The Guillotine Hasn't Arrived Here Yet
These days it's not just financial journalists who follow the movements of financiers. So, too, do the entertainment channels and press. Who could have predicted the day would come when OK! magazine would care what mode of transport Ken Lewis, Bank of America's chief, uses? But according to the New York Times, these topics are now considered as interesting to readers as Britney Spears's weight fluctuations.
In other words, the war on the rich is spreading fast. Inevitably the rich (who are still rich, even if their bank statements are a bit depleted) are not amused by this. One billionaire tells me he feels we are living in times where the spirit is akin to the French Revolution. In other words journalists are taking aim indiscriminately, like Robespierre's out-of-control mob.
The analogy is ludicrously far-fetched: as far as I am aware, no Wall Street chief executive or other rich person has been guillotined.
Yet it is true that people with money are being scrutinized in a way they never used to be. Thus some of the Noel family, whose fund Fairfield Greenwich was the biggest feeder into Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, have finally got the message that it's not seemly for them to be seen rocking out on the dance floor, given that so many of the firm's investors lost up to $7 billion.
What is more astonishing is how long it has taken for the new "tone" to sink in. The truth is that many "society" people are still in denial. They want to pretend that nothing has changed.
I recently received an email from someone on the Westchester Land Trust committee. The committee had discovered that the hosts for its annual gala, Paul and Robin Greenwood, would now be unable to offer their home as a party venue, owing to "recent developments", and could someone else please step in?
The letter did not spell out the "recent developments" - the fact that Greenwood has been arrested and charged with siphoning $500 million from his money-management business for personal use.
Spelling this out would obviously have been considered inelegant - but then so too is making off with someone else's money. Eventually so-called polite society will have to choose whether to see things and people for what they really are.
This article was originally published by the London Evening Standard
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REALLY, NO ONES GIVES A DAMN IF THEY ARE RICH-- BUT PEOPLE ARE OUTRAGED IN THE MANNER THEY BECAME 'FILTHY' RICH-- BUT BY THE UNCONSIONABLE THEY DID/ARE DOING IT..
BIG DIFFERENCE..
INSPITE OF ALL THE NATION'S PROBLEMS THESE HIGHWAY ROBBERS ARE STILL PUSHING THE ENVELOPE ASSUMING... THEY ARE ABOVE IT ALL... GIVING OUT ALL THESE LAME EXCUSES TO CONTINUE-- TO STEAL.. YES! STEAL! FOR ALL THEIR BAD GAMBLING.
WASN'T THIS MENTALITY THE 'CAUSE ' OF THE FRENCH & RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS?!
EVEN aNTOINETTE LOOKS 'INNOCENT' COMPARED TO THIS LOT!
I don't have a problem with the "rich quaking in their boots" because it's socially unpopular to be one of them. When they have to break into their kids piggy banks just to get enough change together to go buy a loaf of bread to make sandwiches for lunch because you can't afford to give them lunch money, then i might sympathize.
This is kinda funny in reference to CNBC's ("Cheerleading the middle class to subsidize the wealthy since 1989") Rick Santelli's rant about the revolution that is going to happen when wealthy investors get tired of paying losers' (also known as "the rest of us") mortgages for the "bad decisions" we make.
Looks like Santelli might see a real revolution -- just not the one he'd like. But, he's been wrong about most things.
The overall nexus between economics and society is the rubber band theory. The rich cannot get so rich nor the poor so poor that the rubber band connecting them economically to the each other stretches enough to break. If it does, revolution will restore the balance and put in place another, stronger, rubber band.
Not necessarily a stronger rubber band. Likely one of the same strength (with some minor points made to prevent the things that happened last time....) but they will be much closer again, which means that it has some time to stretch out.
The purpose of the progressive movement is to prevent it from breaking, which it would do again and again and again if there weren't something in place to prevent it!
I've known four individuals who were truly rich, not middle class or upper middle class rich, but stinking rich. Every one of them give money to the republican party. The truth is that the upper class through their "conservative" proxies (be they republican or democrat) have been waging war on the lower and middle class for decades. They are just too cowardly to admit it in public. But gain access into their private domains and you will find not only solicitations from prominant conservative politicians, but also letters of thanks and other memorabilia of their betrayal.
Madoff was one of the DNC and Democrat's largest donors....
There are some exceptions...Just like that Jefferson got caught with 100 grand in his fridgerator...Nothing compared to the 8 billion that disappeared from the Coalition Provisional Association (CPA) in Iraq....CPA disappearing with 8 billion,,,sounds like Arther Anderson and Enron all over again....
To the baracades! Grab your pitchforks and torches, folks.
The here-to-fore board members of the AIG and Lehman et al will be sued sued sued. They will hate the attorneys of the plaintiffs and eventually will grow to hate their own attorneys. They maybe even, like Chuck Colson, will find God. And then they'll realize their new calling preaching for millions. And so it goes in America.
Don't worry, there are now 20,000 troops in America in violation of Posse Comittatus to quell any disturbance by the hoi polloi
Civil Unrest in America?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12619
And if you honestly think that more than a TINY minority of those would fight Americans, then you've never served!
We have beeen blaming the poor for our problems for more than 25 years. Its about time we put the blame where it belongs. I keep hearing the right claim that the wealthy pay 60% of the taxes without the mention that they horde 80% of Americas wealth.
THE LIFESTYLE OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS IS FIANLLY LOOSING ITS LUSTER. ITS ABOUT TIME.
Writing as the son of two people without college education (my Dad started, but didn't finsh a degree until he was almost 50) raised in semi-rural Indiana, educated in State Universities, and from what was (although I didn't realize it at the time) the far, far lower end of what was then the middle class,...
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with having more money than absolutely need to get by.
My father-in-law, a retired Orthopedic Dr., also raised relatively poor in an immigrant Italian family has a tidy sum stashed away after decades of hard work. My wife & I do OK now too, after years of education, grad school, and years working our ways up the education/research food chains.
The problem isn't being rich,... the problem is being a self-absorbed, clueless, narcicisstic, hard-core SOB about it. That's the lesson these guys haven't learned yet.
I hope he doesn't have it "stashed" in the market....................
Luckily, my fater-in-law retired in 2000, and has about half of his retirement income as residual payments from a clinic he helped establish during the late 1970s. The other half was (apparently) in a mix of dividend-yeilding stocks, money-market funds, and local real-estate.
The real-estate got trashed financially, but it was mostly rental property and he had put enough down he wasn't totally hosed. The stock resale value took a nosedive, and I am sure the dividends are less than they would have been, but he's doing OK.
Of course there's nothing wrong with being rich. I'd like to be rich myself someday. However, I would ALSO like to see the rich people pay their fair share of the taxes that we pay to live in this great society!
Absolutely no arguement there from me LeftRight. The wife & I ended up paying out over $30K (combined - after accounting for refunds) in state and Federal income taxes, over $4K in property taxes. I don't begrude having to pay my 'fair share'.
I just get honked off at the corporations and the investment bankers that get taxed (if at all) on capital gains at a lower rate for money they didn't have to work and sweat for.
Open Rebellion can still happen, even in an modern, industrial nation. Just look at Romania in 1989! Kangaroo courts and executions. For these Wall Street cretins, I'd be willing to skip the Kangaroo.
It is not the excesses of wealthy lifestyles that are scrutinized per se, but rather the apparent contempt for responsibility that the power of wealth brings. No society can long withstand a lack of support and participation by those with power to ensure that a society endures. "Let them eat cake" was also a metaphorical harbinger of revolution.
Nothing new here, we have always had a tendency to want to eat the rich. Being rich is of course not a sin, where as behaving like royalty in a republic is. Flaunting your wealth and behaving like your wealth is proof you are better than the rest of the people will result in your alienation.
"Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures."
Theodore Roosevelt
oh poppy cock! I don't envy a doctor who makes a great living working 20 hours a day...but you know I have a problem with a doctor who will not operate on patients who do not have insurance and earns 6 million a year....
The rich are rich because they are better than you and me. They are more talented. They are more intelligent. They are better educated. They put their skills to better use. They have foresight and are risk takers. They hold high moral standards. Their hearts are pure. They deserve to be rich.
We on the other hand, well, we are not rich...
...and therefore must be ruled over, monitored, incarcerated, herded like sheep and fed endless streams of crap from "their" media to keep us fat, happy and oblivious to the realities of their world.
But they're not as smart as they think they are... no smart group would have allowed the bubble to burst so painfully if they were ACTUALLY in control of everything and such visionary geniuses.
Their hubris has provided an opportunity for us to take back our rightful power as the majority of this country. Will we use it? Not likely.
the string of cynicism is sad but true. only by keeping the uproar going is there any chance that the tide will continue to wash over the greedy, and possibly bring change.
at the very least, we can continue to spotlight and speak up when abuses occur.
at the most, organizations need to begin mass protests and demonstrations, in the form of boycotts and petitions.
unfortunately, to be successful, someone has to be the leader, and we don't have many of those. Obama, while a great guy who seems like he wants to help, still is not the leader of the public. he's rich too, so he really isn't feeling what we feel.
jon stewart? well, he is speaking up for what's right, but he's a comedian. would he take it to the next level to be a representative of the public? well, he does seem pretty educated on our current events. i'd say he's a better representative than say, Arnold the Governator.
who else? who is our public advocate? who commands the most support from the public based on his/her support for US?
i wish i could step up and take over. but no one listens to me! lol
It is high time for the call for a class war. The middle class has been co-opted for decades by the wealthy and elite. Using issues like the fight against communism, gays,abortion, welfare queens, drug abusers., stem cell....etc, whatever. These are all wedge issues to distract the middle class. Why would so many in the middle class vote republican, knowing it was undermining their pocketbook? The distractions no longer have any traction. The veil is being lifted. A new democracy is emerging that cannot be manipulated by fear, hate or bigotry.
I think you missed the boat. The right wingnuts have been WAGING class warfare all along, pretending to be waging a "Cultural War" when really that was a tactic to keep us all peasants feeding their habits.
Remember John Lennon's Working Class Hero. http://www.lyrics007.com/John%20Lennon%20Lyrics/Working%20Class%20Hero%20Lyrics.html
Be one.
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