The United States is now divided roughly at the median income. Those above it consider themselves "winners". Their income comes from their job(s), their 401k and other investment portfolios, and the increasing value of their home equity. They are from good families that value education and have connections to the best schools and job sources. Most of them don't give a hoot about the lower half of the income spectrum whom they consider "losers", a bunch of uneducated ne'r-do-wells who will not succeed under any circumstances, so government welfare for them is a waste of economic resources. They allow the political donor class to call the shots in government and believe that what is good for corporations and the political donor class is good for the country. They hope to become part of that class at some point in the future.
"Free trade" allows corporations to prosper, and as long as the "winners" can hire competent management of their portfolios and keep trading up in their homes their success will follow that of the corporations and the political donor class. Allowing unlimited immigration and unlimited outsourcing will eventually drive the wages of the "losers" to subsistence levels, allowing more of the wealth of the nation to go to the "winners".
The US is a plutocracy where the corporations run the nation, supported by a slim majority of the population who profit from the status quo, think they do, or aspire to at some point in the future. As long as these "winners" constitute a majority of people who vote, nothing will be done to change the status quo. Only if the "losers" either achieve a majority and start voting, or come close to revolution, will the situation change.
Promoting religion and religious values in politics is a way of keeping some of the "loser" class voting for the values of the "winner" class. If they consider the "winners" better people with "good religious values" and the "losers" people of low values and parasitic qualities they will continue to vote the "winners" interests even though they may constitute part of the "loser" class economically.
Bush's proposed legislation and campaign tactics demonstrate his dedication to this philosophy. His foreign policy and global trade policy indicate that he would like to see it spread around the world.
Elwood Anderson is a retired engineer/businessman living in Las Vegas. His blog can be accessed at http://elwoodanderson.com/blog.htm
For the last century or so, American Plutocrats have dominated the world by employing puppet dictators to carry out and enforce their agenda at home and abroad, but now they're running into problems. Even people in third world countries have access to the internet and their getting wise to the rise in our Levis. Fat pockets that is.
Why should they allow their national wealth to be wire transferred to America's plutocrats when they can have plutocrats, crooked politicians, warlords, drug lords and dictators of their own choosing. Once the money leaves their countries it's gone, but if they keep it country, some of it is bound to trickle down. Not much understand, but some, just like it does in America.
by
rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Saturday, August 26, 2006 at 7:42:28 AM
We'll never know because most of the wealth the plutocrats have accumulated from investments outside America don't show up on the books anywhere. It's deposited in secret bank accounts around the world, and of course unreported and untaxed.
by
rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Saturday, August 26, 2006 at 7:46:19 AM
