The Wealthy are Getting Ready!

[autorank]

The Wealthy are "Getting Ready"]

Written by Jeff Koopersmith
Thursday, 03 December 2009
American Politics Journal
http://www.apj.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2717&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=0

New York (apj .us) — At financial centers around the world bankers, brokers, and “the other rich” are getting ready to handle those people who might decide that enough is enough and attack them or their edifices. This is either a sign of good thinking on their part or overreacting to the realization that the “proles”, often throughout history, get pretty worked up when they find themselves without jobs, homeless, working for slave wages, or burying their kids. Alice Schroeder wrote a significant piece at Bloomberg on the number of gun permits being issued to high rolling investment bankers, et al this week and it piqued my interest to write a bit more on corresponding subjects.

Thinking about the problem of Americans engaged in some form of fiscal civil war labeled “the haves against the have-nots” is not a painless task. I know many rich folks who would find it hard to take a shot at some dirt-poor homeless father and his teenage sons who are “borrowing” a couple of Picasso prints from the home theater on East 72nd Street. I know others who are better armed than the FBI or the NYPD and smacking their lips in anticipation of defeating anyone invading their usually un-earned fortunes. SNIP

The myth that America is “givingest” nation on earth is simply that – a fairy story. America is the givingest nation because it so incredibly rich, rich beyond understanding. The GDP of the United States, even today, is breathtaking. All of that money ends up in private hands one way or another – and the bulk of it ends up in the wealthiest troves, not with the so-called and fast-disappearing middle class. There is no trickle down effect. Not even a real dribble.
http://www.apj.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2717&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=0

[Craftsman]

1. The French Revolution was started by the middle class not the poor

The French middle class was being crushed by high public debt, crappy economy and and elite who did not seem to care. This lead to the "National razor."

Sound familiar?

[autorank]

3. Right and they think it won't happen here

And it won't be like the French Revolution but the super rich, financial elite in this country
are brain dead. They screw everything up and they have screwy ideas (like Gates collecting all
those seeds).

Here's a graph to explain it all;)


The Money Party

[glitch]

10. They think sophisticated technology will make their takeover different this time.

They're not the brightest, just the most corrupted.

[mitchum]

19. Despite their sophisticated technology, they still bleed

You are right; they are not the brightest

[glitch]

11. They think sophisticated technology will make their takeover different this time.

They're not the brightest, just the most corrupted.

[dysfunctional press]

32. what an ironic username...

in this particular situation.

[glitch]

35. :) nt

:evilgrin:

[imdjh]

4. Aren't all revolutions led by the middle class?

The thing in the US is that we're delusional. Many of us identify as middle class due to our education or family history, but in reality are working class or poor. Many of the folks who are truly middle class in the classical sense, live close enough to wealth that they identify with the wealthy and hitch their wagons to that star.

I have a rule of thumb I try to get out to as many people as will listen, especially those whom I work with who imagine that they are "the boss" or above "my employees". It is simply this:

Unless you sign your own paycheck, you are one of us, not one of them.

[AllentownJake]

8. The wealthy don't actually run anything

They hire other people to do it. Put the CEO of Wal-Mart in a store and ask him to manage the store for the day you'd get an awkward silence followed by barking out of unsure orders.

That is the problem they face, they need to hire enough of the masses to run things and not steal from them, and at the same time keep the masses in check.

Eventually their greed will always lead to them fucking up that equation.

[glitch]

12. Parasites that don't kill their hosts are actually more intelligent. nt

[amborin]

14. good rule!

you're right: so many succumb to the bourgeois mentality and identify with the "middle" class.....keeps them pacified, etc.....also why we have no labor party in the US.....no one wants to admit they are "labor"

[Q3JR4]

2. Revolution is where I see it going.

You can only feed the public so much shit before they start to realize that the only person it's helping is you. I don't know how possible such a revolt would be since a lot of americans are arm chair activists, but if you don't give people a choice you're inviting it.

Q3JR4.
Readily admits that he could very well be blowing smoke, but doesn't really care.

[autorank]

6. It will get really ugly around ACTA

ACTA is a copy right treaty we're negotiating that a) gets rid of 'fair use', b) makes web site owners police their site for copyright infringements - text, graphic, etc. - and c) forces the web site owners to kick off violators (after a couple of warnings). It will kill the free spirited blogs and even the gatekeepers. It is designed as the companion to this: The Violent Radicalization Act. That says, if you say something inflamatory like - 'there ought to be a revolution' - and someone reads it and acts violently afterward, you're guilty of a crime. It passed the House 400 to 6 and is in LIEberman's committee in the Senate. Word is they're already tracking traffic and ready to enforce it.

[inna]

13. Jesus. Thanks for the update.

KR, I always appreciate your posts!

[autorank]

15. Thanks

Glas they're useful. The PTB keep trying to figure out how to take over thenet. In Canada the
phone company wanted to offer tiered service for the internet - you'd get 40 web sites for free
and then have premium packages ROFLMAO;)

Somebody got to them and said, 'Are you on crack' figuratively and it was stopped but that's how
lame these people are.

If they try to make web site owners cops and all of criminals for operating under the "fair use
doctrine" (if you don't make money, you can use it, essentially), then there will be a net
revolution like they've never seen. I hope they keep it up because they'll go down hard.

[girl gone mad]

26. Things like this are further proof that the empire is crumbling.

[Hannah Bell]

25. Make that an OP. That's a disaster. Chilling effect on speech if I ever heard one.

[blindpig]

31. uh oh

uh oh

k&r

[autorank]

36. working on a biggie on that topic. i'll let you and know

[CrispyQ]

30. I agree with Hannah Bell - make this an OP. --nt

[JHB]

5. More and more...

Can you imagine the anger in a Heartland Republican laborer’s mind

Yes, 'cause it's not just "Heartland Republican laborers" who feel this way

when he reads that some 28 year old kid at Merrill Lynch got a $32 million bonus and that without it he would desert the company and move elsewhere?

Can you imagine if that same worker knew the watch worn by the guy next to him in a movie theater cost more than his son’s tuition, room and board for a year or that a Bentley automobile can cost nearly $500 thousand dollars?

How many meter maids realize, as they give a ticket to a Range Rover illegally parked on Madison Avenue that the purse the owner’s carrying in her fury over the fine cost $45,000 at Hermes across the street, or that her Chanel Suit rang the register for $11,000, the Jimmy Choo shoes were $650, and her lunch was $95.00?

How many people heard about Cindy McCain's quarter-million dollar earrings? And who didn't feel anger or contempt or wonder about the morality of buying baubles that cost as much as a house?

[autorank]

7. "Let the markets take care of it"

We did and that's why we're here now. You're right.

[hayu_lol]

9. Perhaps we unemployed could get some gainful activity...

helping to dig moats around many of our outlandish mansions.

Drawbridges anyone?

[OffWithTheirHeads]

16. I'd rather build guillotines

[mitchum]

17. Maybe those investment bankers are going to use those guns to blow out their own fucking brains

A boy can dream, can't he?

[L0oniX]

18. I hope they fear us.

[maryf]

20. K&R nt

[guitar man]

21. Geez

So instead of pausing for some reflection and introspection as to why they might need to fear us,let alone take it upon themselves to right some of their wrongs, they prepare for escalation of the class war they started. Greedy bastards, I hope they are happy with the excess they have amassed by the suffering of others.

I know there are many wealthy people who have used their fortunes to do a lot of good for the less fortunate, but it sure seems like for every one of them there are 10 who just don't give a shit about anybody but themselves. They have spent years erecting battlements in the form of propaganda outlets and buying undue influence. All I have for that group of elite class warriors is a hearty fuck you and I hope you choke on your damn excesses.

:grr:

[arcadian]

22. This is one of the most important threads ever posted on DU

We are at a turning point.

[autorank]

23. Things are heating up!

People know when they lose their job.

They know when they're out of money.

They know when they're hungry, without medical care, and in danger.

Anyone who thinks a wink and a nod will handle this needs to wake up.

It's time to hold ALL leaders accountable all the time.

Thanks!

[Echo In Light]

34. Chomsky maintains some of the police state measures here are in defense of elites during possible...

... insurrection. And given how anti-war groups and dissidents are the key domestic target of the "WoT," that doesn't surprise me as 'we'd outnumber them quite drastically ...I think sometimes we forget that!

[leftstreet]

24. K&R

[earth mom]

27. Great find Autorank!

:thumbsup:

Check out the Alice Schroeder piece for Bloomberg referenced in the article:

So maybe other senior people at Goldman Sachs have gone out and bought guns, and they know something. But what?

Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and -- oh yes -- the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”


There you have it. The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses.

<snip>

And if the proles really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms. If nothing else, that pistol permit might go part way toward explaining why they won’t be standing outside with the rest of the crowd, broke and humiliated, saying, “Damn, I was on the wrong side of a trade with Goldman again.”



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=ahD2WoDAL9h0

[autorank]

29. Thanks, who would have thought! n/t

[Starry Messenger]

28. k & r

[Nikki Stone1]

33. Guns for Banksters. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

:rofl: