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 ...
Sure capitalism has brought great wonders to market and has lowered the cost of goods and services through innovation and great strides in improve efficiencies.
But you do have a point that the poor in this country have available to them undreamed of wealth compared to the poor of a century ago.
Force redistribution of wealth has made the poor of today obese. The poor today have a high caloric intake with nothing to do to burn those calories. Who could have imagined in the 1920s that the poor of the next century would suffer from rich man’s diseases like gout?
The welfare state does nothing to benefit the rich nor the poor.
I disagree.
Revolutions happen when the oppressed are given hope and indications that the oppressive government is unstable.
The Russian revolution happened when the Czar showed willingness to bargain and to begin to relinquish some power.
Again the USSR fell when Gorbachev began to make reforms.
Either revolution could have been avoided had the leaders used extreme violence to suppress unrest.
For example the Chinese government avoided revolution by violently suppressing dissent after the events of Tiananmen Square.
The middle class in this country is dying.
The rich fear the left, which includes the government. They do not fear conservatives at all. The rich use conservatives as a convenient punching bag to make friends with the left. When a small tribe is greatly outnumbered, appeasement is the most effective strategy, hence limousine liberalism. This was first discovered by a king long ago. Soros is trying a new tactic: smoke the bee hive.
Hey idiot, the free market got you there and it will get others there too if they want it.
The pitchforks eventually come no matter what, it has nothing to do with income inequality, and is just the nature of government.
good point! the poor of today are too out of shape to lift a pitchfork!
ROFL!
Plus, they might miss the latest episode of american idol !
Well Conservatives don’t have a history of killing millions to achieve utopia so I can understand why wealthy lefties fear lefties with that history of violence worldwide.
The US is more equal and the poor are more wealthy than most other nations.
When the pitchforks come out overseas in a single developed nation, then it is time to worry. As of now it has not happened in nations with far worse conditions than the US.
An event such as grid failure can force it to happen but as long as most people have food and distractions, they are unlikely to get violent.
"Torches and Pitchforks" sounds like a great name for a national chain of retail stores. Just think of the more modern products they could offer...
“Torches & Pitchforks”
EBT cards and WIC vouchers accepted here.
Lets not make the mistake of accepting the left’s argument that income inequality is a problem. No one has described WHY this would be a problem other than resentment (mostly by leftists). Until the wealth of a few limits the amount of goods available to the masses this is just another imaginary issue ginned up by the left to justify redistribution and income confiscation.
Nothing is preventing these leftist super-rich crybabies from addressing this “problem” by giving away most of their wealth.
Envy is an unfortunate side effect of vanity. Leftists ride to power on the flames of envy so they incite vanity and envy at every opportunity, and the urban media helps them. History shows though that happiness and prosperity only come to nations to the extent they succeed at suppressing envy.
You have a good point there, but any kind of discomfort or inconvenience tends to make people angry.
A lot of the population needs some sort of drugs including prescription ones and or alcohol to sustain them.
I’ve seen people yelling and getting angry on a 90 degree day. It can get warmer outside than that.
I just posted about drugs including prescription ones and alcohol “sustaining” large portions of the population, maybe many are “food addicts” as well using overeating to sustain their self-image.
A more sober population living according to spiritual principles would help instead of a drug and alcohol driven one with emotional outbursts of religious zealotry mixed in as is often the case with “the masses”.
Ha ha. And so true!
In my area some people used to be fond of saying that there is only one thing a person HAS TO DO and that is DIE. At a young age I started telling them they are wrong, a person also has to LIVE UNTIL he dies.
“Income inequality is of no importance. It is opportunity inequality that matters.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Amen, brother and that is the KILLER. When people were settling a new wilderness here opportunity was as equal as it can ever be. Now it is anything BUT equal and I’m not talking about the same thing as the race hustlers, I am speaking of something much different.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.