The super-rich don’t care about us. It will be their downfall

[n2doc]

by Oliver James

The news this week that a bank helped wealthy customers to dodge taxes should not come as a surprise to many. The super-rich have long held some profoundly distorted ideas about the world. They are more than averagely likely to believe their achievements are the product of their superior brains and hard work. They may believe the Selfish Gene rhetoric that those with the best genes rise to the top of the pond, and at the bottom is genetic sludge. They are oblivious to any evidence to the contrary. They have no idea that had they been born on a sink estate they too would have sunk.

This is partly because the super-rich are no longer exposed to data and experiences that contradict their worldview. Flitting between their various homes around the world, they know nothing of our lives. They have never, ever had to sit on the phone waiting for the next available customer support agent – “your call really matters to us” – to not fix their phone/internet/energy bill issue.

Of particular concern is that they only consume media that support their worldview. Recently, an Oxbridge-educated CEO in all seriousness told me that there has been no increase in inequality in this country. My jaw was slack with amazement when another told me that “inner London secondary pupils have the best exam results of any in the world”. They are living in the la-la land that Polly Toynbee and David Walker painstakingly exposed in their book Unjust Rewards.

Consider your response to the following information. About 15,700 under-two-year-olds live in a family that is classed as homeless, according to a new report. Homelessness adversely affects parental responsiveness, and early responsiveness has been proved to affect the capacity of the brain to process positive experiences.

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/13/super-rich-dont-care-about-us-taxes

[RiverLover]

1. The TPP will help make them super-richer, too. I didn't see a downfall for them in this article.

But I see our downfall with the continued grip of Moneyed Interests on our government, and backroom deals like the TPP.

[maddiemom]

2. Right. Where do you see a downfall?

[RiverLover]

3. Theirs or ours? nt

[maddiemom]

7. Wait. Was your text left off your original post? Or did I glitch something in reading?

[RiverLover]

19. I didn't change or edit anything (you can check that too)

I just figured you were making snark about my lack of clarity.

Ie, the correct sentence would read "The article posted failed to show how this would be the super-rich's downfall." or some variation of this.

I was lazy in the moment, were you calling me out on that?

[maddiemom]

22. Not at all. I was just curious.

Don't be so touchy. That seems to be the reaction here more and more.

[RiverLover]

23. I didn't take it personally, & I wasn't even sure what you meant.

I still have no idea. ha Its cool though!!

[BrotherIvan]

25. Perhaps people are touchy because some posters are so rude

[zeemike]

5. So do I.

And they have firm control of media and government and they expect to control the pond scum to make the world safe for oligarchy.
And the left/right division is the reason we will never come together to oppose them...we are too busy fighting each other to notice they are fucking us over at every turn.

[RiverLover]

6. Yes!!!!! We are too busy, fighting each other, manipulated, just as intended, too distracted to see

this 'Democracy" and the "Democracy" we want to spread throughout the world is actually a plutocracy, corporations pulling the strings.

Its our downfall, but as long as its perceived as the other team's fault, we're absolved of the complicit though complacent blame for our collective demise.

[zeemike]

8. And I wish I had a solution for that but I don't

But this game they are playing on us depends on hard feelings and contempt for one another to keep us apart and so ending that is one way.
And ending it must start with one party just stop doing it and playing the game...and that is a tough one to convince people emotionally charged up to fight to stop it.

[bvar22]

11. When the Working CLass & The Poor realize....

...that WE have more in common with each other than we have in common with the 1% and their Mouth Pieces in Washington,
then we can have change too.

Many Latin American countries have successfully wrested their countries away from the clutching hands of their Oligarchs in near bloodless ballot Box revolutions.
That can happen here too.


Spread the word.
VIVA Democracy!!!
I pray we gt some here soon.

[rhett o rick]

17. If the Oligarchy continues to convince the right wingnuts with guns that the left is the

source of their troubles, we won't ever unite to fight the Oligarchy. Why do you think the Oligarchy lets the idiots have guns? Because they know they can convince the idiots to aim them at the intellectuals.

[raouldukelives]

4. If only it were just the "Super" rich.

Large swaths of smiling and nodding sycophants line up to donate to the coffers of whatever schemes they may come up with. I don't know who is worse. Like having to choose between a slave dealer or a slave owner. They are both horrible no matter the circumstances and the only trade they really deal in is suffering of the vulnerable, by the powerful, for monetary gain.

[HereSince1628]

9. That would be true under the traditional notions of producers consumer relationships

but when it's cheaper to leave us behind when setting up a new wage-slave based economy then we get left behind.

The emergence of alternative consumer populations means the new wage-slave based economy doesn't have to depend on the purchasing power of the left behind no longer waged slaves who've lost consumer power

[Rex]

12. Yes, not the rich or the well off...sorry guys you will be on the same boat with us.

The super-rich. The ones that are friends with the 85 people that own half the worlds wealth. The 1%.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Maybe if we set up a charity for the downtrodden super-rich they'd like us better.

[hifiguy]

14. The day of reckoning will come for these assholes.

It always does. I hope I live long enough to see them get their just reward:

[Rex]

15. Careful! You will scare them off in their leerjets to fancy island retreats!

Where they will hurumph about our own inability to scam billions of people out of their hard earned money. Who will you pick on next? The evangelists?

[hifiguy]

16. Now THAT'S a good idea.

[winter is coming]

18. The GOP has finally figured out that income inquality is an issue.

I suspect they'll "solve" it the way they "solve" their other problems: by assuming that they just need to spruce up their PR for the same failed ideas.

I've said before that backlash against the current system will seem impossible until it's suddenly inevitable. That the GOP is starting to acknowledge there's an issue is a hint we're getting closer to "inevitable".

[hifiguy]

20. They can put all the lipstick on that pig that they want.

Nothing will change.

[Populist_Prole]

21. True enough. Following this for decades has shown me it'll be more of the same.

Their "cure" will be: more free trade agreements, more privatization, more tax cuts for "the job creators".

[BrotherIvan]

26. It's not just Republicans anymore

We've got a Democrat pushing the worst free trade agreement ever
We've got a Democrat presiding over the largest privitization of public education in history
We've got a Democrat who has cut taxes or not allowed tax cuts to expire
We've got a Democrat who has put Social Security on the table
We've got Democrats on this board cheering about Democrats running on a platform of tax cuts
We have all the things you name and more.

[Populist_Prole]

27. Truer yet enough

I'm so bummed out.

High profile social issue bullshit does not in any way make up for the loss of the working class' vitality: "Third-Way" philosophy notwithstanding.

[Octafish]

24. We can do this the hard way.

Or we can do this the easy way.