Greed, the Zombie Elite, the Cure
For the last three years, I have written extensively on greed. Unadulterated, rampant greed.
And yet to write about greed, and the elites that practice money worship and the hunger, seems almost un-American. The defenders of capitalism see greed as "normal." It is acceptable. And to utter a disparaging word on greed, draws the defenders out. Right wingers, employees of the elite, they come. They attack.
But what they cannot do-is defend greed. And they don't because they can't. And so it is that they launch those attacks on behalf of their nanny and elite employers. Displaying their loyalty. Hoping for a bigger piece of that wealth themselves. Indeed, it is a sickness.
And as I write this, I see that Manny Ramirez has re-signed for the 2010 season with the LA Dodgers. Twenty million for six months of play.
I stumbled onto this piece. Written by an MIT graduate with a nice string of credentials. It focuses on greed with an out take our two on our systemic priorities and the philosophy of Ayn Rand blended in.
http://www.sramanamitra.com/2009/03/28/capitalism-20-the-need-for-regulation/
So what does an MIT genius and a blogger from nowhere have in common? Perspective. Two years ago, I didn't know who Ayn Rand was. I got my perspective courtesy of a little town in central Idaho, where the wealthy and elite blend in with us bourgeois', coupled with my fascination with business news. And so two completely different folks, on completely different routes-converge on the same conclusion.
No amount of wealth and power will ever satiate the insatiable. They cannot and will not rein themselves in.
A few years ago, I would have disagreed with my MIT writer on the cure. Unconscious egos that are left forever wanting. Education and a shift in values. Moral decay. After viewing this up close and personal, mulling over education, consciousness, and and the commitment to improve values- that cure is simply not available. You can't make zombies undead. It annoys them. Regulating the zombie elite to the graveyard smacks of government control and pay czars.
How about we return to a real free market system of competition without government sanctioned monopolies, subsidies, and interference? Election reform. No heavy handed intrusion, no government intervention, get the hell out of our lives and quit stealing us blind? Ah yes, Libertarians. Never thought of that.
The only other viable answer? Let the elite system implode. All previous democracies have failed. This stuff doesn't last forever anyway.
And yet to write about greed, and the elites that practice money worship and the hunger, seems almost un-American. The defenders of capitalism see greed as "normal." It is acceptable. And to utter a disparaging word on greed, draws the defenders out. Right wingers, employees of the elite, they come. They attack.
But what they cannot do-is defend greed. And they don't because they can't. And so it is that they launch those attacks on behalf of their nanny and elite employers. Displaying their loyalty. Hoping for a bigger piece of that wealth themselves. Indeed, it is a sickness.
And as I write this, I see that Manny Ramirez has re-signed for the 2010 season with the LA Dodgers. Twenty million for six months of play.
I stumbled onto this piece. Written by an MIT graduate with a nice string of credentials. It focuses on greed with an out take our two on our systemic priorities and the philosophy of Ayn Rand blended in.
http://www.sramanamitra.com/2009/03/28/capitalism-20-the-need-for-regulation/
So what does an MIT genius and a blogger from nowhere have in common? Perspective. Two years ago, I didn't know who Ayn Rand was. I got my perspective courtesy of a little town in central Idaho, where the wealthy and elite blend in with us bourgeois', coupled with my fascination with business news. And so two completely different folks, on completely different routes-converge on the same conclusion.
No amount of wealth and power will ever satiate the insatiable. They cannot and will not rein themselves in.
A few years ago, I would have disagreed with my MIT writer on the cure. Unconscious egos that are left forever wanting. Education and a shift in values. Moral decay. After viewing this up close and personal, mulling over education, consciousness, and and the commitment to improve values- that cure is simply not available. You can't make zombies undead. It annoys them. Regulating the zombie elite to the graveyard smacks of government control and pay czars.
How about we return to a real free market system of competition without government sanctioned monopolies, subsidies, and interference? Election reform. No heavy handed intrusion, no government intervention, get the hell out of our lives and quit stealing us blind? Ah yes, Libertarians. Never thought of that.
The only other viable answer? Let the elite system implode. All previous democracies have failed. This stuff doesn't last forever anyway.
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http://russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-11-05/billionaire-bailout-society.html
The new financial instruments invented about 30 years ago helped the America’s wealthiest to suck up the extra wealth created by deregulated finance system, explains Les Leopold, author of “The Looting of America”.
“From WWII to the mid-1970s, virtually every year productivity went up in America and the average wage of the average worker went up. The two lines [on a graph] went together, then they split apart. The average American production workers – about a 100 million people – their average wage now has gone down 18% since the mid-1970s, but the people at the top do fantastically well,” revealed Leopold.
He continued: “In 1970 the ratio of the top 100 CEO versus the average worker was 45 to 1… By 2006 it was 1,723 to 1.
“What is really missing is that steady average rise of the real wage, where the fruits of productivity are shared broadly – that has stopped. We have entered that brave new world, a sort of Milton Friedman capitalism – the great experiment of deregulation – killed that natural progression that we had done since WWII.
“The president runs the US, but the President is unwilling to toss overboard the fundamental philosophy that the bankers live under.
“Billionaires will get richer and we will have more of them – and we will have a hollowed-out middle class. And when the system gets in trouble, we’ll take money from the population and give it to the finance community to help them out.”