Posted on 07/01/2014 11:33:25 PM PDT by Nextrush
Nick Hanauer, internet entrepreneur, has a message for his fellow "zillionaires", the revolution is coming.
Mr. Hanauer, an early investor in internet retail giant Amazon.....
Now, he writes in Politico magazine, he sees a different kind of future, and the outlook for people like him is not a bright one:
"If we don't do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn't eventually come out"
Do you think the US is special or different, he asks. You're wrong. No nation is immune, he says-just ask the Russian tsars or the French aristocracy....
Mr. Hanauer endorses what he calls "middle-out" economics. He advocates raising the minimum wage and endorses Seattle's recent move to raise the lowest hourly wage for an employee in the city judisdiction to $15....
Rick Newman of Yahoo Finance thinks Mr. Hanauer is getting a bit too worked up, however.
"The rich out to chill out," he writes. "While the masses may envy their wealth, there's no evidence of a revolution brewing, or even a well-behaved civil disturbance.".......
"It's nearly inevitable there will be government spending cuts and, yes tax hikes, when the government's finances become unsustainable, which could take a decade or more," he says. "When it happens, the politicians in Washington will find ways to spread the pain around, and America will muddle through."..............
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Our Uniparty rulers operating under the Patty Murray-Paul Ryan budget currently in place (cutting military pensions, exteneded unemployment, raising new taxes called "airline fees") are moving us in the direction of future austerity measures including higher taxes and spending cuts like the European countries have gone through.
Newman speaks of the government spending becoming unsustainable in a decade or more. That's the timeframe GOP politicians like Paul Ryan speak of when they talk about a "balanced budget".
Newman envisions America muddling through the austerity when it hits us hard ...Any opinions out there?????/
So write me a seven figure check.
I’ll be grateful and could use the loot.
The link for this story is bad, so here’s a good one.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-28068277
Yes, it's going to get worse. Right now, we are papering over the dips. What happens when we run out of "paper"? Who knows? Most of the world is doing the same thing, so the façade will continue until...it doesn't.
This was over 40 years in the making. Washington knows what's happening but is powerless to fix it.
Do I expect blood on the streets? In some areas, probably. Do I expect the America I grew up in to survive? Yes, but it won't be anywhere near as powerful or free as it was before.
The politicians are talking loudly using emotional words with symbolic actions to get votes and power while the clock slowly ticks towards the inevitable collapse of the nation’s financial house of cards.
Time’s on my side: I just have to survive until I die.
The guy is an idiot.
The “inequity” of the Roaring Twenties was greater than today.
On big difference though is that the little guy of the twenties could see that that kind of wealth could be his. Today the big government has for the most part frozen the little guy out by passing some many laws and regulations that the little guy can not possibly navigate those laws and achieve success.
Reduce the regulatory load on small business and cut taxes and watch economic growth explode. The number of millionaires would rocket. Unemployment numbers would plummet.
Income inequality is of no importance. It is opportunity inequality that matters.
The government is throwing up road blocks to success for the low income guy trying to start his own business. Get government out of his way and he won’t care what Donald Trump is doing unless he wants to know how he made his millions.
I remember 20 to 30 years ago when the most popular books were books by millionaires on how they made their millions. Give a guy a fighting chance to start his own business and he will keep starting businesses until he is successful.
you mean a billionaire is not smart enough to realize it’s not the rich people that are the problem but the politicians?
The U.S. is such a wealthy country that the wealthy don’t even consider themselves rich. They just fly off to their second homes, swim in their private swimming pools, and buy whatever they want. They consider that normal. Those who are scraping by see it differently.
I remember a headline from the nineties that went “You Mean the Eighties Are Over and You Forgot to Get Rich?” Exactly. If you missed the boat, there is now generally no way to catch up with it.
Mr. Hanauer hasn’t learnt much history. The inequality he speaks of has been the standard all the way up until 1775 with only a few brief and/or small exceptions along the way. Then there was a sudden out break in the equality of opportunity but since about 1870 it has been slowly eroded back to despotism. in some areas like Asia, Africa and Latin America, it really never took hold.
I don't think so! IMHO, people just don't appreciate the generalized spread of wealth we have today. All the stuff that can be had by those with the most modest means that was undreamt of even thirty years ago ... for how primitive were the eighties? Then what about the twenties and the thirties? You had kids growing up learning how to amuse themselves with paper clips and thimbles. Now, $40 toys blow through the lives of toddlers like so many dry leaves.
I have to think of Dostoyesvsky, "I believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key!"
“...just ask the Russian tsars or the French aristocracy...”
He ALMOST had it. I didn’t read the article, but I wonder if he also makes the mistake of saying Robin Hood stole from the rich?
Hanauer’s idiotic philosophy is the catalyst for the threats he fears.
American revolution Part 2 is coming.
This is why we have the Tea Party movement. It got started in order to “clean out the rats nests” in the first place.
Some millionaire will read this and say, “hey, let’s start a pitchfork company.”
Guess in his bubble peace loving lefties are gonna decimate armed Conservatives???????? Dude this isn’t 1930s Russia!
This just shows rich people can be stupid.
QFT and well stated, too!!
Revolutions happen when you allow the underclass to grow too large. The middle class is too busy trying to get wealthy.
Thanks
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