was one of the early Georgists.

http://www.amnesta.net/other/monopoly/index2.html

15   david1   2012 Jan 23, 10:13am  

Bellingham Bill says

However, I do have a major problem with our $300B/yr trade deficit with China. That's where the current neoliberal arrangement is bullshit.

What do you propose to fix this? I ask because I was just thinking the other day about this very problem and came up with an idea that doesn't include increasing tariffs (and deadweight loss).

What if there was a law that voided all intellectual property rights to a product if an American company chose to substantially manufacture that product outside of the US? I believe this may be a stronger deterrent for offshoring jobs than any tariff.

I came up with this while thinking about what offshoring jobs really was - which is simply a commoditization of labor. Should the capitalist class choose to marginalize the value of labor - then the labor class should fight to marginalize the value of the intellectual property. It would give US manufacturers a pretty strong competitive advantage.

Certainly better than Santorum's "no income taxes for Manufacturing companies" idea. That guy is a Fucking idiot.

16   Â¥   2012 Jan 23, 11:30am  

No income taxes for mfg is actually an excellent idea.

We should tax the shit out of land instead (and give abatements to industrial land).

Frankly, I don't know enough to say anything intelligent about how to close the $300B/yr trade deficit with China.

The problem as I see it isn't the offshoring so much it's that China is engaging in mercantilism allowed by their fixed exchange rate.

If China could in fact manufacture for us at $1.50 an hour WITHOUT a trade deficit, there's no reason we shouldn't let them make our stuff for us for @ $1.50! We could do that and just pay somebody here $20/hr to play xbox, and we'd be ahead of the game (instead of having that guy do the same work for $20/hr more).

Should the capitalist class choose to marginalize the value of labor

The value of labor is always marginalized to what the hungriest guy able to do the job is willing to work for.

The US is productive enough to mitigate this race to the bottom (via some added Saul Alinsky Socialismâ„¢) but this trade deficit is what's the core imbalance.

17   uomo_senza_nome   2012 Jan 23, 12:57pm  

david1 says

What if there was a law that voided all intellectual property rights to a product if an American company chose to substantially manufacture that product outside of the US? I believe this may be a stronger deterrent for offshoring jobs than any tariff.

This seems to be quite similar to imposing punitive tariffs, which will also hurt businesses. You need a conducive environment to conduct business, so this would hurt in the long run. What if innovative companies simply relocated to a country where IP rights are honored and make that country as their head quarters?

Bellingham Bill says

but this trade deficit is what's the core imbalance.

The best way to resolve this trade imbalance is to have no global reserve currency and let gold float freely against all currencies. I say gold because everyone values gold, central banks hold gold as their wealth reserve and gold is still the ultimate form of payment settlement (Ask Greenspan, he said this as recent as 2009). Spend currency and save gold.

Here's the perpetuating ponzi:

dollarreserve

Here's how the transaction looks with no global reserve currency.

norreserve

Bellingham Bill says

The problem as I see it isn't the offshoring so much it's that China is engaging in mercantilism allowed by their fixed exchange rate.

Of course they'd fix it. The crony capitalists over there benefit with an undervalued yuan and an overvalued dollar!

What you need is honesty in currency exchange on a global level.

See this: http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2009/07/bondage-or-freegold.html

Note: It doesn't have to be gold, it has to be something that cannot be debased, fractional reserved away or lost in transaction. Gold just fits in, because everyone involved in a transaction trusts it.

18   Â¥   2012 Jan 23, 2:27pm  

Heh, gimme the LVT and I'd be a goldbugger.

I find the neoliberal attacks on a new gold standard to be bogus.

Everybody's worried about how to respond to "crises" without fiat money, but damn if our system itself isn't creating these stupid crises in the first place.

Fiat money isn't the root problem, it's the basic nature of socio-economics where those with money acquire power to parasitically siphon more money from those lower down on wealth ladder.

The current reserve currency status allows us in the US the happy tailwind of all our trading partners needing to run trade surpluses against us. This has been somewhat beneficial over the past ~60+ years but perhaps our economy doesn't really need that crutch and never did.

We've got a pretty good slice of a productive continent to ourselves, just about the right amount of people to fill it up without getting too crowded, and a short but (mostly) sterling history of being a nation of immigrants all working together.

What this nation needs to focus on is cutting the bullshit and focusing on redistributing the wealth we've built up, and also finding a path to a sustainable, balanced socio-economic system.

What we've got now is flying apart.

19   uomo_senza_nome   2012 Jan 23, 2:40pm  

Bellingham Bill says

Everybody's worried about how to respond to "crises" without fiat money, but damn if our system itself isn't creating these stupid crises in the first place.

What if the system was intended to be creating Triffin's Dilemma all along?

Bellingham Bill says

Fiat money isn't the root problem, it's the basic nature of socio-economics where those with money acquire power to parasitically siphon more money from those lower down on wealth ladder.

Fiat money and a corrupt government are the facilitator of this wealth transfer process. Fiat is not the only problem, but it plays a central role in a bunch of interconnected causes.

Bellingham Bill says

What this nation needs to focus on is cutting the bullshit and focusing on redistributing the wealth we've built up, and also finding a path to a sustainable, balanced socio-economic system.

Well, the top 1% aren't just going to give their wealth away. They do and will continue to do everything they can to retain their wealth.

20   citizen jpp   2012 Jan 23, 9:37pm  

Patrick,
A post like this is destructive to the value of what you provide: relevant housing links to the public. That is your brand. And, if there aren't many links available for posting -- that is informative also -- either the "news" is ignoring the problem or the public is not interested. (I think Toll Brothers owns the Philadelphia Inquirer -- isn't that interesting)

Most people are not very informed about politics, economics, history or anything else for that matter -- it's that way by design, and not our fault. There is no need to give us the opportunity to display our lack of understanding regarding the "state of affairs" or general knowlege -- it's divisive. I'm sure someone will be unhappy with my view, but patrick.net should be a place for us to come together.

21   TMAC54   2012 Jan 23, 10:49pm  

GameOver says

Considering the inordinate amount of law-bending, backhandedness and posturing involved, I was thinking capitalism resembles ANOTHER popular game.

My life changed after blowing the whistle on one corrupt corporation for systematically shaving ten percent of their employees payroll.
While home prices and their own profits were sky rocketing, they were stealing from their employees !
Speaking with various attorneys on typical cases, we find five new cases filed PER DAY. Is this corrupt AMERICAN corporate culture Epidemic ?
Capitalism Sucks, But it is the best experiment going.
If we completed prosecution of those who damage human rights for the benefit of corporate profit, commonwealth would be close at hand.
BUT,
Attorneys persuade both plaintiffs and defendants to settle virtually ALL white collar criminal cases to reduce their workload and risk and to better insure their own income. This also encourages that same criminal to avoid any criminal record and regroup and scam demagoguery in new and even more covert ways.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. THE POWERFUL BENEFIT BY LACK OF KNOWLEDGE.

No one is ALL aware. excepting NOMO !

22   ja   2012 Jan 23, 11:31pm  

What astonishes me about USA is how undignified are the middle classes themselves. In Europe (today), the culture and the peoples believes says "you don't have a lesser status because of being poor". It's good in one sense, but a double edge sword. Often people tend to solve their problems by complaining about the system rather than acting on themselves, something that they can actually control.

Patrick, if you think money it's a zero-sum game, you should try status.

23   Â¥   2012 Jan 23, 11:58pm  

One of the best things about living in Japan was just how damn "classy" the Japanese were, generally speaking.

I loved biking all around Tokyo -- the core of the city is 9 miles tall by 5 miles wide -- and there was not a single slum to be found in that core.

There were some partially decrepit public housing blocs to be found several miles to the southwest, but these were islands in more affluent area and have probably been redeveloped by now.

The general lack of zoning makes it harder to tell poor area from rich, too -- it's all so jumbled together. There are some very tony neighborhoods, but except for a couple of standout neighborhoods they're not that easy to identify on casual inspection. And even the standout neighborhoods are nothing like Bel Aire.

24   Pat Evans   2012 Jan 24, 12:21am  

REGARDING MEDIA OWNERSHIP


I think you've gone off the deep end. I'm a bit paranoid myself, but the mainstream media in the US has very little if anything do to with central bankers. Got any evidence for said connection?

I can help answer this, since no one else appears interested.

1. Time Warner Inc.
2. Walt Disney Company
3. Viacom Inc.
4. News Corporation
5. CBS Corporation
6. Cox Enterprises
7. NBC Universal
8. Gannett Company, Inc.
9. Clear Channel Communications Inc.
10. Advance Publications, Inc.
11. Tribune Company
12. McGraw-Hill Companies
13. Hearst Corporation
14. Washington Post Company
15. The New York Times Company
16. E.W. Scripps Co.
17. McClatchy Company
18. Thomson Corporation
19. Freedom Communications, Inc.
20. A&E Television Networks

This is a list of the top 20 media companies. All but two of the above, #18 and #19, are members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR is a private thinktank organized by central banking interests.

The Media (from the “True Story of the Bilderberg Group,” by independent investigative journalist Daniel Estulin)

Past media invitees (to Bilderberg, another central banker thinktank) included Katharine Graham, now deceased, owner and chairwoman of the executive committee of the Washington Post; Donald E. Graham, Publisher, the Washington Post; Jim Hoagland and Charles Krauthammer, both columnists for the Washington Post; Andrew Knight, News Corporation director of Knight-Ridder; Arthur Sulzberger, New York Times editor and Council on Foreign Relations member; Robert L. Bartley, vice president of the Wall Street Journal and 'member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission; Mortimer B. Zuckerman, chairman and editor-in-chief of US. News and World Report, New York's Daily News, and Atlantic Monthly, also a Council on Foreign Relations member; William F. Buckley, jr., editor-in-chief of the National Review, Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times columnist; Bill Moyers, executive director of Public Affairs TV and former Director of the Council on Foreign Relations. A more extensive list is provided in an endnote.

The ideas and policies that come out of the Bilderberg annual meetings are used to generate news in the leading periodicals and news groups of the world. The point is to make the prevalent opinions of the Bilderbergers so appealing that they become public policy and to pressure world leaders into submitting to the "needs of the Masters of the Universe." The "free world press" is completely at the mercy of the Bilderbergers disseminating the agreed-upon propaganda.

What is most disturbing is that publicly traded corporations try to keep the Bilderberger guest-list a secret, and the corporate press scarcely reports on the event at all. The likes of Microsoft, AT&T, Bechtel, Cisco, Compaq and Price Waterhouse Coopers have nothing to fear from the press. Never mind that Microsoft and NBC co-own MSNBC cable network. In fact, among the frequently invited Bilderberg guests can be found the name of Anthony Ridder of Knight-Ridder, Inc., America's second-largest newspaper chain, which owns such publications as the Detroit Free Press, the Miami Herald and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In the 1993 August/September edition, the prestigious Dutch magazine Exposure outlined disturbing details about how the Tavistock Institute for Behavioural Analysis, premier behavioural research center in the world, planned to control the boards of the three major and most prestigious television networks in the United States: NBC, CBS and ABC. All three television networks came as spin-offs from the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). These organizations and institutions that theoretically are in "competition" with each other - this is part of the "independence" that ensures Americans enjoy unbiased news - are in fact closely interfaced and interlocked with countless companies and banks, making it an almost impossible task to untangle them.

According to then-U.S. Representative Bernie Sanders, NBC's owner General Electric is "one of the largest corporations in the world -and one with a long history of anti-union activity. GE, a major contributor to the Republican Party, has substantial financial interests in weapons manufacturing, finance, nuclear power and many other industries. Former CEO Jack Welch was one of the leaders in shutting down American plants and moving them to low-wage countries like China and Mexico."

NBC is a subsidiary of RCA, a media conglomerate. On RCA's board sits Thornton Bradshaw, president of Atlantic Richfield Oil, and member of the World Wildlife Fund, the Club of Rome, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Bradshaw is also chairman of NBC.

RCA's most legendary role, however, was the service it provided to British Intelligence during World War II. Of particular note: RCA's President David Sarnoff moved to London at the same time Sir William Stephenson (of Intrepid fame) moved into the RCA building in New York. During the war, Sarnoff was Eisenhower's top communications expert, overseeing the construction of a radio transmitter that was powerful enough to reach all of the allied forces in Europe. He campaigned for, and received, the honorary title of Brigadier General, and thereafter preferred to be known as "General Sarnoff." Today, the RCA directorate is made up of British-American establishment figures that belong to other organizations such as the CFR, NATO, the Club of Rome, the Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers, Round Table, etc.

Among the NBC directors named in the Exposure article were John Brademas (CFR, TC, Bilderberg), a director of the Rockefeller Foundation; Peter G. Peterson (CFR), a former head of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. (Rothschild), and a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce; Robert Cizik, chairman of RCA and of First City Bancorp, which was identified in Congressional testimony as a Rothschild bank; Thomas 0. Paine, president of Northrup Co. (the big defense contractor) and director of the Institute of Strategic Studies in London; Donald Smiley, a director of two Morgan Companies, Metropolitan Life and U.S. Steel; and the above-mentioned Thornton Bradshaw, chairman of RCA, director of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Atlantic Richfield, and the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies (both of the latter headed by a Bilderberger, Robert 0. Anderson). Clearly the NBC board is considerably influenced by the Rockefeller-Rothschild-Morgan troika, leading exponents of the New World Order initiative.

ABC is owned by the Disney Corporation, "which produces toys and products in developing countries where they provide their workers with atrocious wages and working conditions. It has 153 TV stations. Chase Manhattan Bank controls 6.7% of ABC's stock - enough to give it a controlling interest. Chase, through its trust department, controls 14% of CBS and 4.5% of RCA. Instead of three competing television networks called NBC, CBS, and ABC, what we really have is the Rockefeller Broadcasting Company, the Rockefeller Broadcasting System, and the Rockefeller Broadcasting Consortium.

On the ABC board of directors is Ray Adam, director of J.P. Morgan, Metropolitan Life (Morgan), and Morgan Guaranty Trust; Frank Cary, chairman of IBM, and director of J.P. Morgan and the Morgan Guaranty Trust; Donald C. Cook (CFR, Bilderberg), general partner of Lazard Freres banking house, whose executives frequently attend Bilderberg meetings; John T. Connor (CFR) of the Kuhn, Loeb (Rothschild) law firm, Gravath, Swaine and Moore, former Secretary of the Navy, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, director of the Chase Manhattan Bank (Rockefeller/ Rothschild), General Motors, and chairman of the J. Henry Schroder Bank; Thomas M. Macioce, director of Manufacturers Hanover Trust (Rothschild); George Jenkins, chairman of Metropolitan Life (Morgan) and Citibank (Rothschild connections); Martinj. Schwab, director of Manufacturers Hanover (Rothschild); Alan Greenspan (CFR, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg), chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, director of J.P. Morgan, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Hoover Institute, Time magazine, and General Foods; Ulric Haynes,Jr., director of the Ford Foundation and Marine Midland Bank.
Isn't it strange how the same Rockefeller-Rothschild-Morgan characters on the board of the ABC network, which, we are told, is independent of NBC, appear to represent the competition? ABC was taken over by Cities Communications, whose most prominent director is Robert Roosa (CFR, Bilderberg), senior partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, which has close ties with the Bank of England. Roosa and David Rockefeller are credited with selecting Paul Volcker to chair the Federal Reserve Board.

CBS is owned by Viacom, which has over 200 TV and 255 radio affiliates nationwide. This huge media conglomerate owns, among other companies, MTV, Showtime, Nickelodeon, VH1, TNN, CMT, 39 broadcast television stations, 184 radio stations, Paramount Pictures and Blockbuster Inc. As an American intelligence officer, CBS founder William Paley was trained in mass brainwashing techniques during World War II at the Tavistock Institute in England.

The financial expansion of CBS was supervised for a long time by Brown Brothers Harriman and its senior partner, Prescott Bush (father and grandfather to Presidents), who was a CBS director. The CBS board included Chairman Paley, for whom Prescott Bush personally organized the money to buy the company; Harold Brown (CFR), executive director of the Trilateral Commission, and former Secretary of the Air Force and of Defense of the U.S.; Roswell Gilpatric (CFR, Bilderberg), from the Kuhn, Loeb (Rothschild) law firm, Cravath, Swaine, and Moore, and former director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Henry B. Schnacht, director of the Chase Manhattan Bank (Rockefeller/Rothschild), the Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institution, and Committee for Economic Development; Michel C. Bergerac, chairman of Revlon, and director of Manufacturers Hanover Bank (Rothschild); James D. Wolfensohn (CFR, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg), former head of J. Henry Schroder Bank, who has close links with the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, and who in 1995 was successfully nominated to head the World Bank by Bill Clinton; Franklin A. Thomas (CFR), head of the Rockefeller-controlled Ford Foundation; Newton D. Minow (CFR), director of the Rand Corporation and, among many others, the Ditchley Foundation, which is closely linked with the Tavistock Institute in London and the Bilderberg Group. The former president of CBS was Dr. Frank Stanton (CFR), who is also a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Institution. So, are the Rothschild and the Rockefeller families, who are leading groups in the tightly controlled field of communications, answering directly to the Bilderbergers?

FOX News Channel, part of the FOX network, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns a significant portion of the world's media. His network has close ties to the Republican Party and among his "fair and balanced" commentators is Newt Gingrich, former GOP Republican House speaker. Murdoch, needless to say, is a luminary in the secret Bilderberg Group. He has most recently added the Wall Street Journal to his empire.

25   Patrick   2012 Jan 24, 12:39am  

citizen jpp says

A post like this is destructive to the value of what you provide

Of course I strongly disagree. The huge and currently defaulting debts in the housing market are a symptom of the desire to be perceived as rich.

ja says

Patrick, if you think money it's a zero-sum game, you should try status.

True! Your status is determined by the status of people around you. If they have more than you do, then that makes you a failure in America, no matter how much you yourself have, or how hardworking, smart, and kind your are.

I read that perception of low status in yourself causes anxiety, depression, and even physical illnesses. So no wonder that people are so determined to look rich that they will borrow way more money than they should. This is very convenient for moneylenders and bosses (who like having indebted and therefore obedient employees).

Jay Bremwick says

This is a list of the top 20 media companies. All but two of the above, #18 and #19, are members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Only people are members of the CFR, not companies, right? Or are you saying the executives of those companies are members of the CFR?

26   Pat Evans   2012 Jan 24, 12:52am  


Only people are members of the CFR, not companies, right? Or are you saying the executives of those companies are members of the CFR?

Corporations routinely send one of their execs (a thinktank member) to thinktank meetings, to represent. BTW, this is very difficult information to find. You're welcome.

27   MsAnnaNOLA   2012 Jan 24, 3:59am  

Maybe we can't all be rich, but maybe the median income should be higher than the $26,000 that was last reported.

When I read that I knew immediately what is wrong with our economy. 50% of the country does not make a living wage, that is what is wrong with our economy. With commodity (food) prices soaring along with medical (insurance) and the cost of college education we have become a nation of haves and have nots.

I can't imagine living on that wage when taxes eat up about 30% of income. So after taxes you are talking $17,333. You might say 30% is too high but in my state Louisiana sales tax is 9.5%. So when you factor that plus, payroll tax, FICA and income tax. We are solidly in 30% tax range. I don't know how they do it.

If 70% of our economy is consumer spending we have got to get more money to this bottom 50% if we are ever going to have a decent economy.

28   Auntiegrav   2012 Jan 24, 7:19am  

Wow. Sorry I missed the beginning of this one. Some things that fundamentally address this discussion's direction:
First: Capitalism isn't a form of government.
Second: ALL government is "socialism": it is distributed risk and shared effort toward some common need or desire.
The concept which failed in Russia was actually not communism or socialism, but Central Planning, even though we all called it "Communism" and "Socialism", it was central control of wealth, which doesn't really have to do with living in a commune or working for the betterment of a society. It is an economic philosophy, just as capitalism is, and just as prone to corruption.
The problem lies in letting our lives be run by economic philosophies rather than working to give more to our own future than we take from it.
You can basically lump all human economic systems into two types: consumption or generosity. Those that function on consumption turn into empires and eventually consume themselves out of house and home. Those that function on generosity survive for a long time until they run into a consumer society which consumes them.
There is no cure except failure (the boom is only fixed by a bust). You aren't going to "change" capitalists and consumers into generous free love contributors to the environment they need to live in. They will have to die off and some fringe branch of the species MIGHT survive to create a different society, but there is no guarantee that the species will survive at all (especially looking at the fact that the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn anything from history).
And last, but not least, Nadim Chaloub puts it quite well with "If you're so rich, why ain't you so smart?" (from "Fooled by Randomness").
Best to all, this is a great discussion!
Oh.. almost forgot: Anyone that thinks redistribution of wealth is valid needs to rethink the logistics. For government to redistribute wealth requires high overhead (especially with borrowed money, which is a promise to consume more resources in the future to tax resource consumers at some rate and pay back the debts...money isn't created out of thin air by debts-it comes from an implied demand on future resources). Redistribution is an after-the-failure method of trying to put duct tape on an exhaust pipe. Just doesn't work beyond putting the tape on, and it wastes the tape. The solution (which would have had to be implemented some 50 or more years ago) is to moderate the accumulation of wealth in the first place, so that resources are fairly available to all for useful work. Our current economy is built on people doing useless crap with extravagant resources and not getting paid for it while a few people accumulate enormous wealth they don't do anything useful with except lie to everyone that they did it through some heroic attainment of skill or knowledge. They convince everyone to jump through all of the hoops to gain the skills and knowledge, only to thwart them from receiving resources to use those talents in any future-enhancing way.
Invest in beans, books, and bullets. We've got a helluva time coming up until this all gets cleaned out in the wash.

29   Auntiegrav   2012 Jan 24, 7:28am  

MsAnnaNOLA says

Maybe we can't all be rich, but maybe the median income should be higher than the $26,000 that was last reported.

The key question is, "Doing what, exactly?"
Sure, it's lovely to think that everyone should get a fair wage to live as well as the others in their society, but what if their society is a wasteful pile of sh.t in the first place, and the 'jobs' are doing things that are sucking resources out of their very own futures and polluting the air, soil, and water their children will need to survive?
The current state of affairs is that less than 2% of the population provides ALL of the food needed, while the rest of the people spend their days trying to do something that LOOKS like useful work only to other people doing the same types of useless time-consuming drivel. Humanity has no collective agreement on what a human being is good for except to tell each other that we must be good for SOMEthing or we wouldn't be here. Blind faith in our existence, which combines with blind faith in the Invisible Hand to create a lot of blind and ignorant masses trying to find their way to the top of a pile of empty plastic containers and discarded iPhones.

30   Auntiegrav   2012 Jan 24, 7:37am  

MsAnnaNOLA says

If 70% of our economy is consumer spending we have got to get more money to this bottom 50% if we are ever going to have a decent economy.

I don't mean to be mean in my responses to you. I like what you are pointing out, and if I had a normal brain (non Asperger's), I would completely agree with you. But I don't. I have to take the next step from where you are going. Suppose we DID redistribute resources so everyone could drive to the mall to buy new clothes to drive to the mall? How long would that last? In the current system, some 80% own 7% of the resources. If they were smart, they would figure out what rope was for and eliminate that other 20% and have 13 times more resources available for themselves and their children than they have now or (heaven forbid) they could leave 93% of the current resource consumption in the ground for future generations (assuming they are basically surviving as is with what they have). Instead, we have everyone pursuing some means of "saving" the very economic policy which has brought them to this sorry state of affairs in the first place: consumption. Bottom line is that the machinery of civilization is actually running backward: consuming when it should be creating, taking when it should be giving, and mindlessly (and comfortably)following paths that are paved straight to Hell (and repaved several times over the centuries).

31   Â¥   2012 Jan 24, 8:26am  

^ I agree with this.

We don't need mass consumption in this economy. Well, perhaps some people could use more stuff but we should try to ebay and Goodwill around stuff to even things out more.

This country is currently living $600B/yr beyond our means. Per household, that's $500/mo

http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/ustrade.html

There was no discussion of the trade deficit at last night's debate.

Auntiegrav says

Blind faith in our existence, which combines with blind faith in the Invisible Hand to create a lot of blind and ignorant masses trying to find their way to the top of a pile of empty plastic containers and discarded iPhones.

Preach it.

32   marcus   2012 Jan 24, 11:42am  

shrekgrinch says

Damn! I want to be a big time labor union boss too then!

I think maybe I have been misinformed about thses guys. Could you please help me to understand by identifying an example or two of these guys ? I know, I know, you don't want to be my google bitch, but honestly, I just can't find out who these guys are.

Who are these big time union bosses ?

Do you have any info on their big incomes, their luxurious lifestyles and conspicuous consumption ?

Maybe you and Fort Wayne are right about this. If so, please identify at least one of these guys so that I can finally understand, hopefully with info about their big incomes. If what you find is a few "union bosses" that make as much as your typical mid level corporate manager, I would have to ask, is this what you mean ?

Please educate me on who these people are.

33   Buster   2012 Jan 24, 1:04pm  

Jay Bremwick says

I can help answer this, since no one else appears interested.

Jay, you beat me to the punch, but I must say did a very impressive job with this take down, far better than what I could have come up with. Bravo.

Yes, the mainstream media is fully controlled by central bankers who line the pockets of both the left and the right but admittedly more to the right.

As a side note, this is why a free and unrestrained internet is so important by offering a venue outside of the MSM. SOPA, is just another attempt at snuffing out any real, unfiltered news, commentary and intellectual thought that does not agree with the propaganda the bankers want us to hear and believe.

34   marcus   2012 Jan 24, 11:19pm  

marcus says

Who are these big time union bosses ?

I see there is some truth to it.

http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/12/04/tdus-new-150000-club-shows-teamster-bosses-still-doing-well-despite-recession/

That's the teamsters.

As for the leaders of biggest teacher's unions, the pay is much lower. Average of more like 150K.

35   ja   2012 Jan 25, 2:01am  


ja says

Patrick, if you think money it's a zero-sum game, you should try status.

True! Your status is determined by the status of people around you. If they have more than you do, then that makes you a failure in America, no matter how much you yourself have, or how hardworking, smart, and kind your are.

I read that perception of low status in yourself causes anxiety, depression, and even physical illnesses. So no wonder that people are so determined to look rich that they will borrow way more money than they should. This is very convenient for moneylenders and bosses (who like having indebted and therefore obedient employees).

You got it wrong. When status is based on money, the aim to improve status is that it will raise the total amount of money (in a perfect-fair capitalistic society, at least). Thus, not a +zero sum game. A global high standard of leaving, not only relative differences, are a source of happiness:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDYQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gallup.com%2Ffile%2Fpoll%2F116605%2FEasterlinParadox.pdf&ei=oUIgT-_SBKnb0QGC6KAG&usg=AFQjCNFf80ghdYsOlgEKNW-gc_zzFM5n_A&sig2=b58Pc2FlobcklTEGtWGP6w

36   ArtimusMaxtor   2012 Jan 25, 10:48am  

I have news for everyone. America is minus poor. What does that mean? If you don't have anything thats 0. If your in debt thats less than zero. I am being very, very serious here. Now they are talking of recovery and things of this nature. ALL BASED ON PEOPLE GOING IN DEBT FOR THEM. I think people are golly gee wiz for doing that for people that run them like a pack mule with no hind legs and just a piece of plywood with wheels on it attached to its rear so it can keep moving quickly. So what I am saying here is that if you owe. No matter what you live in your less than poor. Because a poor guy dosen't have to jump when you tell him. It may be swell compared to. However deal is you lose your jobbie and they take everything you have. So you have to live with the fucking fear of that every GD day of your life.

Then again you could be poor working as a bond servant. At say any kind of low wage job. (Which means you get paid not by the day, but by the week). They try to confuse things in definition. However ask anyone hip about it they will tell you move real slow and work even slower. Because they have you overnite to. (Think back to the first time they told you. You get paid every two weeks. More than likely you were pissed at that fact. The very thing you might have though was this is a rip-off.) That means until they pay you your on the clock for them and in a bond to work for them 24/7 until you get paid. They will also tell you thats just the way it is. We have to take it or leave it so do you. Its GD clever of them to pay you by the week. Its even more clever to put you on time payments for things like electric and cable and phone and cell. That way no matter how paid off you are in a home or a car. You still owe pal. Get used to the way things are done around here.

Meanwhile the poor stare. Deal is I find some of them a little more hip than some would think about all of this debt business.

Trulia and Zillow are up to their old tricks. One more time. Before you buy based on their information. PULL some of the sales they are claiming and compare them to courthouse records. You are going to find some really juked data. They are very much on purpose trying to inflate home values themselves. Getting people out their trying to buy. They are lender owned (what isn't) of course. Just pull some random sales they are claiming on individual properties. Take it to your courthouse. You will be very damn shocked to find out they are claiming sales that happened a long, long time ago. Some of them are original sales they have recycled. I have found as much as 70% off of what they are claiming as sales. Thats 70% bogus. They claim are errant algorithims. Please. Americans have to stop believing bullshit. Then I can get some rest. I like most of us here we can't stand ignorance.

Once again its really nice for them to lie like hookers and juke data for the economy. More importantly for themselves. Deal is you buy and it keeps heading south your fucked in negative equity land. So test me on this go check their data. You people really, really need to pay attention to negative equity do your own work and not rely on someone elses bullshit and wind up in a big fucking hole. That includes UNDER CONTRACT. Under contract dosen't mean shit so don't be impressed. Closed means something. You can wipe your ass with under contract it amounts to the same thing.

Christmas was so fucked Santa has to eat his own boogers. Fox lied and lied about it. I was out there nothing was happening. Obama the fuck puppet has to get elected. So it all makes sense. If your in debt. If your not in debt and can actually think for yourself. You know it dosen't mean a GD thing. Deal is I think America is cooked. They just can't find the meat thermometer to tell them just how well done this place really is. Thats ok I have it your well done. 27% Unemployment. (which they swear up and fucking down is 8.5%). People are losing their homes left and right. Again no one is buying save your shit for a true believer. Detroit is sucked under. I saw one drive out tag I think it was 2 years ago. The housing industry is fucked. MSNBC stock hustlers used to say housing and autos were the primary drivers of the economy. Computers running a distant third. Everyone knows this. However they continue to bullshit us with a meaningless stock market that defies gravity. How stupid do they really think we are? So throw out the cpi and ppi throw inflation the fuck out. Cause that don't mean anything anymore. Yes folks its a whole new set of rules. Get used to it. They are so transparent that even glass is jealous.

So I guess I get it. It's all some kind of fucking formula you use for all of this that just isn't going to work anymore. Hey I am a nice guy (I know this little commentary does not betray that fact.) Deal is the bullshit needs to stop. Put on movies or something. Reruns of Gilligans Island or Bewitched. Mushrooms are growing out of peoples asses waiting for this all to get real. We are really hoping it will. Stop blowing smoke. Stop bullshitting us. It's insulting to us. We know that they are still firebombing in Egypt you play like they aren't. Still blowing up stuff and shooting up Baghdad trying to get the oil fuckers out of there. What we want is just a little honesty about the way things were. Call us nostalgic. Stop trying to hold it all together with string. Come out here and meet us. We can have lunch together. Be friends. Just start being straight with us. Hey we don't bite. Unless we are treated like something less than intelligent.

37   Patrick   2012 Jan 25, 12:13pm  

ArtimusMaxtor says

Trulia and Zillow are up to their old tricks. One more time. Before you buy based on their information. PULL some of the sales they are claiming and compare them to courthouse records.

I've tried that, but the counties don't necessarily cooperate with you either. They make it harder to get "public records" than is necessary.

Then you start talking to people there and realize that almost everyone working in the county real estate records office is a realtor, or an appraiser, or a mortgage lender, and it suddenly becomes clear why those offices are run like they are.

39   Mick Russom   2012 Jan 26, 11:17am  

I've come to the conclusion that you are either rich in the USA, or you must abuse alcohol and or food. I just stopped drinking and over-eating, and the reality of how bad the future looks for myself and my children is staggering - and I'd probably be in the top 15-20% in terms of income / net worth.

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