Tradition holds that the budget speech is the only time alcohol is allowed in the House of Commons, the theory being that the Chancellor deserves a stiff drink. Disraeli liked a brandy, whilst Gladstone preferred sherry with beaten egg. Well, frankly, I'll have some of whatever Darling was having.
Billions pouring into job-creation. Overseas development commitments secure for the next two years. And a new 50% tax bracket for top earners. Cautiously, I'm impressed. It's not much, but it's a start. Thanks, Darling, although you don't need mine: Ian Dale already thinks you're a big, red, class-war dribbling knob. That should be endorsement enough.
Look, I know that you're expecting bile and vitriol from me, and we both know that there's a long way to go. An article is DEFINITELY on its way about how increasing tobacco and alcohol duty is a stealth tax on the poor. But look, it's a lovely day, we've been promised a tiny giggling bit of redistribution, and for the extra win, Cameron really did make an arse of his pink-faced self in the rebuttal speech. Go on, let's enjoy ourselves for five minutes. Numfar, do the dance of joy!
So, you liked Angel.
ReplyDeleteJoss Whedon is a much better dancer than Alasdair Darling is a Chancellor. We're in such deep foetid shit that only corporophiles are qualified to rejoice. The Chancellor's growth forecasts are completely out of whack - crazy! The only thing to do now is try to survive and hope that things will improve, one day, naturally, whoever is in power.
This is the twilight of the Labour Party.
Ragnarok is upon them.
Why is the higher rate of tax for the rich such a good thing? Why would you want to punish successful, wealth-creating people at this stage of the economic cycle?
ReplyDeleteDarling may well be creating the scenario where wealthy people bugger off to other countries that don't screw them for the crime of having money. And that's going to impact on the billions that go into job creation etc.
It was a terrible budget with no foresight or wisdom in it at all. In fact, it was backward looking - right back to the last failed Labour government of the 1970's.
Yippee!
ReplyDeleteLaffer curve, innit, TNL.
Penny - maybe rich people are rich because wealth means more to them than it does to the rest of us. In that case, funding the welfare states from their pockets rather than from those of the middle classes, is deeply immoral.
Shame on you.
And why is increasing the duty on alcohol and tobacco a stealth tax on the poor?
ReplyDeleteI smoke - to excess - and drink - in moderation - and I'm paying the duty on this too.
Don't forget, as a taxpayer, I'm hit by a double whammy here - I'm helping to subsidise them *and* paying the extra duty too.
Anyone who thinks that this budget is going to shorten or relieve the next miserable decade of paying back everything Labour have pissed against the wall for the past 12 years is naive to the point of living in a parallel but psychotic universe.
We need some creative thinking at this moment in history. The problem is that no-one on offer seems to be capable of it.
Shit...vote for me - I'd get us out of it in 4 easy stages.
1) Legalise all drugs - tax and regulate.
2) Scrap all government initiatives that aren't labour intensive - ie computer systems that don't work, ID cards, surveillance schemes. All totally unnecessary.
3) Target benefits on those who *really* need them. Whilst I'm fine with my taxes going to people in need, I don't want to pay for people to live a life of idleness.
4) Scrap Trident and pull out of all military operations that aren't directly involved with the defence of this country - that includes the 'war on terrorism'.
A strange right-wing/left-wing mixture, maybe, but if we want our children's children not to be in debt, we all need to be a bit less partisan.
"Why is the higher rate of tax for the rich such a good thing? Why would you want to punish successful, wealth-creating people at this stage of the economic cycle?"
ReplyDeleteWhy do people always assume that the rich are always wealth-creating and successful? I'm sure many rich have got there by receiving pay-offs from companies despite screwing them up, and then there's those that get rich by screwing workers and third world countries and people and there's always those who properly have got rich by not actually being that good at what they do at all...
We'd be better off keeping tax at 40% tops and closing all the tax loopholes.
ReplyDeleteWhilst we're at it, we should also try and wipe out the black economy.
Wiping out the black economy disproportionately affects the poor.
ReplyDeleteWe`d be better off limiting government expenditure to 20% of GDP and getting rid of all the ridiculous non-jobs that an over large government encourages.
ReplyDeleteMore men on the moon, fewer picking their asses making our lives miserable.
Theres a sane and sensible policy that we can all agree with.
'The poor'...
ReplyDeleteEasy term to use, but a hard one to define.
Are you saying that 'the poor' who work but still fraudulently claim benefit should be left alone and still be subsidised by the taxpayers?
A far fairer scheme would be to ensure that those people amongst 'the poor' who do work should be given sufficient allowances, tax breaks, etc so that they can manage on what they earn.
What I'm sick and tired of is supporting families who have no intention of ever working. Now, they're OK because they couldn't get jobs if they were forced to. I just hope that when the job market is healthier then there are more safeguards in the benefit system to target people in real need and penalise those too lazy to work.
Why should those who work pay some people not to?
Why would you want to punish successful, wealth-creating people at this stage of the economic cycle?Okay, economics quiz here: how are we defining "wealth"? Because, as far as I can see, the "wealth" that these rich people "created" is what disappeared when the credit crunch hit.
ReplyDeleteSecond point: As far as I can see, the only way to become wealthy is to not-spend one's earned (or unearned) wealth, thereby taking wealth out of the economy. The effect of taxing the rich in a progressive taxation system is actually to put more wealth back into economic circulation, because that money goes to people who actually spend it instead of just hoarding it.
I'm sick to the back teeth of working hard, being frugal and getting enough saved for my soon-to-be young family, while some wazzock complains that the poor are a drain. It's like the 'man on the street' has bumped into 'the man in the pub' and gone to the Common Sense club down the road. The bloody poor! Let's have a cardboard cut-out class analysis which includes fags, booze and satellite dishes. Instead of looking at the multi-factorial nature of poverty, benefit-dependency and the 'black economy.'
ReplyDeleteOkay SteveShark, let's get a couple of things straight: this notion that most of the poor are poor because they are lazy *is a complete falsehood*. Statistically speaking, the vast majority of the 11.4 million people in the country are in work. Low pay, the lack of a living wage, and not laziness, is the reason for poverty in this country.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, benefit 'cheats' cost the economy an estimated £800m per year, whereas tax-dodging by large corporations costs us at least £13 billion. Of those two groups, only the 'benefit cheats' actually have any reason for cheating other than pure greed. Living on a low wage is not fun. I should know, I'm doing it right now.
Pineapple has it right. It's sickening that such a large swathe of the middle class has bought this idea that 'the poor are a drain', that the poor are lazy, that the poor - ultimately - deserve to be poor. Poverty is not a moral failing. It can be an accident of birth, a result of illness, or a simple consequence of the economy. A great many middle class people are about to find out what a great leveller poverty is. My hope is that that experience will push us towards some real social change.
We can afford for everyone in this country to have a decent standard of living, to be well fed, well housed, well educated and reasonably healthy. The reason that we are not acheiving this is social inequality and ineffective distribution of resources, which in itself causes economic inefficiency. Market-led economics promised to fix the problem; it hasn't. Redistribution, that magic word, needs to move back into our lexicon again double-sharpish.
The budget was, and apologies for agreeing with Iain Dale, an utter disgrace.
ReplyDeleteThe 50% tax bracket will probably be totally ineffective, since they have the money and accountants to get out of it. In all likelyhood, its been thrown in as a sop to people on the left to make them believe that the Government, against all the abundantly available evidence of the years since 1997, actually gives a shit about taxing rich people.
The increase in borrowing is not in itself bad, but given that the money will go on PFI, ID Cards, and waste generally, it rapidly becomes a bad thing - few people mind redistribution of wealth to the poor, but this is redistribution of taxpayers money to the rich. Again.
tsubaki
There aren`t 11.4 million poor people in Britain. There may well be 11.4 million people who fall below a certain percentage of the median wage - but as long as we`re not talking about absolute poverty, should we care?
ReplyDeleteIt`d be cheaper to teach them not to be so concerned and get on with their lives rather than to pander to their jealousy.
On the point of market led economies I`ll hand over to Mr. Friedman;
"by imposing uniform standards in schooling, road construction, or sanitation, central government could undoubtedly improve the level of performance in many local areas and per
haps even on the average of all communities. But in the process, government would replace progress by stagnation, it would substitute uniform mediocrity for the variety essential for that experimentation which can bring tomorrow's laggards above today's mean."
Hmmm.
Maybe we *are* rich enough already, but even so, do we have the right to arbitrarily interfere in the projects of others? Freedom, is more important than equality, which is a rather dubious and probably impossible aim. Even in a society in which there was an absolute equality of wealth, we would not have an egalitarian society, due to diferences in natural qualities and feelings. It would simply be a society which offered no insentive to act to to the benefit of those you have no feeling of communality with.
So... boo sucks to it.
"It`d be cheaper to teach them not to be so concerned and get on with their lives rather than to pander to their jealousy."
ReplyDeleteAre you middle class? I like the way tax credits are the government's way of saying that "yeah, we think it's okay that you don't get paid enough to live on." Being conscious of inequality and injustice doesn't automatically mean an envious position, but rather one of competing morals. It isn't about taking people's places. Is it just jealousy when someone has lost their job because of someone else? I like the way some people haven't realised that before this recession/potential depression, there have been people that were already only just getting by.
And Mark the pseudo-intellectual goes all professor on us, by quoting somebody else, and from the looks of it refers to a Soviet-style Command Economy. Who said anything about creating that? Wake him up, it isn't the 20th century any more.
"Freedom, is more important than equality, which is a rather dubious and probably impossible aim."
Everyone has 'freedoms' in this country, but it is the uneven distribution of wealth which plays a part in preventing a great many from realising them. And we'll be for the freedom of others, for ten years or more.
@ Mark
ReplyDeleteYou seem to me to be a true free marketeer even going so far as to quote from the late great pedagogue of the free market Dr. Milton Friedman. God! I bet you really are a riot at parties! The veritable life and soul!
If laissez-faire was the solution to all economic woes, as Friedman proposed, surely some country must exist somewhere on this planet which is roaring away from all others in terms of its wealth and general contentment of its citizens because it has implemented free market policies.
Can I ask you to give me the name of any country on this planet with a genuine free market economy in which there exists less poverty, a better educated, better nourished and healthier population with better schools, hospitals and universities and whose people have a longer lifespan than countries, e.g., France, Sweden and Germany, which have more regulated and socially orientated economic markets?
If you've been skimming Friedman you might be tempted to say something really stupid like "post Pinochet Chile". Don't. Stop chewing the carpet and try to answer sensibly.
Over to you Marky-boy!
"Why do people always assume that the rich are always wealth-creating and successful? I'm sure many rich have got there by receiving pay-offs from companies despite screwing them up, and then there's those that get rich by screwing workers and third world countries and people and there's always those who properly have got rich by not actually being that good at what they do at all..."
ReplyDeleteWe don't assume that all rich people are wealth-creating and successful. However, by increasing the tax bracket to 50% you will penalise those who are successful and wealth-creating. And at this stage of the economic cycle, you don't want to be doing that.
Redistribution is not some magical cure that make society fairer and nicer for all. In fact, it is a deeply unfair concept that will have a divisive and damaging affect on society.
The increase in the top rate of tax might not raise much money but might encourage some recalcitrant emigres to keep their promises.
ReplyDeleteBefore the first Labour victory in 1997 I remember four august notable and "wealth generating" individuals stating publicly that they would leave the country if the Labour Party was elected to power and hiked the top rate of tax to 50%. They were in order of cod-talent: Andrew Lloyd Weber, Paul Daniels, Frank Bruno and Jim Davidson. When floating voters heard this declaration a vast swathe of them were pursuaded immediately to support Labour Party and the Party enjoyed a landslide election victory as a consequence. As far as I know only Davidson has moved abroad (to Dubai in his case which isn't nearly far enough away for my liking). The other three stayed in the UK. I'm really hoping now and keeping my fingers crossed that the remaining trio of entrepreneurial excellence will also finally be persuaded to jump ship although... well... surely poor old nutty punch-bag Bruno and small Daniels... well... surely their earnings don't put them in the top tax bracket any more. Probably Bruno and Daniels are more worried these days about how their tax credits are affected by a budget than anything else these days!
Here's hoping!
Uh... not really too sure which class i`m from - the shabby middle class, maybe. Granted, I`ve never experienced grinding poverty, but then, in Britain, who has? I`m certainly not relatively rich (on a domestic level), but the size of David Beckhams bank account or Cherie Blairs mansion doesn`t interest me one bit. Simply - I take pride in my work, take pride in the achievements of mankind and take interest in the world around me. As long as my family have enough to live and as long as its aquisition is the result of free exchanges, wealth does not bother me in the slightest and I can`t imagine why it should bother anyone else. (this is in reference to relative rather than absolute poverty.)
ReplyDeletePersonally, I feel threats towards the freedom to do as we wish (with the usual provisos) are a far greater danger than the wealth of a few outstanding individuals.
By the way, the wealth of others doesn`t neccesarily impinge upon our freedoms unless you consider it your right to do whatever you want, *ignoring natural limitations and the wishes of others*.
In that case, I can imagine you`d find wealth offensive, but i`m not sure it`s healthy to do so.
@Kenneth and Pineapple
ReplyDeleteRE: that quotation.
Economic egalitarianism will tend to retard innovation and reward mediocrity. Maybe we`ve reached a stage of technological and economic development where this no longer matters, I don`t know. But, If Penny wants to raise top tax levels much above the current 50% level, we *are* begining to stray into Soviet territory...
Kenneth - I don`t have a problem with social welfare, but I do have a problem with egalitarianism (and nations). The best reason for social welfare programmes is security. The best way to find the best system of government is to allow people to choose between different systems, ie less centralisation of political power.
@ Mark
ReplyDeleteYou haven't answered my question, old bean, you're hedging. My question actually was this:
"Can I ask you to give me the name of any country on this planet with a genuine free market economy in which there exists less poverty, a better educated, better nourished and healthier population with better schools, hospitals and universities and whose people have a longer lifespan than countries, e.g., France, Sweden and Germany, which have more regulated and socially orientated economic markets?If an unfettered free market is so good for everybody surely you can furnish an answer to my question, now twice repeated, with a single example of a capitalist country which provides all of its citizens with a better lifestyle than a nation with a social market?
I eagerly await your response.
There's nothing absolutely nothing to sing about, Penny Red. Unless you're talking about giving voice to a dirge perhaps.
ReplyDeleteHere's the facts...
Over the last few days, the pound has fallen from above US$ 1.50 to a three-week low of $1.44 after the budget announcement – it dropped more than two cents today in the run-up and after the budget before a modest recovery took it back above $1.4450.
Alistair Darling's borrowing is likely to hit 175 billion pounds in 2009-10, or 12 per cent of gross domestic product and remain high for years to come. And in documents attached to the budget, the Treasury said it will be issuing some 220 billion pounds ($320 billion) worth of gilts, i.e, government bonds, in 2009-10 to fund the expected rise in borrowing to a record 175 billion pounds.
Jesus Christ!
The aforementioned issuance was higher than the 180 billion pounds anticipated by the markets in the run-up to the budget and even higher than the 200 million the Financial Times newspaper suggested might be necessary.
Although government bonds are considered relatively safe assets by the markets, demand for some recent auctions has not been enough to meet the supply being offered, stoking concerns that the levels of debt are unsustainable.
There are also widespread market fears that Darling may well be vastly underestimating the level of borrowing this year and the expected improvements in the following years, which are partly based on the British economy recovering strongly. In the budget, Darling said he expected growth next year to be 1.25 per cent and a whopping 3.5 per cent in 2011 – both predictions are fantastically more optimistic than all independent forecasts.
"The startling thing is that, huge though the borrowing figures are, they are still likely to prove to be too low," said Roger Bootle, economic adviser to accounting firm Deloitte, who reckons borrowing will peak next year at 230 billion pounds, or 16 per cent of gross domestic product! Even credit ratings agency Moody's Investor Services sounded the alarm bell as it digested the projections from the Treasury that borrowing remains above five per cent of GDP five years from now even under the assumption that growth returns to normal, or above normal, levels.
Arnaud Mares, senior vice-president lead analyst for Britain at Moody's, said that was a "cause for concern" though he said the country's flexible macroeconomic framework will help it toward balancing the books eventually. That flexibility, he said, is critical in Moody's assessment that the British government can "probably generate over time the fiscal resources to reverse the current increase in debt" and therefore to its triple A credit rating which, if it were to be downgraded, would add colossally to the cost of borrowing money on the wholesale markets and hence to the UKs inconceivably high and rising burden of debt.
Basically, people, we're fucked! The nation has been living on tick for more than a decade and now it's time to pay the piper. And because natural gas is non-toxic we can't even put an end to our misery by sticking our heads in our ovens! Non of you seem to have any grip on what is happening here.
Bit of a straw man Kenneth, but anyway, no I can`t.
ReplyDeleteCan you give me the name of a country prior to the nineteenth century that allowed women to vote and enjoyed as high a quality of life as those that didn`t?
@ Mark
ReplyDeleteNow you're being disingenuous, tosh. I was referencing the world in the twenty first century, not talking about the days when Britannia ruled the waves. But then my question was a trick in the sense that it could only ever have one solitary answer.
No humane and civilised purely capitalist country could ever exist in the real world because free market capitalism HAS to create great gulfs of inequality, economically, between the different demographics within it. Without politically nudging Adam Smith's "invisible hand (of the market)" such a situation is unavoidable and inevitable. After all complete freedom (in a capitalist society) would include the freedom to starve and the freedom to die unaided and uncared for on the streets from treatable diseases.
And before you start I can't name a fourteenth century European country whose heath service saved the greatest proportion of its citizens from perishing from the Black Death!
As the homies say... Keep it real, man!
Hmm, overall. The budget's guarantee of work or training for unemployed under-25s sounded good initially, but I think it might turn out to be Purnell redux.
ReplyDelete(Beautiful picture of the Telegraph's idea of the Young Jobless, there, too.)
@Kenneth
ReplyDeleteI see you`ve pointedly refused to answer my question.
We have no examples of a country in which all exchanges are voluntary, so what exactly are we supposed to compare the mixed economies of the modern world with?
Your question wasn`t so much a trick, as pointless.
As for the "humane and civilised purely capitalist societies...", I`m sure 19th century conservatives used similar arguments against the extension of voting rights to women.
SteveShark:
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that 'the poor' who work but still fraudulently claim benefit should be left alone and still be subsidised by the taxpayers?You are aware that the total of spending on the welfare system is less than 10% of government spending, yes? I've wondered for years why people don't focus trimming on the other 90%, it would seem much more fiscally responsible.
Keynesian Ken:
I can point you to a country which had a functioning National Health Service in that era, though. China. They couldn't afford curative national health and they couldn't afford the incredibly low life-expectancy, so they came up with a scheme whereby anyone who had a receipt from their morning Tai Qi class could gain all (note: all) required medical care for free from government-employed doctors. It worked remarkably well. A fellow named Yang was commissioned to develop a version of the (aristocratic) Chen family system of Tai Qi Chuan which could be effectively taught to the under-edcuated, and he came up with the Long Yang Form, which takes about a year to learn and 20 minutes to practice.
Mark:
ReplyDeleteWe have no examples of a country in which all exchanges are voluntary,
Oh dear. And yet, you are happy to claim that under currently-existing modern capitalism all exchanges are mutually beneficial. If they're not all voluntary, they are unlikely to all be mutually beneficial. If you claim that tax is what you were talking about: actually, by your own arguments over on my blog, tax is voluntary. Don't live here, don't pay them. We know this because it's what the rich do. ... Oh, wait, no, the rich live here and don't pay them. Sorry.
Jonathan:
ReplyDeleteOf course I was talking about tax.
One problem is that generally we aren`t free to move to another jurisdiction with a different tax regime.
That`s exactly why I said above that I`m opposed to nations and centralisation of power...
Christ almighty Penny -- You actually think this is going to work? Where is the money going to come from? The tooth fairy?
ReplyDeleteDebt is going to rise by a £175 billion. Who the f**k is going to pay for that?
Also the rich tax isn't going to work. It never has done and never will. You can't tax the most mobile section of society they'll just up sticks and take their skills and investment with them.
You're living a fantasy. We're screwed -- well and truly screwed.
@ Mark
ReplyDeleteWhat are you going on about, brother? You seem to be getting more cryptic and Zen-like with every utterance. The next thing you'll be asking will doubtless be something along the lines of, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" or start talking about "Social Choice Theory" and "Arrow's Impossibility Theorem" or something. How did voting rights for women creep into this affair in any case? As I said earlier I prefer keeping it real and you're far to bling for me, holmes! Now cheer up and turn that frown upside down or I'll send Penny Red around to your castle to tickle you into laughter!
@ John Q. Publican
Now, that was a genuinely interesting historical aside. My knowledge of oriental history is pretty much non-existent I'm afraid but your comment intrigued me enough to make me aspire to learn more, which I will try to do if and when I get the leisure. Not every day has an incident which piques my curiosity. Thank you for taking the trouble to share you knowledge.
Okay Penny Red, let's get a couple of things straight - at no time did I say that most of the poor are poor because they're lazy.
ReplyDeleteIt's not what I said and it's not what I believe.
The Welfare State/benefits system is a great idea and I begrudge none of my taxes going towards its upkeep and to help those in need.
However, there is a minority who milk the system for all they're worth and it's these people who I would like to see prevented from claiming any further.
The £800 million figure (2005-6) isn't exactly chump change and would pay for several hospitals, more nurses, teachers, etc, etc.
And again, I ask - why should those paying taxes support those who do not wish to work?
If you read what I posted earlier, I said that we need to close tax loopholes too.
If we did close them then we wouldn't actually need to raise in income tax for those earning over £150K. I'd bet that if everyone paid the tax that they should then we could actually have kept that figure at 40%.
Which brings me on to thyat income tax raise.
It was nothing more than a cynical con trick.
This act of 'taking from the rich' fooled everyone into thinking that he was spreading the pain about - it even fooled you, Penny.
As Darling couldn't give much away, he tried to compensate for this by taking money from someone else. It won't raise much at all, if anything, and will drive away some talented and able people to places where this nation can't benefit from them.
I hate to bring age into this, but when Labour came into power, the author of this blog was 10 and probably had little concept of what a recession was like to actually experience.
I do - having worked, been made redundant, brought up a family etc through a couple.
It's not easy.
However, this recession is far, far worse than that. As RobW says, we're well and truly screwed and are in a hole that many people reckon we won't really get climb of until about 2020. The level of debt is nothing compared to anything this country has experienced before.
To find anything positive in yesterday's budget you'd have to be totally ignorant of our financial past, be politically naive and have a level of optimism that borders on the demented or have shares in the oil companies.
Whoever wins at the next election won't have any choices - taxes will go up and public spending will go down.
It's really very, very simple - you can't spend what you haven't got.
It's just a crying shame that maxim has been ignored by the government over the last 12 years.
Not only has Labour shafted this country, it's shafted itself.
Labour isn't just sick, it's terminally ill.
What really hurts is that they've had my vote ever since I was old enough to vote.
Never again.
I do not believe that the Labour Party expects to win the next general election and is desperately trying to snooker the Conservatives as a consequence.
ReplyDeleteConsider the following:
(1)
The British economy is in ruins, borrowing and debt at record levels, unemployment rising and the future looks very dark and uncertain.
(2)
Whoever forms the next government will have to CUT PUBLIC SPENDING and PUT UP TAXES. There's no two ways about it; there will be NO alternative; there will be no choice. Any government that behaves in this fashion is doomed to becomes very unpopular and eventually even hated viz., the last days of the Thatcher administration.
(3)
In the unlikely event that Labour were to be returned, with a small majority, in 2010, the actions outlined in (2) would destroy them by making it look as if it was eating its own young, so to speak, and put the party out of power for a generation post 2014.
(4)
If the Conservative Party wins the next general election they will HAVE to implement extreme austerity measures. Within a few years the people of this country would turn against them which would then give the Labour Party a chance of being returned to power under a new leader in 2014/2015.
I believe that Darling's budget is part of a spoiler package designed to make life as difficult as possible for the Conservatives when they form the next government next year.
Pathetic, cynical and dishonourable as it is I am afraid that I really believe that this is true.
CJ, I don't think you really think that.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if Labour was willing to throw the next election away, the way to really screw the Tories would have been to put the budget on hold, call an election and let the Tories implement their own strategy. Trouble is, I don't think the public would forgive us for letting that happen.
@Penny Red
ReplyDelete"Cameron really did make an arse of his pink-faced self"
What has the colour of David Cameron's facial skin got to do with anything?
He can no more help his skin colour than Gordon Brown can help having one eye, Stevie Wonder being black, Stephen Hawking being profoundly disabled or you being female.
By all means insult people - Cameron's an arse, I agreee, and I've called him a lot worse - but comments about qualities people can't help are an irrelevancy.
So, whilst it's OK to call Mugabe a corrupt and devious bastard, the moment I say he's a black bastard then it leaves the realm of abusive opinion and enters prejudice.
Such remarks aren't worthy of someone of your intelligence - thay make you sound like one of the worst right-wing bloggers.
Steve shark
ReplyDeleteI'll vote for you. Spot on policies
By the way the higher the tax on the rich the less the government actually get from! Yes its true. There is more incentive to dodge the tax, shifty overseas etc. Reduce the tax on the rich and get more revenue.
The tax on booze and fags is a tax on the poor. I don't need to explain that... percentage of income, Andy Capp etc etc.
Defence expenditure is the biggest bloody waste.
Mark
ReplyDeleteThere 0.0 poor people in the UK Everyone is rich compared to people in the third world. Poor!!!! THERE ARE NO POOR PEOPLE IN THE UK.
@ Mr. Divine, Mark and other Jeremy Kyle fans
ReplyDeletePoverty is relative. In this country "poor" people still are supposed to have access to shelter, food, clothing, utilities, TV and even sometimes their own transport. But believe you me pensioners and the unemployed are genuinely poor in a relative sense and can barely afford to pay their water, electricity, gas and other bills, all important in respect to health and hygiene etc., let alone feed and clothe themselves adequately.
My grandmother lives in Cornwall and her water company, South West Water, just sent her a bill for £700.00 for 2009! This is about 15% of her whole income for the year! SWW is the only company Gran can buy her water services from and so there is no competition to drive down prices or any choice in respect to suppliers apart from this monopoly. Add to this further costs as per electricity, telephone (essential in case she becomes ill and needs help), gas, food, television license etc., and I can tell you categorically that my grandmother REALLY IS dirt poor and having to exist day to day perpetually struggling to budget her money on an eternal breadline.
So let's have no more of this "there are no poor people in the UK" cobblers because there ARE. Just because we don't all witness thousands of homeless, emaciated, diseased, freezing, starving, parched, cowed and naked men and women dying in the gutters doesn't mean that there aren't people experiencing terrible difficulties and being forced to count every penny every day after a lifetime of work because there bloody well are.
My Grandmother is seventy three years old. If she survives another year she will get a free television license, assuming the incoming Conservative administration don't cancel it. Whoop-de-doo! Well worth remaining alive for eh? All she needs to do now is survive the coming winter and not die of hypothermia.
Poverty in the realest possible sense exists insolently and conspicuously in our country, ladies and gentleman. Anyone who maintains that the opposite is true is either a fool or a liar or both of these ignoble things. You all sound like unthinking Thatcherites!
@Acorn
ReplyDeleteIs her water supply metered?
If not, and she can get a meter installed, that might help.
Accorn
ReplyDeletePOVERTY IS NOT RELATIVE
POVERTY IS POVERTY
POVERTY IS
PS
Your gran is rich. Anyone who maintains that the opposite is true is either a fool or a liar or both of these ignoble things. Acorn YOU sound like unthinking IDIOT
She has a telephone and a television!!! Come on.. take a trip with me and I'll show you poverty.
ReplyDeleteRelative poverty, absolute poverty - it's all poverty.
ReplyDeleteAnd this seems like poverty to me.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8015023.stm
PM makes a comedy video!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3553301/smile-smile-smile.thtml
@ Mr. Divine
ReplyDeleteAre you psychologically impaired or taking the piss? One or the other definitely! Or may be you're very, very young? Whatever, are you seriously suggesting that the UK enters into some kind of competition with third world countries in respect to who has the poorest citizens? And what "poverty" means? That's insane. If you're going to do something daft like that why not compare contemporary poverty with poverty in Victorian England or the Middle Ages or the Bronze age or the Stone Age? Your own disjointed mentality definitely seems palaeolithic! So everybody is "rich" now because we can by burgers at a Supermarket and don't have to hunt and butcher our own meat like the Bushmen of Africa! Grow up!
Poverty in any society can only be assessed within that society according to standards set by that society. If you start a recursive argument that poverty can only be regarded in absolute terms you get trapped in a hall of mirrors and get nowhere: a pensioner in the UK has electricity and a TV... so she's rich because a pensioner in Bulgaria only has electricity for five hours a day... who is rich because a Mongol pensioner living alone in her Yurt has no electricity at all... who's rich because the Somalian in the refugee camp has no fresh water... and so on... and so on... until you conclude that there is no such thing as poverty, relative or absolute!
You remind me of the characters in an old Monty Python sketch competing with each other as per the hardest childhood: "When I was a lad, I had to get up half an hour before I went to bed, and swim the Atlantic Ocean to get a loaf of Hovis. Then I had to work down the pit for 26 hours a day..." etc.
Four Yorkshiremen SketchIf you are really saying that because my grandmother owns a television (her only source of entertainment and news) and a telephone (essential because she suffers from atrial fibrillation and can be taken ill without warning) is rich, like a recently disinfected shithouse you're clean round the bend! The United Kingdom is, even now, the fifth or sixth biggest economy on the planet, where the median weekly wage is something close to £500.00 per week and 99% of households own one or more TV sets! (I wouldn't say that 99% of households were "rich" but perhaps thats just me!) Of course poverty has to be assessed relatively based on agreed social norms which will not be the same in all societies or during different epochs in their evolution.
I don't want to be too rude to you as I suspect you're probably a schoolboy or possibly a slightly retarded adolescent. Give yourself another ten or fifteen years, get some experience of life under your belt and then I won't blanch at debating this matter again with you; under those circumstances I couldn't be considered a bully or guilty of child abuse etc.
@ steveshark
I have tried to persuade my Granmother to have her supply metered, but, after hearing horror stories about other people in her area ending up paying even more for their supplies after doing so, I am having a hard time convincing her to have a meter fitted. I appreciate you suggestion and concern however. Thanks.
@Acorn. Not sure I believe your Gran's income for the whole year is 700/0.15= £4666.67. On www.entitledto.co.uk a 65 year old with no income gets a minimum 6778 hand out. Where does her income from? Perhaps you're talking about a Granny that has vast assets and the state is assuming a certain income from them (I believe the cost is about 9-10%, which is unrealistic in my view). However, in this year or two of low interest rate, such people can spend some of their assets. Which is the point of the low interest rates.
ReplyDeleteSo Acorn, just give us a rough balance sheet of your Gran's assets, including property etc which could be released by equity withdrawal.. Assume 2004 prices for property, to be realistic.
Acorn
ReplyDeleteKeep going with the abuse. But I'm afraid there is only one receiver of your one dimensional abuse in this type of forum and that is YOU . You see acorn, we've all heard all the style, and even the words before that dribble from your pen. They are the words of the defeated. You must be new to this , for the rest of us are sitting back laughing at you having to resort to insults to win your argument. Keep going for we like a good laugh.
Oh the poverty thing. I know you haven't travelled otherwise you wouldn't see my point. You see if you compare people with people, then everyone in the UK is in the top 5% of the world's richest people. If I compare within a society then it's a bit like comparing rich with rich. Can't see the point.
Sorry, but the fact that your Gran has running water, clean at that, makes her very rich, and to have electricity incredibly rich. There again I work for people who have an average life expectancy of 32 and who have so many ugly diseases that makes one want to use your dirty ugly nationalistic words.
But of course I don't. It's fate. I have hardly any nationalism left in me. I just see lots of rich people in the West. It aint relative, it's real.
This is how I made the calculation.
ReplyDeleteSingle state pension = £95.25 per week
Yearly pensioner income = 52 x £95.25 = £4,953
Water bill = £700.00
Income spent water (%) = 700/4953 x 100 = 14%
(I rounded this sum upward beforehand!)
My grandmother lives in rented accommodation and has a small amount of savings, probably £1,200 or less. She has no other assets like stock or shares etc., and pays no income tax since apart from her pension she has no income.
@ Mr. Divine
I can't understand your logic. You seek to set the baseline in respect to poverty at the lowest level on earth which is ridiculous. No one would find such a level of poverty acceptable in any modern European country; judgements in respect to how wealthy or poor a person is HAS to be made, relatively, against some agreed measure like the median or mean income for that country or the possibility of improving the standard of life for the poorest in that country would be closed forever. I want things levelled upward while you seem to want things levelled down. I want the people you speak of to be elevated economically; but I do not want the definition of what "poor" is in my country compared to such abysmal levels. Your argument is unsound. Nonsensical. We have a global economy which is currently and for the foreseeable future dominated by sectional interests of diverse nation states within which politics, industry, law and economics are all different. What you are suggesting is hence a bit like saying someone with a broken arm should feel privileged in his (or her) society because somewhere on the planet people exist with two broken arms or even two broken arms and a broken leg or two to boot!
I know I'm flogging a dead horse here so I'm going to close before some idiot accuses me of practicing sadism, necrophilia and bestiality!
"No one would find such a level of poverty acceptable in any modern European country; judgements in respect to how wealthy or poor a person is HAS to be made, relatively, against some agreed measure like the median or mean income for that country or the possibility of improving the standard of life for the poorest in that country would be closed forever"
ReplyDeleteEh? Just a sec... why?
Why can`t poverty be measured against access to certain neccesities such as water, shelter and healthcare? Unless you consider an average income to be a social neccesity, I can`t see your logic. If you do consider it to be a neccesity, I don`t much like the cut of your gib.
Now, maybe our understanding of what constitutes an absolute neccesity may change with time, but this still doesn`t require a measurement against the median income, does it?
And are you seriously suggesting that it is wealth distribution rather than technological and economic progress that has lifted the majority in the developed world from agrarian poverty?
You seem like a very confused and lost little lamb.
God be with you.
I think the ideas of relative and absolute poverty are both useful for measuring different things. There are serious social consequences of relative poverty - both for relatively poor people but also for relatively rich people.
ReplyDeleteAssuming they've becoming more equal through a democratic process, more equal societies just work better. Most people are healthier, better educated and happier.
I'm not where the necessity argument takes us.
For me, a government that doesn't aim to restrict relative poverty isn't going to create the kind of society I think's desirable but that's a political choice.
On the other hand members of a government in a developed country that failed to tackle absolute poverty would deserve to be up in court.
"And again, I ask - why should those paying taxes support those who do not wish to work?"
I'm possibly in a small minority on this but I accept that some people who are on benefits may be lazy and generally feckless. Some may also be personally unpleasant.
But I don't regard this as being directly relevant to the question of whether my taxes should help to provide them (and their children) with basic welfare support.
The alternatives I can think of include the workhouses or - as they have in the US - a massive prison population.
I don't see why poverty has to be one absolute.
ReplyDeleteYes, there are people in this country who consider themselves poor, and are, but are immensely rich compared to a Mumbai slum dweller.
But that's not a very aspirational approach, in my opinion.
Yes, world poverty is a disgrace - there is enough to go round, even if it means the better-off having a bit less.
But, equally, it's a disgrace when there are people in this country who have to live way below some sort of arbitrary poverty line.
We should be looking to improve everyone's lot.
@David Floyd
I'm sure it's not impossible to find some sort of system whereby the children of purposely workshy benefit claimants don't suffer when their parents are caught fiddling the system.
Why shouldn't such people do community work? Or is that only for the under 19s under Labour plans?
@Acorn
Have you looke into applying for attendance allowance. As far as I know, it can be spent on anything that helps the claimant. My late father got it even though he had substantial savings.
Let me try again...
ReplyDeletePoverty has to be measured relatively because what is considered poverty in different societies, varies enormously geographically and temporally across the globe: what is considered to be poverty in one country might be considered to be riches in another.
European poverty is different from and not directly comparable to poverty in non-industrialised third world countries (which poverty has different causes, often due to political and military conflicts and so demands very different solutions).
Historically, as western countries became more and more wealthy though industrialisation, science and commerce, their poor, e.g., the low paid, pensioners, unemployed, disabled - all the people who did not directly share in the nation's prosperity through work, investments, property, stock etc., etc., - were also progressively elevated economically through social security systems and welfare benefits. The minimum wage, unemployment benefit and a progressive redistributive tax system are three examples of such instruments in the Eurozone. If you were foolish enough to set the rate of pensions/benefits based on minimum standards deemed necessary for survival, e.g., a room to live in, fourteen litres of water a week for drinking etc., people depending on such benefits would NEVER be able to progress economically, no matter how well the rest of the population were doing, because increases in their benefits/pensions would not be linked to the nation's escalating prosperity. The lives of the poor under these conditions would never improve - could not. Such unfortunates would have no possibility ever of improving their standard of living. For example, if economically inactive people were denied inflation indexed increases in the monies their government drip fed them, they would be doomed to a downward spiral of ever increasing poverty as inflation destroyed the value of their benefits and rendered them nugatory. This is exactly what happened in America after that prise arsehole G. W. Bush froze the minimum wage for eight years, causing unbearable suffering to the USAs working poor as a consequence.
Poverty and social security, or other measures designed to alleviate poverty, have to be related to some measure associated with general income or social security and pensions could not increase progressively and lift more and more people out of poverty. The judgement as to what constitutes poverty can only hence be made by individual countries in respect to their citizens. We treat our poor relatively badly while Sweden treats its poor relatively well presumably because the Swedes value dignity and human life more than we do. So you see, what constitutes poverty IS relative when it comes to considering living standards nationally.
If that isn't clear, tough titty!
Thanks to Mark for his blessing; I didn't know you were of a religious mien. I'm an atheist myself and can only reciprocate by wishing you all humanity. True humane humanity. God isn't better than that.
"@David Floyd
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it's not impossible to find some sort of system whereby the children of purposely workshy benefit claimants don't suffer when their parents are caught fiddling the system.
Why shouldn't such people do community work?"
I don't object to that in principle but the process of getting people who don't want to do community work to do community work is actually quite a lot more expensive than just paying them subsistence level benefits and - although there might individual organisations who'd find good ways of doing things - in a general sense it usually doesn't benefit the community very much.
It's not that this hasn't been tried. There's lots of its going on. There were elements of it within the New Deal.
"Or is that only for the under 19s under Labour plans?"
Ah yes, 'compulsory volunteering'. I think Gordon Brown is introducing this scheme primarily to tackle the problem of large numbers of young people not being familiar with the meaning of the word 'oxymoron'.
And are you seriously suggesting that it is wealth distribution rather than technological and economic progress that has lifted the majority in the developed world from agrarian poverty?
ReplyDelete++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
LOL!
It was sheer naked capitalism.
Like it or loathe it, it's good at making money.
as they have in the US - a massive prison population.
ReplyDelete+++++++++++++++++++++++
And we don't?
We have the highest prison population in the EU.
Nothing like the US, admittedly, but pretty poor - not much better than Mexico or Azerbijan...
Each con costs about us £40 000 a year to keep.
Time we got our money's worth there, too.
Acorn
ReplyDeleteI've read your explanation. I agree some people think they are poor when look at rich people in their own country, and they may even use the word 'poor' as they leave their centrally heated semi-detached mansion and step into their poor Ford Mondeo thinking I wish I had a Porche with all the trimmings. To me they are just LESS RICH but there again I've travelled, and I can tell you haven't.
I can't get this 'relative poverty' shit into me dumb skull. You'll have to chew it out with like-minded relatively less rich grandsons.
'but there again I've travelled, and I can tell you haven't. '
ReplyDeleteNot-poor privilege raising its head, much?
You're wealthy enough to travel. So you get to make pronouncements on what poverty is and isn't, clearly. Good grief.
@Acorn - Yes, I suppose we can agree that our view of what constitutes absolute poverty is relative - but in my opinion, any measure which indicates that 20% of people in the UK are "poor" is completely out of touch with reality.
ReplyDeleteAny measure of poverty against median income is useless - by this measure there are more poor people now than there were in the 12th century!
Socialists tend to accuse capitalists of greed, but we`ve long since reached the stage where the average person has more than enough (in physical terms) to be happy. Why should we ensure people more money than some basic minimum unless we are completely obsessed with money and social position?
Further increases in wealth should be viewed as a leisure pursuit of hobby rather than a neccesity - as such, I can`t think of any good reason to redistribute wealth for the sole purpose of increasing equality.
So basically - I think this is a failure of attituide. The left have bought into the notion that monetary wealth represents an individuals total value and this is an idea which we should all reject.
Penny Red
ReplyDeleteYea I do make pronouncements about what poverty is and what it is not. I think if you haven't travelled in the Third World you haven't got a thing to say about poverty. You really don't now what it is. Relative poverty is bullshit. Get your nose out of those books and find out. Penny Red you too need a trip .. try 1 dollar 'hotel' rooms to ease you in a bit. GOOD Grief ONE dollar.
I am from the West so I am wealthy like you, like everyone is in the West. I have no issue about being wealthy. Everyone in the West is wealthy enough to travel. You see for me I want to find out for myself. I don't believe news reports or books or any body else's opinion. You meet that many bull shitters.
I can't afford to fly thousands of miles across the world to look at poor people.
ReplyDeleteWhere are all these right-wingers coming from?
ReplyDelete...can't help thinking that if you start praising new labours' budget as impressive, then that is the kind of debate you're opening yourself up to...
I like the feminist stuff on this blog but as far as general political analysis goes don't you think you'd be better writing things that attract left-wing interlocutors, for a more constructive debate?
Surely explaining to people that there are such a thing as poor people in the UK shouldn't really be necessary at this point. Call them 'the working class' and then relative/absolute poverty doesn't come into it - we are talking about a relationship of *exploitation*. Some people are better off because other people are worse off.
"we are talking about a relationship of *exploitation*. Some people are better off because other people are worse off."
ReplyDeleteYep, that just about sums up the relationship between taxpayers and their public servants.
Pineapple
ReplyDeleteYou don't need money for an airfare. Hitch hike to North Africa and keep going south. Take a good sleeping bag and sleep where ever .. parks, caves, building sites, sports stadiums, people's back gardens. I did this when I was 18.
Better have some dosh in Africa cos it'll be there where you'll start seeing poverty..
Expensive airfares!
"Pineapple
ReplyDeleteYou don't need money for an airfare. Hitch hike to North Africa and keep going south. Take a good sleeping bag and sleep where ever .. parks, caves, building sites, sports stadiums, people's back gardens. I did this when I was 18.
Better have some dosh in Africa cos it'll be there where you'll start seeing poverty..
Expensive airfares!"
And if you're a single mother? Or have elderly relatives to look after? Or if you have a disability? What if you get ill? Or your passport is stolen? Or if you think you might actually need a job when your money runs out and you return to the UK - jobs tending to recruit based on experience?
Even if you could travel for 'free', there are all kinds of reasons why it might not be economically feasible.
And don't get me started on *why* africa is poorer than the UK *cough* imperialism *cough*
Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI never thought that it might be a touch difficult for everyone to hitch hike to Africa .. thanks for pointing that out.
Me, I used to love telling me boss that I was leaving on a jet plane. You could tell sometimes he'd be dying to go with yer.
And on yer return .. .. it'll be so hard to get back on the ladder he he he he he he he. Sod the system man.
"I never thought that it might be a touch difficult for everyone to hitch hike to Africa .. thanks for pointing that out."
ReplyDeleteSorry, I thought you were being modest, but it seems I was wrong to credit you with an ingenuous naivety, when in fact you were boasting about keeping the spirit of colonialist adventurism alive. Hope you enjoyed your sunny holiday in other people's misery.
Anon
ReplyDeleteI wasn't boasting I was just taking the piss... read it carefully.
Sounds like you've been reading too many silly Marxist books recently. You can always tell when someone has been affectd by the Marxist stupidity smallpox because they use words like colonist, imperialist.
My advice for anyone brian washed by this out of date twaddle is to travel with some sun cream.
"Sounds like you've been reading too many silly Marxist books recently."
ReplyDeleteNot only have I been reading silly Marxist books, I'm a Marxist... you do realise what blog you are commenting on, right? Or planet, for that matter?
You can always tell when someone has been affectd by the Marxist stupidity smallpox because they use words like colonist, imperialist."...the libertarian must condemn imperialism."
ReplyDelete- Murray Rothbard (Anarcho-capitalist)
"It may be hard to hear but there is a direct connection with imperialism and the economic meltdown. The permanent war machine of bases and occupations is very expensive. Rome, among others, found that out."
- Andrew Bacevick (Catholic conservative)
"The epistemology of modern-day imperialism gives us a glimpse into minds afflicted with a novel form of mental illness, one made possible not only by the concentration of centralized power in the American metropolis, but also by advanced technology and the evolution of the military arts. The savage thug who believes he can control reality by the use of his club..."
- Justin Raimondo (Libertarian)
Ben SIx
ReplyDeleteRothbard Bacevick Raimondo .. all been infected. The last one is a complete dildo.
Anon. This isn't a Marxist blog. And of I knew you considered yourself a Marxist. It must be awful for you. I mean when is this revolution going to come to come? Marx spent the last twenty years of his life ready for the off. I mean it must be like wanting to go to the toilet and not being able to do it... for twenty years.
Yet the conflcit between the bourgiees and prolieees is coming : the prolieees are squeezed dry and can no longer afford a new plamsa TV in the bathroom anymore.
To me a Marxist is like a Mooney. Probably the only political philosophy you read. Indoctrination.
Rothbard Bacevick Raimondo .. all been infected. The last one is a complete dildo.You think that Murray Rothbard was infected with Marxism?
ReplyDeleteAhahahaha!
*Goes to smoke, drink, shower etc.*Ahahahahaha!
*Grows older, loses hair, plops down onto deathbed.*Ahahahahahauuuugh...
Everyone has been infected by it because we've read it and used some of its words to describe things.
ReplyDeleteSome people believe hook, line and stinker the words of a man who spent his whole life in a library.
Some people who like to be considered 'political thinkers' start using of other political thinkers. Most of them are library nerds. I use my words to describe what I have seen, done and think. I couldn't care a shit about the library nerds.
The sagacity of your words, Mr D, is equalled only by the devastation that "library nerds" will feel when they hear of them.
ReplyDeleteOh please can you keep it a secret... they are such tender souls? Even though some have big beards and overcoats any loud noise against their person, especially unshrouded with academic bullshit, will send them all of a flutter. They will have to write papers after paper to explain themselves, and then met and debate and debate. ANd then piss themselves.
ReplyDeleteIn their waste paper bins
ReplyDeleteToo late, Mr D; I've just returned from the City library, where I bore the bad news to the nerds therein. I won't comment too extensively on their emotional distress, suffice to say that copies of Loneliness As A Way Of Life were cleaned out almost immediately.
ReplyDeleteWhat have you done! Yer silly person. Idle gossip and all that.
ReplyDeleteBig changes are on the way for everyone
Nothing happening on my end yet though
ReplyDeleteWhat does it look like thru your window?
Oh no BenSix!
ReplyDeleteThey've got him/her.
Never fear, Mr D, I was just getting infected by some Marxism. Y'know, his labor theory of value really makes sense. And y'know what else makes sense? The Unification Church!
ReplyDeleteThank God you're still alive despite being brain dead.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they've got to me yet although I did let in some young dudes called Elder Karl and Elder Mark for a chat. Afterwards I had this certainty that a proletariat revolution was just about to happen.
I'm fighting it cos I know its got to be a pile of sugar.. I mean who's gonna do it?
ANd yet I'm certain. Absolutely sure. positive.
Why is Mr Divine so keen to point out what true poverty is? How would he know? He has never experienced it. It's just middle class dilettantism.
ReplyDeletePineapple
ReplyDeleteHow would you know what I've experienced? One thing for sure is that there is no poverty in the United Kingdom. Even when I was down and out in the States back in 87, sleeping under trees living, in shelters, eating from soup kitchens and the bins at the back of restuarants I didn't consider myself poor. Why? Because I've seen poverty.
PS
I was brought up in a middle terrace in Liverpool. Middle class fruit.
@Acorn from previous Anonymous asking about income/assets. Re. your explanation of income, it would appear (to me and www.entitledto.co.uk) that your Gran should also receive "Pension Credit-Guarantee Credit". Perhaps check into this? Another 38 quid a week.
ReplyDeletefiroghit@rocketmail.com 114.73.166.51, or "Mr Divine" wrote on my blog:
ReplyDeleteI’m sure it met the academic requirement. Now stick it in the back of the fire and burn it with the rest of the useless academic bullshit.
I think I've touched a raw nerve. Sussed as the middle class identikit poverty tourist, who uses the hardship of others, and which he doesn't really understand himself, as a brickbat to throw at others who disagree, or fail to take him seriously.
Pineapple
ReplyDeleteOh no you've really hit the nail on the head, sliced the raw nerve down the middle, been very attentive to everything I've wrote.
What am I going to do BenSix?
Middle class faker?
ReplyDeletePineapple
ReplyDeleteI know you're not from England, probably Melbourne or Canberra Australia. Ask a few of your mates about people from Liverpool .. then ask about Bootle. The you'll understand why I've been laughing at you all day.
To me this working class middle class upper class is all bull because we're all rich. Everyone in the West is rich including you and me.
Oh yea you're probably another one of these thicko Marxists.
PS Monash University!!!!!!! Give us a break.
I'm consuming a cup of coffee at the moment. I suppose that isn't as bad as consuming someone else's poverty.
ReplyDeleteHow exactly am I consuming some else's poverty? .. I'm just breathing air at the moment.
ReplyDelete"Stupid marxists have tried their very best! to take the piss. One of them daggers with a middle class description. I nearly cried me eyes out. I nearly rang up me mum and dad in Bootle Liverpool to tell them the bad news that we were no longer considered gritty working class, salt of the earth. No I couldn't break their hearts. Some of me mates who have moved upmarket to Aintree were most definitely upper class.
ReplyDeleteA pineapple brain had blown my cover."
I'm flattered. Really, I am. Where have I said that I am a Marxist? But are you referring to Marx, or just the lazy general accusation that every person you develop a dislike for, is an adherent of Bolshevism? They perhaps, in practice, owed more to the centuries-old Muscovite politcal tradition as well as the likes of Pyotr Tkachev, than the bearded German piss-head.
Thank God you're not one of those Marxists.... they've been hounding me all week. I must stop jumping to conclusions about people if you know what I mean?
ReplyDelete'
OK, folks.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that I am a leprous-diseased-fuckwited-cocksucking-arsehole-dumbfuck-turd-backed-up-full-of-shit-limp-dicked-testicularly-challenged-masturbatory-virginal-celibate-one-off-the-wrist-well-wankered rag of human flesh fit only for organ donation. I'd like to will my liver to be transplanted into the body of a teetotaller (to give it a break and a chance of recovery) and my corneas to go to a pilot or a sailor or some other habitual traveller so that they can carry on "seeing the world" long after their former owner has turned into offal.
And, Mark. No matter what they say about you... no matter what you are in life... rember that I love you, man, in the biblical sense as in so many other ways. When next you hold it in your sweaty mit and make a motion please think of me! xxx
"diseased-fuckwited-cocksucking-arsehole-dumbfuck-turd-backed-up-full-of-shit-limp-dicked-testicularly-challenged-masturbatory"
ReplyDeleteI didn't know you were into cottaging. Does your wife know?
Mr. Divine
ReplyDelete"Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered."
XXX
Looks like some people are trying to bring me down by forging my name. Mark .. it's nothing to do with the real Mr. Divine. The thicko Marxists are after me.
ReplyDeleteI admit it was me impersonating Mr. Divine. I couldn't win in normal debate so I tried to nail him backhandedly. I apologise for my behaviour and the gross words that I used.
ReplyDeleteThank you for admitting your mistake and I accept your apology. I too am sorry for calling you an idiot.
ReplyDeleteTo prevent identity fraud happening again I'll write through my website which will soon have a picture of me and my chain saw.
Oh yea some of my writings have featured on the Madam Miaow comments page.
Acorn .. I hope you get some sleep.
@ Mr. Divine
ReplyDeleteHuh? The admission of guilt and apology preceding your last post wasn't authored by me, sport. Without getting too deeply mired in metalogic you should realise that the previous post associated with my moniker was made by someone impersonating me, falsely confessing to and apologising to you for impersonating you, but said impostor wasn't me but was actually themselves a hoaxer!
Somebody is royally taking the piss.
And what's all this about a debate? Have we been debating? If we have I have I didn't notice. All I was trying to do was to put across a point of view, relating to relative poverty in technologically advanced countries, because I was angry after witnessing my grandmother's income shrinking, year on year, to the point where running water itself was all but unaffordable.
You overestimate yourself, Mr. Divine. You're not important enough to me to attack overtly or covertly or bother with at all. Grow up for goodness sake! I actually suspect it was you yourself masquerading as me vis-a-vis the faux apology because I know for a fact that I wasn't responsible! What would be the point in attacking someone guerrilla style and immediately baring your breast in respect to your guilt? Wouldn't that be kind of crazy? Or are you now going to impugn my sanity as well? I am not guilty of vendetta against you although you are guilty of verbiage, cock. Pin the tail on another donkey, sunshine, or, better still, own up to being the person perpetrating this farce for your own perverse reasons. Someone is twanging somebody else's wire here and it certainly ain't me!
Anyway, I only came back to this forum to thank steveshark et al for their advice concerning pensioner income. I have now written to my MP and am seeing her at her surgery this weekend to discuss the matter.
Boy! What a weird congregation of wingnuts have chosen to comment on this blog. A penny tour of the madhouse couldn't be more disturbing or amusing.
It was me ho ho ho.
ReplyDeleteAnd who the hell are you?
ReplyDeleteSorry Mr. Divine obviously we have a joker in our midst impersonating different people. Silly little boy or girl. They really need to grow up: twat heads that's what I say.
That wasn't me who just wrote that. The only thing I wrote was the large posting. And this one too.
ReplyDeleteOK, folks.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that I am a leprous-diseased-fuckwited-cocksucking-arsehole-dumbfuck-turd-backed-up-full-of-shit-limp-dicked-testicularly-challenged-masturbatory-virginal-celibate-one-off-the-wrist-well-wankered rag of human flesh fit only for organ donation. I'd like to will my liver to be transplanted into the body of a teetotaller (to give it a break and a chance of recovery) and my corneas to go to a pilot or a sailor or some other habitual traveller so that they can carry on "seeing the world" long after their former owner has turned into offal.
Although I admit that I am wearing a half smile and have chuckled under my breath don't you think this mimicry and mischief has begun to get a little out of hand?
ReplyDeleteI thank you for you time and attention.
Oh, what laughter. We're "Marxists," apparently. Or maybe Marxist-Leninist-Whateverists. Or perhaps indulging in causal, unprotected extra-marital sex in public lavatories. Whatever we are supposed to be or whatever we are doing, it's all a bit like being told to fuck off to Cuba by The Sun's John Gaunt.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind being caled a Marxist. I bloody love the Marx Brothers! Five of the Brothers’ thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute as among the top 100 comedy films of all time with two of them, Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera, in the top twelve.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for all you pansified right-wingers (we all know you fascists wear women's stockings and suspenders under your uniforms) here's a Marxist quote for you to chew on: "I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it."
Say it like it is Groucho!
Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!
ReplyDeleteFAKER
ReplyDeleteDurak, nyet, vy ponimayete tak nemnogo.
ReplyDeleteChto delat?
Middle class bull shitter. Viva la
ReplyDeleteOf course. You know a different language!
ReplyDeleteArf!
The vast majority of website operators don't have the guts to allow this post, anything like it, any searchable lines, or links. They have been deleted more than 90% of the time. The vast majority of syndicated talk radio hosts are screening their calls and won't allow this topic. The vast majority of callers don't have a clue. We are in big trouble. The truth is so Earth shattering, that no public figure has the guts to acknowledge it. Very few have the guts to allow a statement anything like this in their forum. The truth is being suppressed. We are in much more serious trouble than we have been told by any public figure. Don't be fooled by fluctuating economic indicators or short term market stability. The entire foundation of our economy is crumbling. Get ready people. Get your affairs in order. Get your households in order. Get your communities in order. Be prepared. This is no 'correction'. This is no ordinary recession. This won't be just another Great Depression. This will be much worse. Save this post now before it gets deleted.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I wonder why I bother fighting so hard for the little guy. Whats the point if they are too stupid to listen? Say that reminds me.
Amazing. The worst economic and cultural crisis of all time will go down in history horribly misunderstood. What a pathetic bunch of ignorant fools we have become. Consumer junkie credit card morons. Perfect little victims.
Don’t believe one optimistic word from any public figure about the economy or humanity in general. They are part of the problem. Its like a game of Monopoly. In America, the richest 1%, now hold ALMOST 1/2 OF ALL UNITED STATES WEALTH. Unlike ‘lesser’ estimates, this includes all stocks, bonds, cash, offshore accounts, and material assets held by America’s richest 1%. Even that filthy pig Oprah Winfrey acknowledged that it was near 50% in 2006. Naturally, she put her own ‘humanitarian’ spin on it. Calling attention to her own ‘good will’. WHAT A DISGUSTING SELF-CENTERED SELF-PROMOTING HYPOCRITE SLOB. THE RICHEST ONE PERCENT HAVE LITERALLY MADE WORLD PROSPERITY ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. Don’t fall for any of their 'good will' ‘humanitarian’ CRAP. ITS A SHAM. THESE PEOPLE ARE CAUSING THE SAME PROBLEMS THEY PRETEND TO CARE ABOUT. THE EQUATION THEY STAND FOR ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT WORK. Ask any professor of economics. Money does not grow on trees. The government can’t just print up more on a whim. There are serious concequences for doing so. Regardless, there is always a relative limit to the wealth within ANY economy of ANY size. So when too much wealth accumulates at the top, the currency looses value, the middle class slip further into debt, and the lower class further into poverty. A similar rule applies worldwide. The world’s richest 1% now own over 40% of ALL WORLD WEALTH. This is EVEN AFTER you account for all of this ‘good will’ ‘humanitarian’ BS from celebrities and executives. ITS A SHAM. As they get richer and richer, less wealth is left circulating beneath them. This is the single greatest underlying cause for the current US recession. The middle class can no longer afford to pay all the bills or sustain their share of the economy. Their wealth has been gradually transfered to the richest 1%. One way or another, we suffer because of their incredible greed. We are talking about TRILLIONS of dollars which have been transfered FROM US TO THEM. All over a period of about 30 years. Thats Reaganomics for you. The wealth does not ‘trickle down’ as we were told it would. It just accumulates at the top. Shrinking the middle class and expanding the lower class. Causing a domino effect of socio-economic problems. But the rich will never stop. They just keep getting richer. Leaving even less of the pie for the other 99% of us to share. At the same time, they throw back a few tax deductible crumbs and call themselves 'heros' or ‘humanitarians’. Cashing in on the PR and getting even richer the following year. IT CAN’T WORK THIS WAY. Their bogus efforts to make the world a better place can not possibly succeed. Any ‘humanitarian’ progress made in one area will be lost in another. EVERY SINGLE TIME. IT ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT WORK THIS WAY. This is going to end very much like a giant game of Monopoly. The current US recession will drag on for years and lead into the worst US depression of all time. The richest 1% will live like royalty while the rest of us fight over jobs, food, and gasoline. So don’t fall for any of this 'good will' 'humanitarian' BS from Hollywood, Pro Sports, and Wall Street PIGS. ITS A SHAM. Remember: They are filthy rich EVEN AFTER their tax deductible contributions. They get richer as we speak. They absolutely will not stop. Greedy pigs. Now, we are headed for the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time. Crime, poverty, and suicide will skyrocket. SEND A “THANK YOU” NOTE TO YOUR FAVORITE MILLIONAIRE. ITS THEIR FAULT. I’m not discounting other factors like China, subprime, or gas prices. But all of those factors combined still pale in comparison to that HUGE transfer of wealth from poor to rich. Anyway, those other factors are related and further aggrivated because of GREED. If it weren’t for the OBSCENE distribution of bottom line wealth within our country, there never would have been such a market for subprime to begin with. IF IT WEREN’T FOR THE OBSCENE, UNREASONABLE, ILLOGICAL, AND IMMORAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNITED STATES WEALTH, THERE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SUCH A MARKET FOR SUBPRIME AND THERE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A COLLAPSE IN THE HOUSING MARKET. Subprime did not cause this collapse. Otherwise, it would have done so back in the '90's. It didn't. It only delayed and then suddenly accelerated the inevitable. In fact, the market for subprime literally multiplied over the last decade as the concentration of United States wealth became more extreme. This created a false boom along with artificially raised values and then a sudden decline. Otherwise, the market would have tanked years earlier at a slower rate. Make no mistake. The housing and stock markets would have been in decline by now with or without subprime. Which by the way, was another trick whipped up by greedy bankers, executives, and politicians. IT MADE THEM RICHER. Along with many investors, developers, attorneys, and public figures. Including three of the most greedy, self-serving, self-promoting, hypocrite pigs that have ever lived. The credit industry has been ENDORSED for years by Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, and Dr Phil. Every interest rate. Every late fee. Every NSF fee. Every hidden charge. Every page of fine print. The industry as a whole was endorsed by them. They told their own loyal fans to run out and support it. In fact, they specifically endorsed Countrywide by name. IT MADE THEM RICHER. In order to fully appreciate this, you must realize what a rotten trick Countrywide had up their sleeve to begin with. How it was later ENDORSED by OPRAH WINFREY, ELLEN DEGENERES, AND DR PHIL. How incredibly irresponsible they were. How they betrayed their own loyal fans. How they were PAID FOR IT. How they contributed to the artificial rise and accelerated fall of the US housing market. Not only by concentrating so much wealth. Not only by flaunting their own extravogant multi-mansion lifestyles. Not only by promoting this unrealistic concept of 'bigger, better, faster, upscale' EVERYTHING. But also by endorsing subprime. Don't believe what you've heard from them or any other filthy rich public figure. THEY ARE PAID LIARS. It wasn't just about irresponsible lending, borrowing, local banker bonuses, or weak oversight. That was going on BEFORE subprime. It was actually much more cruel and calculated. Orchestrated from the top down. 'Predatory lending' is just that. Their plan was to give easy credit to millions while the housing market was high, inflate the market even higher in the process, reap a few years worth of payments from unsuspecting buyers, allow them to accumulate little or no equity, lie in wait as those homes increased in value, then jack up their rates making it near impossible for those buyers to make the payments on time. At which time, those buyers would be evicted, their dreams shattered, and their homes forfeited. Which by then, from the mid '90's until mid '07', would be even higher in value and re-sold for a higher price. The plan was to be executed primarily while the market was strong. They got away with it for a decade even before the talk show pigs endorsed it. Leaving thousands of buyers with NOTHING to show for all those payments made. This incredibly cruel and calculated plan was orchestrated in part by Countrywide. THE SAME COUNTRYWIDE ENDORSED BY OPRAH WINFREY, ELLEN DEGENERES, AND DR PHIL. IT MADE THEM RICHER. It also made many of their loyal fans homeless. What a rotten, disgusting trio of greedy, self-serving, self-promoting, hypocrite pigs. What a rotten, disgusting, immoral way to turn a quick buck. To make as many people as possible love you. Then tell those love-sick people to run out and buy a product or service because you say so. Because you were PAID to endorse it. Without the slightest regard for the downside or anything but your own obscene bottom line. Thats why they did it. GREED. Now, there are similar ties between every major industry, every Fortune 500 company, and nearly every public figure. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. It also drives up the cost and consumption for nearly every product, service, and resource on the market. So don’t fall for their ‘good will’ 'humanitarian' BS. ITS A SHAM. NOTHING BUT A CALCULATED, TAX DEDUCTIBLE, MARKETING PLAN TO RAISE THE VALUE OF THEIR OWN IMAGE. If you fall for it, then you’re a fool. If you see any real difference between the moral character of a celebrity, politician, attorney, lobbyist, executive, or card shark, then you’re a fool. No offense fellow citizens. But we have been mislead by nearly every living public figure. We still are. Even now, they claim to be ‘hurting’ right along with the rest of us. As if gas prices actually effect the lifestyle or bottom line of a millionaire. ITS A LIE. IN 2007, THE RICHEST 1 PERCENT INCREASED THEIR AVERAGE BOTTOM LINE WEALTH AGAIN. Most of these financial assets are on the books. Others hidden. Material assets aren't always disclosed. But make no mistake. America's richest 1 percent keep getting richer. On average, they are now worth almost $5,000,000 each. Thats an all time high. As a group, their net worth is over $20,000,000,000,000. THATS OVER TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS. Another all time high. Which by the way, is much more than the entire middle and lower classes combined. Also more than enough to pay off our national debt, fund the Iraq war for a decade, repair our infrastructure, and bail out the US housing market. Still think that our biggest problem is China? Think again. Its the one percent club. That means every big name celebrity, athlete, executive, entrepreneur, developer, banker, and lottery winner. Along with many attorneys, doctors, and politicians. If they are rich, then they are part of the problem. Their incredible wealth was not ‘created’, ‘generated’, grown in their back yard, or printed up on their command. The lion's share was transfered FROM US TO THEM. Directly and indirectly. Its become near impossible to spend a dollar without making some greedy pig even richer. Don’t be fooled by the fall of the stock market, industry losses, lower profit margins, bank failures, or the occasional reported loss of a millionaire’s fortune. Overall, they just keep getting richer. They do so with little or no regard for their own industries or the economy as a whole. They are obsessed primarily with a desire to accumulate more personal wealth. They absolutely will not stop. Still, they have the nerve to pretend as if they care about ordinary people. ITS A LIE. NOTHING BUT CALCULATED PR CRAP. WAKE UP PEOPLE. THEIR PRIMARY GOAL IS TO WIN THE GAME. The one percent club will always say or do whatever it takes to get as rich as possible. Without the slightest regard for anything or anyone but themselves. Reaganomics. Their idea. Loans from China. Their idea. NAFTA. Their idea. CAFTA. Their idea. Outsourcing. Their idea. Downsizing. Their idea. Subprime. Their idea. High energy prices. Their idea. Oil ‘futures’. Their idea. The commercial lobbyist. Their idea. The multi-million dollar lawsuit. Their idea. The multi-million dollar endorsement deal. Their idea. $400 cell phones. Their idea. $200 cell phone bills. Their idea. $200 basketball shoes. Their idea. $30 late fees. Their idea. $30 NSF fees. Their idea. $20 DVDs. Their idea. $50 event tickets. Their idea. $30 books. Their idea. $400 PC operating systems. Their idea. $60 video games. Their idea. Obscene health care charges. Their idea. Subliminal advertising. Their idea. Commercial brainwash plots on TV. Their idea. Vioxx, and Celebrex. Their idea. Excessive medical testing. Their idea. The MASSIVE campaign to turn every American into a brainwashed, credit card, pharmaceutical, medical testing, love-sick, celebrity junkie. Their idea. IT WAS ALL THEIR IDEA. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. All of the above drive up the cost of living, shrink the middle class, concentrate the world’s wealth and resources, create a domino effect of socio-economic problems, and wreak havok on society. All of which have been CREATED AND ENDORSED by celebrities, athletes, executives, investors, developers, entrepreneurs, attorneys, and politicians. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. So don’t fall for any of their ‘good will’ ‘humanitarian’ BS. ITS A SHAM. NOTHING BUT TAX DEDUCTIBLE PR CRAP. In many cases, the ‘charitable’ contribution is almost entirely offset. Not to mention the opportunity to plug their name, image, product, and ‘good will’ all at once. Which is usually done just before or after the release of their latest commercial project. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. These greedy pigs even have the nerve to throw a fit and spin up a misleading defense with regard to ‘federal tax revenue’. ITS A SHAM. THEY SCREWED UP THE EQUATION TO BEGIN WITH. If the middle and lower classes had a greater share of the economic pie, they could easily cover a greater share of the federal tax revenue. They are held down in many ways because of greed. Wages remain stagnant for the vast majority because the executives, investors, developers, celebrities, athletes, attorneys, politicians, and entrepreneurs, are paid millions. They over-sell, over-charge, under-pay, outsource, lobby, re-locate, cut jobs, and cut benefits to increase or preserve their own obscene personal bottom line. They do so even at the expense of their own industries. Even after you account for the fall of the market and lower industry profit margins, the richest 1 percent still keep getting richer on average. Simply because their wealth is drawn from the majority in many ways. Not necessarily at the same rate, but still in their favor. They continue to reap more than they spend down or 'give back'. They have done so for many years. As more United States wealth rises to the top, the middle and lower classes inevitably suffer. This reduces the potential tax revenue drawn from those brackets. At the same time, it wreaks havok on middle and lower class communities and increases the need for financial aid. Not to mention the spike in crime because of it. There is a domino effect to consider. Caused primarily by a constant transfer of wealth from poor to rich. IT CAN’T WORK THIS WAY. But our leaders refuse to acknowledge this. Instead they come up with one trick after another to milk the system, feed the rich, and screw the majority. These decisions are heavily influensed by the 1% club. Every year, billions of federal tax dollars are diverted behind the scenes back to the rich and their respective industries. Loans from China have been necessary to compensate in part, for the red ink and the multi-trillion dollar transfer of wealth from poor to rich. At the same time, the feds have been pushing more financial burden onto the states who push them lower onto the cities. Again, the hardship is felt more by the majority and less by the 1% club. The rich prefer to live in exclusive areas or upper class communities. They get the best of everything. Reliable city services, new schools, freshly paved roads, new lighting, sidewalks, drainage, upscale parks, ect. The middle and lower class communities get little or nothing without a raise in basic service charges or a local tax increase. Which, they usually can’t afford. So the red ink flows followed by service cuts and lay-offs. All because of the OBSCENE distribution of bottom line wealth in this country. Anyway, when you account for all federal, state, local taxes, and fees, the middle class actually pay about the same rate as the rich. The devil is in the details. So when people forgive the rich for their incredible greed and then praise them for paying a greater share of the FEDERAL income taxes, its like nails on a chalk board. I can not accept any theory that our economy would suffer in any way with a more reasonable distribution of bottom line wealth. Afterall, it was more reasonable 30 years ago. Before Reaganomics came along. Before GREED became such an epidemic. Before we had an army of over-paid executives, investors, celebrities, athletes, attorneys, doctors, entrepreneurs, developers, lobbyists, and sold-out politicians to kiss their greedy asses. As a nation, we were in much better shape. Strong middle class, free and clear assets, home equity, savings, widespread prosperity, stable job market, lower deficit, ect. Our economy as a whole was much more stable and prosperous for the majority. WITHOUT LOANS FROM CHINA. Now, we have a more obscene distribution of bottom line wealth, and resources than ever before. We have a sold-out government, crumbling infrastructure, energy crisis, home forclosure epidemic, credit crunch, weak job market, weak middle class, weak US dollar, 13 figure national debt, and 12 figure annual shortfall. The cost of living is higher than ever before. Most people can’t even afford basic health care. ALL BECAUSE OF GREED. I really don’t blame the upper class in general. At least not as a group and not without exception. No economy could ever function without some reasonable scale of income and wealth. But it can’t be allowed to run wild like a mad dog. ALBERT EINSTEIN TRIED TO MAKE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND. UNBRIDLED CAPITALISM ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT WORK. TOP HEAVY ECONOMIES CAN NOT BE SUSTAINED. THEY ALWAYS COLLAPSE. Bottom line: The richest 1 percent will soon tank the largest economy in the world. It will be catastrophic. Like nothing we’ve ever seen before. The American dream will be shattered. and thats just the beginning. Greed will eventually tank every major economy in the world. Causing millions more to struggle, fight, starve, suffer, and die. Oprah, Angelina, Brad, Bono, and Bill are not part of the solution. They are part of the problem. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE HUMANITARIAN. EXTREME WEALTH MAKES WORLD PROSPERITY ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. WITHOUT WORLD PROSPERITY, THERE WILL NEVER BE WORLD PEACE OR ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL. Of course, the rich will throw a fit and call me a madman. Of course, they will jump to small minded conclusions about 'jealousy', 'envy', or 'socialism'. Of course, their ignorant fans will do the same. You have to expect that. But I speak the truth. If you don’t believe me, then copy this entry and run it by any professor of economics or socio-economics. Then tell a friend. Call the local radio station. Re-post this entry or put it in your own words. Be one of the first to predict the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time and explain its underlying cause. WE ARE IN BIG TROUBLE.
So what can we do about it? Well, not much. Unfortunately, we are stuck on a runaway train. The problem has gone unchecked for too many years. The US/global depression is comming thanks to the 1% club. It would take a massive effort by the vast majority to prevent it. Along with a voluntary sacrifice by the rich. THATS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. But if you believe in miracles, then spend your money as wisely as possible. Especially in middle and lower class communities. Check the Fortune 500 list and limit your support of high profit/low labor industries (Hollywood, pro sports, energy, credit, pharmaceutical, cable, satelite, internet advertising, video, and music, cell phone, high fashion, jewelry, ect.). Cancel all but one credit card for emergencies only. Call the provider and demand a lower rate. Be persistent. You may get it. (By the way. I gave this piece of advice long before NBC. I'm not looking for kudos. I'm telling you that NBC is directly affiliated with the credit industry. They could have given you this piece of advice years ago. Instead, they stood by and allowed their parent company, sister companies, and network sponsors to RIP YOU OFF. Even now, they give the occasional 'good guy' financial advice only because they are pressured to do so. They carefully balance every piece of 'good guy' advice with their primary goal to GET YOUR MONEY. Which is why their 'good guy' advice is so often followed by a plug for one of their sister companies, sister channels, network sponsors, or coorporate partners. For example: They tell you to pay down your credit card debt. Good advice. They should have given it years ago. Then, they tell you to GET MORE CREDIT CARDS and use them. Bad advice. One week Jean Chatzky tells you to avoid the 'free credit report' scam because it is always followed by a monthly service charge. Good advice. They should have given it years ago. The following week she stands by as her paid fellow advisor Carmen Wong strongly implies for you to have your credit monitered on a monthly basis and praises a caller for doing so. Bad advice. This is actually a plug for one of their network sponsors, coorporate partners, or parent company. The praise is nothing but a psychological trick. DON'T FALL FOR IT. Don't take ANYTHING they say at face value. Instead, read between the lines. Carefully weigh every piece of 'good guy' advice given against their primary goal. THEY WANT YOUR MONEY.). If you need a cell phone, then do your homework and find the best deal on a local pre-pay. You may be able to get one for as little as $10 a month. Don't text. The charge may seem low at the time but their profit margins are obscene. If you want home internet access, then check for a locally based provider. They can be found in nearly every city nationwide. Otherwise, use the least expensive big name provider, and share accounts whenever possible. If you need to search, then use the less popular search engines. They usually produce about same results anyway. Don't pay for any internet download. Their profit margins for such data transfers are obscene. Don’t pay to see any blockbuster movie. Instead, wait a few months and rent the DVD from a local store, borrow it, or buy it USED. Then loan it to a friend or family member. If you prefer the outing, then choose a film produced by the lesser known studeos with lower paid actors. If you want to see a big name game or event, then watch it in a local bar, club, or at home on network TV. Don’t buy any high end official merchandise and don’t support the high end sponsors. If its endorsed by a big name celebrity, then don’t buy it. If you can afford a new car, then make an exception for GM, Ford, and Dodge. If they don’t increase their market share soon, then a lot more people are going to get screwed out of their pensions and/or benefits. Of course, you must know by now to avoid those big trucks and SUVs unless you truly need one for its utility. Don’t be ashamed to buy a foreign car if you prefer it. Afterall, those with the most fuel efficient vehicles consume a lot less foreign oil. Which accounts for a pretty big chunk of our trade deficit. Its a reasonable trade-off. Anyway, the global economy is worth supporting to some extent. Its the obscene profit margins, trade deficits, and BS from OPEC that get us into trouble. Otherwise, the global economy would be a good thing for everyone. Just keep in mind that the big 3 are struggling and they do produce a few smaller reliable cars. Don’t frequent any high end department store, mall, or any business in a newly developed center or upper class community. By doing so, you encourage greedy developers, make them richer, and draw vital support away from industrial areas and away from the middle and lower class communities. Instead, support the local retailer and the less popular shopping centers. Especially in lower or middle class communities. If you can afford to buy a home, then do so. But go smaller and less expensive. Don’t get yourself in too deep and don’t buy into the newly developed condos or gated communities. Instead, find a modest home in a building or neighborhood at least 20 years old. If you live in one of the poorer states, then try to support its economy first and foremost. Be on the lookout for commercial brainwash plots on TV. They are written into nearly every scene of nearly every show. Most cater to network sponsors, coorporate partners, and parent companies. Especially commercial health care. In particular, high profit pharmaceuticals and excessive medical testing. These plugs are countless, calculated, and VERY well written. They have commercial brainwashing down to a science. DON'T FALL FOR IT. Get off the couch and take care of your own body the way nature intended. There is no substitute. If you must see a doctor, then DEMAND that he/she give you more than 5 minutes of their undivided attention. Otherwise, dispute their unreasonable charges. Be prepared with written questions about your condition and get them answered one at a time. If they refuse, then dispute their unreasonable charges. If they prescribe excessive medical testing then ask if they personally own the equipment or if they are paid a commission for each test. If they find nothing new or signifigant, then dispute their unreasonable charges. If they prescribe a pharmaceutical, then ask for a generic. Better yet, concider a change in lifestyle or simple tolerance. If they still recommend the name brand pharmaceutical, then ask about any financial ties or conflict of interest. If they get offended, then dispute their unreasonable charges and consider a new doctor. If you must drug away your sniffles, worries, jitters, aches, and pains, then at least do your homework. Be aware of the possible side-effects ahead of time. Don't be surprised to find yourself back a week or two later feeling worse. In which case, you should dispute their unreasonable charges. If you are diagnosed with another medical condition, then ask your doctor what he/she has done to rule out those possible side-effects. Otherwise, dispute their unreasonable charges. Don't let any greedy doctor treat you like a number, make you wait an hour, or rush you out of their office. Otherwise, dispute their unreasonable charges. Don't fall for this CRAP that doctors have no choice but to over-book their time or over-charge their patients because of a high overhead. ITS A LIE. YOUR DOCTOR IS MOST LIKELY A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE. So don't fall for their CRAP. Demand their undivided attention and respect. Afterall, they took an oath. If you have the opportunity before being admitted, then check the record of your hospital. Check to see if they have been investigated or sued for providing unnecessary treatment, excessive medical testing, or fraudulent billing. Dozens have already been caught doing so. Do all of the above regardless of your coverage. Don't force your employer to cover the obscene and often fraudulent charges of a corrupt health care industry. By doing so, you make the problem worse. Keep your guard up when watching ANY talk show. These people are not your friends. They are not your advocates. They are paid actors hired to get your attention and your money. Some of them are also executive producers (Oprah Winfrey, Ellen Degeneres, and Dr Phil.). Nearly every word, smile, and stupid joke is rehearsed ahead of time. Including those which take place so often during what appear to be 'technical oversights' (Today Show. Even their stage hands are mixed in behind the scenes so that you can hear them laugh at every stupid joke.). Its all fake. Its all calculated. These people are not trying to make the world a happy place. They are trying to entertain you only because their marketing studies have shown that you are more likely to drop your guard and support their sponsors. Nearly every segment is about marketing some over-priced product or service. They will use any excuse to plug a gadget, fashion item, travel destonation, credit card, university, drug, medical test, surgical procedure, movie, TV show, book, magazine, song, website, ect. Almost all of it over-priced. Almost all of it resulting in higher profits for their sponsors, partners, and parent companies. DON'T FALL FOR IT. Big business is fine on occasion depending on their product, ethics, employment, profit margins, and profit sharing. Do your homework. If they are screwing up our economy or society, then don't pay them for it. If you want to support any legitimate charity, then do so directly. Never support any celebrity foundation. Don't be fooled by the sale of baby photos, lies about percentage of income donated, or praise from other well known public figures. Celebrity foundations are CRAP. They spend most of their funding on PR campaigns, exotic travel, and super high end accomodations for themselves. Thats right. Filthy rich public figures have been jet-setting the world in the name of 'humanity' for years. Riding in personal jets, staying in super-exclusive resorts, and living it up in exotic locations around the world the likes of which most people could never afford even if their lives depended on it. They bring along agents, advisors, publicists, hair, make-up, wardrobe, lighting, and photo crews who are also in it for themselves. They are paid six or seven figures for their part to schedule, manage, document, showcase, praise, and publicize the 'good will' of said public figures and their respective industries. Every possible expense is passed of as 'incidental' or 'necessary' and billed right back to some 'foundation' named after said public figure and/or respective industry. Every possible tax deduction is claimed. Which are incredibly vague and diverse thanks to our sold-out government. Deals are cut with major networks who agree to praise the 'good will' or 'humanitarian' effort of said public figures and plug their latest commercial project around the same time. Others from around the world pick up the story and save these industries billions in advertising every year. Resulting in higher profits and paychecks for the 1% club. When its all said and done more wealth is transfered from poor to rich. NOT the other way around. So don't support any charity named after a living celebrity. Don't be fooled or inspired by any photo you see in a magazine, any clip on TV, any affiliation, or any short term short sighted progress report. Instead, go to Charitywatch.org and look up a top rated charity to support your favorite cause. Its all there. For example: 'Habitat For Humanity' is a top rated charity. They have been for many years. They operate with a low overhead, volunteer workforce, and donated materials. They have built homes for the less fortunate in nearly every city nationwide. Including New Orleans. They do so as we speak. No similar effort can match their progress hour for hour or dollar for dollar. So there is no legitimate reason to support a slower, less efficient effort represented by a filthy rich Hollywood actor who flies in on a personal jet, takes most of the credit, and makes a deal with a major network for plugs just days before the premier of his latest film or DVD release. By doing so, you support not only the inefficient effort, but also the filthy rich actor. Concentrating more wealth and dumbing down our society further in the process. Instead, support 'Habitat For Humanity'. Its not perfect. It is affiliated with some big business. However, it is MUCH more efficient, effective, and less corrupt than 'Make It Right'. The difference is profound. In general, support the little guy as much as possible and the big guy as little as possible. Keep your own greed in check. Don't play the big stakes lottery games, and don't invest only for profit. Don't believe for a second that you can get rich and still manage to keep your soul because you can't. Don't believe for a second that you can concentrate even more of the world's wealth and somehow 'give back' enough to make up for it because you can't. If you do come into a fortune, then give away the bulk of it to a legitimate cause or directly to others who have far less. Do it quickly before that big money turns your heart black. Find the courage and do it. STAY OUT OF THE 1% CLUB. Encourage others to do the same. Their standard is obscene, unjust, illogical, and immoral. There is no excuse for it. Do your part to reverse the transfer of wealth away from the rich and back to the middle and lower classes. Otherwise, there will be no economic recovery EVER. Unfortunately, there is no perfect answer. Jobs will be lost either way. Families will go cold and hungry either way. Innocent children will starve and die either way. But we need to support the largest group of workers with the most reasonable profit margins. We need to stand for a more reasonable distribution of income, bottom line wealth, and resources. We need to support LEGITIMATE charities (Check that list at Charitywatch.org). This is our only chance to limit the severity or duration of the comming US/global depression. In the meantime, don’t listen to Bernanke, Paulson, Bartiromo, Orman, Dobbs, Kramer, Pickens, Larson, O'Reiley, Limbaugh, Bruce, Ingraham, or any other public figure with regard to the economy. They are all plenty smart but I swear to you that they will lie right through their rotten teeth. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. These people work for big business. They are sponsored by big business. The ‘experts’ they cite also work for big business. They invest in big business. They are all motivated primarily by their obsessive desire to accumulate even more personal wealth. THEY WILL LIE RIGHT THROUGH THEIR ROTTEN TEETH. So don’t fall for their tricks. Instead, look at the big picture. The economic problems we face have been mounting for well over 20 years. All of them caused or aggrivated by a constant transfer of wealth from poor to rich. Soon, it will cause the worst ever GLOBAL DEPRESSION. Its not brain surgery. For the mostpart, Its simple math. Like I said, you are welcome to copy this entry and run it by any professor of economics or socio-economics. Go ahead and do it. Ask them specifically about the link between the distribution of wealth and economic stability. If thats not good enough, then look up what Albert Einstein had to say about greed, excess, extreme wealth, and its horrible economic and cultural concequences. Then call any syndicated talk radio show. Tell the screeners that you would like to discuss the concentration of wealth. Mention the views of Albert Einstein with regard to this issue. Your call will be refused. FLAT OUT REFUSED. The vast majority screen their calls and won't allow this topic. Try any local talk radio show. You will face massive opposition there as well but at least they will take your call. Be prepared. These people are very good debators. The vast majority are die-hard capitalists. If they take offense, they may insult you, talk over you, try to re-define your own statements, or call you a 'socialist', 'marxist', or 'communist'. They often use these words to refer to anyone who points out the flaws of unbridled capitalism. They may follow with the old "socialism/marxism doesn't work" line. Maybe, they should take a closer look at whats happening in the world and see that unbridled capitalism doesn't work either. The heavy concentration of wealth is it's fatal flaw. We need a compromise. A relatively free market system with a minimum wage, a maximum wage, a progressive tax policy, and caps on personal wealth. Any little step in that direction would be a start. If you get the opportunity, then confront any politician or public figure in any forum. Ask them to confirm or deny the concentration of wealth and the relation if any to economic stability. Watch them squirm. They will not give you a straight answer because most public figures are filthy rich. They simply will not acknowledge the ugly truth. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
Its already underway. A massive campaign to divert our attention. Trump, Buffet, O'Reiley, Dobbs, Winfrey, Pickens, Larson, Norris, Branson, Bohannon, Limbaugh, Coulter, Clinton, Hannity, Ingraham, Bruce, Bloomberg, Doyle, and several other well known filthy rich public figures have been running their mouths about the economy. Finally admitting a hint of severity after years of denial. They even have the nerve to FINALLY acknowledge the possibility of a US/global depression. Still, they refuse to acknowledge the single greatest underlying cause. GREED. Instead, they focus on policies, procedures, and circumstances that were born FROM the underlying cause. GREED. They ramble on about 'subprime', 'toxic debt', 'junk bonds', and 'risky investments'. As if somehow all of this could have been avoided if those transactions had never taken place to begin with. What a joke. Those factors don't represent the underlying cause of this global economic crisis. They represent the effect of a shrinking middle class and massive consumer debt. CAUSED BY GREED. A MASSIVE TRANSFER OF WEALTH FROM POOR TO RICH. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been such a market for subprime to begin with. The debt wouldn't have been 'toxic'. The bonds wouldn't have been 'junk'. The investments wouldn't have been so 'risky'. By focusing on such factors, they attempt to divert our attention, limit our hindsight, disregard the OBSCENE concentration of wealth and capital, that shrinking middle class, the high cost of living, and the particular form of evil responsible for almost all of it. GREED. Dancing their way around the big picture. DON'T FALL FOR IT. Remember: Our national debt was way up BEFORE subprime. Consumer debt was way up BEFORE subprime. The cost of living was up BEFORE subprime. Wall Street profits were obscene BEFORE subprime. The middle class were loosing free and clear assets BEFORE subprime. Our infrastructure was in bad shape BEFORE subprime. Loans from China were taken out BEFORE subprime. The dollar was loosing value BEFORE subprime. All of this took place over a period of many years under both Republican and Democratic rule. All of it coincided with a transfer of wealth from poor to rich. So don’t let these cowardly, hypocritical, sold-out, partisan, filthy rich public figures divert your attention or limit your range of thought. THE CURRENT GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS WAS NOT CAUSED BY A SINGLE POLICY, PROCEDURE, POLITICAL PARTY, OR ADMINISTRATION. IT WAS CAUSED PRIMARILY BY A MASSIVE TRANSFER OF WEALTH FROM POOR TO RICH. THIS ALSO REPRESENTS A MASSIVE CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL WORLDWIDE. OTHERWISE, THERE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SUCH A MARKET FOR SUBPRIME AND THERE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A GLOBAL CREDIT CRUNCH. MONEY DOES NOT GROW ON TREES AND IT DOES NOT JUST FLOAT AWAY. IT ONLY TRANSFERS FROM ONE PARTY TO ANOTHER. ALBERT EINSTEIN TRIED TO MAKE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
A word for those who respond with the usual ‘I know more than you. I spell better than you. I talk like an economist. Look how smart, knowledgable, and articulate I am’ crap. Let me say this in advance. I don’t claim to be an expert in this field. I never will be. I'm still learning and I don't claim to be infallible. But I did go on record with these predictions long before any public figure uttered the word ‘recession’. I've done so 'on the air' and 'online'. Millions of you already know my voice from various local talk radio shows in several states and one syndicated. My first call was in September of '05'. I tried to explain that we will never have world peace without world prosperity and that we will never have world prosperity without a 'fair and reasonable pay-scale'. I also tried to explain the link between 'extreme wealth' and 'extreme poverty'. My call was immediately followed by attacks from so called 'patriots' who felt that my cause must have been to promote 'socialism' or 'bring down America'. Not warn her citizens. You may also remember me from various chat rooms criticizing the 1% club and Hollywood humanitarians in particular. If you search long enough, you will find my early postings online from ‘05' and ‘06'. At first, they were written specifically to fit within a few hundred characters. Including the first draft of this rant. It started with one short paragraph predicting a 'total collapse of the US economy'. Others included phrases like 'game of Monopoly', 'recession is inevitable', 'global recession', 'greed kills', and 'the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time'. Some of which were eventually included here. From day 1, I have tried to explain the link between extreme wealth, poverty, and economic instability. My internet account was eventually cancelled for posting 'spam' in response to articles about the economy. In December of '06', I predicted market instability by spring of the following year. I did so 'on the air'. In January of '07', I called another morning talk radio show and spoke with a guest host who was filling in for a well known public figure. Again, I specifically predicted growing market instability, the current US recession, and the subsequent US/global depression.Which by the way, will be the worst of all time by far. In February of '07', Allen Greenspan acknowledged a 'one in three' chance of a US recession. I immediately called another talk radio show and guranteed AGAIN that it was iminent. I criticized Greenspan and tried to explain that it was not about 'odds' but instead a very simple equation with regard to distribution of income and wealth. I also gave credit to Albert Einstein who went on record with similar views in 1949. As far as I know, he was the first to do so. By late spring of '07', the market was rattled and the economic 'stimulus' in the works. Which turned out to be around $160,000,000,000. THATS ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY BILLION DOLLARS. Well over 1% of our GDP. Deemed appropriate at the time by our leaders. In fact, Bush went on record with a claim that it was based on a mathematical formula and proven strategy. They said it would work. I immediately predicted that it would have little or no effect. By summer of '07' the stock market was more unstable. The housing market in decline. Again, I predicted that it would get MUCH worse. In September of '07', I predicted that our government would have no choice but to acknowledge a US recession by October of '08'. I also assured the audiance that our economy would "go down in a ball of flames" because of greed and that no recovery would EVER take place without a more reasonable distribution of wealth and resources. I have made these predictions 'on air' and 'online' literally hundreds of times. The first call was in September of '05'. Made to a well known public figure with a large audiance. The first blog post a month or so later. Prior to that, I had never even seen one. In fact, my very first post to a blog was written specifically to warn my fellow citizens about the comming US/global depression. Which I was already convinced at the time would be SEVERE within a decade. That was in October of '05'. At the time, there were literally only a few of us worldwide posting any such prediction online. I'm talking maybe a dozen searchable links. This particular rant began with one short paragraph in '06'. Like the others, it was originally intended to fit within a few hundred characters. At the time, I was unaware of any blogs which allowed for longer entries to be posted anonymously. This paragraph was first written in early-mid '08'. Its been updated several times. There has also been a running debate on iVillage.com which began in October of '07' (don't click on their ads). In February or March of '08', I refered specifically to the bank failures of the Great Depression and predicted that it was about to happen again. At the time, I was one of only a few bloggers worldwide to go on record with any such prediction. This was still several weeks to months before Greenspan, Paulson, Bartiromo, Orman, Kramer, O'Reiley, Larson, Bohannon, Dobbs, Celeste or any other well known public figure had acknowledged even a hint of severity. It was also several weeks before Fanny May and Freddie Mac made the news. I also predicted in March that our markets would end the year much lower than they began. Which was still contrary to what we were being told by any public figure. I was allowed to post but when my predictions came true, the site operators went back all the way to October of '07' and deleted nearly every one of my previous entries (they missed a few.). Their motive was obvious. They wanted to 'erase' my credibility. IVillage.com is directly affiliated with NBC, GE, Universal Studeos, Countrywide, CityBank, Capital One, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Ellen Degeneres, Dr Phil, and others who I persecute by name. All of which depend on the constant dumbing down of society. All of whom are partially responsible for the current economic crisis. None of which or whom have the GUTS to acknowledge the single greatest underlying cause. GREED. In fact, those who epitomoze it (all of the above) want my big mouth SHUT. For 3 solid years, I have been ripping on the 1% club for their incredible greed and hypocrisy. From day 1, my call has been for a more reasonable distribution of income, wealth, and resources. My warning that without it, we would face the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time. Since then, I’ve gone on record against people like Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, Laffer, O'Reiley, Bartiromo, Orman, Kramer, Larson, and Dobbs. So far, my predictions have been accurate. The public figures DEAD WRONG. Afterall, not one of them acknowledged even a hint of severity in '05', '06', or '07'. When they FINALLY did this year, they all said something to the effect of "None of us saw this comming.". LIARS. There were a few of us typing our fingers to the bone trying to warn people. There were a few of us calling talk radio shows almost daily trying to warn people. I was one of them. Again, I don't claim to be an expert in this field. But I do understand simple equations, basic economics, and cultural trends. I also realize that mainstream views are DEAD WRONG and based on LIES told by filthy rich public figures who will say whatever it takes to serve their own interests. GREED. Afterall, what kind of incredible MORON could even glance at the numbers and somehow think the equation could work? What kind of incredible MORON could possibly hope to sustain an economy based on a constant transfer of wealth from poor to rich? What the hell did they expect to happen when the middle class finally ran low on money to spend on over-priced crap like everything that I mentioned in that first long paragraph? What the hell were they thinking of? I'll tell you what. RICHES. FILTHY STINKING RICHES. Thats what. Now, they are spinning themselves dizzy trying to divert our attention. Mark my words: They will never acknowledge the obscene concentration of wealth or the negative effect had on economic stability. They will never acknowledge the downside of their own incredible greed. They will all come up with one campaign or strategy after another to blame the other guy, the other administration, the other politician, the other party, the other policy, the other industry, the other country, ect. Whatever it takes to dumb down our society. They will NEVER have the GUTS to acknowledge the single greatest underlying cause for this global economic crisis. GREED. They won't even have the guts to acknowledge the views or predictions of Albert Einstein made way back in 1949. THOSE PARTICULAR VIEWS AND PREDICTIONS. Instead, they will produce their own big money/big business/big celebrity 'experts' who have the same motive to lie right through their rotten teeth. GREED. Its not their knowledge I question. Its their character. GREED. Like I said. This is not brain surgery. For the mostpart, its simple math. When you concentrate the world’s wealth, you also concentrate its capital, and shrink the middle class along with the potential market for every major industry. Homes go unsold. Bills go unpaid. Jobs are lost. Banks fail. More products go unsold. More jobs are lost. More banks fail. and so on. and so on. and so on. It happened 80 years ago in that order beginning with a concentration of wealth. It will happen again. This time on a catastrophic global scale. Throughout the cycle, the rich will panic and tighten their grip. Concentrating the world’s wealth and resources even further, getting richer in the process, and ensuring the collapse of every major economy worldwide. Think it can’t happen? Think again. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
Another thing. I don’t want credit for any of this. Otherwise, I would have given my full name a long time ago. I havn't. IT DOESN'T MATTER. I'm not selling a book and I'm not looking for any notoriety. At least not yet. I do have a plan to go public when my parents die. In fact, I have BIG plans for my inheritence. Every single penny of it. In the meantime, I don't want them to know about it. I also don't want them punished for my big mouth. Which is why I've gone out of my way to remain anonymous for 3 solid years. When I do go public, it won't be for profit and it won't be for popularity. It will be for a legitimate cause and NOTHING ELSE. In fact, I hope to be just one of many. A face in the crowd. In the meantime, I don't care who gets to say "I told you so." IT DOESN'T MATTER. As far as I’m concerned, you can put this entire rant in your own words and take credit for all of it. I don’t care. Just spread the word. Otherwise, the greatest injustice of all time will go down in history unchecked.
By the way. The bailout won’t work. IT WON’T WORK. The plan fails to address the fundamental problem. The middle class don’t need more credit. They need a reasonable share of the economic pie. They also need a lower cost of living and a chance to catch their breath. They need a break from all of the psychological marketing tricks and mass market BS. Most of all, they need to wake up, see the truth, and take a stand. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
10.01.08
To my surprise, two public figures have found the courage to acknowledge this problem to some degree. On 11.07.07 former presidential candidate Ron Paul mentioned the massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich. He also hinted at the possibility of economic collapse. He did so on 'Face the Nation'. He was blacklisted almost immediately for doing so. On 9.28.08 former secretary of labor Robert Reich refered to the obscene levels of income inequality as part of a "recipe for disaster". He mentioned the richest one percent in particular. He did so on 'Late Night With Conan O'Brien'. As far as I know, Albert Einstein was the first to explain the link between extreme wealth and economic instability. He did so in 1949. He explained how the first Great Depression was actually caused by a massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich. He predicted that it would happen again. He also predicted much greater levels of economic instability proportional to much greater levels of income and wealth inequality. He was right. Amazing. The prosperity of an entire world is about to be compromised. Almost entirely because of greed. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
Another word about the first Great Depression. It really was a perfect storm. Caused almost entirely by greed. First, there was unprecedented economic growth. There was a massive building spree. There was a growing sense of optimism and materialism. There was a growing obsession for celebrities. The American people became spoiled, foolish, naive, brainwashed, and love-sick. They were bombarded with ads for one product or service after another. Encouraged to spend all of their money as if it were going out of style. Obscene profits were hoarded at the top. All of this represented a MASSIVE transfer of wealth from poor to rich. Executives, entrepreneurs, developers, celebrities, and share holders. By 1929, America's wealthiest 1 percent had accumulated around 40% of all United States wealth. The upper class held around 30%. The middle and lower classes were left to share the rest. When the majority finally ran low on money to spend, profits declined and the stock market crashed. Of course, the rich threw a fit and started cutting jobs. They would stop at nothing to maintain their disgusting profit margins and ill-gotten obscene levels of wealth as long as possible. The small business owners did what they felt necessary to survive. They cut more jobs. The losses were felt primarily by the little guy. This created a domino effect. The middle class shrunk drastically and the lower class expanded. With less wealth in reserve and active circulation, banks failed by the hundreds. More jobs were cut. Unemployment reached 25% in 1933. The worst year of the Great Depression. Those who were employed had to settle for much lower wages. Millions went cold and hungry. The recovery involved a massive infusion of new currency, a World War, and higher taxes on the rich. With so many men in the service, so many women on the production line, and those higher taxes to help pay for it, the lions share of United States wealth was gradually transfered back to the middle class. This redistribution of wealth continued until the mid seventies. At the time, the richest 1% reaped about 10% of all private income and held about 20% of all United States wealth. Far less than previous levels. The middle class had home equity, free and clear assets, and money in the bank. Most American households were secure with a single full time provider. Most retirees could enjoy their lives, live in their own homes, afford basic health care, and not have to worry about going bankrupt. THATS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. The tide began to change in 1976. Jimmy Carter was blamed for a recession that was actually caused by a number of global circumstances including greed. Then a short sighted little pig by the name of Arthur Laffer came along. Known for his famous 'Laffer Curve'. A simple and short sighted equation whipped up to increase tax revenues and profit margins without the slightest regard for ANYTHING ELSE. He convinced Ronald Reagan to campaign on and grant massive tax breaks to the rich and their respective industries. His half-baked theory was that by doing so, unprecidented levels of economic growth and revenue could be achieved. He was right. Unfortunately, he failed to see or acknowledge the big picture. He failed to understand or admit what should have been incredibly obvious after the first Great Depression. That 'economic growth' and 'actual prosperity' are two very different things. Jobs don't necessarily 'create' wealth. In fact, they almost never do. For the mostpart, they only transfer it from one party to another. The devil is in the details. Reaganomics, gave the rich and their respective industries the incentive to 'expand' and 'create jobs'. But those products and services were misrepresented, over-priced, and then sold or billed right back to the people. Often, without their knowledge, understanding, or consent. Certainly without a clue about how the economy REALLY works. All of this resulted in higher profits for those at the top and stagnant wages for almost everyone else. The cost of living went up right along with those obscene profit margins. The American people ended up working more hours just to maintain their standard of living. So with Reaganomics, the transfer of wealth from poor to rich was kicked back into high gear. Here we are 27 years later. Trillions in wealth and capital have been concentrated all over again. National and consumer debt are both at an all time high. The middle class are weak, the lower class flat broke, and the cost of basic living higher than ever before. The dollar is weak because too many of them have been hoarded and the government left with no choice but to print billions more backed up by loans from China. Its another perfect storm. THE BIG ONE. The largest economy in the world is about to go down in a ball of flames. Ground zero of a global economic crisis. CAUSED ALMOST ENTIRELY BY GREED. A MASSIVE TRANSFER OF WEALTH FROM POOR TO RICH. As a nation, we don't even see it because our entire culture has been defined by Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood, Pro-sports, and commercial health care. We have been lied to and led around like puppies by those with the worst possible motive. GREED. THEY WANT OUR MONEY. For the mostpart, we just bend over and let them take it. We have become their perfect little victims once again. A nation of consumer junkie, credit card, couch potatoe, drug and doctor morons. We spend most of our spare time on that couch getting brainwashed by greedy public figures who will say or do whatever it takes to get our money. Even worse, those public figures have re-defined any logical standard we ever had for 'good will'. Mother Teresa is dead. America's favorite 'humanitarian' is now a filthy rich multi-media pig who reaped a billion dollar fortune from the middle class by making damn sure they stay on that couch long enough to watch her show and read her magazine. Transforming them into pathetic, naive, love-sick fools who turn around and buy any product or service given away to a cheering studeo audiance or endorsed by their idol. The same goes for Ellen Degeneres, Dr Phil, Regis and Kelly, Rachael Ray, The View, and their respective demographics. Which by the way, are almost identical. Primarily, middle class housewives, retirees, and welfare mothers. Who have been shown through marketing research to spend most of their money and food stamps on over-priced CRAP advertised on TV or a TV show website (ivillage.com). Especially if that over-priced crap is endorsed by a 'hero' or 'humanitarian'. They are easy targets. Not like the rest of us are much less gullible. We're not. In fact, every filthy rich well known public figure and every major industry have followed suit with a similar marketing strategy. Dumbing down our society and cashing in on bogus promises to make the world a better place. They do it because they know it works. They also know that we are too stupid, short sighted, naive, smitten, and love-sick to take a closer look at the world and see that they are wolves in sheep's clothing. To see that what they are doing is FALSE. For example: In the fall of '01', Jennifer Lopez was invited to take part in a music video for charity. The effort was hailed as a benefit for victims of AIDS and 9/11. Well, Jennifer Lopez doesn't do ANYTHING for free. She DEMANDED AND RECIEVED the following for her exclusive use: A 45 foot trailer with a TV, VCR, stereo, an assortment of CDs, a white dressing room with lavish all white decor, all white furniture, and an assortment of exotic fruits and desserts. All of this was necessary just to get her sorry ass in the studeo for 30 minutes. FOR CHARITY. Of course, the organizers are partly to blame for selling out to a 'diva'. In fact, I have my doubts about the entire project. Charity just isn't what it used to be. Most of it has gone commercial. SOLD OUT. Even the UN has become a PR firm for Hollywood and Pro-Sports. Going so far as to allow George Clooney access to the UN headquarters auditorium with his own camera crew. A F$#@$&% CELEBRITY. Of course, that footage was plastered all over the media weeks later right along with plugs for his latest Hollywood blockbuster. Like I said, the UN has become a PR firm. Most of their 'good will ambassadors' are filthy rich, hypocrite pigs who dumb down their ignorant fans, take as much of their money as possible, buy up mass acreage and multiple mansions, flaunt their extravogant lifestyles, jet-set the world, burn through limited life sustaining resources like there is no tomorrow, drive up the cost of living worldwide, and then run their mouths about 'poverty' or some other 'injustice' everytime their latest commercial project hits the market. They do it for publicity. They even have the nerve to run their mouths about 'global warming', 'conservation', and 'green' living. As if the example they set is anything but obscene. As if a roll of eco-friendly toilet paper somehow offsets the clear cutting of a dozen acres to build another F%$#$@# CELEBRITY MANSION. Of course, they have NOTHING to say about greed or economic injustice. NOTHING to say about the obscene concentration of wealth and resources worldwide. NOT A SINGLE F%$#@#$ WORD. What a bunch of false heroes. These people have no real desire to make the world a better place. Their primary goal is to APPEAR as if they do. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. It also gives them a lame excuse to be such greedy, rank, filthy, disgusting, slobbering, squandering, hypocrite pigs. Amazing. EVERY big business, EVERY big celebrity, EVERY billionaire, and damn near every multi-millionaire on the planet have all taken up 'philanthropy' or 'good will'. Those with the most money, also have the most power, and influense by far. They own or influense every government, manage every major industry, and the lion's share of life sustaining resources. They literally rule our world. They always have. Still, every major problem of modern society gets worse by the day. The world's wealth is more concentrated than ever before. Her life sustaining resources are in high demand, more expensive than ever, and squandered by the rich on extravogant living. Meanwhile, families loose their homes, retirees loose their pensions, heroes loose their lives, crime is up, and red ink flows in nearly every community nationwide. The global economy is in a state of crisis. The prosperity of an entire world is about to be compromised. Still, those with the most power, money, influense, and 'good will' promise to make it all better. If only we continue to buy any product or service with their name on it. IT IS A SHAM. GOOD WILL HAS BECOME BIG BUSINESS.
The rich and famous do not want to be seen as 'pigs' or go down in history as 'villains'. They want to be seen as 'heros' and go down in history as 'humanitarians'. The market for their product has become global. The fan base has become global. Therefore, the 'humanitarian' effort and 'good will' PR machine has gone global. These 'humanitarian' efforts and 'good deeds' are not chosen to address the greatest need or injustice. They are chosen almost exclusively to appeal to the largest demographic for their respective commercial products. The largest fan base. Efficiency or effect is of little or no concern. Its all about PR, marketing, image, and fame. This is why so many of the rich and famous have taken up 'philanthropy' or 'good will' around the world. This is why so many have 'schools' or 'foundations' in their name. This is why so many play golf or appear on a TV game show for 'charity'. This is why so many sign motorcycles, other merchandise, or auction off their own 'personal effects' for 'charity'. This is why so many have TV shows with a 'charitable' gimmick. This is why so many arrange photo ops with wounded veterans, firefighters, or sick children. This is why so many have adopted children from around the world (Which they always pay others to care for full time. The hired professionals are sworn by legal contract to confidentiality. Not allowed to discuss or appear in public with the children they care for. Those 'photo' and 'interview' opportunities are reserved exclusively for the rich and famous 'adoptive' parents. Often sold for millions.). This is why every 'humanitarian' effort and 'good deed' is plastered all over the media worldwide. Its not about 'humanity' or 'good will'. Its all about marketing, image, fame, and PROFIT. This is why we are so often reminded of their respective 'good deeds' or 'humanitarian' efforts shortly before or after the release of their latest commercial product. IT IS A SHAM. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE HUMANITARIAN. GOOD WILL HAS BECOME BIG BUSINESS.
The point about our government printing up more money was that it can't be done "on a whim" and that there are serious concequences for doing so (weak dollar, higher gas prices, inflation). I never said that it can't be or hasn't been done at all. Afterall, those loans from China weren't infused in the form of Chinese currency. They were infused in the form of our own. Some spent on legitimate government programs (This has been necessary as existing US currency tends to be hoarded by the rich.). Some diverted behind the scenes (Stolen by the rich.). The rest given to the banks in the form of credit (Run by the rich. Dividends paid to the rich.). Who in Reaganite theory, are expected to make loans and 'grow' the economy. Unfortunately, the 'economic growth' so far, has taken place almost entirely at the high end. Resulting in a net gain for the rich, a net loss for the vast majority, a much greater need for financial aid, and red ink nationwide. The later three of which have been further aggrivated by that weak dollar. So the printing of money can't be done "on a whim" without regard for serious concequences. So far, its done nothing but perpetuate the problem. It never has been and never will be the answer. Not without some policy in place to prevent that newly printed currency from being hoarded by the rich as well (Like higher taxes on the rich and caps on their personal wealth.). Sorry if I wasn't explicit enough the first time. The original draft of this particular rant was written in '06' and intended to fit within 300 characters. I've been updating it weekly for the last year or so. Responding to my Reaganite critics and a constant line of BS from the media. Inserting those updates where they seem most appropriate. This is why I jump so often from one issue to another and back again. Anyway, I'm no English major. I don't think in paragraphs and I find it difficult to write in paragraphs. So if any of you want to re-organize or re-word this post, feel free to do so. Whatever it takes to make people understand.
11/05/08
A new president will be taking office soon. Backed up by a heavily democratic congress who have all campaigned on a promise to raise taxes on the rich. Unfortunately, this will be too little too late. Nowhere near enough to compensate for the incredible corruption of both major parties. Nowhere near enough to pay for the bailout. Nowhere near enough to stop that runaway train. There will be no change for the better. Obama's financial advisers are pigs. Warren Buffet is a pig. Oprah Winfrey is a pig. Obama himself is a multi-millionaire politician married to a multi-millionaire attorney. He has already run the most expensive political campaign in history. Some of it squandered on a $400 lobster feast for his wife. Financed for the mostpart by ordinary people who can't even afford a $400 lobster feast. It happened on Obama's watch. Probably more than once. He even had the nerve to ask those ordinary people to help pay off the campaign debt of another filthy rich multi-millionaire politician PIG (Hilary Clinton). I will admit that Barack Obama seems to have more character than most of his colleagues. Certainly more than Clinton, Gore, McCain, Palin, Bush, Cheney, Romney, Schwarznenager, Palosi, Kerry, Guliani, Kennedy, Bloomberg, or Edwards. He was probably a very good down to earth man at one time. The same goes for Joe Biden. Not anymore. Afterall, John McCain was also a very good down to earth man at one time. A true American hero. NOT ANYMORE. Now, he is a filthy rich politician pig married to a filthy rich big business pig. SOLD OUT. Mark my words: Obama and Biden will do the same. Whatever moral character they may have left, will be lost or heavily compromised while in office. Like the others, their administration will be riddled with scandals of greed and corruption. Like the others, they will succumb to the greatest epidemic ever faced by modern man. By far, the most intoxicating element of modern society. Greed. Simply the desire to get as rich as possible. It has the potential to blacken any heart. Break the will of any human being. Influense any government. Corrupt any society. Those who succumb to it are lost forever. You can not get through to these people. You can not make them understand. No matter how bad it gets for the little guy. No matter how many families loose their homes. No matter how many people go cold and hungry. No matter how many innocent children starve and die. No matter how much blood is shed. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. The rich will ALWAYS blame the other guy. They will ALWAYS say or do whatever it takes to secure their own extreme personal wealth. When they 'give back', its only because they expect more in return. They will NEVER compromise their own bottom line. They will NEVER jeapordize their position in the 1% club. They will NEVER stand for a more reasonable distribution of wealth and resources. They will NEVER acknowledge greed as a form of evil. They will NEVER acknolwedge the potential it has to ruin EVERYTHING. They will NEVER admit the simple truth. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
Ford, GM, and Dodge are begging the current admistration for some type of 'bridge loan' in order to avoid bankruptcy. The unions are begging for it. The people are divided. All because of a LIE. Again, we have been mislead. I'm not disputing their need. Its legit. I'm disputing the underlying cause. Competition my ass. China my ass. Japan my ass. Those factors are real but not fatal. They are also concequential. Not primary. Again, its GREED and CORRUPTION. Not only that of the auto executives and celebrities who demand millions to endorse the product (Toby Keith, Tiger Woods) but also within the health care industry. Thats right. Health care. The average doctor is a millionaire several times over. The average health care executive many times over. Both on average, are members of the 1% club. AGAIN, ITS THEIR FAULT. If it weren't for the OBSCENE health care charges, brainwash plots, and artificially inflated market, then the financial burden placed on Ford, GM, and Dodge wouldn't be anywhere near as high. They could easily match the labor of Honda, Toyota, and Hyndai who's workers are younger on average, more liberal, and not so demanding when it comes to 'health care'. In this case, the little guy is partly to blame for their incredible ignorance. They smoke, drink, get fat, fall for the most OBVIOUS health care scams, live by drug and doctor, kiss greedy doctor ass, drive up the cost of their own health care, demand full coverage, and then strike if they don't get it. Retired US auto workers on average are now causing their former employers to incur several hundred thousand dollars PER RETIREE in health care expenses over the span of their retirement. Those in the current workforce are partly to blame as well. Not for greed. Their wages are reasonable. But their health care demands are well in excess. If they would simply open their eyes, acknowledge the incredible greed and corruption within the health care industry, get off the couch, get off the pharmaceuticals, and take care of their own bodies, then their own cost of living would be lower, their health would be better, the market for their product would be higher, and the financial burden placed on Ford, GM, and Dodge would be MUCH lower. I'm not discounting other factors like gas prices, competition, and the US product line. But greed and ignorance wreak havok like no other elements of our society. They cause or allow the cost of living to rise and the middle class to shrink along with the potential market for every major industry. In this case, they also raise the financial burden placed on US auto makers. Mark my words: One or two of the big three US automakers will go bankrupt. They will do so regardless of any 'bridge loan'. Other well known foreign auto makers will follow. The entire manufacturing industry will become a shell of its former self. Millions of retirees will be cut off entirely. ALL BECAUSE OF GREED, CORRUPTION, AND IGNORANCE. The ripple effect is profound. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
12/16/08
The feds have now reduced their interest rate to an all time low. IT WON'T WORK. The same goes for any potential bailout for the US auto industry, or any other. IT WON'T WORK. IT ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY WILL NOT WORK. I would bet my life on it a hundred times over. Again, our own leaders refuse to acknowledge the single greatest drag on our economy. The single greatest underlying cause for the global economic crisis. GREED. They all refuse to acknowledge the downside. Laffer, Greenspan, Bernanke, and Paulson refuse to acknowledge it. Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Gore, Palosi, Kerry, Obama, Bloomburg, Edwards, and Kennedy refuse to acknowledge it. Lars Larson, Mike Gallagher, Tammy Bruce, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reiley, Mike Savage, Maria Bartiromo, Suze Orman, Barbara Corcoran, Jean Chatzky, Carmen Wong, Jim Kramer, Rush Limbaugh, and Jim Bohannon refuse to acknowledge it. Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Jack Welsh, and T-Boone Pickens refuse to acknowledge it. The same goes for all of their billionaire friends. All of the above are filthy rich hypocrite pigs who don't have the guts to admit the simple truth. This is not brain surgery. For the mostpart, its simple math. WE ARE IN THIS MESS BECAUSE OF GREED. The world's richest one percent are now so incredibly rich that there simply isn't enough wealth circulating beneath them to sustain the global economy. Its finally on the brink of collapse. IT WILL COLLAPSE. We are now entering what will go down in history as the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time by far. You think its bad now? YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET. NOTHING. Trillions more in wealth and capital will be concentrated (Not lost. Concentrated.). Many more banks large and small will fail. Tens of millions will loose their savings (Transfered from poor to rich.). Even some FDIC accounts will be forfeited (Yes they will. Yes they will. Yes they will.). Every major industry will become a shell of its former self. Unemployment will reach unprecidented levels. Millions of retirees will be cut off entirely. The lower class will expand further and become dominant. The financial aid system will fail miserably. The vast majority of those in need will have little or no access. Crime, poverty, and suicide will skyrocket. There will be riots and random acts of violence at banks, hospitals, and government buildings. The next generation will be left to fight in the crumbling streets over a shattered American dream. The rest of the world will have it even worse. So don't blame innocent people from other countries you idiots. Blame the rich. Blame the government. Blame the health care industry. Then blame yourselves for being so incredibly stupid for so many years. We have become perfect little consumer junkie, credit card, drug and doctor morons. We have fallen for every psychological marketing trick in the book. We have spent our money away without the slightest regard for where it goes, how it circulates, or how it accumulates. We have allowed a particular form of evil to grow out of control, intoxicate our society, consume our government, wreak havok on our own economy and culture, RUIN any chance we ever had at world prosperity, and jeapordize the very foundation of modern society. At the same time, we have allowed those who epitomize it to get away with calling themselves 'heroes' or 'humanitarians'. Putting a happy face on greed and dumbing down our society further in the process. THAT MEANS YOU. THE VAST MAJORITY. So wake up fellow citizens. Grow a spine. Don't fall for all of this 'good will' 'humanitarian' BS from the rich. IT IS A SHAM. NOTHING BUT TAX DEDUCTIBLE PR CRAP. Instead, look at the bottom line. IT'S F#@&#%$ OBSCENE. NOW GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS YOU IDIOTS. WE ARE IN THIS MESS BECAUSE OF GREED. AMERICA'S RICHEST ONE PERCENT NOW OWN ALMOST 1/2 OF ALL UNITED STATES WEALTH. THE WORLD'S RICHEST ONE PERCENT NOW OWN OVER 40% OF ALL WORLD WEALTH. THATS WAY TOO MUCH. THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT HEROES. THEY ARE NOT HUMANITARIANS. THEY ARE DISGUSTING HYPOCRITE SLOBS. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW MUCH THEY GIVE BACK. THEY STILL KEEP WAY TOO MUCH. IT CAN'T WORK THIS WAY. IT ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY CAN NOT WORK THIS WAY. IT NEVER HAS AND IT NEVER WILL. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
1% CLUB PIGS: I've said it many times and I will say it many more. Greed is not the desire to break the law or intentionally oppress another human being. Greed is simply the desire to take more than your reasonable share of wealth or any limited resource. By doing so, you reduce the value of currency and raise the cost of living worldwide. You shrink the middle class and the potential market for every major industry. You expand the lower class and the need for financial aid. You cause a domino-effect of socio-economic problems. You literally cause innocent people to suffer and die. YOU MAKE WORLD PROSPERITY MATHEMATICALLY AND PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. It does not matter how much you 'give back'. It matters how much you KEEP. This is why I will go to my grave with nothing but bleeding and burning hatred for all of you. Thats right. I hate you and I'm not afraid to admit it. Afterall, its OK to hate a rapist. Its OK to hate a terrorist. I do. But I also hate wolves in sheep's clothing. THAT MEANS YOU. In fact, I consider the equation you stand for to be the greatest injustice of all time. It makes my f$#@&$# blood boil. Jealosy my ass. Low self-esteem my ass. Self-pity my ass. Anyone who still thinks that after reading all of this is a F&#@%$# MORON. You disgusting hypocrite pigs. I've noticed the little shots you've been taking at me, a few others, and the cause we stand for. The psychological stunts. Thats right Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Today Show pigs, Regis and Kelly, Ellen DeGeneres, Dr Phil, Oprah Winfrey, Elizabeth Hasslebeck, Melissa Scott, Joyce Meyer, Lars Larson, Bill O'Reiley, Lou Dobbs, Ann Coulter, Tammy Bruce, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Jerry Doyle. I've noticed the crafty elusive statements you've been making about greed and subtle insults directed at those very few of us who stand against it. I also know that you're well aware of this campaign and that you're trying to shut it down. Of course, trying to do so in a manner that won't draw anymore attention to it. You've even gone out of your way to specifically attack 'anonymous' bloggers in general. As if we are somehow less credible without a registered account. I'm not the slightest bit intimidated by any of it. YOUR TRICKS WILL NEVER WORK ON ME. Mark my words: No matter what you say or do, I will spend the rest of my life persecuting all of you for the disgusting, obscene, unjust, illogical, and immoral equation you stand for. I won't break any laws. I won't harm one hair on your rotten heads. Its not that I don't wish you were gone. I do. But I would never jeapordize such an important cause with a criminal act. NEVER. My only realistic goal is to make as many people as possible understand. Including future generations. I hope they look back on these words and spit on your graves. Afterall, they won't achieve any degree of world peace or prosperity until after they acknowledge GREED as a form of EVIL. Not until they acknowledge it with a number or some type of material standard. In the unlikely event they ever do, I hope they FINALLY come up with a system that works for the vast majority. One with a reasonable pay scale and caps on personal wealth. Otherwise, their system will fail over and over again. Just like the one you stand for. It can't work this way. It never has and it never will. NEVER. NO WAY IN HELL. So mark my words: I will not make excuses for a single one of you. I don't care how smart you think you are. I don't care how talented you think you are. I don't care how pretty you think you are. I don't care how noble you think you are. I don't care what you think you've done to earn up to fifty thousand times the pay of a firefighter, soldier, farmer, teacher, cop, aid worker, cook, paramedic, truck driver, or garbageman. You're not worth it. I don't even care if your personal fortune fell out of the sky. If you're rich, I hate you. I don't care how much you 'give back'. I care how much you keep. Therefore, I will do everything within my power and within the law to expose your incredible greed and hypocrisy. If you want to break my will, then you're going to have to break my neck first. and if you pull a stunt like that, then a lot of people will know what happened to me and why. I've planned in detail for it. Most of you have no idea. Regardless, you pigs will not go down in history as 'heroes' or 'humanitarians'. Not if I can help it. We're in this mess primarily because of you. Its going to get MUCH worse primarily because of you. Thats what I believe and thats the message I intend to spread for the rest of my life. DEAL WITH IT.
1.21.09
A few more words about our new president and how certain public figures are using him to divert our attention, dumb down our society, shut my big mouth, and discredit the cause I stand for. I said it during the presidential campaign, I said it again in November, and I will say it again now. Our new president has more character than most of his colleagues. Much more. In fact, he puts Bush, Cheney, Rice, Clinton, Gore, Palosi, Reagan, Carter, Romney, Schwarzenegger, Bloomberg, Kerry, Edwards, and Kennedy to shame. He also puts nearly every living public figure to shame. Including those who claim to support him. By politician, public figure, and 1% club standards, he is an angel. That being said, he is still a politician. Still a public figure. Still a member of the one percent club. Just a man. Like any other, he is a product not only of genetics but also of his environment. Like any other, he is intoxicated by certain elements of modern society. Including three of the worst. Fame, fortune, and power. All three have the potential to corrupt the mind, the heart, and the will of any human being. I can name only one who resisted the influense of all three. Mother Teresa died in 1998. The amazing standard she set died with her. Since then, an army of public figures and false heroes have sold out the very concept of 'good will'. Capitalizing on bogus promises to make the world a better place. The vast majority, on day one. The rest, along the way. Obama will do the same. Its just pathetic human nature. Put any man or woman on a stage or throne and something about them is different. Make any man or woman rich and something about them is different. I said it in November and I will say it again. Barack Obama was probably a very good down to earth man at one time. That was before the corrupt influense of fame, fortune, and power. Now, something about him is different. The same goes for Michelle Obama. They have already begun to sell out. Not only as necessary during the campaign because of our ignorant society and the fact that we won't elect ANYONE unless they look a certain way, dress a certain way, talk a certain way, kiss our babies, cut our taxes, tell us what we want to hear no matter how unrealistic, believe in God, follow a certain religion, support a certain industry, and show up on our favorite talk show with a fake smile, stupid jokes, and lame dance moves. That was bad enough. A sell-out necessary to get elected by a pathetic, ignorant, naive, short sighted, half-wit, couch potatoe, love-sick, celebrity junkie society. But also for profit before, during, and after the election. I already mentioned the $400 lunchtime lobster feast. Paid for mostly by ordinary people who were willing to cut into their modest bottom lines in order to help get their hero elected. SHE ATE IT. That was bad enough. Another sign of the times. As expected, its already getting worse. I have no problem with the armor plated presidential limo, the extra security, the inauguration, or the speech. I have no problem with the concept of a public celebration. But I do have a problem with the $35,000 ring, the $150,000 dress, the exotic crystal, the exotic food, the coorporate plugs, NBC, MTV, BET, Beyonce, LL Cool J, Miley Cyrus, and every other filthy rich big business/big money/big celebrity hypocrite pig who had the nerve to fly in on their personal jets, stand there lavished in gold, and jewels, and fur, and $10,000 suits and pretend as if they and Obama share a desire to make the country and our world a better, more stable, more peaceful, and more 'just' place for all its people. Once again, promoting their own commercial interests, dumbing down our society, and dancing their way around the single greatest underlying cause for the global economic crisis. GREED. The single greatest threat to modern society. GREED. Filthy, rotten, disgusting, self-centered, self-serving, black-hearted, hypocritical GREED. By doing so, they divert our attention AGAIN at a crucial time when we need more than ever to finally acknowledge GREED as a form of EVIL. At a crucial time when we need more than ever to finally understand how it burns through moral character, spreads like wildfire, jumps from one industry to another, one person to another, and wreaks havok on society worldwide. IT ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF A DOUBT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL. All of this happened on Obama's watch. I understand that he didn't plan most of the details. But he did know about many. He stood by and watched that event sell out to the highest bidder. He also bought the ring. He didn't even have a word to say about the double standards or many ethical contradictions. Afterall, he got elected. It was no longer necessary to kiss so much big business, big money, big celebrity, 1% club ass. SELL-OUT. Now, that army of filthy-rich, self-centered, self-serving, self-promoting, hypocrite pigs are using Obama's hopefull words against those very few of us who know better. They even have the nerve to belittle and villianize people like me simply because we don't float around with happy uplifting thoughts and smile on our face. They pretend as if our message can't possibly be legitimate if its expressed with anger, contempt, hatred, or fear. As if a 'positive' attitude is any match for that domino-effect of socio-economic problems caused almost entirely by GREED. I understand that Obama could never go on record with views anything like mine. He has no choice but to be tolerant of other filthy-rich and powerful public figures. I can even forgive the affiliation to some extent. I also believe that he truly does want some degree of government reform, ethics, accountability, peace, prosperity, stability, opportunity, and economic justice for all people. Like I said, by politician standards he is an angel. Which is probably the nicest thing I will ever say or even think about a rich and powerful public figure. I find it near impossible to hate the man. He is literally the only rich and powerful public figure on this planet that I don't hate. I also understand why he gave the uplifting speech. I really don't blame him for a single word of it. But I will not pretend as if a smile or 'positive' attitude is any match for that particular form of evil consuming our world. I will not choose 'hope' over 'fear' just because it feels nice. Of course, I want things to get better. Of course, I will try in vain to help make things better. Of course, I want something legitimate to celebrate. Something that we could all be a part of. Of course, I desperately want Obama to succeed. Of course, I desperately want all of my predictions to be proven wrong. I just don't see it happening. With or without Obama, we are still stuck on that runaway train. Its not going to be any better. Its not going to be alright. Not for the vast majority. Its going to get much worse and stay that way for a very long time. I fully expect to die knowing that I devoted myself to a cause which was lost from day one. Greed will always triumph over good will. The people will never take any real stand against it. The vast majority are pathetic, ignorant, naive, short sighted, brainwashed, pharmameutical, medical-testing, couch potatoe, credit card, love-sick, celebrity junkie, powderpuffs. Perfect little victims. I hate to say that about my fellow citizens but its the truth. Afterall, they didn't see this comming. I tried to warn them and they still didn't see it. Others tried to warn them and they didn't see it. Albert Einstein tried to warn them SIXTY F$#&#$# YEARS AGO. They didn't listen. They didn't see it. They did NOTHING to stop this or even slow it down. Even now, when the problem is so much more obvious. Even now, when the futures of their children are at stake. Still, they do NOTHING. Sometimes, I wonder if they are even worth fighting for. What the hell is the point? They will never listen. They will never wake up. They will never do simple math. They will never take a stand. There will never be economic justice. There will never be a more reasonable distribution of wealth and resources. Therefore, there will never be any degree of world peace or prosperity. Its only going to get worse. A LOT WORSE. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
The new stimulus won't work. The new bailouts won't work. The new money won't work. The new budget won't work. There may be a shallow revival later this year or next but it won't sustain itself beyond 2010. No way. It absolutely positively will not work. Obama's efforts are revolutionary but they are too little too late. The opposition too strong. Which by the way, is not about national debt. Thats a lie. Nobody cares. Its about inflation. The rich are throwing a fit over government spending because when more money is printed, their money looses some value. They have some damn nerve. They already have too much money. Leaving the majority with too little. They won't give it up. They won't tolerate higher taxes. The equation they stand for absolutely can not work. Still, they have the nerve to throw a fit over government spending unless its their own budget with their own pork, their own diversion of funds, their own tax breaks, and their own kick backs. Hundreds of billions worth. In which case, they are all for it. Afterall, inflation is fine with all of them as long as they end up with a net gain in buying power. Otherwise, they throw a bloody fit. This is why Democrats and Republicans always fight tooth and nail over government spending. Its not about 'patriotism'. Its not about 'fiscal responsibility'. Its not about the 'middle class'. Its not about the 'next generation'. Its about their own incredible greed. Of course the majority were better off under Clinton. They were also better off under Reagan. Even with a lower GDP, they will still better off. Only because that massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich was still in the early to mid stages. It began in the late seventies. It was accelerated under Reagan and again under Bush. Now, we have finally reached a tipping point. The majority can no longer afford to pay all of their bills and sustain their share of the economy. In fact, they are in debt to the tune of almost $2,000,000,000,000. THATS ALMOST TWO TRILLION DOLLARS. Obama's efforts are about re-distributing some wealth. He is one of the very few politicians to care about the majority almost as much as his own bottom line. Which is about the best we can hope for from any politician. Unfortunately, the rich won't give up anything. Even those who claim to support him won't give it up under any circumstances. This leaves Obama with no choice but to print trillions in US currency, water down all existing US wealth, raise taxes slightly on the rich, and tweak the budget slightly in favor of the majority. Hopefully, resulting in a gradual transfer of wealth from rich back to poor. Its a revolutionary effort. Very noble. Unfortunately, it won't be enough to stop that runaway train. The rich are too greedy. The opposition too strong. The government too corrupt. Obama himself will sell out before its all said and done. Mark my words he will sell out to the rich. That vital transfer of wealth from rich back to poor will not take place. Therefore, Obama will have no choice but to acknowledge a severe US depression by the end of his first term or shortly thereafter. There will be no economic recovery without a more reasonable distribution of bottom line wealth. The richest one percent must be willing to settle for less. A lot less. Otherwise, there will be no economic recovery ever. Not one of us will live to see it.
3.04.09
We are being fed a constant line of BS from the media about 'lost' market wealth. Similar to the line of BS we have been fed for years about wealth 'creation'. NBC and their panel of paid 'experts' (liars) recently took a question from a viewer (it may have been staged) about market 'losses' and 'gains'. Their answer was downright vague and misleading as usual. Stock values don't simply represent our collective 'productivity' or 'hard work'. Otherwise, Ford, GM, and Dodge would be doing fine. Afterall, the cars got built. If their answer had been true, then we could all just work a little harder, produce a little more, buy a little more, and revive our own economy. We can't. Its not that simple. Their answer was CRAP. Another stunt to make it appear as if we're all in this together. That panel of paid 'experts' (liars), also refered to stock values as 'phantom' wealth. Thats not exactly true either. Otherwise, those shares could never be traded for any actual product or service (They are. They always have been.). They also wouldn't give the majority share holders such authority. So what did NBC and their filthy rich trio of paid 'experts' (liars) leave out? The ugly truth as usual. Corporate stock values are not 'phantom'. They actually represent past profit margins, current profit margins, accounting scams, bailouts, and the potential transfer of more dollars FROM US TO THEM. The only 'phantom' elements involved are the shady speculation and accounting scams. Which do effect those values but they still result in a transfer of dollars from one party to another. Otherwise, those fluctuating values are based on real world events. In the meantime, they are traded like an alternative form of currency. Eventually cashed in for market value. Just like gold and silver. Like any other form of currency, the richest one percent hold the lion's share. They currently own about 1/2 of the entire US market. The upper class own around 1/3. Foreign investors own around 1/8. The lower 90% of us own the scraps leftover. This equation has contributed to a constant transfer of wealth from poor to rich. Its been accelerating for decades along with obscene, record setting profit margins for big business. These record setting profit margins were mathematically impossible to sustain with a shrinking middle class. The housing and stock markets were impossible to stabilize long term. They were on a crash course with or without subprime. Which is why in part, the rampant speculation and accounting scams took place. Also why the 'mark to market' rule was changed. Which basically allowed traders to take their profits and disregard the potential liabilities that inevitably came with a concentration of wealth and capital worldwide. These were all stunts whipped up by the 1% club to artificially inflate and sustain the market at a time when the very foundation of our economy was crumbling. To sell out their own industries and convert capital into dividends, bonus checks, and golden parachutes. Now, the cat is out of the bag. The market has finally crashed. Those artificially inflated stock values have fallen on average by about 50% in the past two years. They are down worldwide. Which may lead one to believe that America's richest 1% are finally taking a loss. They are not. Those values are down not only because they were artificially inflated. But primarily because so many people are finally running out of money to give them. This is the single greatest underlying cause for the global economic crisis. Unfortunately no public figure has the guts to acknowledge it. When the filthy rich pigs (Bill Clinton, Jean Chatzky, Bill O'Reiley, Jim Kramer, Suze Orman, Maria Bartiromo, Lars Larson, Lou Dobbs, Warren Buffet, ect) talk about 'lost' market wealth, they fail to acknowledge that much of that wealth wasn't 'lost' at all. It was transfered to various members of the 1% club. These transfers took place before, during, and after the height of the market in 2007. In many cases, 'junk bonds', 'toxic debt', or 'artificial values' were left in their place. Otherwise, those pigs are primarily refering to lost 'business'. A slower transfer of wealth. There is a HUGE difference. Actual wealth doesn't just float away. Stock values fluctuate but they still represent a transfer of actual wealth from one party to another. Unfortunately, that transfer of wealth has been in favor of the rich for too many years. THEIR CURRENT PROFITS ARE DOWN ON AVERAGE BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN TOO OBSCENE FOR TOO LONG. THEY ALREADY OWN THE LION'S SHARE OF UNITED STATES WEALTH. A SIMILAR RULE APPLIES WORLDWIDE. MARKETS ARE DOWN BECAUSE THE WORLD'S WEALTH AND CAPITAL HAVE BEEN CONCENTRATED. AMERICA'S RICHEST 1 PERCENT NOW OWN ALMOST 1/2 OF ALL UNITED STATES WEALTH. THAT IS MUCH MORE THAN THE ENTIRE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES COMBINED. THE WORLD'S RICHEST ONE PERCENT NOW OWN OVER 40% OF ALL WORLD WEALTH. THAT IS MUCH MORE THAN THE LOWER 90% WORLDWIDE. PROFITS FOR THE RICHEST 1% ARE DOWN ON AVERAGE BUT NOT GONE. THEY STILL GET EVEN RICHER AS WE SPEAK. THEIR INCREDIBLE WEALTH WAS NOT CREATED, GENERATED, OR GROWN IN THEIR BACK YARD. IT WAS TRANSFERED FROM US TO THEM. NOT ONLY THROUGH CORPORATE PROFITS BUT ALSO THROUGH INDIVIDUAL PROFITS. THE WORLD'S WEALTHIEST 1 PERCENT ARE NOW SO INCREDIBLY RICH, THAT THERE SIMPLY ISN'T ENOUGH CURRENCY CIRCULATING BENEATH THEM TO SUSTAIN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. ITS FINALLY ON THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE. ANYONE IN THE FIELD OF ECONOMICS WHO STILL WON'T ACKNOWLEDGE THE SINGLE GREATEST UNDERLYING CAUSE FOR THIS GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS IS EITHER A MORON OR A COWARD. ITS NOT BRAIN SURGERY. FOR THE MOSTPART, ITS SIMPLE MATH. THE RICH ALREADY OWN TOO MUCH OF EVERYTHING. STILL, THEY WANT MORE. THEY ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT LET GO OF THEIR INCREDIBLE GREED. THEY ARE USING EVERY ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL TRICK IN THE BOOK TO AVOID TAKING THEIR LOSSES. THEY DO SO WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST REGARD FOR ANYTHING OR ANYONE BUT THEMSELVES. IT CAN'T WORK THIS WAY. IT ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY CAN NOT WORK THIS WAY. IT NEVER HAS AND IT NEVER WILL. ALBERT EINSTEIN TRIED TO MAKE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
Another word about wealth 'creation'. That term is horribly over-used. 90% of the time, it is a LIE. Nothing but smoke and mirrors. Actual wealth can't be 'created' without harvesting a new resource or making more efficient use of one. Even then, there is usually a lagging downside caused or aggravated by a further concentration. A gain here. A loss there. For example: If you develop or renovate one area, then some material wealth is 'created' on site. Local property values increase giving the illusion of a much greater or widespread 'creation' of wealth. Those who invest, locate, and develop usually do so for maximum profit without regard for legitimate need. They almost always follow the trend and do so in newly developed or renovated areas. Drawing vital support away from others. Cities and states have been competing in a giant rat race for years. Fighting tooth and nail for these investments regardless of any legitimate need. Giving big business, developers, and investors huge tax breaks and incentives at the expense of ordinary people. Even going so far as to evict home owners under the rule of 'eminent domain', lease commercially zoned property for $1, or subsidize a giant portion of their investment on the backs of middle class tax payers. These deals are always cut behind closed doors under the guise of 'economic development'. Others have no choice but to do the same just to keep their own remaining business. Otherwise, those jobs, residents, and revenue are lost (relocated). Some, regardless. Of course, the entire system would be more stable and prosperous for the majority if we would simply maintain and renovate our industrial areas and develop others only as needed. But that wouldn't make developers, investors, and politicians filthy rich. So the rat race has been run not on need but greed. Resulting in a net loss for the little guy. One area is unnecessarily developed. Deals are cut. Investors, developers, and politicians get richer. The people get F$#&$&. Another area falls apart. Jobs and revenue are lost (relocated). Property values decrease. Followed by a lag in city services and a spike in gang activity or violent crime. Before you know it, another Wal-Mart, mall, factory, or housing development is built where it wasn't needed to begin with. Meanwhile, another area is deindustrialized and more innocent people can't find a local job or even take a walk in their own neglected communities without fear of being mugged, raped, beat up, or killed. This is only one general example. Others hailed to 'create' wealth also have their downsides. Simply because distribution, consumption, and sustainability are almost never taken into account. 'Wealth creation'. What a joke. 90% of the time, it is a lie motivated by greed. Otherwise, any wealth 'created' is gradually concentrated in the hands of the few as usual. Again, the potential benefit for the majority or society as a whole is horribly offset by the incredible greed of the rich. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
3.11.09
The organized campaign to suppress the truth and divert our attention continues. Forbes has reported that many of the world's billionaires have lost bottom line wealth. They wen't out of their way to crunch all those numbers, draw their conclusions, and plaster them all over the media. Still no data for 2008 on the wealthiest one percent or the distribution of bottom line wealth worldwide. Why not? I'll tell you why not. Because they don't want us to make the connection. The current economic crisis was not caused by subprime, China, Japan, Mexico, the CRA, one bad policy, one administration, one major political party, or the other. These factors are only proximate at best. Not underlying. The current economic crisis was caused primarily by a massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich. In particular, the richest 1%. I realize there is some debate in the US over their share of her bottom line wealth. Some recent studies have shown it to be as little as 40%. Others near 50%. Nearly all recent studies have shown about 40% of the world's bottom line wealth to be held by the richest one percent. However, most studies to date have not included 'everything'. They refer only to one reported set of financial assets or another. They often take no stab at material assets or hidden assets. It is well known that various currencies, gold, silver, platinum, jewels, and other holdings are being hidden in secret accounts and vaults around the world. Well known but impossible to calculate. Also, when it comes to greed, fraud, oppression, corruption, or any other form of evil, history has shown time and time again that its almost always worse than first reported. The watered down results by then, are usually a year or two old. However, there is very little debate that wealth is being concentrated worldwide. Virtually every study has shown it. The rate at which that wealth is concentrated has increased over the last decade or so along with record setting profits. It is incredibly obvious when you look around. For these reasons, I tend to believe the higher estimates. Also, the monetary values for all material assets are determined by the market for those assets. So when you concentrate the world's wealth and capital, you ultimately reduce the market and value for material assets across the board. In other words, any 'loss' taken on paper by the rich is part illusion and part fraud. The accounting biproduct of an ACTUAL loss already taken by the vast majority. Another reflection of that massive concentration of wealth and capital worldwide. Otherwise, any loss taken by a multi-millionaire or billionaire is generally to other high ranking members of the one percent club. Its a rat race. Mark my words: Bottom line wealth may be fluctuating at the very top but its not comming back down to the majority where it belongs. I would believe otherwise only with bankruptcy down, forclosure down, consumer debt down, unemployment down, home sales up, car sales up, middle class savings up, and a shrinking lower class. That would indicate a transfer of wealth from rich back to poor. Again, it can't be 'created'. It can't be 'stimulated'. It must be transfered from the rich and back to the majority. Otherwise, it won't work. That, unlike GDP growth, would indicate a healthy, stable, and sustainable US economy. On a global scale, it would be the single greatest step we could possibly take torwards world peace and prosperity. In which case, I would be thrilled to see my predictions proven wrong. I would gladly apologise for my rotten attitude. I would do so 'on-air' and 'online'. I would do my very best to apologise to every single critic. Including the filthy rich public figures I rip on. Its not going to happen. Wealth is still being transfered from poor to rich. Here in the US and also worldwide. Their stock and property values are down on average but their share of the world's bottom line wealth up on average. There is no doubt in my mind. There is also no doubt in my mind that the rich are converting and hiding assets around the world like never before. I don't claim to know half their tricks. But I do know they have many. They also have most of the world's leaders in their pocket. Almost all of whom will betray their own people on a whim and stop at nothing to get or remain as rich as possible. They absolutely will not let go of their incredible greed. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
You can not get a true account of 'shared prosperity' from 'bottom line' reports alone. Those numbers are being spun by the media in response to this global economic crisis. Its no longer quite as popular to be a filthy-rich wealth concentrating pig. The new agenda is to show the rich in a more forgiving and 'modest' light. This is why our attention is being drawn to 'lost' fortunes. Its a sham. Part illusion and part fraud. Another accounting biproduct of those artificially inflated stock values and market based property values. Another stunt to divert our attention and make it appear as if we are all in this together. Don't fall for it. Circumstances vary but overall the rich are still rich, they still rule the world, and they are still to blame for the shrinking middle class. ITS THEIR FAULT. Of course, they won't admit it. They will use every trick in the book to divert your attention. DON'T FALL FOR IT. Remember: Stock and property values fluctuate but the pie doesn't lie. Watch for any 'distribution of wealth' reports published in '09' or later. The years they account for are vital ('08' or later). That distribution of wealth must shift back in favor of the majority. The richest one percent must be willing to settle not only for a smaller bottom line on paper, but also for a smaller share of the economic pie. That massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich must be reversed. If and when any such report is published, print a copy and run it by any profesor of economics or socio-economics. They are much more likely to cut right through the crap and give you a true account of 'shared prosperity'.
3.30.09
Every major economy in the world will be in depression by 2015.
4.11.09
Fellow citizens: I've noticed many more of you speaking out against the obscene concentration of wealth/capital worldwide and the flaws of unbridled capitalism. I've been reading your blogs. Excellent work. Unfortunately, the massive campaign to divert our attention and suppress the truth has also been kicked up a notch. On 4.09.09, a current student of economics called the 'Rush Limbaugh' show with valid criticism of 'Supply side economics'. A view shared by his professor. Rush followed with an outright lie (cleverly disguised as a guess) about the highest marginal income tax rate of 79/80 and the same old BS about 'trickle down'. Theories which have been thoroughly tested in the real world for almost 30 years and proven DEAD WRONG. The ugly truth is being suppressed. For example: Between 1983 and 2004, the richest 1% of American households increased their net worth by 78%. That is a fact. Between 1983 and 2004, the bottom 40% of American households lost 59% of their net worth. That is a fact. More than 1 in 6 American households now have a zero or negative net worth. That is a fact. More than 1 in 3, now have less than $10,000 in net worth including home equity. That is a fact. More than 5,000,000 Americans have fallen below the poverty line since the year 2000. That is a fact. The middle and lower classes are further in debt than ever before. That is a fact. Trillions in bottom line US wealth have already been transfered from poor to rich. THAT IS A FACT. Wealth has been concentrated worldwide. THAT IS A FACT. So don't fall for the same old optimistic BS about 'supply side economics' or 'Reganomics' because IT IS A LIE. We don't need a bigger economy. We need a more fair, ethical, moral, and just economy. We need a more reasonable distribution of income, bottom line wealth, and resources. Here in the US and also worldwide. If you agree, then spread the word. Call in, write, or protest in groups. You are welcome to re-post this document anywhere you see fit. For your own good, please do so anonymously. Your right to remain anonymous is protected by a federal law. If it is violated, you can sue the pigs.
That call taken on 4.09.09 along with one of mine made in '08' are the only two I know of even remotely critical of Reaganomics or the concentration of United States wealth ever accepted on syndicated talk radio. Thats two calls accepted out of thousands that I have heard related to the economy. This topic is not allowed on syndicated talk radio.
4.16.09
Now, the syndicated talk radio pigs are bashing college professors like never before. Of course, that bashing is directed primarily at those who teach 'economics' or 'socio-economics'. Their attacks are downright robotic, shallow, partisan, and short sighted as usual. "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." -Mike Savage. If this is true, then how should we judge those who do nothing but write books, rip on the opposing political party, and run their partisan mouths on talk radio? Those who can't think outside of any political box? Those who won't acknowledge the real world stats in that previous paragraph? Those who can't even see the profound fundamantal differences between simple regulation, higher taxes, and full blown socialism or communism? Those who failed to predict the current economic crisis, failed to understand even as it was unfolding, still don't, and bash those who do? How should we refer to them? HALF-WIT HYPOCRITES. ROBOTIC IDIOTS. PREDICTIBABLE MORONS. PATHETIC FOLLOWERS. SOLD OUT LITTLE PARTISAN PUPPIES. PART OF THE PROBLEM.
4.25.09
Now, the syndicated talk radio pigs are defending the credit card companies. Once again, using "free market" ideals to justify greed, fraud, and corruption on a level never seen before. Big surprise. IT MAKES THEM RICHER.
4.27.09
Remember that line near the beginning about 'humanitarian' progress "made in one area" and "lost in another"? That line was written in '06'. The following is a quote from an article published this morning from the World Bank: "Developing countries, its main constituency, face "especially serious consequences with the crisis driving more than 50 million people into extreme poverty, particularly women and children," the bank said Sunday." Well isn't that great? What do you have to say about that Oprah? Are you still happy that you endorsed subprime? Did it make you rich enough? What about you Ellen and Phil? You hypocrite pigs. Not that subprime itself caused this global economic crisis. It didn't. You know it and I know it. But it certainly did accelerate this downturn. So what do the three of you have to say about it? Are you still happy that you endorsed subprime? Have you done enough 'good' to compensate for this? What about you Brad, Angelina, Bono, Richard, Warren, and Michael? Have you done enough 'good' to compensate for this? What about you Bill? Are you rich enough yet? You alone literally have enough net worth to make a signifigant difference in the lives of those 50 million people. THATS FIFTY MILLION MORE INNOCENT DESPERATE PEOPLE YOU DISGUSTING HYPOCRITE PIG. If it weren't for that obscene concentration of wealth and capital that all of you stand for, there never would have been such a market for subprime, there never would have been a collapse in the US housing market, there never would have been a global credit crunch, and this economic crisis never would have happened. Thats 50 million more innocent desperate lives f$#@#$ in the course of two years. Not to mention the havok wreaked in every developed country worldwide. Yeah. I think its safe to say that all of that 'humanitarian' progress "made in one area" has been "lost in another". Thats 50 million more innocent desperate lives f$%$#@ in the course of two years. All because of greed. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL.
1% CLUB PIGS: You have been begging for it. Now, you are in for the debate of your lives. This issue is not going away. Neither am I. I intend to post, call in, and protest on a regular basis until the day I die. I have already planned ahead for any possible retaliation on your part. If anything happens to me, then a close friend will contact the authorities. A note written for them will be found in a fire-proof safe along with a copy of this document. A second set will be found with X XXXXXX XXXXXXXX. All of my research and belongings will be left to X XXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX. In the meantime, my right to remain anonymous is protected by a federal law. If this right is violated, I will sue everyone involved and give 99% of the reward directly to my less fortunate fellow citizens. The rest, I will use to print and distribute more copies of this document. DEAL WITH IT.
Whoah.
ReplyDeleteIt`s like a blog in the comments section. Nice.
Anyway - greed is good, innit.
"... greed is good..."Only according to Gordon Gekko, Mark. He was a fictional character in the movie Wall Street you dick!
ReplyDeleteHow passionate can a cut and paste be?
ReplyDeleteDepends how many ALLCAPS IT HAS.
ReplyDeleteActually this person is undergoing a psychotic episode or been through one.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom paragraph shows grandoise plans and paranoia.
You wont make any money out of this or your identity. You probably need to get some medical help. Take a friend if you can. It happens to the best of us... good luck and God bless.
Gordon Gekko was right.
ReplyDeleteHe was actually complaining about the kind of shit that caused the financial crisis.
If we`d listened to him we`d all have been alright
@ Mark
ReplyDelete"Gordon Gekko was right."
Click here to see why Gordon Gekko was WRONG!Game, set and match!
I thank you.