The New York Times has a must-read article on its front page today for all of you working folk who have been patiently waiting for manna from heaven. The article describes how we have entered a new Gilded Age where government becomes irrelevant, and the philanthropy of the super-rich will take care of the teeming masses. Indeed, the Times states that the super-rich are proud of the role they are playing in the new Gilded Age, creating vast wealth which they can someday trickle down upon the rest of us.
And who, in its inestimable wisdom, has the Times credited with helping usher in the new Gilded Age? Was it that old stalwart of conservatism, Ronald Reagan? No, in fact they credit Bill Clinton, the president who never missed a chance to deregulate big business, as a principal architect of the new gilded age. Mr. Clinton was the president who revoked the 2nd “Glass-Steagall Act” in 1999, legislation which was enacted in 1933 after the great depression. This legislation prohibited banks from being involved in both commercial and investment banking, and set up the Federal Deposit Insurance Company to insure customer deposits.
Elimination of this prohibition, along with a relaxation of anti-trust scrutiny, permitted American banks to merge and move into multiple sectors without regulation. This repeal is credited, in part, for letting the good times roll. The Times notes that not all economists are on-board with the repeal, and the deregulation. Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has publicly lamented the end of Glass-Steagall. Mr. Levitt was quoted as saying, “I view a gilded age as an age in which warning flags are flying and are seen by very few people,” referring to the potential for a Wall Street firm to fail or markets to crash in a world of too much deregulation. “I think this is a time of great prosperity and a time of great danger.”
Talk about raining on the parade! Mr. Levitt obviously needs to get with the program. Corporate CEOs are now worth hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars, and they swear they are not going to take it with them. Honest. They are all going to become philanthropists and give it back to the little people who toiled under them for so long. Considering that many of these guys are already in their 40s or 50s, and some even in their 60s, we only have a few more decades to wait before all the trickling down begins.
In the meantime, we can revel in their continuing generosity as they, for example, refurbish Carnegie Hall. It was getting so run down after all. There is nothing worse than going to the opera in a rundown theater!
Note to teeming masses: get out the popcorn and plop down in front of the tube. It won't be long now before the new Gilded Age culminates, and then rains riches down upon your head, like manna from heaven. Oh lucky you.
Dr. John Moffett is an active research neuroscientist in the Washington, DC area, who has published over 45 scientific articles on the nervous and immune systems. Dr. Moffett is also the author and webmaster of the political opinion website www.Factinista.org, and is a Managing Editor at OpEdNews.com.
As you know, the White Man outlawed potlatches (the giving of goods by North American natives to earn prestige) as “demonic”, because these rituals bypassed the monetary system.
Bypassing the money system? Now THAT IS evil.
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John R Moffett (80 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 610 comments)
on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 11:04:02 AM
There is also a Hindu Upanishad that is relevant here. The Kathopanishad tells the story of a very strict ritualist, Vaajasravas, also known as Gouthama, who performed a Yaga (Sacrifice). As part of the sacrifice he was supposed to give away all his wealth. However, he gave away cows that were no longer able to eat grass or drink water, much less yield milk! They were too old for any useful purpose. Seeing this, his virtuous and intelligent son, Nachiketha by name, realised that his father was in for a great deal of sorrow, as a consequence of the sinful gifts. The boy wanted to save his father from his ate as far as it lay in his power. So, he asked his father, to whom he intended to offer him as a gift! He importuned that he too should be given away to someone. At this the father got so incensed that he shouted in disgust, “I am giving you to the God of Death.”
Then begins the story of Nachiketas. However from our perspective, we who are supposed to share our wealth with society, do not do so, or rather share only our liabilities -- in so doing, we our metaphorically speaking condemning future generations to death and immense suffering.
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Bleeding Heart Liberal (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 48 comments)
on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 10:07:14 AM
While reading the NYTimes article, one point, I had to stop and say 'huh?' Here, see if you can spot the incongruity:
Kenneth C. Griffin, who received more than $1 billion last year as chairman of a hedge fund, the Citadel Investment Group, declared: “The money is a byproduct of a passionate endeavor.” Mr. Griffin, 38, argued that those who focus on the money — and there is always a get-rich crowd — “soon discover that wealth is not a particularly satisfying outcome.”
...and...
“The income distribution has to stand,” Mr. Griffin said, adding that by trying to alter it with a more progressive income tax, “you end up in problematic circumstances. In the current world, there will be people who will move from one tax area to another. I am proud to be an American. But if the tax became too high, as a matter of principle I would not be working this hard.”
What's his point?
I can imagine that some of the super rich think that government is so fat, lazy, inefficient and bloated, that they are opposed to paying for it on principle. No one wants their hard work to be exploited by people with poor character.
But that's what regular working-class people feel, too!
I did programming, and knew that my work was providing for my employer profits multiple times greater than what I had earned for the actual programming. And that bastard was a lying, conniving, manipulative, womanizing, dumbass, who sexually harrased me in the workplace - and I'm also a guy!
We are always being lied to. Sometimes, I'm so sick of America. I love you people, but you've got to get up off your asses and demand some respect!
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Zen Master So so (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 20 comments)
on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 12:06:55 PM
Mr. Griffin, 38, argued that those who focus on the money — and there is always a get-rich crowd — “soon discover that wealth is not a particularly satisfying outcome.” His own team at Citadel, he said, “loves the problems they work on and the challenges inherent to their business.”
I wonder how satisfying he would think money was if his teeth were falling apart and he couldn't offord a dentist, or if he was on street unable to afford housing, or if he couldn't give his kids decent food? If these people want a challenge they should try the challenge of being poor in America today -- even while working two or three jobs (much less afford to go to Carnegie Hall for a concert.)
As Marley, rattling his chains, said "mankind was my business".
How many people have worked their butts off and failed because they had bad luck instead of good? How many happened to have talents and abilities which didn't happen to be in demand or well paid for, or had the bad luck of not having been born with any talent at all -- and are yet good people? And yet they should have their teeth fall out so these people can have their millions and billions?
And how many people have they stopped from developing their own potentials and accomplishments because they rigged the system so that only a small part of the population can thrive, or even survive? What about the genius who is shot down in the streets of the ghetto at age seven, because ghettos are an intrinsic part of the corrupted capitalist system? What about all those people who did NOT win the big lottery, but whose contributions make the lottery possible? There are three 'winners' in the Olympic games -- so let's just toss all the others who worked and competed into the trash?
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Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments)
on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 1:52:12 PM
It's been known for quite a while, that once one's income rises to the point where their needs are met, additional money does not provide additional happiness. I'd like to think that at some level, everybody knows that.
It's all just a big scam - the Carnegie Hall, the sky-boxes at the sporting arenas, even the gold chains around a rapper's throat. What we are experiencing is the biggest fraud perpetrated on humanity, in all of our existence. It appears to be long-term, because it continues over whole lifetimes. But humanity lived for a long time before our recorded history. This civilization is just a blip. A flash in the pan. Natures ways are much more permanent. Those idiots quoted in the NY Times are just deluding themselves.
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Zen Master So so (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 20 comments)
on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 2:45:13 PM
This is one hell of a memorable piece of sycophancy, very
revealing (unintentionally) not only of the sorry state of today's journalism, but also of the degraded condition of today's American social relations.
There's a direct connection between this article, & the fact that the NYT was beating the war drums in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. There's a direct connection between this article, & the fact that to this day, the NYT has never come close to being honest about the war, nor about the criminality of the American government, nor about the role that the US really plays in the world. // For the NYT to staunchly oppose the war, or portray the Bush regime as criminal, would be to attack & anger the same class of elites on behalf of whom the Bush administration has committed all its crimes. One can see from this article that the NYT is nowhere near being willing to alienate those people. It's deeply involved, on the contrary, in flattering, glorifying & otherwise sucking up to them.
This article is the very embodiment of courtier-style sycophancy. It demonstrates as clearly as the point can be made that the NYT (& by proxy all the MSM) should be regarded simply as the voice of the rich. This kind of "journalism" or "social analysis" amounts to little more than telling the rich how wonderful, wise & eminently deserving they are.
The article devotes the lion's share of its commentary to justifying the absurd incomes of these Wall Street parasites. When it seems time to present "alternative viewpoints," the most "radical" they get is digging up one or two billionaires who aren't entirely sure that the current system of rewards is 100% justified. Wouldn't want to go too far out on a limb, you know!! The Times covers the entire range of opinion -- all the way from billionaire down to the lowly deca-millionaire.
Unintentionally, the core ideas expressed by this article reflect the very poison that's rapidly turning today's America into a massive killing machine that never stops lying to itself about its real nature. Even as we mass murder helpless people in order to loot their resources, we tell ourselves we're just doing it to spread democracy. Even as today's US domestic wealth distribution gets increasingly obscene & absurd, the nation's "flagship newspaper" tells everyone how this is all good, just, & merely part of progress towards a glorious and efficient future.
Yesterday was Bastille Day. There ought to be a modern-day American storming of the Bastille, & the editors of the NY Times ought to be some of the first to be thrown out the windows of their second homes in the Hamptons.
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1168 comments)
on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 7:53:13 PM
The idea that unregulated capitalism is "more efficient" than government leaves out the fact that it is heartless, wasteful, inequitable and unsustainable.
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John R Moffett (80 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 610 comments)
on Monday, July 16, 2007 at 9:11:27 AM
From what I have been reading, were very close to a stock market crash, and complete financial chaos. All of this due to deregulation, the destroying of our manufacturing, and after many years of having a Federal Reserve. People have no idea, how bad it's going to hurt us!
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Diane_B (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 26 comments)
on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 11:43:15 PM
Think of the way the ocean waves erode the sea shore. Each wave crashes against the shore, loosening a small amount of particulate matter. When the wave recedes, that matter is sucked into the ocean.
Credit expansion, and credit contraction, have the same effect. As the wave of credit expansion occurs, the easy money breaks away some of the...let's call it 'virtue', of those who indulge. Mortages are issued to people who lack the real ability to sustain the mortgage payments, come hell or high water. When the easy money dries up, the neccesity of maintaining the value of the loans issued forces a rise in interest rates. Economic contaction occurs, and the little guy is forced to foreclose. His property is handed over to the bank.
Through a regular expansion and contraction of the 'business cycle', (managed by the privately owned central bank), more and more real property is transferred to those who are already rich.
Add to this the fact that the only way the people of the United States are allowed to repay their debt to the privately-owned Federal Reserve banking cartel, is to borrow more money from the Federal Reserve to pay the original loan back, plus interest. The US was 'sold' to a private bank the day the Federal Reserve was created.
Sorry, but you lost your nation to private interests. Get out of the churches and start praying to your creditors, because your fate is now up to their good graces.
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Zen Master So so (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 20 comments)
on Monday, July 16, 2007 at 12:38:07 AM
is that people -- meaning mostly the bankers -- have lost track of the difference between actual wealth and funny money, so that they have made more money while losing real wealth (like production capability).
If I had a Star Trek type star ship I would be 'infinitely wealthy' because the synthesizers could make anything I need: I don't need money. If I had only Fort Knox (is there any gold there yet?), I would intrinsically poor becasue I wouldn't have anything I need unless I can convince someone to give it to me for gold -- which has little instinsic value, actually. This latter is about where the US has come, relative to other nations, and apparantly without even much gold reserve left. We could not survive on just what we make ourselves anymore -- we can't even make war without components from someone else. We grow food of course, but that depends on machinery and technology we can't manufacture now, and even knowledgable and skilled workers are becoming short in supply -- we import them too.
It's possible to do OK in an interependent world as part of the world comunity -- but not if we screw everyone else over and try to steal from them or destroy them: at some point they get tired of that and stop playing along. Death, destruction, bullying, and con games are not a sustainable export. We can't compete in knowledge anywhere near like we used to, the manufacturing base is largely destroyed, and even agriculture is threatened by our environmental stupdidity, and also dependent on oil for both machines and fertilizer. When we can't offer real wealth to world community anymore, then what does the world need to bother with us for?
If we tried to live by complete isolationist standards we couldn't do it now. We aren't self-sufficient, and yet we still act as if we were the major industrial power we used to be. Do these banking people think we can eat dollars and stock certificates that aren't backed up by anything real?
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Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments)
on Monday, July 16, 2007 at 7:16:44 AM
That article sickened me so much that I couldn't even finish reading the first page. I was hoping for something more like the op-ed piece that Paul Krugman had in the NYT a while back about the new Gilded Age. Unfortunately, this puff piece is more the NYT's style, in the Judith Miller Era.
Until we as a society stop worshipping the rich, we will never overcome our current economic disparity. When every lower class/lower middle class person thinks he/she will one day inherit a million dollars from a long-lost rich uncle (thus being opposed to the Inheritance Tax), every schoolboy wants to be a pro athlete so he can make megabucks, and every young yuppie thinks Donald Trump is the coolest guy on Earth, we are in a climate where these robber barons can do their worst, with impunity and the validation of the MSM.
by
teeem (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 41 comments)
on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 3:17:20 AM
13 comments
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