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Teetering on the brink of the new Depression
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handofdave
handofdave
3515 posts

Re: Teetering on the brink of the new Depression
Sep 18, 2008, 17:55
IanB wrote:
Also social unrest might be good for property speculation but it is not so good for consumerism. I suspect that as with our wars the distant poor will pay the heaviest price and then our own working class. The western middle classes will pay the heaviest price in terms of total $$$ but not the heaviest propotional to their personal wealth. If you follow me.


I do.
I'm hoping that this crisis translates into a reversal of trends that have, as we all know, funneled wealth upwards at an ever increasing clip. For the last three decades, the wealthy have become increasingly distanced from reality... you have to wonder how they thought they could keep doubling their dividends while simultaneously cutting the legs out from under the 'machine' that feeds them..
I'm completely disgusted with a lot of people who fall under the 'middle class' demographic here in the USA. They are the ones who have shot themselves in the foot by allowing themselves to be brainwashed into believing that any curbs on the greed of the economic elite, any move towards national health care, or keeping industry regulated amounts to 'Socialism'. The sad joke is that they don't fathom that they already DO enjoy elements of 'socialism' in the form of medicare, social security (which pays out even to the richest citizens of retirement age, for no good reason), government securities, federal, state, and local infrastructure, etc. And if any of these were suddenly gone, they'd howl.

It's embarrassing to admit, but much of the US population is just plain stupid. As much as any CEO, politician, or international financier, it's the Joe Six-Packs who screwed us all by propping up a class that's decided to sell the whole world down the river to sate their never-satisfied hunger for more, more, more...

In the USA, the myth that anyone can get wildly rich has taken on such a life of it's own that even many poor people are frightened by the prospect that their own fantasies of 'having their boat come in' will be undermined if the wealthy are constrained. It's a powerful meme that the fat cats have successfully deployed every couple of years to keep the gravy train of easy money pouring in.
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