I think part of the problem is that there's a whole lot of people out there who can't quantify how much wealthier the people feeding them the "Creating Jobs" stuff are. See: http://videosift.com/video/Most-Americans-Unaware-of-Growing-Concentration-of-Wealth at the 1:40 mark. Everyone thinks they are middle class that's a 29k avg neighborhood and 140k neighborhood, 3:30 repeats it again....they think the majority of Americans are middle class.

I'd venture to say that many people in that crowd are there, not because they understand that the people working on wall street dwarf their salary probably by a factor of 4 or 5 in the lower paid white collar jobs and up into the 100+ factors when they get into the upper positions. They are there because they want what they had back, and they can now see that Wall Street or at least the mentality of Wall Street has in a very short period of time affected many aspects of their lives.

If they could still afford a place to live, food, and have a decent job, they probably would have never noticed the long term erosion of the system by those with the money and power...twisting it so they took more of the pie and left the middle and lower class to figure out how they will afford their house (debt which in turn shifts more money up the ladder).

I mean most people who have jobs right now, the only information they care about on unemployment is when it comes from someone they know who they consider to be a "useful employee" and not their stoner brother, etc. And even then it's probably "These things happen, you'll find another job." until they are still unemployed 6 months later....maybe they were just lazy. 12 months rolls around and they are still unemployed? Now it starts to scare the living shit out of people, especially when another friend or family lost their job a month or two back. When it looks like it might affect them personally is when they care, and by that time it's been 1-2 years of people they know going unemployed at various times...working at McDs or Walmart because there's nothing out there.

http://videosift.com/video/Food-Speculation-Explained

Showing another way the Wall Street mentality is just giving us all a good screwing. Instead of these folks taking their talents to create something, they leech off of the people doing the work and drive up costs while creating massive uncertainty for everyone involved.

http://videosift.com/video/Elizabeth-Warren-The-Coming-Collapse-of-the-Middle-Class

Shows that people were experiencing bankruptcy more often that you would assume, but were able to hide it. Plus the general fixed costs being increasingly higher over the years with no overall salary gains to offset them.

http://videosift.com/video/Paul-Krugman-Income-Inequality-and-the-Middle-Class

Showing that they have been on the union bust kick for 30 years now at least, and it's something unique to the US because Canada in a similar global economy still has the level of unionized work force as the US had 30 years ago. Education has nothing to do with the income disparity. And the income disparity was fixed by policies put in place during the 1930s and early 40s. Which have been removed layer by layer since then, with increasing frequency in more recent history. And he points out in the video that the highest paid hedge fund manager makes more in a single year than 88000 NY teachers do in 3 years, my recounting of it might be off a little it's near the end of the video.


http://videosift.com/video/Multi-Millionaire-Rep-Says-He-Can-8482-t-Afford-A-Tax-Hike

Then you have this knucklehead talking about 200k to feed his family and how he can't afford a tax hike because it will prevent him from investing in store improvements and openings (that make him MORE money, so yeah..). Jon Stewart covered this in a much more funny way and how stupid the argument being made is. I'll re-iterate my take on this though. If they can't create jobs with the money they have coming in now after all the other tax deductions over the years, and all the opportunities before this day to do.....they will not do so. It's a fool's bet to depend on some guy who can't demonstrate how he has created jobs in the last 2-4 years in some meaningful way and how those low taxes make it possible to do so. Taxes would pretty much force him to reinvest in his business because if he tried to take it in profit he'd be paying a chunk of it out in taxes.




I think the most profane thing about this country right now is that people who want to work can't find work. And those who are working, especially blue collar jobs have a bunch of white collar guys speculating on their production....every thing that blue collar guy makes/produces probably has 10 or more white collar guys trying to make a buck off of it. It's like a house of cards, except the support structures are the very few people who still put out useable materials. It's crazy how something like that was let run wild, with more and more of the regulation taken away so they could stack even more cards onto the mess. The money isn't to be had in production, it's made in speculating/futures/etc...and it's just massively crazy to realize that all the middlemen are allowed to drive up the costs of oil/food/etc instead of cutting that shit out through regulation.

The conservative agenda has systematically set up the economy over the last 50 years so that poor people are poorer and the middle class is disappearing.

What you mistakenly blame on conservatives is actually caused by the increase in government and the centralization of power. Larger government in bed with industry results in crony capitalism that steers wealth to large government and large companies. This is not the conservative agenda. That is the LIBERAL agenda which is promulgated by both democrats and the GOP. Fiscal conservatives want nothing to do with it. That is what the Tea Party is all about. Do you want to improve income disparity? Join the Tea Party and elect more fiscal conservatives to pare down big government, and knee-cap the crony capitalism that results from it.

So Christ was just kidding about "turn the other cheek"? You can hold someone accountable without killing them in cold blood.

First off – no one is killing in cold blood. That’s just your bias talking.

Second - Christ teaching people to avoid anger and revenge in their personal lives has nothing to do with capital punishment. A person can follow the turn the other cheek philosophy in their personal lives, and yet still support capital punishment for society’s guilty. Capital punishment isn’t about revenge. It is about justice.

And you're being utterly disingenuous to pretend they're "cheering for justice". That is BS and you know it. They are cheering for vengeance.

Who are you to say that? Are you a mind reader? Do you have psychic powers? Of course not. You’re just another biased neolib who is projecting your own anger and hatred onto other people. You say its BS. Well, could not someone else say it is “BS” to claim that neolibs are cheering ‘free choice’ when they applaud the murdering of innocent children? See how that works? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

@marbles

-Yes, Ron Paul is naive when it comes to economics, by putting his faith in neo-liberal doctrinal scripture that has no evidence to support it, nor any basis in the reality of a modern economy. The fact that he believes capitalism to be the embodiment of liberty is the root of this naivety.

Privatization, deregulation, international 'free' trade agreements and austerity -all principles of neo-liberal thought- have caused the lion share of our current economic woes: massive income disparity, high unemployment, wage slavery, inflation, labor abuse, war profiteering, eroding of civil rights, the death of many a small business, massive corruption, environmental harm, etc. Think of all the major economic scandals of the last few decades - The Saving and Loan Scandal, The Foreclosure scandal, Enron, the oil spills, Katrina (the aftermath, not the weather event), etc. All of them are the result of deregulation. I know that government interference is a big boogey man to the capitalist libertarian set, but every single one of these scandals could have been prevented with proper regulation and/or proper oversight.

-Yes, I'm sorry to say it, but Ron Paul does play the game, and he is a part of the two party system.
Check out the damage control here: http://videosift.com/search?q=ron+paul+earmarks

-If you remember 4 years ago, people were saying the same things about Obama that you are saying about Ron Paul today - that he is the answer to all our problems - but then he moved into the White House and was forced to abandon or compromise nearly all of his promises. I warn you against political hero worship. No matter how much you like the guy, no matter how much grandfatherly charm he exudes, he is still a politician who must play by the rules of the broken system.

I could be wrong, and these comments will be here next year to rub in my face in the off chance that America is transformed into Galt Island.

As Sammy Hagar once said in his infinite wisdom, "Only time will tell if we can stand the test of time."

A rather simplistic, populist bit of tripe.

To start with, if this guy thinks that things were so great back in the 1960s then maybe he should think again. The 'middle class' he talks about in the 60s was a far smaller entity than it is in 2011. In the 60s the country had a higher proportion of people in the 'lower' class. Since that time, the average american family has gotten proportionally wealthier - not poorer - and enjoys a higher standard of living, more property, and greater economic freedom than ever before. The entire premise of this video is nothing but an anachronistic fantasy.

The pap about families easily affording homes, cars, education, and retirement in the 60s on a single income is also a load of bull feathers. Middle class stiffs had to make tough choices back then too, and didn't have the dosh to just toss around money like that. His cutsey chalkboard claptrap cartoons of a smiling 'middle class' family easily affording any expense they wanted is stupidly wrong.

And this moron acts like people on a single income TODAY can't afford a home, car, college, and retirement. I am the lone wage-earner in my family. Not ONCE have I gotten government assistance or a handout on the dole. And I own a home, 2 cars, have $13,000 in savings for the kids, and I'm on track to be a millionaire when I retire. How did I do it? Because I'm not stupid. The middle class doesn't have to go into debt for these things - and this JERK'S premise that MC families have to rack up huge debt to live life is absolute specious.

And unions - yeesh. I noticed carefully that this obviously neolib goombah didn't bother mentioning that the over 26 TRILLION dollars in debt this nation has only exists because of private and public sector union unfunded liabilities. Corporations send world overseas because unions ARE making the cost of business in the U.S. (not to mention the fact that we're #1 in the world in corporate taxation) unfeasible for many industries. And he also doesn't mention the decrease in union size is only in the private sector, but that PUBLIC sector unions have swollen in size to gargantuan, slovenly, grotesque levels - and are (of course) literally breaking America's bank with thier costs. Of course companies outsource labor when paying a US employee costs them 100X as much money for only a fraction of the output. Only in the neolib Planet Fantasy does everyone get 100,000 a year for pushing brooms, assembling widgets, and other unskilled jobs that any reasonably trained lemming can perform.

He also doesn't mention that the top 50% of American taxpayers are paying 95% of the taxes, and that the "middle class" that he disingenously claims to speak for is actually paying almost NO INCOME TAXES at all. The bottom 50% of wage-earners (that's the middle class for you neolib idiots out there) only pay 5% of the taxes. How much more can the you burden the top 50% with before they pull up stakes and leave? That's the problem New York City, Chicago, LA, and many other neolib Meccas are facing. They have raised taxes so high on "the rich" (which Obama defines as anyone earning over 200K) that they are leaving these leftist enclaves, which in turn are literally dying on the vine under the weight of their own stupid policies and union debt.

But I do agree with some of the comments about lobbyists and the tax code. I do believe that is a problem, but it is a GOVERNMENT problem not a lobbyist problem. The government is the new "Robber Baron", when 100 years ago the government was protecting people from Robber barons. But of course this guy doesn't focus on the fact that it is GOVERNMENT making these stupid laws, and not companies. In fact, many companies hated the repeal of Glass-Steagall but government wanted it so Barney Frank could have is precious UFFODUBBLE HOWZING! Banks never wanted to be forced to give loans to people who they never would have touched in the 1960s - but Government played the Race Card with accusations of redlining and forced it through.

The problems with income disparity people whine about are largely a phantom. More people in the US are wealthier than they've ever been in the nation's history. Carping about how much MORE the uber-rich have than the middle class is pure sophistry.

>> ^vaporlock:

I can't imagine, even with the overt racism of the south, that they would go back to slavery (even rhetorically). However, I think that serfdom and open racism would definitely be part of their Southern moral "philosophy".

Well, that's what I was thinking when I wondered how close they'd get. I think they'd be perfectly cool with creating a legally defined serf class that on paper would be assigned to people for reasons that are purely economic (e.g. a replacement for bankruptcy, or a possible criminal punishment for defaulting on debt), but in practice would overwhelmingly be applied to non-whites due to discrimination and existing wealth and income disparity left over from the (First?) Civil War.

>> ^JesseoftheNorth:

OK, so having grown up in Nunavut, I feel I should weigh in on this and dispell some of the misconceptions that have come up in the comments. These prices are from two of the larger communities in Nunavut which means that the prices are even higher in the more isolated communities. The prices are so high partly because everything has to be flown in or shipped during the few months of ice-free summer. Also, there is basically a duopoly when it comes to grocery stores in Nunavut meaning they can charge pretty much whatever they want.
I don't know where citystats.ca got their data from on the median incomes, but it's actually much lower according to Statistics Canada. The median income reported by Nunavut tax filers in 2008 was only $26,460 a year and $57,330 for Iqaluit that same year. In Sanikiluaq, which is one of the poorer communities, the median income was a measly $9,730. In Arctic Bay, where I grew up, the median income for the year fell to $11,810 from $12,500 in 2006.
There is a serious income disparity problem in Nunavut and it is the local Inuit that suffer as a result. The largest employer in the Territory by far is the Territorial and Federal Government. Those of us who are lucky enough to have a job in the public center enjoy high salaries and benefits and are able to afford the exorbitant cost of living here, but everyone else is pretty much shit outta luck. Unfortunately, it is mainly southerners that enjoy the high wages. There are of course southerners that live here because they genuinely love the land and the people (such as my Quebecois mother) but the vast majority of southern workers are here only for the purposes of lining their pockets and don't contribute much to the communities.
As for those who don't understand why people live up here, I'm not even going to bother to explain it, because you probably won't get it anyways. I'm proud to be from Nunavut despite all the problems there are up here.



dude, if you gotta pay near 50 bucks for a pack of toilet paper, forget pride man. emigrate.

Well put @JesseoftheNorth.

@Mcboinkens and others, asking why people live there is like asking why people live in "tornado alley" or Siberia or Afghanistan or any number of places. Most of the people have no real choice about it (not being able to afford anything but just carrying on with their lives), some just love the area and would never leave, and the remaining few are making a better living there than they would elsewhere.

The prices definitely suck from the perspective of someone who doesn't live there, but thanks to lack of competition and the income disparity, the prices suck even worse for many living in these communities.

OK, so having grown up in Nunavut, I feel I should weigh in on this and dispell some of the misconceptions that have come up in the comments. These prices are from two of the larger communities in Nunavut which means that the prices are even higher in the more isolated communities. The prices are so high partly because everything has to be flown in or shipped during the few months of ice-free summer. Also, there is basically a duopoly when it comes to grocery stores in Nunavut meaning they can charge pretty much whatever they want.

I don't know where citystats.ca got their data from on the median incomes, but it's actually much lower according to Statistics Canada. The median income reported by Nunavut tax filers in 2008 was only $26,460 a year and $57,330 for Iqaluit that same year. In Sanikiluaq, which is one of the poorer communities, the median income was a measly $9,730. In Arctic Bay, where I grew up, the median income for the year fell to $11,810 from $12,500 in 2006.

There is a serious income disparity problem in Nunavut and it is the local Inuit that suffer as a result. The largest employer in the Territory by far is the Territorial and Federal Government. Those of us who are lucky enough to have a job in the public center enjoy high salaries and benefits and are able to afford the exorbitant cost of living here, but everyone else is pretty much shit outta luck. Unfortunately, it is mainly southerners that enjoy the high wages. There are of course southerners that live here because they genuinely love the land and the people (such as my Quebecois mother) but the vast majority of southern workers are here only for the purposes of lining their pockets and don't contribute much to the communities.

As for those who don't understand why people live up here, I'm not even going to bother to explain it, because you probably won't get it anyways. I'm proud to be from Nunavut despite all the problems there are up here.

While the yuan is tentatively pegged to the dollar, it's hard to argue anything has changed.

A currency needs years, decades even to gain reserve currency status. With the current debt instability in the Euro area, this has become a very unlikely proposition. The yuan is even less likely, partly because currently it is still essentially pegged to the dollar and partly because it still far, far from being the pre-eminent power with massive income disparity comparing the cities to the countryside, unstable regions, and even purely festering structural issues like water shortage and pollution. What's more likely is it being replaced also in the medium to long term by the IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR), basically an amalgamated currency with proportionate representations by major economic world power currencies.

The thing is though if the US were gradually replaced by other (or combination of) currencies it would be quite beneficial to the US economy.

The main effect would be a depreciation of the US dollar. The US dollar is in excessive demand because it is used in trade internationally, something that hurts US export competitiveness. A currency depreciation would make imports less competitive and exports more competitive. Less incentive to overconsume Chinese manufacturing, more incentive to export products thus improving the US trade balance and foreign debt.

Slight inflationary pressure. Currently deflation is a bigger worry, especially if it becomes entrenched as in Japan.

Public debt? Largely wouldn't be affected because it is predominantly denominated in US currency (Treasury bills) thus currency value does not play into the equation.

Point is, it's largely a good thing.

>> ^chilaxe:

@NetRunner: "to try to make sure all men are still being created equally."
"Still?" Don't you mean 'for the first time since the start of civilization?'
"All men are created equal" means equality under the law, not that humans are even remotely equal in abilities and cognitive complexity.

Good points, but I was more making an allusion to the Declaration than actually meaning to invoke the original. All I meant was that our position will likely be one of trying to keep the income disparity between the different classes from turning the rich and poor into effectively different species.

Right now, genetics makes a difference, but the range of human ability is pretty narrow compared to what will be possible with genetic engineering.

>> ^chilaxe:
Re: reprogenetics:
It's essentially the same as the term 'genetic engineering,' which liberal circles talk about frequently, generally being highly opposed to human genetic engineering and anything else "unnatural."
I'm more than a little plugged into what liberal circles talk about, and fears of human genetic engineering really never comes up. If it does, it's usually in the context of bashing right-wing fundamentalists who want to ban stem cell research.

Genemod food comes up a lot, but most of that is driven by deep mistrust of corporations doing things to boost profit without concern for long term public health risks, coupled with the whole natural/organic/pure/clean food thing so many liberals are in to.

I suppose the other big topic is the idea of companies being able to patent genetic codes. Liberals don't like that, but it's usually focused on corporations overstepping their bounds (e.g. patenting the DNA of people without their consent) than some general desire to prevent corporations from being able to patent genetic intellectual property they legitimately develop.

>> ^chilaxe:
Re: "You may need to elaborate on the "liberals oppose genetics" comment -- we like research into genetics"
Liberalism in the 1970s-1990s used to argue IQ etc. had "no genetic basis --not that IQ means anything."

[snip]

However, it's still very common to see liberals claiming human behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology, or human intelligence research are meaningless or simply have too high a "yuck factor" to allow for open discussion. That's particularly true if you're dealing with the more interesting areas, which are taboo for liberals:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html


I can't speak for all liberals on this one, but I don't see those kinds of subjects as being taboo. I guess what I do think is taboo is for someone to use studies like that to turn around and make the case that society should become less egalitarian because of it.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm more saying that propaganda these days is all in the eye of the beholder.

I say the New Deal was a massive success, and the movement away from it didn't bring us any economic improvement (unless greater income disparity is "improvement").

You'd say that's propaganda.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the truth, and teaching people that as historical reality is the truthful way to do things.

Teaching people about the debate is a fair enough band-aid on the issue, but in this case, and many other debates, the facts are unequivocal. It's almost as unscrupulous as the cries to "teach the debate" on evolution vs. creationism.

The Texas school board is currently trying to get history textbooks to do for the Great Depression and the New Deal what they've done for evolution. I say that's about a thousand times worse than your hint of a whiff of ideology you don't like in a Saturday morning cartoon.

But, apparently the cartoon struck a deeper chord with you because it's got a slight whiff of something you think is evil, when the blatant historical revisionism towards your view doesn't warrant comment.

Of course, even if you thought the revisionism was an issue, you'd probably just give some ideological dismissal like "there shouldn't be public school boards", even though some board somewhere is always going to be making choices about textbooks, unless people take the time and effort to homeschool (which isn't a practical solution for most people).

I agree that you'll never fix problems without talking about them, but sometimes it all feels like everyone's just trying to drown each other out with their own "propaganda", and there's no way for people to objectively settle disputes and reach a consensus anymore.

It's too easy to just say "that's not true!" and do a google search for someone backing up your viewpoint, and stop worrying about having to change your views to fit the facts.

>> ^Doc_M:
It's a shame to see the median income has dropped so low bellow the mean.
I'm guessing it will be even more shocking in a year when we see the 2009 national debt and inflation rate. The rate at which we have been printing money this year makes Al Gore's "hockey stick" look like a tooth pick. Not to mention the other trillions that the new administration and the Dem congress want to dish out.


Not to pick on you, DocM, but your comment (and the fact that it's gotten several upvotes), is a prime example of how I think most conservatives misunderstand the relationship of various aspects of our economy.

First, you make a comment about median incomes dropping so far below the mean. As a liberal/progressive, I think after unemployment, that's one of the largest issues with our economy today.

Second, you say you think that issue will be somehow directly affected by the national debt and inflation rate (with the implication that those two things also have direct correlation to each other).

Third, you blame Democrats, and not the Fed, for the increase in the money supply, and presumably the inflation rate and national debt too.

The charts already on display should dispel all of these assertions, but somehow, they haven't.

If you look at real national debt, you will see that the curve had a brief slope downward during the Clinton years. CPI during that time continued to rise. National Debt and inflation do not have a causal relationship, nor do Democrats and National Debt, if you look at joedirt's chart.

Now, Fed interest rates and inflation rates have a high correlation, though that's not a perfect fit, either. I don't think we have a chart that shows us inflation vs. income disparity, but I'd love to see that, along with top marginal tax rates, and see which has a higher degree of correlation, because I think income disparity has more to do with tax rates than inflation.

Lastly, there is actually a reason why Democrats (and the Fed) are dishing out trillions. Notice how the CPI has a hook downward? That's deflation, and the last time we had that was during the Great Depression. So Ben Bernanke, being a student of Milton Friedman, is pumping out massive amounts of cash to try to prevent a deflationary cycle from taking root. Unfortunately, Fed rates have been at zero for a while now, and it can't get any lower, which brings us to fiscal stimulus, like what Obama got passed.

Now, imstellar subscribes to a theory of economics that essentially says deflation is a good and natural thing. That's fine. I disagree, but at least there are plenty of people smarter than both he and I who take up opposing sides of that debate.

Most conservatives though, have never heard of Austrian Economics, and certainly can't explain why they disagree with most mainstream economists about what to do right now. They're operating on a much simpler philosophy: say anything to encourage people to think everything bad happens because of (Democratic) government.

Lots of people repeat ludicrously nonsensical economic "policy" on that foundation alone, and do things like relentlessly point at the green line in Chart #3 and say "see, our debt is insane!" When the real issue is the size of the gap between the Red and Green lines on that chart, not the height of the Green line itself. Then they mix in inflation, not understanding that inflation actually helps keep our debt under control to some degree, since the dollars we owe are fixed, but the value of the dollars we use to pay off the debt are worth less as time goes on.

They also seem to propose, with just as much vigor, that what government needs to do is slash taxes, without remembering their momentary concern over debt. They also seem to think cutting government spending in a recession will help speed the recovery, not deepen the decline (ditto for letting banks and auto manufacturers collapse spectacularly). They also fail to see that a contracting economy can create a government deficit all on its own, since tax revenues fall as unemployment rises and mean income falls, and dismiss the proposition that government spending to get us out of a recession is likely better for the debt in the long run.

So in the end, we end up fighting about the same tired bromides about the size of government, rather than noticing that income disparity has been growing steadily despite an overwhelmingly conservative swing in our government's policy for the last 30+ years.

But people go on merrily slitting their own economic throats by demonizing Democrats as "big spending liberals" or more recently "socialists", not realizing that we're the ones that want to cut your taxes, and make government serve the people and not just the top 1% of income earners, and make fixing income disparity a top issue.

I'm not really surprised by that, but I'm constantly fascinated at how many knots people have to twist themselves in to defend the Republican party line.

I never said a conservative government forced banks to slit their own throats, NR, so please, my dearest friend, stop putting words in my mouth to try and win your argument. Secondly, never did I say it's wrong to criticize Capitalism. Criticize all you want, but you act as if those criticisms shouldn't be challenged or else we're trying to place a muzzle on you.

You wrote: "All the guy is saying is "hey, check out what's been happening with income disparity, doesn't seem fair, does it?""

Really? That's all he's saying? I don't think he said that at all. I think he wrote what he wrote and it was pretty clear. And, I think my answer was rather clear, as well. And, no, Marxian Economists are NOT experts (or specialists) in critiquing Capitalist economic systems. That statement is no more true than me saying Republicans are experts (or "specialists") in critiquing Democrats. That's like saying if you oppose something, you immediately become the expert of your opposition! I suppose in NetRuner's world those who oppose science should also be called scientists?

Infallible logic. I'm glad you're standing behind it, NR.

>> ^blankfist:
That aside, the failed economy isn't reason to make a scapegoat out of Capitalism. Capitalism didn't "shit the bed" - government spending, and endless war, falsely propping up the housing market, etc. shat the bed.
When human greed belies the current economic system, I think we'd be remiss to denounce it eagerly.


Two points: First, you just shat your own bed by claiming that a conservative government forced banks to slit their own throats, financially speaking, and Second critiquing capitalism is fair game, just like it is to question Commisar President Obama. If critique of the dominant way of thought becomes verboten, it leads to tyranny (and more German words).

All the guy is saying is "hey, check out what's been happening with income disparity, doesn't seem fair, does it?"

PS: I bet you look just as wild eyed when talking about corn.

>> ^dag:
This is a good clip - but title is inaccurate. He's not talking about a run on the dollar, he's telling a parable.


I agree, and maybe it's just my pinko-commie side shining through, but it sounds like a parable about labor, management, and income disparity, not something like currency reserves.

I also thought it was going to end with a bout of cannibalism, but maybe that's just my hunger for human flesh shining through.