The Economic Elite Have Engineered an Extraordinary Coup...

The Silver Bear Cafe ^ | Undated | David DeGraw

[GiovannaNicoletta]

The economic elite have robbed us all. The amount of suffering in the United States of America is literally a crime against humanity

"The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight." - Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not

We all have very strong differences of opinion on many issues. However, like our founding fathers before us, we must put aside our differences and unite to fight a common enemy.

[exnavy]

You know, reading several posts tonight, as well as my own, if someone would have told me three or four years ago that these conversations would be taking place I would have called that person a lunatic.

[familyop]

"But the opportunity is still there! People can’t just say “well unemployment is 10%, I’ll give up looking and I’ll wait for republicans to take over and fix everything.” If nobody is willing to hire you, you can still use the brain that G-d gave you and come up with an idea that will make money. Yes, the govt can do more to get out of the way but it’s not as if the economy grinds to a halt until the tax rate is 5%."

Well said, and agreed! ...except that I will help others (former Democrats and Republicans) to shrink revenues, until the government shrinks, too. And yes, it will be painful. For now, elementary school teachers and local government clerks are being paid four times what men in technical trades are earning. That's a political environment that I can work with. Some say that an economic crash will lead to fascism. I say that we're already getting their with the current paradigm.

The new austerity is all that will be required.

This might come as a surprise, but most of us low-tech. "Neanderthals" are not as likely to hurt our neighbors (especially small ethnic/other groups) as those already in national and local business-political power. We would not steal children from parents for no more violation than hauling water instead of having automatically flowing water. We would not break a family without a full body of evidence in a proper court. We would not use foreign, fascist slaves to starve our own neighbors. We would not use false environmentalism or pretended sensitivities to outlaw any work done by neighboring men on their own properties. We would not outlaw small, family agricultural operations.

That's what we're up against. We're not the "John Galt" of Rand's imaginings. She would have favored men in management against men in engineering during this time.

We are working with real engineers and real young people in their twenties. We're far more tough and likely to survive hard economic times than our contemporary masters, who try to pit us against one another with hysterical, sponsored political propaganda (ethnic group against ethnic group, political affiliations against each other, women against men, children against fathers, all).

We're not very sensitive about words, and our clothing tends to scare the overly sensitive and insulated. But we're not brutes, either. As a matter of fact, as a group, we're not as brutal as most who consider themselves to be our superiors.

IMO, we needed this and will see it through. Most of the rest of the middle class will fall. This is not the economic situation of the 1950s. Government will not re-expand by "printing more money." Large gluts of financial instruments without backing by useful products will be as worthless to government as to anyone else.

In the nations, after several generations, business families tend to become immoral, lazy, stale and accusatory. We need new business starts by people who are properly humble and hardened.

[Thumper1960]

Three or four years ago we didn't have the open Marxist agenda we see today. Just a few years ago not many of us could argue that what we see today would come to pass. I knew, deep inside, nearly 30 years ago that these days would come. I had hoped they wouldn't. I am, however, resigned to certain facts and eventualities. I pray that posterity will look kindly upon us.

[familyop]

"You know, reading several posts tonight, as well as my own, if someone would have told me three or four years ago that these conversations would be taking place I would have called that person a lunatic."

I understand. But I worked quite a few different office and other (manufacturing, construction, labor) jobs in different places during the '90s (volunteered to be away for extra duties between jobs and also volunteered for some police work for a short while patrolling alone with full discretion). Business is generally a playhouse of prostitution. So is government. Horrible crimes are often committed in locally high places.

Now, along with other technicians and engineers, I help a few unlicensed younger folks to make and build things of use--those who reject the social, political and financial excesses of their Baby Boomer and Generation-X mothers and fathers.

For quite a few years, I haven't had time to be brainwashed and enslaved by crooked political parties through television, fads or vices.

[familyop]

...even taught as a substitute teacher for a year and received insights into the evil worlds of school administrations and too many families. Rich and poor, many of them were very socially perverted, dishonest and cruel. This is not the America that I grew up in, and the special interests behind both political parties are dragging this country down.

[familyop]

Oops...meant to write in all of that haste, I say that we’re already getting there [fascism] with the current paradigm.

[MrDem]

Try Ethiopia during the famine with flies landing on your kids’ eyes. You want to boil grass for soup for your wife and ten kids. But there’s no water. That’s true for 1,000 miles in every direction.

So true! Suffering for America's poor is not being able to upgrade their plasma TVs into the the 60+ inch range.

[ovrtaxt]

He's speaking of the industrialized world:
America is the richest nation in history, yet we now have the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world with an unprecedented amount of Americans living in dire straights and over 50 million citizens already living in poverty.

[ovrtaxt]

Thoreau and Martin Luther King wrote extensively about (and lived out) that very issue.

[ovrtaxt]

You can access true economic statistics at shadowstats.com. Basically, the economy is analyzed using the same mathematical methods in use during the 70s and 80s.

That method yields an unemployment number of about 20%, inflation at about 9.8% as of January 2010.

Here’s a fact that this article didn’t even address- the sheer size of unresolved OTC derivative products worldwide, is about a QUADRILLION dollars. Numbers that big don’t deserve to exist. The scary thing is, these derivatives are largely derived from other derivative products already in existence- so it’s a house of cards, an array of dominos, a potential avalanche. One little failure could cause a complete collapse, much like Lehman would have. (Tarp patched it back together temporarily.)

There are a lot of people out of work, who read about the bonuses paid out by Goldman Sachs and other firms- who are totally pissed about the whole thing. We were told that if we worked hard, paid our bills, did the right thing, that we would build a good life.

We’ve been ripped off and more and more people are figuring out the scam.

[familyop]

Yep. Even the social programs for putting all those evil “males” in their place are for the purpose of keeping potential competition down. ...and public education, too. ...and local zoning regulations.