Community | August 17, 2011 | 31 comments

Tax the super-rich or riots will rage in 2012

source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tax-the-super-rich-or-revolution-will-rage-in-2012-2011-08-...

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Vierotchka
What a year. Rage in London, Egypt, Athens, Damascus. All real. Just a metaphor in the new “Planet of the Apes” film? No, much more. Warning: More rage is dead ahead. Across our planet a new generation is filled with rage. High unemployment. Raging inflation. Dreams lost. Hope gone. While the super -rich get richer and richer.

Listen to that hissing: The fuse is rapidly burning, warning us. Wake up before the rage explodes in your face. This firestorm is endangering America’s future. From forces outside, yes. But far more deadly, from deep within our collective psyche. We have lost our moral compass. We are self-destructing.

Crackpot warning? No. This warning comes from the elite International Monetary Fund. A recent IMF report looked at “the causes of the two major U.S. economic crises over the past 100 years, the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2007,” writes Rana Foroohar, an economics editor at Time magazine.

“There are two remarkable similarities in the eras that preceded these crises. Both saw a sharp increase in income inequality and household-debt-to-income ratios.” And in each case, “as the poor and middle-class were squeezed, they tried to cope by borrowing to maintain their standard of living.”

But the rich “got richer, by lending, and looked for more places to invest, bidding up securities that eventually exploded in everyone’s face. In both eras, financial deregulation and loose monetary policies played roles in creating the bubble. But inequality itself — and the political pressure not to reverse it, but to hide it — was a crucial factor in the meltdown. The shrinking middle isn’t a symptom of the downturn. It’s the source of it.” Today the consequences of the meltdown still haunt us — there’s more to come.

(much more at link)
  1. groups:
    Community,   News and Politics,   Culture,   World News,   7 more
  2. tags:
    Economy,  Taxes,  Economic Crisis,  Revolution,  8 more
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31 comments // Tax the super-rich or riots will rage in 2012

  • mii
    • +1
      mii  

    • I am ready to stand for the rights of Americans being pulled
      away one by one by selfish and power hungry factions in this
      country.

    • 9 months ago
  • Paratus
    • 0
      Paratus  

    • Good thing there are no "super rich" where I live. Riots such as happened in the UK would result in a lot of dead rioters. Looting stores and pulling people out of vehicles where I live will get a person shot.
      I understand the frustration but I don't think more confiscation of wealth is the answer to our economic problems.

    • 9 months ago
  • Warren_Merrill
  • Paratus
  • alexandrek
  • Paratus
  • Leen61
  • Warren_Merrill
  • CreditFigaro
    • +1
      CreditFigaro  

    • It's actually pretty amazing. There are almost exactly 80 years of time between the crash of the great depression and great recession.

      Also if you look at the agendas of Bush 2 vs. Coolidge and Hoover, you will see an alarming similarity.

      It's not only a similar situation, we are dealing with something that is almost exactly like the great depression. It will probably last just as long.

      I believe it doesn't seem as bad because we have better technology now, and fewer are starving.. but unemployment rates (if you add in underemployment) are as high now as they were then. And don't forget the millions of undocumented workers whom we don't count, now, who weren't around then.

      The recession isn't over and won't be until we have a balanced society.

      If anyone really wants to know what the solution is, look at what happened after the great depression. NOT the war, everything else. You will find a remarkably democratic agenda being carried out:

      -Cost plus contracts
      -Increased taxes on the wealthy
      -Increased regulation

      We don't need a riot, we just need the public to understand the true history of how we got out of the great depression, lest we collapse like the roman empire.

    • 9 months ago
  • Vierotchka
  • CalgarC
  • claireify
    • +8
      claireify  

    • I've been saying this for two years. It's an historical fact that when people have nothing to live for, they will fight to survive. Rioting, looting, killing, are in our future. And what will happen when the rich have no one left to work for them?

    • 9 months ago
  • remanns
  • artemis6
  • remanns
  • artemis6
  • CalgarC
  • kgMA
  • Warren_Merrill
    • -1
      Warren_Merrill  
    • artemis6:

      Go earn the money. Other than the unions, some old frustrated 60's hippies, some younger people upset they missed the 60's and the thirty people still watching MS-NBC the country isn't buying the class warfare BS.

    • 9 months ago
  • artemis6
  • Warren_Merrill
    • -1
      Warren_Merrill  
    • artemis6:

      Even when I had eight times the debt as I had assets I did not consider myself poor. I knew i had the motivation and work ethic to reverse the situation. As for the poor, homeless and disabled I have done plenty of charity work in each of these areas. I doubt most of the whiners and complainers on this site are poor, homeless or disabled. They just lack mental toughness. They would rather make excuses and cast blame than get tough and get it done regardless of the obstacles..

    • 9 months ago
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  
    • Warren_Merrill:

      You really must be terrified of being helpless . So much so that you are in denial of such a condition . I hope someone likes you for more than money , cause your life could really suck someday . Good luck to you .

    • 9 months ago
  • alexandrek
  • claireify
  • Buckeye_Bill
    • +4
      Buckeye_Bill  
    • Image

    • A hungry human being has no tomorrow.

      A greedy, selfish person will try to take today and if not, the greedy one has tomorrow to try again. And the day after. And the day after that.

      People aren't worrying about stock prices, or portfolios, or not taking that vacation to Europe, or buying that extra car, or even the price of gas or food or electricity.

      They're worried about losing their JOB...if they have one. And that is the crux of what will happen soon when the numbers become intolerable to contain. When that proverbial cup runneth over, the "spillage" will result in chaos upon the poor of society. When enough get tired of going hungry and cold or seeing their immediate family members suffer, especailly the children...all it will take then is one spark to ignite the people into action against their government. When they come to realize that their government has abandoned them, they will abandon their civil obedience.

      Where's the MSM reporting on all the tent cities? It's as if they don't exist anymore. But they do and are growing exponentially each passing day.

      I know.

    • 9 months ago
  • ampersand
    • +4
      ampersand  
    • Buckeye_Bill:

      Good comment.
      Also, a good question about MSM being not being able to see or report on the folks already on the street.
      They will be heard from, I think.
      Actually, I hope so and am looking forward to it.
      It could help.

    • 9 months ago
  • Buckeye_Bill
    • +3
      Buckeye_Bill  
    • ampersand:

      I only wish that it wouldn't take the suffering of people to get our government in gear to do something about homelessness, hunger, joblessness or sickness.

      I'm a born Idealist that is morphing into a devout pragmatist.

      I ask the government, "Why don't you do SOMEthing!".

      I ask God, "Why don't You do SOMEthing?".

      I get the same answer.

      All I can do is do what I can do.

      And I do.

    • 9 months ago
  • Buckeye_Bill
  • ampersand
  • claireify
    • +4
      claireify  
    • Buckeye_Bill:

      Re-posting claireification # 35- "Nothing happens until enough people in the same situation, in the same place, at the same time with the same passion, decide the same thing and act at the same time." Look out, richies. We will appear en masse at the steps of your homes and businesses and you will constantly be looking over your shoulders for traitors in your midst. This is not a threat. It's simply a predictable fact UNLESS you come up off that walkaround!!

    • 9 months ago
  • Buckeye_Bill
    • +2
      Buckeye_Bill  
    • claireify:

      I suppose you could classify hunger under the heading of Passion, because I do have a passion for chocolate ice cream! And when I get really hungry for desert, that's what I passionately reach for!

      But seriously, I know what you're saying. Hell, my wife's been hearing me say it for nearly four decades! All one needs to do is look at Africa...again. For as long as I have been mentally aware of Africa that continent has experienced severe hunger, malnutrition and starvation most of that time one country after another and more than not, many countries simultaneuously.

      Many of these same countries have been waging war with one political or religious faction one after another, too. For decades.

      And what have they learned from all this suffering? Nothing. They're right where they started. Nothing has or seems ever will change. If we use their past as a gauge for their future, it doesn't.

      Talk is turning to how we, as Americans, will respond to the needs of our poor and hungry. What will er do about it? So far, I'm not pleased with the responses from our government on how they plan to alleviate these concerns within our borders. I hear people say, "What can't our government provide for us as it does for other countries?".

      My answer is that we haven't been CHRONICALLY hungry yet. But we're getting there and fast!

      I have answers, but who am I to dispute the government's choices on how to deal with the pressing issues we face here at home. I'm just your average, ordinary taxpaying voter. Who listens to that person? Not politicians, for sure.

      I help my neighbors. Perhaps that's what it will come to. Us helping ourselves.

      That's the sure-fired way of ending hunger in America. Because if we wit on the governmen to do something, we just might see some starvation going on here in what many people believe is the Greatest Country in History.

      It all rests on our shoulders. Us. You and me.

    • 9 months ago
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