From a family tree of entrepreneurial, hard-working immigrants, for me, this is not about frowning on self-determination and success. This is about a pendulum that has once again swung to the far extreme in favor of an elite few at the expense of everyone else. This is not survival of the strongest. This is about making every one of us less than we could be. This about coddling and enabling weakness through over-indulgence of some through a lack of fairness, lack of transparency and lack of true competition. It is in our collective best interests to understand human history and the aspects of our nature which, when left unchecked, have always been antithetical to a civil and prosperous society.
“The One Percent is not only increasing their share of wealth — they’re using it to spread millions among political candidates who serve their interests. Example: Goldman Sachs, which gave more money than any other major American corporation to Barack Obama in 2008, is switching alliances this year; their employees have given $900,000 both to Mitt Romney’s campaign and to the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future. Why? Because, says the Wall Street Journal, the Goldman Sachs gang felt betrayed by President Obama’s modest attempts at financial reform.
To discuss how the super-rich have willfully confused their self-interest with America’s interest, Bill is joined by Rolling Stone magazine’s Matt Taibbi, who regularly shines his spotlight on scandals involving big business and government, and journalist Chrystia Freeland, author of the new book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.”
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It’s a mistake to assume the elite’s interests are linked to the interests of the United States. According to Catherine Austin Fitts, the elite gave up on the US in the ’90s. It’s been ‘loot and shoot’ ever since.
L. Fletcher Prouty asserts that in our modern post-hydrogen bomb world, sovereignty is dead. So there is no sovereign state to pledge allegiance to, especially if you are among the elite. Money knows no borders. The name of the game now for the elite is: extract as much real wealth as possible before the final end of the current system occurs. Bernanke is their point man in this effort.
I sensed the looting of the system was occurring many years before the collapse of ’08, and long before I educated myself on it, but anticipating how it would play out is another matter.
These two are totally asleep themselves… projecting their perceptions. The problem is so much larger than they hint at… what a sterilized interview… awful. The 2008 bailouts were wrong. Period. It didn’t save civilization – it wasn’t necessary. we would have had a very bad depression – and by now we would be out of it and building again. You can’t prop up failed businesses. How about letting Jim Rogers debate these two robots?
The plutocrats are violating my rule of banditry, which states that a bandit should only steal what his victim can afford to lose. Otherwise the victims will seek revenge.
I think what really angers people about bankers in particular is the asymmetry of their risks and rewards. Plutocrats crow about free enterprise and competition but they won’t walk the walk. The public will accept huge compensation for success, but what angers people is huge compensation for failure. The too big to fail story may be right and governments should have saved the banks. But governments (the people) should then have owned the banks and the bank shareholders and executives should have lost everything. When the US Trusts failed this was more like what the Resolution Trust did.
Ministers of Finance and Secretaries of the Treasuries usually earn less than a million dollars annually. If they can run a country then why can’t someone with equal compensation run a bank? If governments owned the banks there is no shortage of skilled people to run them.
If there is any justice it is that if the economy fails or the people revolt (physically or at the ballot box) then the plutocrats themselves will lose. People with huge fortunes can make greater fortunes in a strong economy where everyone has more wealth. African warlords are limited in wealth and power by the poverty of the countries they exploit.