ARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BEING FOOLED?

[Thats my opinion]

One of the inherent problems for all of us who engage in trying to interpret the signs of the time, is the temptation to think we know more about a highly technical subject than we do. No matter how much research I think I do, often I realize that I have made only the slightest scratch on the surface of what I need to know. I am reminded that for every complex problem there is a simple solution---which is probably wrong! For some time I ended these columns with the tag, “but that’s just my opinion,” indicating a hesitancy to pontificate. But that line got misinterpreted so I ceased using it.

One of the areas about which I have too little knowledge is the whole field of economics. I am currently doing a study on “money,” and at this point I’m not even sure how it ought to be defined. Is it credit, debt, official pieces of paper or metal objects, conch shells, wooden sticks, tulip bulbs? Who decides what money is or how to judge its value? Is there anything behind the paper I have in my wallet other than my faith in the government?

There are a few things, however, which are beginning to come clear. It is increasingly obvious that in this nation the control of wealth is gushing toward the top. Money is being redistributed all right—those who have it are getting more and those who don’t have it are getting less. Consider the following statistics reported by the Federal Reserve—the private big bank controlled Corporation which decides how much money is in circulation.

The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own over one-third of the nation’s wealth, and their share grows every year. The poorest 50% own just about 2% of the nation’s wealth—and their share declines every year. The wealthiest 1% therefore own a bigger piece of the pie than the poorest 90%. These elite folks also own two-thirds of the nation’s business assets. The wealthiest 5% own 94% of the value of the nation’s bonds and 80% of the nation’s stocks.

It gets worse. Forbes Magazine reported that from 1994-1997 the wealth of the 400 richest Americans grew by an average of $940 million each, for an increase of $1.3 million every day for every person in this elite group! In 2010 25 hedge fund operators pocketed a total of $22 billion on which they paid the absurd tax rate of 15%. John Paulson earned $4.5 billion---without producing a thing! Much of this gain can be accounted for by the Bush tax reduction for the very rich. How did they earn this money? By living in and benefiting from America. And now Congressman Ryan and the Republicans want to make these cuts permanent. Furthermore the Ryan plan to reduce the national debt includes doing away with all inheritance taxes while even further lowering the tax rates on the wealthy and eliminating taxes on capital gains, most of which are held by America’s plutocracy.

You don’t need to be a PhD in economics or a rocket scientist to realize that the corporate power which controls American politics has designed the program to further enrich the rich at the expense of the poor. And it is increasingly clear to anyone who looks at the Ryan proposals that the real purpose is not just to reduce the debt and erase yearly deficits, but also to gut the safety net which guarantees some level of protection for the left out. What is under attack is education, health care, Medicare, and eventually Social Security.

I am continually amazed that the American people not lucky or sufficiently gifted to be part of that one percent, including most Tea Party advocates, are not outraged. How is it they have been fooled into believing that the creation of an American plutocracy at the expense of everyone else is just fine? Sooner or later I believe the average Joe and Jane will realize how badly they have been fooled. When that happens my guess is there will be a massive political explosion which may not even be a good thing for the plutocrats.
Charles Bayer
[e-mail]

[aquart]

1. Welcome to DU.

May your brief stay be a happy one.

Thank you so much for telling me all that you think.

[Eddie Haskell]

17. Nice welcome, aquafart.

:wtf:

[PDJane]

2. Yes, of course they are.

[RKP5637]

3. Well said! I'm throughly convinced most Americans are dumber than a bag of

rocks when it comes to understanding politics, economics and propaganda. The SH** is going to hit the fan down the road and it's going to be a real mess to clean up, perhaps a generation or two at least.

[valerief]

4. The habit of faith strengthens that undeserved trust in the crooks running the show.

That's why they advocate faith. Faithers "believe" easily.

[RKP5637]

5. Excellent point! IMO the republicans figured that out long ago when

they went after the Faithers and linked god and country to good republicans, and sold them a bill of goods least serving the betterment of the Faithers, and voting in those least serving them.

[valerief]

6. Plus they have a tax-free venue to woo them--churches. nt

[pacalo]

7. Hence, the wedge issues that don't belong in government legislation: abortion & gay marriage.

The personal issues that keep on giving -- because the crooks need every blind-faith, non-thinking follower they can scrape out of the barrel.

[RKP5637]

8. Yep, exactly, all of the wedge issues, but many Americans just

can't seem to wrap their minds around what is happening to their country.

[stevebreeze]

9. To some extent I think we credit the wealthy too much in having any kind of coherent plan.

You don't need a plan or conspiracy to transfer wealth from the vast bulk of America to the very top. You just have to have the wealthy follow Ayn Rands instructions, seek out advantage from themselves. Corporations and the wealthy only want to protect and increase their own economic advantage. Much of the changes are by themselves trivial. A small change in the way depreciation is treated. Maybe just a small change in trade policy that protects them while costing you more. It isn't that the wealthy are out to destroy the middle class, they often don't even know they are doing so. Sometimes they just don't care.

I think it is also true that the great wealth redistribution we have had for 30+ years, is in many ways not the disease but just a symptom. Don't large majorities favor medicare for all? We not only didn't get that arrow to the heart of for profit health insurance, we couldn't even get a partial competitive public option. Aren't the politicians supposed to react to pressure from their constituents?

What is lacking is democracy. Public policy is being determined by those who pay for it, wealthy donors. Politicians don't need and very often are isolated from the real needs of the general public. Until we have more democracy we are going to ill functioning society. The rich will get richer, the rest of us will get poorer.

[RKP5637]

12. I think you hit the nail squarely on the head. We have had a disintegrating democracy

for about the past 30 years.

[Thats my opinion]

13. say more

\So if this is the symptom, say more about the disease

[TBF]

10. No, it's pretty clear what the capitalists are doing. I don't think it's fooling

average folks. So far we have lacked the organization to fight back en masse. But I have faith that will change.

[FrankinMO]

11. Most not fooled, but just don't care...

When I discuss any issue about what happens in this country I get the deer in the headlights look from folks I know. It does not matter which political orientation they are, either Democrat or Republican. They would rather talk about Real Housewives or MTV. I am all for entertainment, but my guess is most people want to keep their head in the sand.

That's why I came to this forum. Most people are open minded on here and are open to debate.

People just don't know. They don't know that the people who run the Fed reserve and the head of the large banks are all buddy buddy.

Their goal is simple. To get filthy rich from we the people. It sounds simplistic and some call it a conspiracy theory, but just look at the facts. Trillions in bailouts, and how many jobs were created? But yet bankers are getting 10 million dollar bonuses? And who has to pick up the tab? The taxpayer.

That's right, it is very simple math. Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars to create real jobs, their balance sheets were corrected and people got bonuses. And all it does is prolong the inevitable. The sad thing is, the government knows it.

If you do not produce anything as a nation, and you import more than you export, sooner or later shit goes south. This is one thing bankers, the fed, nor the government can fix.

Print all you want. Somehow we still have to pay off $14 trillion (and counting).

How will we pay it off?

[reasonIsPower]

14. What we can do to fix the problem

I really appreciate the way in which you brought about your argument in a factual manner-- The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. I think that the true problem here is that in Washington today, the two voices that are heard are big business and big unions.

In order to tackle this problem, I think a large part of the problem comes from campaign finance. We must reform campaign finance regulations to minimize the ability of these two organizations to cause politicians to make decisions which affect many based on the interests of a few. A publicly funded campaign finance system would be a great leap in the right direction. Although I voted for Obama in '08, I was disappointed in his choice not to use public financing in the election after John McCain agreed to take it up, since Obama had MUCH larger pools of money in his private campaign fund.

Call me naive if you want, but I think that rather than a re-distribution of wealth in any way, what we really need is a fair system that allows those who work the hardest and produce the most to rise up to the top. Unfortunately, what we have been seeing is a battle of two powers, the rich who want to get richer, and many of unions who want to maximize benefits and pay with no discretion for the profitability of the corporations their workers work for.

[Mad Machinist]

16. Hitting the nail on the head

You hit it dead square on the head. Try starting a business in the current climate. It is damn near impossible.

[progree]

18. Unions are barely a factor in this - their voice and spending is about 10% of business's

What's the latest - unions are less than 8% of the private sector workforce and less than 12% of the overall workforce. And the ones that do exist have been making concession after consession after concession for decades. The notion that there is a titanic struggle between business and unions is about 30 years ago.

[girl gone mad]

15. kick

:kick:

[progree]

19. The CONservatives have conned the CONNEDservative goobers (and many independents and even some Dems)

I agree.

It looks like the CONservatives (Koch Brothers, Druggie Limpaugh) have conned the CONNEDservatives -- those pea-brains goobers that think we need to give up benefits so that the wealthy can have tax breaks and thus create more jobs for us bottom 99 percenters.

Look - a $100 billion tax cut is financed by $100 billion in Treasury security sales -- the $100 billion that supposedly flows into the economy from the tax cut flows right back out of the economy to buy the Treasury securities.

[bluebuzzard]

20. silence peasant

don't piss of your masters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KKRzNgoL9h4
OK a little on the tinfoil side but makes you think WTF