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Memo From A Rich Guy: "The Pitchforks Are Coming For Us Plutocrats"
the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats
Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
<snip>
I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the countrythe 99.99 percentis lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isnt that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It wont last.
If we dont do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didnt eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. Its not if, its when.
.
There won't be any need for pitchforks. Voters will take care of this at the polls. We may be 15 to 20 years away, but the Republican Party is slowly isolating itself into a minor party. We will basically have a one party system before too long, although some other party may emerge that is somewhat conservative in nature without all the dingbat nuttiness of the current conservative movement.
What a CROCK!
The rich will get on their little private jets and leave. They will go to Singapore like Eduardo Savarin, Macau like Steve Wynn or some jazzy chalet in Switzerland. Then they will carefully choose their servants and let the poor eat one another.
lobbyists from the well-connected, super-wealthy got legislation written to allow them to do it.
Why would Obama do that? That would hurt the oligarchy that he works for.
As soon as I had got clear of the town I fell in with a poor woman walking at the same rate with myself and going the same course. Wishing to know the condition of the labouring poor I entered into conversation with her, which I began by enquiries for the path which would lead me into the mountain: and thence proceeded to enquiries into her vocation, condition and circumstance. She told me she was a day labourer, at 8. sous or 4 d. sterling the day; that she had two children to maintain, and to pay a rent of 30 livres for her house (which would consume the hire of 75 days), that often she could get no emploiment, and of course was without bread. As we had walked together near a mile and she had so far served me as a guide, I gave her, on parting 24 sous. She burst into tears of a gratitude which I could perceive was unfeigned, because she was unable to utter a word. She had probably never before received so great an aid. This little attendrissement, with the solitude of my walk led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed in this country and is to be observed all over Europe. The property of this country is absolutely concentered in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards. These employ the flower of the country as servants, some of them having as many as 200 domestics, not labouring. They employ also a great number of manufacturers, and tradesmen, and lastly the class of labouring husbandmen. But after all these comes the most numerous of all the classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason that so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands?
But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,
Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.
Bush prosecuted the S&L Fraudsters........ .....dems reward bankers stealing peoples homes.....
Well, you can start by thanking Obama for printing $58 billion dollars monthly then dumping it into an economy that has zero conduit for creating jobs.
^ be careful. rw'ers heads, like Stephie's & The Rabbi's are going to explode. That is if they can read more than one sentence or two t one sitting.
Seriously, eXtreme rw'ers here have been trained to hate the less well-off. They like dynasties for some reason.
Having only one TV channel contributes to that, no doubt.
Remind me how many prosecutions of bankers there have been......even under new regs of Dodd Frank and SARBOX....Bush prosecuted the S&L Fraudsters........ .....dems reward bankers stealing peoples homes.....
Remind me again which party fought the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act tooth and nail.
Both parties are now thoroughly owned by Wall Street.
Remind me how many prosecutions of bankers there have been......even under new regs of Dodd Frank and SARBOX....Bush prosecuted the S&L Fraudsters........ .....dems reward bankers stealing peoples homes.....
Remind me again which party fought the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act tooth and nail.
Both parties are now thoroughly owned by Wall Street.
Well, you can start by thanking Obama for printing $58 billion dollars monthly then dumping it into an economy that has zero conduit for creating jobs.
but no prosecutions under any of those laws by Holder.......thanks.Remind me how many prosecutions of bankers there have been......even under new regs of Dodd Frank and SARBOX....Remind me again which party fought the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act tooth and nail.
Both parties are now thoroughly owned by Wall Street.
Oh, I know. I have listed the names of actual people and their specific crimes many times on this forum who should all be in prison. I bet you couldn't do the same.
Why aren't the Republicans having hearings about those crimes instead of the IRS and Benghazi stuff? Hmmmmm...
What a CROCK!
The rich will get on their little private jets and leave. They will go to Singapore like Eduardo Savarin, Macau like Steve Wynn or some jazzy chalet in Switzerland. Then they will carefully choose their servants and let the poor eat one another.
so you're saying that we should count our blessings that the system is rigged in their favor?
FUCK YOU YOU RW KOOL AID DRINKING PIECE OF SHIT!!!
We USED TO HAVE a vibrant middle-class until politicians started openly selling their favors to the highest bidder due to, you guessed it,
.
Memo From A Rich Guy: "The Pitchforks Are Coming For Us Plutocrats"
the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats
Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
<snip>
I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the countrythe 99.99 percentis lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isnt that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It wont last.
If we dont do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didnt eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. Its not if, its when.
.
There won't be any need for pitchforks. Voters will take care of this at the polls. We may be 15 to 20 years away, but the Republican Party is slowly isolating itself into a minor party. We will basically have a one party system before too long, although some other party may emerge that is somewhat conservative in nature without all the dingbat nuttiness of the current conservative movement.
Well, you can start by thanking Obama for printing $58 billion dollars monthly then dumping it into an economy that has zero conduit for creating jobs.
Exactly.
And why would he do that?
The obvious reason is because he hates America, with its traditions of slavery and Manifest Destiny and any of a host of other ills.
But remember that more than anything, Obamaa member of "the Rev." Jeremiah Wright's black liberation theological church for 20+ yearshates Israel.
He knows that multinational corporations will be blamed for the widening of the gap that continually grows on his watch between the super-rich and the poorest of the poor. But the corporations are actually just a puppet for who is in his (and other members of "the Rev." Wright's church) eyes truly to blame:
Jews.
Want the proof?
Look at the conspiracy theories on this forum alone.
At least 90% of them have something to do with blaming "Zionists" and similar slurs for creating the economic morass America is currently facing.
And the wider the gap gets, the more conspiracy theories about evil Jews with long, pointed noses who control world banks and the like will flourish.
America today is not much different at all from post WWI Germany. And our president knows it.
Well, you can start by thanking Obama for printing $58 billion dollars monthly then dumping it into an economy that has zero conduit for creating jobs.
Exactly.
And why would he do that?
The obvious reason is because he hates America, with its traditions of slavery and Manifest Destiny and any of a host of other ills.
But remember that more than anything, Obamaa member of "the Rev." Jeremiah Wright's black liberation theological church for 20+ yearshates Israel.
He knows that multinational corporations will be blamed for the widening of the gap that continually grows on his watch between the super-rich and the poorest of the poor. But the corporations are actually just a puppet for who is in his (and other members of "the Rev." Wright's church) eyes truly to blame:
Jews.
Want the proof?
Look at the conspiracy theories on this forum alone.
At least 90% of them have something to do with blaming "Zionists" and similar slurs for creating the economic morass America is currently facing.
And the wider the gap gets, the more conspiracy theories about evil Jews with long, pointed noses who control world banks and the like will flourish.
America today is not much different at all from post WWI Germany. And our president knows it.
Knows it! He's counting on it. he needs Jew hating to help his brotherhood of muslims.
