WELCOME TO THE PLUTOCRACY! by Bill Moyers

[ProfessionalLeftist]

Speech given at Boston University on Oct. 29 - in memory of Howard Zinn

. . .

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. But he’s run off with all the toys.

Late in August I clipped another story from the Wall Street Journal. Above an op-ed piece by Robert Frank the headline asked: “Do the Rich Need the Rest of America?” The author didn’t seem ambivalent about the answer. He wrote that as stocks have boomed, “the wealthy bounced back. And while the Main Street economy” “was wracked by high unemployment and the real-estate crash, the wealthy -- whose financial fates were more tied to capital markets than jobs and houses -- picked themselves up, brushed themselves off, and started buying luxury goods again.”

Citing the work of Michael Lind, at the Economic Growth Program of the New American Foundation, the article went on to describe how the super-rich earn their fortunes with overseas labor, selling to overseas consumers and managing financial transactions that have little to do with the rest of America, “while relying entirely or almost entirely on immigrant servants at one of several homes around the country.”

Right at that point I remembered another story that I had filed away three years ago, also from the Wall Street Journal. The reporter Ianthe Jeanne Dugan described how the private equity firm Blackstone Group swooped down on a travel reservation company in Colorado, bought it, laid off 841 employees, and recouped its entire investment in just seven months, one of the quickest returns on capital ever for such a deal. Blackstone made a killing while those workers were left to sift through the debris. They sold their homes, took part-time jobs making sandwiches and coffee, and lost their health insurance.

That fall, Blackstone’s chief executive, Stephen Schwarzman, reportedly worth over $5 billion, rented a luxurious resort in Jamaica to celebrate the marriage of his son. According to the Guardian News, the Montego Bay facility alone cost $50,000, plus thousands more to sleep 130 guests. There were drinks on the beach, dancers and a steel band, marshmallows around the fire, and then, the following day, an opulent wedding banquet with champagne and a jazz band and fireworks display that alone cost $12,500. Earlier in the year Schwarzman had rented out the Park Avenue Armory in New York (near his 35-room apartment) to celebrate his 60th birthday at a cost of $3 million. So? It’s his money, isn’t it? Yes, but consider this: The stratospheric income of private-equity partners is taxed at only 15 percent -- less than the rate paid, say, by a middle-class family. When Congress considered raising the rate on their Midas-like compensation, the financial titans flooded Washington with armed mercenaries -- armed, that is, with hard, cold cash -- and brought the “debate” to an end faster than it had taken Schwartzman to fire 841 workers. The financial class had won another round in the exploitation of working people who, if they are lucky enough to have jobs, are paying a higher tax rate than the super-rich.

So the answer to the question: “Do the Rich Need the Rest of America?” is as stark as it is ominous: Many don’t. As they form their own financial culture increasingly separated from the fate of everyone else, it is “hardly surprising,” Frank and Lind concluded, “ that so many of them should be so hostile to paying taxes to support the infrastructure and the social programs that help the majority of the American people.”

Entire video:

http://www.bu.edu/buniverse/view/?v=20ZaW9PO

Transcript:

http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9981-commentary-bob-herbert-and-bill-moyers-on-democracy-and-plutocracy-in-america.html

(Scroll down to "Welcome to the Plutocracy!"

[WillyT]

1. K & R !!!

:bounce:

:kick:

:hi:

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. K & R

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[July16th-20th]

4. Yes.

I miss Tim and Bill.

[cilla4progress]

5. Isn't this the way of many third world,

e.g., Latin American, African, countries? Gated city blocks; private security forces. This is America's future, I'm afraid, and we are well on our way.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

6. Unless we all get active and civilly disobedient - unless people ditch their apathy

become aware, and get off their duffs -- then yes, it is our future.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

14. When is enough, enough?

Your statement couldn't be more true.


:thumbsup:

[BiggJawn]

8. Never mind all that...

"American Survivor's Got Talent" with Snooki Kardashian is on the Teeeeee-Veeeeee!

Yeah, I know, it's a tired old cliche, but I do believe this nation will not rise up as long as the Cable Teeeeeee-Veeeeeee stays hooked up.

Even Comcast is coming to the realization that they are finally squeezing the consumer as hard as they can be squeezed. They're losing customers because people can't afford $70+ a month for the Glass Tit.

[Overseas]

7. K&R.

[malaise]

9. K & R

I love Bill Moyers

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. A very good piece, but quite depressing

The money used by the ultra-rich to ensure they continue to control the vast majority of wealth is horribly large. But they know they'll get it back ten times over when they win.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

11. In solidarity with all those subject to the fleecing of the less affluent...

:kick: and R

[ProSense]

12. Obviously, no one heeded his message

<...>

Our leaders in Washington seem entirely out of touch with the needs, the hopes, the fears and the anxieties of the millions of Americans who are out of work, who are struggling with their mortgages or home foreclosures, who are skimping on needed medication in order to keep food on the table, and who lie awake at night worrying about what the morning will bring. No one even dares mention the poor.

What this election tells me is that real leadership will have to come from elsewhere, from outside of Washington, perhaps from elected officials in statehouses or municipal buildings that are closer to the people, from foundations and grass-roots organizations, from the labor movement and houses of worship and community centers.

The civil rights pioneers did not wait for presidential or Congressional leadership, nor did the leaders of the women’s movement. They plunged ahead with their crucial work against the longest odds and in the face of seemingly implacable hostility. Leaders of the labor movement braved guns, bombs, imprisonment and heaven knows what else to bring fair wages and dignity to working people.

America’s can-do spirit can be revived, and with it a brighter vision of a fairer, more inclusive, and more humane society. But not if we wait on Washington to do it. The loudest message from Tuesday’s election is that the people themselves need to do much more.

The statehouses are run mostly by Republicans, and a mass movement to reverse that hasn't materialized since he gave that speech.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

16. "...the people themselves need to do much more."

He said "perhaps" people from the statehouses. When we run out of options to get someone else to do this for us we'll finally come to the conclusion that we have to do it ourselves, which is what I've been trying to get across here.

No one who is getting fleeced by these people and these entities considered to be people can afford not to be protesting, writing letters, making phone calls, etc. - en masse.

As long as everybody sits there whining and wondering why 'someone else' isn't doing it in DC or a statehouse or wherever, it won't get done. "Our elected officials" are not on our side, so it can't be expected of them. Don't bother.

There is no one else. Sit here and get fleeced - or act. That's the choice now.

[Enthusiast]

19. "That's the choice now."

True, unfortunately.

[raouldukelives]

13. K&R

[IDemo]

15. "The financial class had won another round"?

That makes it sound like it began as a boxing match or some other contest between equals. What they're getting away with is more like prison rape.

[Enthusiast]

20. Yup..............nt

[NorthCarolina]

17. K&R

[nineteen50]

18. Do the Rich Need the Rest of America?”

 Yes, who else would socialize their loses and privatize their
profits. Taxpayers did by taking on the Wall Street debt and
recover of the markets and its loses became government
guaranteed. The greatest transfer of debt in the history of
the world.

[ejbr]

21. k & r !! n/t

[bdamomma]

22. get those torches and pitchforks ready..................

yea sure, the american people will not do anything until their toys are taken away from them.

How low can the american people go on their bloody knees (probably lying on our backs now) for the rich fleecing the American people? The rich can choke on their greed.

[lutherj]

23. The building of guillotines lies squarely in the working class skill set. nt

[myrna minx]

24. K&R n/t

[rhett o rick]

25. Yes the rich very much need America. The middle class still has lots of money collectively

and the country has plenty of natural resources yet to plunder. They wont stop until we look like Haiti.