There Once Was a Time When the Super-Rich Needed a Middle Class to Be Successful -- Not Any More

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/rich-dont-need-us

***SNIP

As Paul Buchheit brilliantly points out over at AlterNet, "As they accumulate more and more wealth, the very rich have less need for society. At the same time, they've convinced themselves that they made it on their own, and that contributing to societal needs is unfair to them. There is ample evidence that this small group of takers is giving up on the country that made it possible for them to build huge fortune."

Buchheit goes on to say that, "The rich have always needed the middle class to work in their factories and buy their products. With globalization this is no longer true... They don't need our infrastructure for their yachts and helicopters and submarines. They pay for private schools for their kids, private security for their homes. They have private emergency rooms to avoid the health care hassle. All they need is an assortment of servants, who might be guest workers coming to America on H2B visas, willing to work for less than a middle-class American can afford"

Unfortunately, these millionaires and billionaires who have given up on America and on the working class are in control of the political process in this country.

They have brainwashed Republicans into thinking that the success of working-class Americans no longer matters for the future of this nation.

[Earth_First]

1. What kills me is how many voters associate themselves with this demographic...

As if they themselves could bed down with the' billionaire club' over whiskey and cigars at any number of exclusive golf or yacht clubs.

They'll never be one of them.

Ever.

I'll never understand it.

[stevenleser]

2. They still do, they have just found a way to circle the drain more slowly with a weak middle class

a weak and poor middle class is not a sustainable situation. It will eventually cause the wealthy to lose wealth.

[Fumesucker]

5. Now all you have to do is convince the ultra-smart super-rich of that fact

Good luck with that.

[KG]

3. they've created ways to make money no matter how the economy is doing for the rest of us.

[bananas]

27. And a lot of it is automated - if an asteroid destroyed all life on earth. it would keep going.

The financial computers would keep running on back-up power,
accruing interest, making trades, having debts written off, etc.

[RKP5637]

4. In the big picture their wealth is worthless. n/t

[The2ndWheel]

20. Only if enough people don't think what they have is wealth

[valerief]

6. They brainwash the people they don't need to buy. nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. The have the military

to protect their interests around the world. They have plenty of consumers to buy their goods elsewhere, with the growing middle classes millions in India and China. They own the media in the US and the congress to pass their agenda in the US to hold and protect their wealth and banks that pay for their elected officials.

Why do they need the middle class in the US? Why have an informed public in the US? Why make a college education affordable to the masses when you can make a two tier system which supports your agenda.



The world is your oyster and the US middle class is not necessary to hold on to that oyster.



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/business/americas-sinking-middle-class.html

[xchrom]

8. +1

[AnotherMcIntosh]

26. And they have

their military-trained police to protect their interests here.

The police are being trained to treat the general populace as the enemy in an occupied country.

[cantbeserious]

9. The Oligarchs And Corporations Own And Control The Politicians That Own And Control Us

eom

[ReRe]

25. Agree

+1

[Laelth]

10. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[NYC_SKP]

11. Hillary 2016.

Not really.

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. I suppose when they are making fortunes by betting and trading on what amounts to complicated IOU's

it becomes less relevant if ordinary workers can afford to buy the stuff that is being manufactured - when making or even selling stuff is no longer the chief way to make a fortune and manufacturing has largely been outsourced anyway. It is more like a third world economic model. They have already established a moral belief system that declares income to be a fair and market based statement of how much someone is producing. Thus the poor deserve to be poor and the rich deserve to be rich. Those who would disrupt that natural market based order are simply stealing from the most productive and unjustly handing it over to the undeserving nonproductive.

[Ikonoklast]

13. When making money is de-coupled from generating wealth (in the classic meaning of the word)

you are basing your economy on vapor.

[LisaLynne]

17. I am far from an economist, but ...

this is what I believe has really happened. All of their "wealth" is really an illusion. They can keep "moving" this vapor around and making it look like things are growing, but eventually, the illusion will crash. I don't know what that will look like, though. It won't be pretty.

[Douglas Carpenter]

21. I don't think it's sustainable - anymore than if you and I traded back and forth notes promising

each other millions and hundreds of millions of dollar and managed to hoodwink everyone around us into believing that those promissory notes were worth what they claimed - That is what is essentially being done on a massive global scale. However the collapse of this order - which may very well be inevitable - eventually will be catastrophic - not just for the makers of this illusion it will be global economic cataclysm for everyone rich and poor alike. It will sustain as long as it is possible - because it really, really, really is too big to fail.

[LisaLynne]

22. That is an excellent metaphor and description of it. nt

[Ikonoklast]

23. The last little bump was a warning. We failed to heed it.

Capital formation is no longer dependant upon creating wealth, and as long as the mega-wealthy can use selling paper to each other and make enormous piles of money in profits doing spo, the politicians they buy will ensure that this continues.

The economic crash that is coming will utterly destroy all capital markets, worldwide.


I don't know when, but as long as unregulated derivative trading is allowed, it's a certainty that a catastrophic economic event is coming our way.


There is no way that the taxpayers or governments will be able to bail out anyone when it happens the next time, money will be worthless.


There is a reason the mega-wealthy are seeking refuges around the world in remote places, with private security armies hired to protect them.

They know what they are currently doing is unsustainable, and have contingency plans in place in the event they need yo bug out.

[watoos]

14. I have found, from posting on my local right wing site,

that it is going to take a long time for the rich's legion of brainwashed followers to realize they've been scammed.
Reagan is their hero, and they defend tax breaks for the rich with a passion. "Ever see a poor person create a job?"
They don't understand why income inequality is bad. They hate government workers and union workers and think they make too much money, and they were one of the reasons for the recession. They think of Fannie and Freddie as government institutions that were solely responsible for the housing bubble collapse. Many are just reborn John Birchers, who think that the majority of people on welfare, food stamps, etc., are big city black people, even though many on the local blog site are themselves on government aid. I am thinking of getting off the blog site for my own sanity. They will never be convinced that they are being used. The rich have Frank Luntz, the M$M, cable news, and right wing radio bombarding them daily with propaganda. I saw a glimmer of hope with OWS. but they were beaten back by the rich. Oh, and they defend privatization, because we all know from Reagan, that everything the government does is bad. They are like zombies, and the zombies have infiltrated Congress and the courts, even the Supreme Court. Sorry for this gawd awful depressing rant. I just wish Obama hadn't bought up all the ammo, I need to shoot at something with my AK. One last thing, they are paranoid, they brag about not being afraid because they pack whenever and wherever they go, and they keep loaded guns hidden throughout their house. OK, I'm done.

[Awknid]

28. Traditionalists

They believe that they must be part of a group and the group will take care of them. My Father was like that (although he was a Democrat). It's the easy way out in their mind. They believe loyalty will protect them. This is a very old world, traditional way of thinking. My Father was Italian. It's the way the mafia works. Never could make myself subscribe to that way of thinking.

[winter is coming]

15. Someone, somewhere has to be able to buy stuff.

They can go on chasing after the cheapest labor to make stuff to sell to the not-yet-impoverished, but that's not a sustainable strategy.

[Festivito]

16. We shall emulate the fall of Rome if we discard our middle.

We are headed to be worse than Rome, where, instead, in a smarter more delightful world we should have been better than Rome.

[marmar]

29. Sadly, I think that's a fait accompli at this point.

[B Calm]

18. With the insane trade policies that allow companies to offshore

our jobs and with no tariffs to obstruct them from selling their products that could be made here, they'll continue to be successful at our expense!

[Ikonoklast]

24. The funniest part is this: They don't need us, because of growing classes with disposable income

in India and China, literally hundreds of millions more consumers than our entire population, willing to work for next to nothing.

That is the reasoning they for lowering wages in this country, competition from overseas.


Those workers will also eventually demand more in pay for their labor. It's already started in China.

What happens when Capital screws them over, too?

Who will they sell to, when the consumers in those country also go broke, and there is no one left with enough money to buy their products anywhere on Earth?

[flobee1]

19. We need to hurry and find a way

to get to these other earthlike planets that have been discovered.....
and ship all the rich assholes there asap.

is there any way to convince them that Russia would be a better place for them than America??
at least there would be an ocean between them and us....

[hootinholler]

30. What utter bullshit revisionist claptrap

The rich never needed the middle class, and were sorely offended with the rise of the unions which enabled the middle class.

They would prefer to go back to the days when boys were sent into coal mines or fabric mills for twelve hour days being paid pennies for a six day week. They would like nothing more than to return to the economic servitude epitomized by the company store and patch housing.

[emsimon33]

31. This is why it may take their blood and that of all their relatives to end this

These idiots don't read, or at least heed, history.

You take all hope from people and they have nothing else left so they have nothing to lose. Such people are very dangerous and we are coming to this point in this country if the very wealthy don't change their ways.