My last post

At first I was one of the few voices bring up the issue in the U.S. of A. about the absolute War on the Poor. It has become so mainstream in the last few months that there is really no need to keep posting. I like to think that I urged the bigger media on, seeing my blog paraphrased many times by the NYT, Washington Post, and LA Times warms my heart.

I'll let one of the richest men in the world be the closing of this blog about how the rich milk the poor:

“there’s class warfare, all right,” warns Warren Buffett. “But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”


Keep flying yall.

Tax the Rich. The Richest (and smartest) say yes!

Warren Buffett just yesterday:

"We're going to have to get more [tax] money from somebody. The question is, do we get more money from the person that's going to serve me lunch today, or do we get it from me? I think we should get it from me. I have a lower tax rate, counting payroll taxes, than anybody in my office. And I don't have a tax shelter -- I just take the form and fill out the numbers. I think that's very wrong, and I think that if we're going to get money -- and we're going to need money; we are not taking in enough money at the federal government level ... it shouldn't be [from] the bottom 98%. It should be more from people at the top."


"If you get $100 billion more of taxes ... from people like me at the top, it means you borrow $100 billion less out of the economy. Somebody has to come up with that $100 billion ... you're taking the money from the economy either way. The only question is whether you take it by borrowing or by taxes. And I see no problem in taxing people at the very high levels significantly more than they're being taxed now. And I might very well cut taxes even further for the people at lower levels."

And for all the idiots who say cutting spending is the solution....they have no clue what the majority of our tax dollars got to:

40% Defense and international security (of which only 3.5% goes to VA benefits!) - the idiots are always asking for more war
20% Social Security -for our elders mostly - if you want to cut this, you probably we're born, you were manufactured
20% most of which is for Medicare - maybe you want to screw the rich and let them suffer?
10% National Debt - "no new taxes" means increasing this part
7% 'Safety net' programs - if you don't want to see homeless, starving children on the street, but the idiots probably don't care
3% Everything else

What I hear constantly from the budget cutters are elements from that bottom 10% Those are the programs that we get the most bang for the buck. For example - Food Stamps are both a safety net program and the largest farm subsidy. Cut that an you kill domestic agriculture and risk millions of children being malnourished which leads to even greater costs.

I stand with Warren Buffett

The Gap

Racism is indeed a problem in our country that espouses equality and tolerance which in practice provides neither. Not to diminish this issue, there is a global problem that has existed since the beginning of civilization, but only recently has become acute in the United States - the Gap between right and poor. The driving force behind this blog is to show the obscenity of extreme wealth in the face of growing poverty.

Michelle Singletary soft peddles the issue at the open of her article for the Washington Post:

"There is a disturbing and widening gulf between the rich and the poor in America. And it would be even wider except for the fact that so many middle-income families have borrowed their way to a comfortable lifestyle. They are just a paycheck, a divorce or a heath crisis away from financial ruin."

But the staggering statistics she brings up are worthy of a mention here:

"A 2007 report by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy found that the top 20 private-equity and hedge fund managers made more in 10 minutes than average-paid U.S. workers earned in a year. Top executives at hedge funds averaged $12.6 million a week, or $210,700 an hour based on a 60-hour week, compared with the $29,500 the average worker made in 2006, according to researchers."

For her, the roadblock to reform was partisanship and personal responsibility.

For me? The road block is a lack of education about the facts about wealth and the apathy that has been generated by so much misinformation.

Crises of Capitalism

I know I was sidetracked by the oil spill. Which interestingly enough is following the course I kind of laid out. They plugged the well, but scientists have found that the sea floor around the well head has sprung some leaks...but the reason I'm typing tonight is simply to share this great video by RSA Animate.



Be forewarned, David Harvey uses references to Marx which doesn't offend my sensibilities one bit, but many folks who have been in the educational system of the United States have some sort of 'kill switch' in their hearing nerves. The word Marx is uttered and they go absolutely deaf. They cannot even hear a peep of the most reasonable of theories or arguments when that name is mentioned. It is quite strange indeed.

It's all over now baby blue. Part 2

"The oil giant drilled down miles into a geologically unstable region and may have set the stage for the eventual premature release of a methane mega-bubble."

This might be just an alarmist point of view, but in the video I posted in the first installment of IAONBB you can clearly see the sea floor cracking open in multiple spots with gas and oil coming through.

If BP did trigger an event of this magnitude as the author above claims, at what point would people actually believe it?

Independence Day

We live in a society ruled by a select few very wealthy people. It is more like a monarchy with less freedom than our colonial past.

A society whose greatest export is war and culture identity of monster trucks and NASCAR is bent on the destruction of the planet:

Oh say can you seeAt the dawn's early light
What so proudly they nail
By the twilight’s last gleaming

Whose sexless drones who drive cars
Through each per-i-lous night
And the roadkill they watch
Were so fre-quent-ly bleed-ing

And the rockets red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Each end of the world scare
And that flag was still there

Oh say does that car strangled freeway yet rage?
With the slaughter of the land
They make a home for another slave



What do we celebrate on this day? Another chance to buy beer and BBQ? In our modern world, where all the countries are tied together in a very global market place, where all are involved in the health or destruction of our biosphere isn't the idea of country antiquated?

One of my first memories as a child were the moon landings. Not the first one, for I was too young, but the last few and Skylab after that. With these images of our world so etched in my mind during my formative years I cannot sway to accept we are divided into countries. That is completely an artificial construct that, with the controlling power of transnational corporations, is more fantasy than fact.

What we need now is a war of independence from the rule of transnational corporations and a refocus on what is true:

We are one world.

Reality Check

"underemployment"...right now is 16.6%, just below its recent high and twice the level it was a few years ago

And even that may not tell the full story. Many people have simply dropped out of the labor force statistics.

Consider, for example, the situation among men of prime working age. An analysis of data at the U.S. Labor Department shows that there are 79 million men in America between the ages of 25 and 65. And nearly 18 million of them, or 22%, are out of work completely.

Cap Gemini's latest Wealth Report notes that the North American rich saw an 18% jump in their wealth last year.

Keep watching the oil spill and remember that oil men are still seeing their personal wages the highest in their lifetimes.

3D or not 3D

There is a lot of talk about getting everyone on the band wagon to make and watch 3D movies.

In a time of shrinking global resources and people lobbying for greener energy, isn't the easiest thing to consume less energy? Why am I writing about this in a blog about wealth and in specific in a topic about 3D?

3D is here to install a new ceiling on filmmakers. Too many indie filmmakers and small studios were taking over Hollywood's turf. Instead of looking at a level playing field as a time to up their game, Hollywood changed the rules - 3D is in. 2D is out. They have convinced many theaters to install 3D projectors and distributors to look for 3D product. Since 3D adds $2-15 million onto the cost of making a film, this pushes most filmmakers back to the fringe.

Hollywood thinks that it will stem the piracy, but that time has already passed, as 3D versions of movies are already popping up on the P2P networks. The other aspect is that it costs $2-15 million more in resources and...here's the sleeper part:

3D TVs consume 15-30% more than their 2D counter parts.

Calibrated TVs
Samsung's 2D UN46B6000 LED 46" 90 watts
Samsung's 3D UN46B8000 LED 46 " 105 watts
Sony's 3D Bravia XBR-46HX909 46" 125 watts


Still think Avatar heralded in an age of eco-friendly smurfatude?

One more thing

WKRG.com News

The Oil Forcast

It's all over now baby blue

What is not being told about the disaster in the Gulf is that the sea floor around the drilling area is unstable and it is more likely that the floor will collapse letting loose the whole of the oil reserve.

Video doesn't lie.



Notice oil leaking from the cracks in the sea floor. How are you going to cap a couple of square miles of sea bed?

"What is likely to happen now?
Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets."

Remember the amount of money the people responsible have made. How they gained that wealth by cutting corners and lobbying the Feds for less restrictions.