Something I don't get

[Disco Pickle]

Who said anything about taking every penny from the top 1%?

Crossover from the link Cram posted that talks about what the top %1 think of everyone else, but the sauce is gone on the doc.  No one said it, I asked as a "what if" sort of thing.

[Adios]

What happens next?

we all get poorer and learn to deal with it


Is there a plan?

No, there's no plan. The only plan is to maintain the status quo and de-legitimatize things that might challenge the status quo.

if you want a peek at the plan behind the curtain, check out this leaked citibank memo from 2005.

This.

Also, check out the history of Peru, or Prussia, or pre-Franco Spain.  A largely decadent, unproductive overclass using the state to advance monopoly interests, while everyone else slowly loses out, not being in on the inside deals.

That's basically the future, only we'll have tasers and the internet.

If it was basically the past, then it stands to reason it will happen again, sure.  We're nothing if not consistent in repeating our mistakes, and our collective memory is basically non-existent.

But other than scale, how does this differ from any time it's happened before?

Because we are now truly a global economy. The dollar is in very real danger of being replaced as the world currency. One more little snit fit from Congress like the last debt ceiling nonsense could easily be the final catalyst that forces such a move.

U.S. bonds are rapidly losing their attractiveness as an investment due to the suffocating debt we have piled up.

[Adios]

Who said anything about taking every penny from the top 1%?

Crossover from the link Cram posted that talks about what the top %1 think of everyone else, but the sauce is gone on the doc.  No one said it, I asked as a "what if" sort of thing.

I see, let's leave the goalposts in one place for a while though.

[Cramulus]

wow, I tried to re-upload the PDF and scribd won't let me -

The document "Citibank Memo" has been automatically removed from Scribd by our automated copyright protection system because it appears very similar to an unauthorized copyrighted document that was previously removed from Scribd.

Like all automated text-matching systems, ours sometimes makes mistakes. If you believe this document is not infringing and was removed in error, please contact copyright@scribd.com

fucking WOW 

well just to be 200% redundant, here's ANOTHER copy of it http://ifile.it/zt7x6ir/cb.pdf

[Cain]

sauce is gone on that link.

ok, let's say you could take every penny from the top 1% in the world and distribute it evenly to everyone.  Now that top %1 is dirt poor, they have nothing.

What does that accomplish except moving new and more people into the "top 1%"

Should there, in your mind, even be an institutionalized penalty and reward system for risking something (for simplicity, we'll just say capital) against the success or failure of an idea or product?

Except no-one's saying that.

The memo in question (which is freely available all over the net) is talking about the political power the 1% wields.  I doubt redistributing their wealth would form any kind of long term solution, though watching them freak out would be very funny and somewhat amusing.

It basically comes down to this: is it better to live in a democracy, or in plutocratic corporatist state (and I'm using corporatist in its classic definition here)?  When asked, most people seem to say the former, yet we actually live in the latter.  Allowing 1% of the income bracket to dominate the political decision-making leads to a number of warped, ineffective and outright wrong policy preferences being favoured, and that's true no matter which 1% it is, top or bottom.

The last couple of decades have shown that plutocratic corporatist states seem to have very little regard for the long term consequences of their actions, are contemptous of public opinion, engage in quasi-police state tactics and engage in wealth transfers which favour select insiders and impoverish everyone else.  A democratic polity would probably contain the worst of those excesses, since the fallout from them falls disproportionately on those outside of the key decision-making demographics.

That's what the memo is about, and the problem it outlines.

[LMNO]

Hawk, I think DP may be saying (and I happen to agree) that while this decline is indeed probable, I don't think it will lead to anarchy, apocalypse, et al -- There will probably be increased crime, the standard looting or riot during rolling blackouts, but not a Road Warrior scenario.

Basically, I see the entire country as being NYC circa 1977.

[Cain]

All that said, I'm still up for a program which involves stringing up Goldman Sachs chief executives from lamp posts.

I wanna see if they actually know where the safety on their glocks are.

[Cain]

I'd like to point out that no social collapse since the fall of the Roman Empire has led to a long-term decline in key indictators of health, education, energy consumption and other similar factors on a global or even continental level.

Sometimes they dip down for a few decades, but the overall progression is in an upwards direction.

[Cramulus]

In this article, an investment manager who works with the top 1% tells us all about them

http://ampedstatus.org/who-rules-america-an-investment-manager-breaks-down-the-economic-top-1-says-0-1-controls-political-and-legislative-process/

[Disco Pickle]

DP, I think you're muddying the waters here.

What I see as a main problem is that the top 1% has no new ideas, makes no product, and risks incredibly little.  The main earners of capital do so by manipulating game rules, not through "making" things.  

So it's them, and their enablers, and their bought governments, and anyone else on their payroll.  The biggest problem I saw, the change that really made this crisis bad, other than it's scale, was the removal of the moral hazard that would have seen many very rich people out on their ass had the rules not been changed to allow them a "win/win" scenario. 

This Vanity Fair article from 2008 by Christopher Hitchens: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/10/hitchens200810

is probably STILL one of the best I've read talking about where we are headed.

[Adios]

Hawk, I think DP may be saying (and I happen to agree) that while this decline is indeed probable, I don't think it will lead to anarchy, apocalypse, et al -- There will probably be increased crime, the standard looting or riot during rolling blackouts, but not a Road Warrior scenario.

Basically, I see the entire country as being NYC circa 1977.

Sure, I can see that. It's a good thing to remember that when people get hungry they tend to also get agitated. When Americans can no longer afford cable tv, internet or trips to McDonalds they will likely get pretty pissed.

[Disco Pickle]

Hawk, I think DP may be saying (and I happen to agree) that while this decline is indeed probable, I don't think it will lead to anarchy, apocalypse, et al -- There will probably be increased crime, the standard looting or riot during rolling blackouts, but not a Road Warrior scenario.

Basically, I see the entire country as being NYC circa 1977.

Basically exactly what I picture.  NYC right in the middle of the 70's recession and coke/crack epidemic. 

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I don't think we're going to see Road Warrior days, at least most of us over 30.  I do however think we will see a period of martial law at some point in the next 3-7 years if not sooner.  

There is no real cure at this point, we can patch the leaks and pray but the dam is going to burst and there isn't a whole hell of a lot we can do about it.

The top 1% has run this planet into the ground and they have been doing so for a very long time.  Now it is coming to light that the allmighty dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on if there is no food, fuel or shelter.  That is what is going to destroy us.  

[Cain]

When Hitchens is good, he's very good.  Unfortunately he's been mostly terrible since 2001, but that looks like a pretty good article.  I still miss 1980s neocon-bashing Hitch, though 

This, incidentally, is a very good point, and one I continually make:

I was very struck, as the liquefaction of a fantasy-based system proceeded, to read an observation by Professor Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, of the Yale School of Management. Referring to those who had demanded—successfully—to be indemnified by the customers and clients whose trust they had betrayed, the professor phrased it like this:

These are people who want to be rewarded as if they were entrepreneurs. But they aren't. They didn't have anything at risk.

That's one of the things I find so hilarious about the Cult of the CEO.  They're hired managers.  They're not risking their money.  They're risking investors money.  They're no more entrepreneurial than a logistics officer in any government agency.

[Cramulus]

I've been saying - we can't really change where the Machine is headed (unless we organize into larger groups).

So if you're not into Fighting The Good Fight (few people are, these days), the best way to prepare for the coming National 1976NYC zone is to build a little island where your friends and family can sustain themselves. And I don't mean a literal island - I mean you have to figure out how to flourish and support each other without any buying power. For us individuals, salvation is not going to come from the top of the pyramid. It's going to come from our communities and neighborhoods.