A long read, but probably worth it

[Cain]

http://ampedstatus.org/analysis-of-the-global-insurrection-against-neo-liberal-economic-domination-and-the-coming-american-rebellion-we-are-egypt-revolution-roundup-3/#centrally

Even reading that title makes me feel tired.

Nevertheless, it is choc-full of all sorts of goodness, such as these following quotes:

Former Goldman Sachs executive Nomi Prins reveals more details:

   

The Egyptian Uprising Is a Direct Response to Ruthless Global Capitalism

    "The revolution in Egypt is as much a rebellion against the painful deterioration of economic conditions as it is about opposing a dictator.... When people are facing a dim future, in a country hijacked by a corrupt regime that destabilized its economy through what the CIA termed, 'aggressively pursuing economic reforms to attract foreign investment' (in other words, the privatization and sale of its country's financial system to international sharks), waiting doesn't cut it....

    Tunisia's dismal economic environment was a direct result of its increasingly 'liberal' policy toward foreign speculators. Of the five countries covered by the World Bank's, Investment Across Sectors Indicator, Tunisia had the fewest limits on foreign investment.... Egypt adopted a similar come-and-get-it policy, on steroids.... But, as we learned in the U.S., what goes up with artificial helium plummets under real gravity.... Not surprisingly, those foreign speculation strategies didn't bring less poverty or more jobs either. Indeed, the insatiable hunt for great deals, whether by banks, hedge funds, or private equity funds, as it inevitably does, had the opposite effect....

    Ironically, the [Egyptian Ministry of Investment] brochure touted the large college graduate population entering the job market each year — 325,000. The same graduates are the core of the current revolution. They failed to find adequate jobs and are faced with an official unemployment rate of just below 10 percent (though, similar to the U.S., that figure doesn't account for underemployment, poor job quality or long-term prospects).... Meanwhile, 20 percent of Egypt lives in poverty... For in the United States, economic statistics are no better. By certain measures, like income inequality, they are worse than in Egypt."

As the US mainstream media references the "oppressive" and "corrupt" inequality of wealth throughout Egypt, the hypocrisy is shameful. The inequality of wealth in the United States is currently the most severe it has ever been. Gini coefficient ratings are a measure of a nation's inequality – the higher a nation scores, the more unequal the society is. The US has a Gini coefficient rating of 45, compared to Egypt's 34.4, Yemen's 37 and Tunisia's 40, making the US the most unequal, "oppressive" and "corrupt" of the four.

The rising price of food has played a pivotal role in sparking the uprisings, food prices have a larger impact in countries like Egypt and Tunisia, as they represent a more significant percentage of total income. However, the overall costs of living in the US are significantly higher. When these costs are factored in — medical expenses, housing, transportation, education, etc. – the US poverty level of $22k per year, for a family of four, is comparable to the poverty rate measure in Egypt.

According to the CIA, the poverty rate in Egypt is 20%. With a population size of 83 million people, this would put 16.6 million Egyptians living in poverty. In the US, the current poverty rate is 16.8%, with a population of 309 million, this puts 52 million Americans living below the poverty line.

When you consider that the US has 52 million people currently living in poverty, you realize, as shocking as it may sound, that we have a larger number of desperate people in the US than rebelling populations in countries throughout the Middle East and Europe. Overall, in comparison to Egypt, the US population is obviously more geographically spread out, but if you breakdown the demographics, many large US cities have a poverty rate higher than the 20 percent rate in Egypt.

Consider that, according to low-ball government statistics, nine major US cities have a poverty rate over 25%.

Austerity measures and draconian cuts to the social safety net are occurring just after passing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to multi-millionaires and billionaires. On the state level, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report revealing, "Thirty-one states have released their initial budget proposals for fiscal year 2012 (which begins July 1 in most states), and, for the fourth year in a row, these budgets propose deep cuts in education, health care, and other important public services..."

After committing trillions of dollars to bailing out the big banks, the Federal Reserve and government officials have now made it clear that the states will not receive the same treatment. In fact, the bailed out players on Wall Street, who have taken our tax dollars and given themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses, are looking to cash in on the suffering of states across the country. As Lynn Parramore recently put it:

   

Crank Up the Casino! Hedge Funds to Short American States and Cities

    "The looming possibility of municipal defaults, which some say could total hundreds of billions of dollars, is causing grave concern. Hedge funds are also deeply concerned about America's municipal debt crisis. They worry about how to best profit from it.

    The Wizards of Wall Street have looked over the catastrophe of cash-strapped America and found it good for business. In their corporate laboratories, they are working furiously to whip up wondrous new financial products that will allow them to reap millions from misery. You might think that after plunging the country into said Recession with their fancy financial products, these Wizards might feel a little indelicate about gearing up for a game of shorting a community near you. Clearly you don't know Wall Street. The Financial Times reports that once-boring muni bonds are suddenly sexy."

Speaking of reaping millions from misery, the food stamp racket pays off just as well as the war racket. The economic parasites profit off of food stamps:

   

Food Stamps: JPMorgan & Banking Industry Profit From Misery

    "JPMorgan's division that makes food stamp debit cards made $5.47 billion in net revenue in 2010. As the head of this division, Christopher Paton, says, 'This business is a very important business to JPMorgan in terms of its size and scale.' According to the company's most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, the Treasury & Securities Services segment, which is the division that includes the food stamp business, was up 2% in the last three months of last quarter and brought in $5.47 billion in net revenue for most of 2010."

Republicans and Democrats, along with their Wall Street masters, are so arrogant, deluded with wealth, completely lacking perspective, shortsighted and, quite frankly, ignorant.

As the economic top one-tenth of one percent has more wealth than they have ever had, the middle class is quickly disappearing and poverty is soaring. As politicians ignore the needs of the suffering masses in favor of a Kleptocratic Oligarchy, which operates above the law, it is only a matter of time before an uprising takes hold.

After analyzing societal and economic indicators within the US, in comparison to rebelling countries, it is not a matter of whether people will revolt or not, it's a matter of when.

There are two significant differences between the United States and other rebelling nations:

    1) The US has a much more powerful, sophisticated and omnipresent propaganda media system to keep the populace suppressed – isolated and confused.

    2) The US keeps 52 million people temporarily pacified in anti-poverty programs by giving them food stamps, unemployment benefits or other forms of life-sustaining government assistance.

Both of these differences are temporary, and not in any way sustainable. The safety nets here are unraveling and cuts in vital social services will be implemented just as millions more will need them. At the same time, food stamps and other forms of limited government assistance will be worth less and less as food and gas prices continue to rise.

Rising commodity prices will push the 239 million Americans currently living paycheck to paycheck over the edge. Also factor in healthcare costs, which have been skyrocketing even faster. On a personal level, my health insurance provider just notified me that my family has to pay 45% more for coverage – and we already had the world's most expensive healthcare system. For my wife, one child and myself, we will now have to pay over $1100 per month for a basic health insurance plan.

There are currently 59 million Americans who don't even have healthcare insurance. The health system has become vintage Grapes of Wrath, as have most aspects of the centrally planned system of economic despotism that we live under.

Add all of these factors together and you have a recipe for revolution. The mainstream propaganda news outlets and "Reality" TV soma will only keep people at bay for so long. The propaganda system collapses when people can't afford to eat. Americans may be late to the party, but once one city revolts, the dominos will fall and a wave of protest will sweep through the country like a tsunami.

Personally, I don't think it is quite that easy to predict a revolution, but nevertheless there are some striking parallels between what is going on in North Africa and the way in which both the EU and USA are heading.  There are also some pretty awesome quotes peppered throughout the entire article, so even if you disagree with the overall thesis, it is worth reading for those alone.

[Jenne]

...very interesting.  Definitely will give it a look through when I am not on shift.

[Adios]

Food Stamps: JPMorgan & Banking Industry Profit From Misery

    "JPMorgan's division that makes food stamp debit cards made $5.47 billion in net revenue in 2010. As the head of this division, Christopher Paton, says, 'This business is a very important business to JPMorgan in terms of its size and scale.' According to the company's most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, the Treasury & Securities Services segment, which is the division that includes the food stamp business, was up 2% in the last three months of last quarter and brought in $5.47 billion in net revenue for most of 2010."


That made my head explode.

[The Johnny]

Nice analysis, but yeah, lets not hold our breath now. 

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

I read it all.  I think the author is vastly overestimating how intelligent most Americans are.

I think this paragraph is optimistic to the point of absurdity.

When revolution returns to America, the point won't be to take down a figure head puppet politician like Mubarak or Obama, mere public relations moves will not suffice. We will take down the system behind them. We will take down the global banks, break them up, end the campaign finance racket, end closed-door lobbying, end the system of political bribery, end the two-party oligarchy, remove puppet judges who voted for unlimited spending by private economic elites, end corporate welfare and the various financial rackets which loot national wealth at the expense of the people.

Yes, we Americans are angry, but too many of us believe that all we have to do is vote out all the "Socialists", cut taxes, scale back corporate regulation, drill baby drill, and make drastic cuts to entitlement programs, and then everything will be right as rain.  Too many of us listen to the TV when it misdirects us by telling us that we are right to be angry, and here is who we need to be angry with -- the politicians of one party but not those of the other, and those lazy people who refuse to work (and you know what color they are).

[Jenne]

I'm telling you--there's a fundamental cultural paradigm shift between those "educated" in the politics of what's actually happening and the folks who get an edumacayshun in quite the usual way (go to school, get the dumbed-down rhetoric from the textbooks still holding on to a 1950's-style of telling history, and listen to the evening news and MAYBE Fox for a rounding out of details) and don't ferry outside their own influence.

The folks on the blogosphere are actually more inclined to seek info out that's counter to what they already believe in and listen more intently to on a normal scale.  So they're going to have details that they think are out-of-this-world wrong, but they won't have them straight.  They in turn tell the folks at Fox News and the Conservative Talk Radio crowd (a very incestuous group) those "errors" in thinking/judgment from the other side, and it perpetuates.  Add in the talking points from the Conservatard movement in the legislature, and there you have the Machine from the Right.

The flipside of that is made up of a whole host of folks who actually GIVE A SHIT.  Now, they may be left, right, center, but most of them are motherfucking moderate.  And they DO NOT see this fight as winnable (they did shortly and elected Obama to take care of business, and now they are turned off indubitably  by his lack of progress), so they will certainly NOT be taking a stance loudly, publicly, and in the streets.  So these folks, while having a view formed by more than a few sources (and hence better-informed in general), and having educated themselves through school, blogs, the news and just history in general (helps knowing folks outside the US, by the way), may write letters occaisionally or post "I THINK THIS!" posts on blogs and chat rooms, they don't have a general MANDATE to shape the future in a general way.

The "class war" going on with these things in view seems to perpetuate alarmingly, as does the divide between the red and blue states.  There's a great gulf in the middle of the country, filled with anger, resentment and victimhood.  The "revolution" is more on the scale of the French in 1789, not US 1776, or Tunisia 2011.  And like that revolution in 1789 in Paris, folks will be EASILY manipulated into saying and doing violent things in order to ease their own angsty burden.

We ARE living in Reaganistic times, where we have increased our poverty line and struggled to keep up with the rest of the emerging world economies.  We're not dead in the water, and I don't believe we will be for some time to come.  I don't doomsay for a reason--I still don't think we are out of the game, and I think we are actually still calling the marks.  But our ass is in the firing line, and it's bloated, weak and undermuscled.  We are only as great as our people, and right now, it's disheartening to hear the perpetuating dumb-dumb-dummyness coming out of the mouths of so many from state to state.

[Cain]

On the other hand, Gaddafi also dumbed down the educational methods in Libya to prevent an uprising against his rule (including a ban on learning certain foreign languages) and controlled media output far more heavily.  This doesn't appear to be a winning policy for him.

[Jenne]

...so far.  But his balance is off.  Plus he is kinda allergic to oppositionists.

ETA:  And he had a pretty good run of things for several decades.  All the golden epaulettes he could ever desire...