“The whole world wants to know about what the hell is happening with us. So let’s talk about it. I live in Washington now, and the people I live among have no idea how people live here in the Midwest, not the faintest idea…
The last couple of years here in America have been a time of brisk prosperity according to official measurements, with unemployment down and the stock market up.
For Americans who work for a living however, nothing ever seems to improve. Wages do not grow, median household income is still well below where it was in 2007. Economists have a way of measuring this, they call it the ‘labor share of the Gross National Product’ as opposed to the share taken by stockholders. The labor share of Gross National Product’ hit its lowest point since records were started in 2011, and then it stayed there right for the next couple of years.
In the fall of 2014, with the stock market hitting an all time high, a poll showed that nearly 3/4 of the American public believed that the economy was still in recession, because for them it was.
There was time when average Americans could be counted upon to know correctly whether the country was going up or down, because in those days when America prospered, the American people prospered as well. These days things are different.
Let’s look at it in a statistical sense. If you look at it from the middle of the 1930’s (the Depression) up until the year 1980, the lower 90 percent of the population of this country, what you might call the American people, that group took home 70 percent of the growth in the country’s income. If you look at the same numbers from 1997 up until now, from the height of the great Dot Com bubble up to the present, you will find that this same group, the American people, pocketed none of this country’s income growth at all.
Our share of these great good times was zero, folks. The upper ten percent of the population, by which we mean our country’s financiers and managers and professionals, consumed the entire thing. To be a young person in America these days is to understand instinctively the downward slope that so many of us are on.”
Thomas Frank, Kansas City Missouri, 6 April 2017
That’s because all of the “income growth” since 2000 (actually, I suspect since 1982) has been an illusion.
“The wealthy” are sitting on a VAST store of “wealth” that only exists so long as only a tiny fraction of people try to “cash out.” It is the ultimate Ponzi scheme.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how, when someone (mostly Uncle Sammy) borrows a dollar and sends it cascading through the economy, a SECOND dollar in wealth is created in the form of a bond.
Someone, PLEASE explain to me how you get TWO dollars in wealth from every ONE dollar borrowed and spent.
Further, please explain to me how this is viewed as perfectly natural and permanently sustainable.
A criminal, English-based, European Cartel is currently athwart our financial center as parasite. The benefit of our financial system does not belong to US and the US is, in fact, since 1871, “A Corporate Indenture”, to the “City of London”. (google, “The Organic Act of 1871”: http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/us_corporation.htm).
Lacking ANY Constitutional authority to do so, Treasonous US politicians, once Lincoln was removed, as obstacle (he created Greenback Dollars to defy European Bankers), placed the United States in a structured “Bankruptcy”. (Lincoln’s Greenbacks robbed the banks of their ability to collect interest).
The “Organic Act of 1871” was used to devalue Lincoln’s Greenback Currency and Treasonous Politicians then allowed a criminal foreclosure, levied against the US by criminal banks to create a fraudulent liquidation of US Assets.
It is a condition that persists to this day and it benefits criminal banks and corrupt politicians and no one else.
The intentionally-mislabeled, “Federal Reserve” is neither “Federal”, nor, possessing ANY “Reserves”. It is privately-owned and operated. It was created in 1913, along with the 16th amendment. They are both used for extortion and they are both allowed to operate because our politicians are corrupt.
Both parties.
The 16th amendment allows for “Income Tax”. Prior to 1913, there was no such thing.
The “weights and measures”, “import duties”, “excise tax”, etc., found in the Constitution, speak to the demands of a maritime culture where international trade is regulated… NOT PERSONAL WEALTH.
The very same people that our Fathers fought to deny taxes on personal wealth, have been robbing the US since 1913.
The banks and our elected parasites are corrupt and it is a fool that believes corrupt politicians don’t abuse the Tax system for their own personal gain. The evidence is everywhere.
Everything you wrote is just so, yet here we are.
Have you read Etienne de la Boetie’s “Discourses?” All political systems exist only under conditions of popular consent.
The tyranny you describe is largely consented-to. WHY?
I submit two theoretical explanations: First is the Socionomic Hypothesis. It posits that an unconscious “social mood” emanating from the primitive structures of the human brain that govern herding behavior (and emotion) impel us to “hivemindedness,” and the hivemind is like a con artist’s mark: foolishly optimistic and thus easily conned.
The second is simpler, and comes from ancient Roman historian Sallust: “Most men do not want freedom; most only wish for a just master.” Most people are slaves, and they LIKE their servitude.
That’s true.
The natural state of men is not freedom and self rule, it is rule by Monarchy or Feudal overlords who are (usually) ruled themselves by a Monarch.
The idea of self rule by the people themselves with each individual having rights is a recent development, and an experimental one at that, with the United States being the first real experimenter in it.
Other than on the Frontier, I think even Americans 200 years ago still had masters.
I used to be an individualist-anarchist. Then I realized that extremely few people would prefer to live in a world where they succeeded or failed entirely on their own merits. Even if someone eliminated political government and we had a Libertarian Utopia, it would last about five minutes.
It is human nature to embrace the lie that there is something for nothing. People automatically coalesce into interest groups (factions) and attempt to obtain concentrated benefits while diffusing the costs among others.
Anyone who posits that this can be overcome is truly delusional.
Echo chamber forward…
You neglect the one constant that has been with us from before recorded history, the truth of God’s word, which was written in stars and was with God from before the foundation of the world. The twelve constellations aren’t mythology, they are the story of the twelve tribes of Israel. The riddle of the sphinx is simply where to begin the story. The head of a woman, Virgo, and the tail of a lion, Leo. If you recall, Joseph was second in command in Egypt, second only to Pharoah. It was he who founded the school from which the wise men from the east recognized the sign in the stars proclaiming the Christ was born, and began their two year journey to Judah.
The story begins with the birth of Christ, as first revealed in Gen 3:15, and ends with the return of the triumphant Christ in glory.
Most people do not wish for slavery, however, most people have enough sense to submit willingly to an omnipotent God. Of course, there are a few idiots among us, whom I’m sure will be more than willing to share their over reactive disproportionate response because they hate the truth, and are more disposed to listen to philosophers, the wisdom of the world, instead of gaining a knowledge of the truth, thereby making one wise.
You decide.
In fact, God says in his word, the words of the saviour,
“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (Jn 17:17 ESV)
“and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Jn 8:32 ESV)
So, from an Orwellian perspective, Slavery is Freedom, and Freedom is Slavery.
“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.” (Prov 4:7 ESV)
See how easy this is?
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matt 11:28 – 30 ESV)
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Cor 1:22 – 25 ESV)
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, ” (Eph 2:19 -20 ESV)
Romans tells us to be strong (Eph 6:10) and Revelations to the seven churches to resist, overcome, persevere, and conquer the wisdom of this world.
Everything else is nonsense, and a chasing after wind (Ecclesiastes), no matter how wise one might seem in their own eyes.
Maybe you shit throwing monkeys will learn something, one day.
HOMERUN!!! Thank you. I value your ability to find data that clairifies the unrestrained greed.
Michael, a string of helpful comments, thank you.
Barnum, insightful remarks as well.