I’m here to light just one more little candle in hopes that middle-class republicans will stop enabling the 1% who wouldn’t let them get within 10 city blocks of their 20,000 square foot homes. By enabling I mean stop voting their proxies into office.
The United States is a capitalist country and sort of a democracy as well. It’s certainly not a democracy in the “all men (and women) are created equal” sense of the term, since a precious few friends with capitalistic benefits have grotesquely diluted democracy.
Eric Alterman, in the latest issue of The Nation magazine, reports some of the more obscene numbers out there. Between 1979-2006 the top 1% of Americans saw their income rise 256%; Conversely, the lowest quintile realized an 11 percent gain. The top 1% control 40% of the wealth; 25 years ago it took the top 12% to control 33% of the wealth.
I’ve got some numbers of my own. The richest 400 Americans own more than the bottom 150 million U.S. residents and that top 1%, the Occupy movement brought into prominence, possesses more wealth than the bottom 90%. The right-wing would call Alterman’s numbers and my numbers Class Warfare. It’s not class warfare. It’s simply the opposite of responsible capitalism that was never intended to exclude virtually the entire population. There’s a name for it, Greed. And it shows no signs of abating. Corporate-owned media propagandist keep regurgitating ‘free markets’ 24/7 and yet with monopolies, deregulation and the purchase of the electorate, markets are total antithesis of ‘free’.
One thing the Tea Party crowd must know, but seems incapable of comprehending, is that most of the 1% modern day money is accumulated through doing no work at all. NONE! It comes from investments. A 1 percenter buys 1,000 or 10,000 shares of a stock for $40 a share; the stock appreciates to $75 a share. The holder sells the stock for a profit. He or she has done NO work; has created NO jobs. Nor will he or she investor EVER work for that money or create jobs. As a single entity, they buy the stock, sell the stock and deposit the money in their account and will probably pay little or no taxes.
The republican power elite is now working day and night to see to it that those capital gains and dividends where applicable are not taxed. So you have a class of people who can make enormous money and will give none of it to the U.S. Treasury. Do you get more patriotic than that? And if faced with the annoyance of paying any taxes on these ‘no work’ bank account fatteners, the 1% will Romney the money to some mysterious little country or island. And/or they’ll have their compliant CPA’s move the money around under dummy corporate names so the IRS can never track it for tax purposes.
Profits earned in the U.S. are rerouted to a low tax destination. Often to a single empty office address in an obscure Caribbean island . Ah, the beauties of globalization. And the goobers cheer at the top of their lungs while their jobs and wages disappear.
Rich people and corporations were not always thus. They used to pay their fair share of taxes, support or at least tolerate unions and keep most of their factories in the U.S. manufacturing an overwhelming percentage of the world’s goods. And you know what? They still made a shit-pot full of money; still sent their daughters to one of the Seven Sister Colleges and their sons (and occasional daughters) to the Ivy League. And that big house on the hill? Owned by someone who paid upwards of 90% in taxes (ton of deductibles, but they still paid a lot more than today). And that fleet of fancy cars? Owned by CEO’s and others who paid their fair share of taxes.
You’ve heard about that horrible “world’s high corporate tax rate” of 35%? The effective rate is about half that, around 18%, among the lowest in industrialized nations. That’s when corporations bother to pay at all. A study by the Government Accountability Office for the years of 1998-2005 found that at least 55% of corporations paid no federal income taxes during at least one of those years.
And the states are terrified to levy an income tax on corporations. These same states are also terrified to be identified as union states. Unions! Fair wages, equal pay, safe working conditions, health care, reasonable hours, vacations, pregnancy and sick leaves, decent treatment by management. WHO IN THE HELL would support something like that??? Not the goobers, that’s for sure. On cue, they yammer about the guy who slept on the job; the gal who did no work…Just like voter fraud; take something that barely exists and blow it up the size of a Sumo wrestler. And I love the canard about union dues. Aways too high according to the goobers. Average annual union dues are $400 a year! If the union negotiates a yearly pay of $40,000 a year with benefits for your job as compared to non-union pay of $26,000 and few to no benefits, you’re going to worry about $400? Even when non-union wages are fair, workers fail to realize that were it not for the ‘pattern’ aspect of being competitive with the unions, their wages would fall like a stone. Eliminate unions altogether and see where national wages settle. The 1% even has a name for the new low-wage levels…‘Market’ wages.
For the most part I’m preaching to the choir because goobers are incapable of independent thought. Oh, there are a few ‘assigned’ to websites like Politicus. They’ll try to demonize submissions like this one. Have at it, but I’m telling my readers this…if Romney gets in, it’ll be a privatizing orgy and you’ll lose most of what thoughtful democratic AND republican administrations have created to make this country the envy of the world. Give Teapublicans control of your federal and state governments and this will be an entirely different country than you grew up in. You’ve seen how far they’ve gone with at least the minimal limitations of a democratic president and senate (though the filibuster threat has frozen that body); you’ve seen the red state idiocy of destroying unions and firing public sector workers by the thousands all the while cutting services to the bone and destroying all avenues of revenue. That’s kid’s stuff if you give them full control.
Wisconsin will be an early indicator of where America is headed.
Image: Major Conflict
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Reynardine
Jun. 4th, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Actually, this system is called plutonomy. Ayn Rand built a philosophy around it; Milton Friedman a multicontinental tyranny; then the Ajay-Citibank memo shamelessly described it: Pluck the little people! Time to make them quit playing dress-up in Middle America! Reduce them to cogs, because we don’t need their buying power any more: all we need is for there to be enough of them to be competing for whatever miserable existence we give them! Get rich, instead, by selling luxury goods to the rich! Don’t invest in Wal-Mart or Proctor and Gamble, because there won’t be anyone out there who can afford a pair of cotton undercrackers or a bar of Ivory Soap (you wonder why those companies suddenly screamed and ran from ALEC?) Invest in Nieman Marcus instead! Meanwhile, unfortunately, the little people can vote, but until we can do something about that, we’ll keep them voting our way, with fear, bigotry, and superstition. Can it happen here? Yes it can, and any time. And no, it nustn’t.
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Joe Villanova
Jun. 4th, 2012 at 10:45 pm
If I sell you out for my own personal gain, that is betrayal of trust. I just fucked you over. If I sell out my country for my own personal gain, that is called treason. I betrayed my own country. If I ship out my company to China or India leaving communities depending on those jobs to survive completely decimated, that is called business even though it IS treason. That is what our elected officials in cahoots with corporatists have done.
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JJM
Jun. 4th, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Capitalism can, after the fall of Communism, dispense with democracy, which was its window dressing in the fight between it and Communism.
No longer has any need of it, as the Supreme Court and the corporations have shown: one dollar=one vote, so why bother with elections?
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IndeCan
Jun. 5th, 2012 at 2:54 am
Isn’t it ironic that the man who seemed to know the most about Capitalism was a Marxist by the name of Karl Marx. Doesn’t anyone even read Das Kapital anymore? Free Market pundits nowadays are really Cafeteria Free Market folks, who don’t want to include all the essential ingredients of Capitalism (like competition and workers, who needs that right?). I like how you eloquently pointed out that in “the good ol days”, Corporations were doing just fine, making solid profits AND paying their fair share. That is definitely an ideal that we need to get back to.
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Jeff
Jun. 5th, 2012 at 9:21 am
Capitalism and the absence of individual salary caps are one thing. Allowing corporate entities to grow to such an enormity that the failure of the same would result in the economic demise of an entire nation is another. Economic hardship is a real and definite concern of each individual. Economic success is the desire of many. When the latter is achieved, it can provide a strong sense of security. This security along with the fear of poverty, which it directly holds at bay, should be maintained by the diligence and prowess of the individual.
Conversely, when this sense of security is leveraged or endangered by the performance of only one of the many huge corporations that govern the market place, the harrows that this encumbers cannot be pacified nor dissipated by any personal achievement. They are ominous, tormenting and seeming unjust.
Free enterprise, if left unchecked, can become its own enemy, just as it did during the infamous stock market crash of 1929. With the approval of Congress, FDR devised a set of rules and regulations complete with the affordance to create committees, as needed, to prevent the re-occurrence of such a travesty. This was a landmark decision. It was lauded by the majority of Americans because of its potential to protect the financial interests of private enterprise. We, as a nation, saw fit to place restrictions on our financial institutions and demand transparency. We also acknowledged the need for the same type of oversight on big business by reserving the right to restrict the expansion of any company whose growth might endanger the people’s interests, thereby prohibiting the realization of the “American Dream.”
Consequently, because of the unchecked growth, which has resulted in the existence of moguls, the entrepreneurial venture into many of the goods and services, which are vital to our existence and our comfort, are off-limits. Not to mention, the resulting lack of competition, which has lead to undesirable pricing and the lack of conscientious customer service. Now because of these industry giants we are forced to pay a more than necessary price for the goods and services which they provide and customer service consists of listening to seemingly endless automated menus, because the power of the consumer is greatly outmatched by the exclusivity of the provision of said good or service.
I can think of no benefit which huge corporate entities provide the average American, that would warrant their defense. We once saw fit to accept a rise in taxes for the governance of large existing corporations in order to restrict any free movement, which might adversely affect our well-being. Now these corps are angry about the regulations placed on them and insist on extracting even the smallest deficit in profits incurred (due to compliance with the same) from the consumer. Yet, we still come to their defense when what we should be doing is expressing our disapproval through boycott–a sacrifice well worth the effort. Not only does it send a strong, painful message to the corporate abuser, it also provides a rare window of opportunity for the entrepreneur to enter into this once exclusive market. This is not only beneficial to the entrepreneur, but also to the potential consumer, who might expect better customer service as well as a more favorable price. This then paves the way for other small business opportunities in the same market.
Unfortunately, this is not possible in all the markets without massive amounts of capital. But it is possible in enough of the markets that the redemption of the providence of the majority of goods and services to the small business owner is achievable. Once the breakup of moguls becomes a trend, there will be less of a demand for the revenues once allocated for their regulation.
Large moguls have succeeded through intimidation to cause us to take the approach of defending them against the regulations placed on them through govt agencies, which are there to protect us from financial, as well as environmental, mishaps. They are, in a sense, bullying us as consumers by saying, “You either vote to allow us to take whatever financial risk we deem worthy as well as allow us to pollute the environment at whatever level we deem more cost effective or we will layoff workers and/or raise prices.” It is time for us to view these moguls for what they have become, a detriment to: private enterprise, the economy, the environment, good customer service, fair pricing and competition, as well as our financial security. Not to mention the tax burden they create due to the bureaucratic agencies necessary to oversee them. I cannot help but ponder if those who opposed for example the cap and trade legislation did so because they felt that the environmental impact was already low, or out of fear that the energy giants would would raise prices to cover their operating costs under the new regulations. If the latter is true then is it not intimidation that has influenced the voters?
When a large company goes public it has millions of shareholders to appease who’s approval directly effect the worth of that entity. This causes a conflict of interest in many cases,and when this conflict is between pleasing the shareholders or pleasing the consumer the former is often the object of most consideration. This can be said more so when the conflict involves the safety of our environment. So even if a conscientious board of directors would desire to do the right thing for either the consumer or the environment they find their hands are tied. This of course is because any effort to absorb a prospected loss rather than offset it by passing that on to consumers in the form of a rate or price increase is frowned upon by the shareholders. This in turn results in compounded losses due to the subsequent drop in the price of the share. So we can see that not only is “Too big to fail” a valid term but I would now like to add “Too big to care” to the dialogue.
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A Walkaway
Jun. 5th, 2012 at 10:16 am
Think back to what this country was like 20, 30 years ago or more. For the 1%, it’s been a change for the better. For the rest of us, this country has already gone to hell when you look how it used to be.
The chances of getting any sorts of benefits with a job are low and growing lower every day. Even with a higher degree, finding such work is nearly impossible if you’re not already employed. The companies now advertise (I’ve seen it) that if you aren’t already employed, don’t bother applying.
In the meantime, the Republicans fight against any investment by the government in the infrastructure which would generate good jobs and improve the lot for the 99%. I’ve actually heard people say that the money should go to the towns where the most taxes are paid… implying that the rich should get the benefit, even though they are cheating and not pulling their weight.
When I read the main article in this thread, it did cause me to compare today with the 70s. Back in the 70s, there was hope. Today, it’s desperation (talk to any long-term unemployed, who according to today’s paper, are being cut off from unemployment!). The Republicans and the 1% have a lot to answer for… a lot of death, a lot of suffering, and it’s all because they’re so damned greedy.
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Anklejive
Jun. 5th, 2012 at 11:14 am
GOP = Greedy One Percent
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Jim Faubel
Jun. 5th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
At one time, the vast majority of economists understood that the major engine or economic activity was consumer spending (ie., a DEMAND economy). However, the reality-adverse prefer what they call “supply-side economics” which is just a rebranding of the old European feudal system whereby the very few idle rich were supported by the labor of the many poor.
“Feed the rich; starve the poor” That is the essence of “supply-side economics”.
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H
Jun. 5th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
When capitalism works, the CEOs don’t make money at the expense of the owners. The owners are capitalists, CEOs who are not accountable to the owners do not practice capitalism. They practice cronyism.
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