Nation again in the clutches of greedy robber barons

[alfredo]

From the bowels of a red state.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/11702848.htm

Nation again in the clutches of greedy robber barons

By Marty Solomon

Karl Marx predicted that Big Business would be able to control the economy and that the CEO's and the upper class would thrive at the expense of the workers, who would be exploited.

He posited that the only hope for a quality standard of living was for the workers to revolt.

In 1917, in desperation, Russian workers did revolt and seized control of the country, dividing private property and distributing the spoils of the wealthy to the common folk.

In the 1920s and '30s, the United States faced a similar desperation. The robber barons were getting rich, building palaces and mansions while the common workers were standing in bread lines, passionately looking for work and eking out a mere existence.

more at link.

[skooooo]

1. whoah...this is coming out of Kentucky?

The repubs are in trouble..

[carnie_sf]

2. Workers of the world unite

[tk2kewl]

3. Recommended.

more from the link...

The robber barons were so powerful as to pass laws that required the United States to borrow money from the children and grandchildren of everyday working Americans to give American billionaires massive tax cuts.

The robber barons allowed multinational companies that had been harboring huge profits overseas in order to avoid corporate income taxes of 35 percent, to bring those profits back to the United States and pay only 5.5 percent tax, while hard working Americans were paying up to 35 percent.

[alfredo]

6. Too many people fail to understand the destabilizing effect of

giving the monied elite everything they desire.

[Daphne08]

7. Yes, this is quite familiar, isn't it?

[alfredo]

11. If Haille Salassie had treated his people with respect, Ethiopia

probably wouldn't have gone Marxist. Like our robber barons, he had fabulous wealth and power, but refused to lower taxes for the common man, and refused to do anything to better their lot. He was the third richest man in the world ruling over the poorest nation in the world. His people were taxed at rates up to 55%, there was no social safety net, and the church ruled supreme. He was seen as a descendent of King Solomon. He ruled a God's pleasure.

Maybe our leaders should study history.

[Wilms]

4. Good one.

From:
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Econ_Articles/carnegie/delong_moscow_paper2.html

[Jensen]

5. Their are thieves and liars!!!

I think America is waking up but I do not know if it will be to little to late!:kick:

[G2099]

8. 95 percent of us are just wage/salary Slaves

"Today, the top one percent of Americans possess wealth equivalent to 95 percent of the other Americans."

Imprisoned in our nice little homes and country, entertainment and all.

Work 50 weeks get 2 weeks vacation from the slavery, if you're lucky.

[KlatooBNikto]

9. American corporations are failing in the worldwide quest for profits.

They are getting the pants beats out of them by other countries. It is that bankruptcy of their business model that is driving them to strip their workers of their benefits and retirement and also to outsource their jobs to China and India.

We must think of these actions as the last gasp of the U.S. business models in many industries.

[G2099]

10. Transgenerational Financial Terrorism

Warning: if you have a short temper fuse do not read this article:

http://www.alternet.org/story/16573

[Daphne08]

12. The Gilded Age

from PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/gildedage.html


Carnivals of Revenge:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/revenge.html


It would do us well to remember our history.

[Warpy]

13. There is nothing remarkable about the origin of this

but the remarkable thing is that someone still knows economic history and that someone else was willing to publish it in this age of neoclassical economics bullshit.

What he failed to point out was what Roosevelt realized, that the economic pump functions from the bottom up. Once you choke off the bottom by allowing all wealth to keep flowing to the top, you end up with a stagnant economy. Even the rich don't get richer, and simply exchange property among each other, the way the European aristocracy did for over a thousand years.

Either you come up with a system of creating new wealth at the bottom (good luck to you) like the opening of the West did, or you come up with a mechanism to siphon off extreme wealth from the top and recirculate it at the bottom. The rich keep getting richer as demand for the goods and services for the products the companies they own increases. The people at the bottom find their lives materially improving, and are hopeful enough for the future to put aside their resentment of mansions and private jets.

Since the rich, blessed with the best tax profile they've ever had, are still screaming bloody murder at the gummint, I would suggest that the New Deal reforms be reinstituted ASAP, if only to give them something legitimate to scream about.

Going farther along the neoclassical economics path will result in revolution. It is inevitable.

[alfredo]

14. I do not want to see a violent revolution. bush has not learned the

lessons of history, nor has his neo con handlers. Maybe they have, but think their god or the guns of their armies will protect them.

What they have not figured on is that the guns are in the hands of those they are oppressing.

I have little faith that bush, his junta and corporate supporters will do the right thing.

[katty]

17. Sizable portions of 'the rich' do not create potential wealth or

create more wealth from existing or inherited wealth-banksters do most of that and work this fiscal cabal internationally. Wealth and potential wealth, new resources has to be diligently and arduously mined by those, typically highly educated and perhaps one step below a monarch or an aristocratic-at least in lifestyle if not bloodline - and the relentless leg work done by the merchant/middle/lower classes.
Once you give the new merchant/middle and even the lower classes a boost up (as FDR set in motion/New Deal)the ladder-it is an extremely dangerous game to take these achievements away from the 'masses'(those repped by these groups) in any obvious and hastened manner. This has been happening for a long time, however, bush&co have blatantly accelerated this dis-empowerment process-a bunch of super rich white guys (the 'front men') are systemically dismantling the lives of the middle class (this also includes macho white guys that are forever singing the praises of bush)and demolishing all hope and even the current very limited opportunities (outreach programs, et al) for the lower classes.
So, what's left? A marriage between the state (gov) and corporation (business)dictionary definition of this marriage: Fascism, in order to force/beat the slaves (that's most of the world population) into the exclusive service of the weatlthy. It's really not difficult to figure out what is going on here-Communism would never work in America, but Fascism?, well, that might do the trick. The problem in America is that we Americans have already been given the candy (the New Deal)and it has, for better or worse, seemed to keep this delicate fabric of democracy together-only fools would give up that candy-willingly.

[hvn_nbr_2]

18. Well said.

the economic pump functions from the bottom up

I don't have time right now for a considered response, but basically trickle down is a fantasy of wingnut plutocrats. Trickle up from the middle class and even from the poor is how a successful capitalist society creates wealth. Sooner or later the corpocrats are going to learn that strangling the goose that lays the golden eggs may get them all the eggs but there ain't many eggs any more. How many great American fortunes were created by selling to the super-rich? Only the already rich build yachts to sell to the rich.

[earth mom]

15. Great simply stated article

that can be read and understood by anyone. I don't think it could be more plain spoken and frank than it is right there. Far too often this type of article is weighed down with complicated financial and political words, info and ideas that the average person has neither the time or education to decipher. This article should be reprinted in every small town and city newspaper in the country! Or better yet how about some handbills printed for immediate distribution! :bounce:

[alfredo]

16. I have e-mailed it to people on my mailing list. I am also

posting it to other BBS.

[struggle4progress]

19. a little kick in the butt for The Ownership Society