I've been asked by a representative from the infamous one per cent to deliver this letter to the 99 per cent and the Occupy movement protesters.
Dear 99 per cent,
On behalf of the one per cent, we just wanted to send you a sincere and heartfelt thank you for your recent efforts at the "Occupy" protests.
We, the wealthiest people in the world, are extremely grateful you took to the streets to get the word out about the insane lack of parity in wealth distribution in the United States and Canada, and we are glad that you gave the issue of corruption in the world's financial markets a global stage.
No really, we are.
The truth is, yes, of course it's pretty awesome being this wealthy. I'm dictating this to my personal assistant right now, who is riding shotgun while I'm speeding down the highway in my Ferrari throwing caviar out the window -- I'm not even eating it! I bought this caviar just to huck it at other, lesser cars. What's more, this is the only thing for which I use this particular car.
Sure, I'm living the dream now, but to level with you, before you guys started the Occupy movement, we were all just a little bit uneasy with the situation.
What I mean to say is, being able to buy and sell most of the other humans on the planet is great, but can you consider the relative unease that comes with amassing so much wealth and power, so quickly, so easily?
Put yourself in our shoes made from Iberian Lynx for a minute. It's estimated that today we, the one per cent, control 40 per cent of the world's wealth and that just 25 years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 per cent and 33 per cent. Surely, we all thought in this meteoric rise to history's worst balance of wealth, someone, somewhere, would take notice and do something soon.
It's been nerve-racking waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Yes, we still routinely gathered to laugh at the poor as we drank the world's best scotches out of the hollowed-out skulls of endangered species, but it was not without the odd shaking hand or niggling doubt.
Once in a while, lighting one of the world's finest cigars with flaming copies of corporate tax legislation, one of us would look around the country club, wave a diamond-studded sceptre, and shout, "Surely, it can't be this simple to dupe so many people?! Some day they'll come for us!"
And it really killed our buzz.
But now, thanks to your "protests," we know we're safe.
What I mean to say is that, thanks to your efforts, we now know there is absolutely nothing to fear and that we are comfortably entrenched as the ruling class.
Watching both the left and right wing media relegate coverage of your protests to short interviews with weird, fringe characters and watching how easy it was for the general public to simply ignore your efforts while they continued sucking down our corporate coffee-chain beverages and downloading music for which we pay artists a mere pittance, we breathed a collective Courvoisier-scented sigh of relief.
We dodged a real bullet.
Without a doubt your "movement" represented the largest potential threat to our ridiculously over-the-top well-being that we have ever had to face (sure, we had some anxiety when Obama was elected, but we've straightened all that out now).
I mean, the movement had real, scary potential. According to the communist information-sharing site Wikipedia, the Occupy movement started on September 17, 2011 and by October 9, protests had either taken place or were ongoing in over 95 cities across 82 countries, including over 600 communities in the United States. And yet...we're still here, living large.
In fact, we're hard pressed to find any unifying mission statements, any clear leaders within the movement, and, thankfully, any change in the situation you purport to be protesting at all.
Sure, the movement seemed like a big deal, but in reality, nobody really noticed.
Things are pretty much the way they were before.
So...thanks!
Before you guys, headlines like this one in the National Post revealing that Canada's CEOs make an average worker's salary in just three hours would have been met with shushes, attempts to oppress the news, and possibly even hostile takeovers of the news source just to raze the organization responsible.
But now, thanks to your impotent efforts, we know that no one really cares how wealthy we get. We've seen your efforts and have been reassured that our face-meltingly stupid levels of wealth -- amassed in a time where an estimated 25,000 people die every day because of hunger -- are safe.
Now we can read headlines like the one in the Post with open, public, and enthusiastic high fives (conducted of course by our butlers while we look on from comfortable seats atop our saddled albino elephants).
So we just wanted to say thanks. I mean we always knew we were virtually unstoppable, but it's nice to be just a little more sure of ourselves.
Fight the power and so forth. We think it's hilarious.
Sincerely,
The One Per Cent
Follow Ben Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Ben_T_Johnson
Martin Lukacs: Occupy Movement Cannot Be Ignored
CBC.ca - Interactive - Occupy Canada
Were the Occupy Canada protests successful? - Your Community
Crackdown on Occupy Canada encampments
“We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. ...
Joe Main street is going to have his revenge right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.
The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration might get their way & knock us off the top of the pyramid, but its really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom. We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Main street our food supply…will he? And will they?"
http://thejobmouse.com/2011/10/28/we-are-wall-street-wall-street-strikes-back/
Personally I think they really ARE like dinosaurs, small brains, small ... & blissfully unprepared for extinction.
Basic business principals for any MBA to understand Customers with money to spend = Profits for the 1%
Poor and unemployed customer without money to spend = no profits for the 1%.
So, I say to the 1% --with Europe’s economy going south , China’s housing bubble about pop, exports falling and in American 49% of Americas living in poverty and just above the poverty line were will the greedy 1% go next to try to swing a profit----in the next Global world " Great Depression of 2012.
Sorry guys you are still on the hook all analysis are still out on how this one is going to play out. If the economy does not improve in the next 3 years----Well I guess things will start to change and not in a good way.
So, enjoy your laughs for now.
The financial industry looks "self-serving and greedy in hindsight" but that he's been "doing God's work." Lloyd Blankfein-CEO of Goldman Sachs
Signed,
Canaduh, Corporate Welfare State.
Represented by the Harpercites.
grandmother said, the more you squeeze, the more gets away
in democracy, the only secrect is who you voted for, all else is full disclosure & transparency
YOU, the commoner are responsible for this and only you can fix it
VOTING is something to consider
Dear 1%
Mature individuals live to help others, not feed their inflated egos. You are not special,or smarter, you were at the right place at the right time. Nothing more. As the privileged few on a planet of suffering, you have a responsibility to grow up, get over your selves make a big difference. Going to a black tie cocktail party and writing a cheque for the charity 'du jour' doesn't cut it anymore. The world doesn't revolve around you. You need to serve the world, like any other mature person.
Dear 1%,
YaWWWWWWWWWn!!!! Say what…? You just woke me up!
Sincerely,
SLEEPING GIANT!
What a time to be alive eh?!
and AWAKE!
:D
More like a pebble on top of a mountain....
And that rumbling you may be hearing...?
Yeah, it got cold. People dont want to protest when the chances of a digit (or in a man's case, something worse) has the potential for frostbite.
Just wait until the summer.....
The biggest effects have been on the 99%,... making at least part of that 99% wake up, smell the caffinated beverages, and start to realize that it doesn't HAVE to be this way.
How exactly to fix the problems, how long it is going to take to fix the problems, and who is going to at least figuratively going to see their head in a basket to get it done,... those are still ideas in the process of formation.
If we don't address these problems now, over time the 1% (or even the top 5%) will effectively end up owning everything. Remember, they only need to control 51% of each corporation/government/NGO, to control everything.
At that point, we will have a class-based system -- "Serfs" -- and the top few percent, with no middle-class. So don't worry about it, by then, it'll be too late to do anything anyway.
"The World is Not Enough" (that is the under-current to all human psychology) - meaning, the 1%'ers are not evil, the 1%'ers (or any percenter's) are just doing what comes naturally to all humans.
Solid checks and balances in government and business are the only safeguards for the majority. Unless you prefer serfdom.
What do you think the legal system of “Community Service” IS?
SLAVE LABOR!
I have plenty of McDonny's shares.