"As our economy hurtles towards its meeting with destiny, the political class seeks to assign blame on their enemies for this Greater Depression. The Republicans would like you to believe that Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank and their Community Reinvest Act caused the collapse of our financial system. Democrats want you to believe that George Bush and his band of unregulated free market capitalists created a financial disaster of epic proportions. The truth is that America has been captured by a financial class that makes no distinction between parties.
...Never have so few, done so little, and made so much, while screwing so many.
...The parallels between the period leading up to the Great Depression and our current situation leading to a Greater Depression are revealing. When you examine the facts without looking through the prism of party politics it becomes clear that when the wealth and power of the country are overly concentrated in the clutches of the top 1% wealthiest Americans, financial collapse and depression follow. This concentration of income and wealth did not cause the Stock Market Crash of 1929 or the financial system implosion in 2008, but they were a symptom of a sick system of warped incentives. The top 1% of income earners were raking in 24% of all the income in America in 1928. After World War II until 1980, the top 1% of income earners consistently took home between 9% and 11% of all income in the country. During the 1950′s and 1960′s when average Americans made tremendous strides in their standard of living, the top 1% were earning 10% of all income.
A hard working high school graduate could rise into the middle class, owning a home and a car.
From 1980 onward, the top 1% wealthiest Americans have progressively taken home a greater and greater percentage of all income. ...By 2007, the top 1% again was taking home 24% of the national income, just as they did in 1928. When the wealth of the country is captured by a small group of ruling elite through fraudulent means, collapse and crisis becomes imminent. We have experienced the collapse, while the crisis deepens. Capitalism is supposed to be an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned and operated for profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are not made by the government; Profit is distributed to owners who invest in businesses, and wages are paid to workers employed by businesses.
The American economy is in no way a free market capitalistic system. It has become a oligarchic consumer capitalist society that is manipulated, in a deliberate and coordinated way, on a very large scale, through mass-marketing techniques...
...[the] poor have no chance of joining the the rich.
The game is rigged.
...But, hard times have arrived. And they are about to get harder.
The rich have armed guards to keep the poor at bay.
They will need an army of guards before this crisis subsides."
Jim Quinn
The Burning Platform
1 comment:
Agreed except to say the poor have no chance of getting rich. That is a defeatist attitude.They too can take risks and start a business and try to get ahead. I know people who have risen from rags to riches. Instead we concentrate on what the rich have and not what we can obtain. We but toe goods and services and most would rather spend 200 on a WII that invest it for themselves or kids colege. I could go on forever
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