*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 2:13pm PDT - promote requested by marinara.

"Americans in the top one percent, like Americans in most income brackets, are not there permanently, despite being talked about and written about as if they are an enduring 'class' — especially by those who have overdosed on the magic formula of 'race, class and gender,' which has replaced thought in many intellectual circles."


That “Top One Percent”
Not an enduring class.

If it's *controversy, it's news.

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by MrFisk.

QM: doesn't matter if the rich stay or not. The fact of the disparity is a huge problem for the economy. The fact that a few people have a big influence in the economy and government is a huge problem for the stability of the economy and for the future of our society.

-Karl

The article you link to is automatically untrue by the statement that if one owns a home in San Francisco and they sell it - they will become apart of the top 1% for that year. Having a million $$ in the bank these days does not constitute as the top 1%. So, unless you have a house that you can sell for much more than a mil you're no where near the amount someone in that bracket has. Supposedly, the top 1% earners make nearly a half mil a year, which probably doesn't include investments & bonuses. This is not the same as the wealthiest top 1% who have money in the family or were the CEO of Blizzard or Microsoft.

The wealthiest top 1% has owned 40%+ of wealth in the country since the late 20's. More and more people have been born, inflation soared through the roof yet the percentage of wealth to the same percentage of people remains nearly the same.

Face it, both the Republicans and Democrats are fraudulent, corporate, whores. They bend over backwards for these old goofballs who own the political spectrum. It's just a fucking fact, wake up!


>> ^quantumushroom:

"Americans in the top one percent, like Americans in most income brackets, are not there permanently, despite being talked about and written about as if they are an enduring 'class' — especially by those who have overdosed on the magic formula of 'race, class and gender,' which has replaced thought in many intellectual circles."

That “Top One Percent”
Not an enduring class.

>> ^quantumushroom:

"Americans in the top one percent, like Americans in most income brackets, are not there permanently, despite being talked about and written about as if they are an enduring 'class' — especially by those who have overdosed on the magic formula of 'race, class and gender,' which has replaced thought in many intellectual circles."

That “Top One Percent”
Not an enduring class.


HAHAHAHHA! Dude this article backfires...by saying what it does, it's claiming that the "controlling class" is even LESS than 1% because of statistical skewing...HAHAHAHAHAH DERP!

The revolution will not be televised.

By the way, I was at a special corporate evening last night and the main speaker was an oil CEO. They found huge gas seam reserves here in Queensland and there are plans to drill tens of thousands of wells over the next few decades to extract it. So we got propoganda fed to us for nearly 30 minutes, about how it was Queenslands future, and it was unavoidable. Watch "gaslands" the movie documentary if you don't know how badly fracking fucks up the environment and the people living nearby.

All this so a few offshore companies can make fortunes on the back of our own ruin, the biggest irony is that the gas isn't even going to be used in Australia, it's all getting shipped overseas, so our local gas prices are going to increase due to the huge amounts of it needed to run the extraction operations.

So god damn sickening.

I'm starting to have little sympathy for the American public. I started out with hating these corporations and hating the Right...now I'm starting to get pissed at the Left and the people. We have the internet, we have the ability to organize...so why the fuck aren't you doing it? The Left could've been organizing people the last couple decades they've fucked up royal. Online movements translated into protests and a groundswell of progress could've happened (and can still) but hasn't. Not that there hasn't been victories but what I see is TONS of like minded people, not happy with the way the corporations and the government fuck us and then not doing anything about it.

We have a democracy...it's not entirely broken. USE IT!

Yogi, I agree with this thought - I always like your comments. You seem like a cool dude or dudette, haha!

I think it's all about solidarity in local politics. The left will always be ignored though. I've witnessed it, I've recounted many times when you know San Francisco / Bay Area residents shutdown SF for several business days the day we started bombing Iraq. You didn't see it in the news - it had no support though it was a democratic movement & one I'd venture to say was an important statement for all Americans who agreed with it. I've seen, what I'd call "mainstream" tactics at protests - it's exactly what mainstream media is about. They create their own scenarios and infiltrate in order to break it up. The whole system is corrupt. It's exactly why Bush was voted in twice. What do we do? I refuse to vote any longer except in local politics. I could go on and on with this topic.

Too many people believe in democratic change through protests and who we vote in as a President. It simply doesn't work that way unless people become very aggressive on a very large scale. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm just saying it needs to be very organized, the message simple and the actions hopefully non-violent - but I have not seen non-violent disobedience work in all of my 30 years.

>> ^Yogi:

I'm starting to have little sympathy for the American public. I started out with hating these corporations and hating the Right...now I'm starting to get pissed at the Left and the people. We have the internet, we have the ability to organize...so why the fuck aren't you doing it? The Left could've been organizing people the last couple decades they've fucked up royal. Online movements translated into protests and a groundswell of progress could've happened (and can still) but hasn't. Not that there hasn't been victories but what I see is TONS of like minded people, not happy with the way the corporations and the government fuck us and then not doing anything about it.
We have a democracy...it's not entirely broken. USE IT!

>> ^quantumushroom:

"Americans in the top one percent, like Americans in most income brackets, are not there permanently, despite being talked about and written about as if they are an enduring 'class' — especially by those who have overdosed on the magic formula of 'race, class and gender,' which has replaced thought in many intellectual circles."

That “Top One Percent”
Not an enduring class.


Possessions are factored into wealth. So if you own an expensive house and then sell it, you don't get any wealthier, you just have more cash. Many of the wealthiest people in the world do not have a large amount of liquid assets. The mutilation of logic here is staggering.

DUUUUUHHHHH!!!!

When lower and middle class spend money to buy things, the demand spurs more hiring, etc..

You fellows are buying into something you don't seem to have thought all the way through. If you spread all wealth equally across the board, in a month things would look about the same as they do now, as foolhardy choices were made and the inexperienced gambled their "profits" away.

Communism attempted to eliminate the profit motive. It's been a disaster everywhere it's been tried.

Socialist countries are not only less competitive than capitalist ones, many of them across Europe are now in serious trouble.

You do know most of the American "poor" are well fed, own their own homes, have two vehicles, 3 TVs, cable, computers, appliances, etc?

One other thing. I do not believe for one second that if any of you "revolutionaries" won the lottery, you wouldn't immediately put together a legal team to rival Mr. Burns' on The Simpsons and proceed to exploit every tax shelter and loophole possible.

>> ^quantumushroom:
You do know most of the American "poor" are well fed, own their own homes, have two vehicles, 3 TVs, cable, computers, appliances, etc?


Give me a break dude. I don't make very much money but I'm certainly not impoverished. I share one car with my wife, rent a house, watch all my TV on my 17 inch monitor and my prized possessions are my food processor and my washing machine.

You can look at it any way you want. I'm considered "middle-class" by all terms. I have super cheap rent in one of the most expensive places in the US, that is of my own accord. But I sure as hell can't afford anything. I take public transit, ride my bike, I still eat the best organics in the nation and have the best friends I could have ever met.

I've had many jobs where I've done the work of the higher-ups and seen what they do while making 5X the amount of money I do. I know they know they're lucky, but, I've also seen how they choose to make financial decisions for their own gain - one of those being getting others to do their work for them. Corrupt fucks.

One of my main influences for being more "socially" inclined was my father. A CEO, he wasn't a scumbag or anything - at least not to my knowledge (he did help build prisons) but just the thought of people putting profit before their own lives & family is sickening.

To his credit, he grew up in Philly with a mother who lost her husband (an olympic athelete) early on. She grew up during the depression and only had a 4th grade education. She was one of those cuties that saved huge tin foil balls. I know my father worked hard and felt obligated to but I think and will always think he cared too much about making profit.

He still touts that. Now that I am nearly an old man he admitted while we sipped on some bourbon and smoked a cigar that, "All I ever wanted was to make money." My reply was "yeah." I looked him in his empty eyes and saw a robot. Sure he has a super nice house on a lake system, an amazing wife, nice cars, a speed boat, a golf course... hardly any friends, kids that don't appreciate him... but he has shitloads of money. Good for him! That's amazing. Money really informs people what life is truly about, keeps people focused on what is really important. Paying your taxes, keeping your yard and hair well groomed, going to stiff social events and working. Man, that is just not a life worth living in my opinion.

On the opposite side of the spectrum their are jobs where everyone is paid nearly the same, they buy into their businesses and co-own their businesses and everyone comes out a winner with 30k+ bonuses at the end of the year. The only people that may not think they're winners are people that are greedy fucks that require too much. But, at the same time these people are able to live regular lives that promote interaction, activity & family. Not that I believe in having a family, but when you do not have to take your bullshit job home with you or work many many extra hours the better it is for everyone.

>> ^quantumushroom:

You fellows are buying into something you don't seem to have thought all the way through. If you spread all wealth equally across the board, in a month things would look about the same as they do now, as foolhardy choices were made and the inexperienced gambled their "profits" away.
Communism attempted to eliminate the profit motive. It's been a disaster everywhere it's been tried.
Socialist countries are not only less competitive than capitalist ones, many of them across Europe are now in serious trouble.
You do know most of the American "poor" are well fed, own their own homes, have two vehicles, 3 TVs, cable, computers, appliances, etc?
One other thing. I do not believe for one second that if any of you "revolutionaries" won the lottery, you wouldn't immediately put together a legal team to rival Mr. Burns' on The Simpsons and proceed to exploit every tax shelter and loophole possible.

I am so disappointed in the Obama.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 7:28pm PDT - promote requested by MycroftHomlz.

I don't think I remember hearing about this massive protest, and I live in NYC! Damn, this is sad.

The problem with both parties here in the US AND Communism is that they're all based around central planning. Central planning is always going to have hideous unforeseen consequences and drawbacks, and those consequences and drawbacks will become continually more spectacular and significant as the world becomes more complex.

Being against central planning may sound like an anti-regulation or Libertarian view, but it's not. Libertarians want as little government as possible...I don't. I just want government to stop trying to create and manage complex systems based on mathematical models of the world that can never be complete.

Regulations should be roughly akin to commandments, but should be flexible. You come up with a set of rules and then you tinker with them over time. It's a lot better to tell people not to do things you know are bad than it is to try and tell people how to do things. The latter nearly always ends up being terrible for some subset of whatever group you're trying to make policy for. The former is reactive, and therefore politically non-viable because humans generally have a bias toward intervention. People pick leaders because of what they say they know and what they say they'll do. People need to start learning that saying "I don't know" is often the most honest answer, and doing nothing is often the best course of action.

Centrally planned government as we know it and corporations are pretty much the same thing in my book.

I think FDR had it about right...you do something and if it doesn't work you try something else until you find something that does work. It's called tinkering. It's what nature does! Not to mention every significant invention in the history of the world has been produced in this way...discovered by accident while tinkering with something questionably related. Probably the best example of this that relates to any videos that have been on sift lately is the DeGrasse-Tyson video about the big bang...the two guys that won the Nobel for physics in 1978 won it purely by accident.