naked capitalism

Deus-DJ says:

What Yves says is ultimately right…it will all circle back around eventually, meaning that the rich will ultimately feel some pain from the lower classes feeling it. However, at that point it’s impossible to say whether they will find a new avenue to fleece the poor/government. This cycle will unfortunately never end until we put the right policies in place to support the poor and middle class in this country.

attempter says:

The correct phrasing of the question is, “Does humanity need the rich? And now that the answer has proven to be a resounding NO!, should humanity tolerate their crimes and their existence?”

Although the parallels between today’s America and 18th century France are not complete, one overwhelming concurrence is how there’s this stagnant, worthless mass of the feudal rich which does nothing but steal, set up tollbooths and roadblocks, and assert unproductive, oppressive prerogatives. But it contributes absolutely nothing even remotely constructive to the society, and hardly even bothers pretending to. On the contrary, it makes an ostentatious show of its complete irresponsibility, asociality, antisociality. It’s simultaneously oppressive, destructive, and worthless. It’s an existential drag by any measure of political freedom, moral justice, or economic efficiency. According to any rational or moral criteria, as well as any true capitalist criteria, it should be wiped out completely.

It’s possible that the people are by now such terminal, subhuman slaves that they’d acquiesce in the new fortress/serf paradigm. But historically that hasn’t been the case, and how these worthless criminals, the offensiveness of their evil crimes rivalled only by the offensiveness of their parasitic worthlessness, think they’re going to be able to hide forever behind a flimsy wall, a camera, and a fat, stupid, shoplifting security guard, is a mystery.

attempter says:

This is what I meant in an earlier comment some people misunderstood, about how the criminal rich are attempting a form of secession. They want to abscond with the physical land and all the wealth of the country, along with the governmental instruments of violence and any other aspect of government which can be turned to thug purposes. Meanwhile they want to leave “the country” itself as a social and legal entity behind. That’s to be left in a vestigial gardbage dump state, a place to dump risks and costs.

Mickey Marzick in Akron, Ohio says:

The answer to whether the “rich” need the rest of us or not is both YES and NO. As far as material consumption goes, since much of it involves imported luxury items – clothes, automobiles, etc – the rich don’t need us per se. What the “rich” really do need us for though is the belief that “I want to be rich too”. Otherwise, why would the other 95% of the ‘unrich” population spend billions on lottery tickets if not for the desire to be rich? How many times have you heard “If I win the lottery” or “When I win the lottery”.

Why is this desire to be rich among the “unrich” 95% so pervasive? Isn’t this the secret to the whole game/scam? Because once you want to be rich, you “buy” into the value system and supportive structures/institutions that result in 5% of the population being defined as “rich” and the other 95% as “unrich”. If 95% of the population didn’t buy into this would the “rich” be able to exert the pull and influence – CONTROL – over US that they do? So, the “rich” are dependent on the rest of us wanting to be rich. If “we” decide that we don’t want to be rich – game over!

Moreover, when we say “rich” are we talking about all of those whose net worth exceeds a certain amount [5% of the population] or are we talking about the 5% within this group who make decisions on a daily basis that affect our lives. Because 90% of the “rich” are content to spend their INHERITED money, contribute to charitable causes and the like, travel the social circuit, and leave the day-to-day running of the show to someone else, usually someone from the “lower classes” on the way up who wants to be rich. Then with sufficient wealth, his/her children are sent to elite universities for “polishing” and ascendance into the “ruling aristocracy”. But the “process” usually requires a generation or two for it to become institutionalized. Along the way INHERITANCE or marriage becomes the vehicle whereby one becomes rich – the genetic lottery if you will. Since most of the wealth in this country is inherited – not earned – then it becomes a question of which “rich” are we really talking about? The ‘wanna bees” or the “bees”? But since the “wanna bees” are usually hungrier and originate from the ranks of the “unrich” we come back to the question of why they want to be rich in the first place. Because so long as some of “unrich” want to be rich – defined as SUCCESSFUL – and the others accept/acquiesce to the values supportive of this system it will continue.

Ask yourself, do I want to be rich and why? If the answer is affirmative then are you more a part of the problem than the solution or vice versa? To pretend that it’s the “rich” – THEM – and not US may play well in the blogosphere but it does little to alter the value system underlying the playing field that make for the “rich”. And so long as many of us want to be rich without understanding why or the consequences of such thinking, very little will change. In this context, the “rich” are DEPENDENT on us – or at least some of us. The “rich” may be decoupled from us vis-à-vis material consumption, but their value system is forever coupled to some of us wanting to be rich. It is only when we quit wanting to be rich or redefine what “rich” means and translate it into a viable alternative to their definition that we will be “decoupled” from the rich. So don’t focus your anger and frustration on what the “rich” do or don’t do, focus on yourself and those around you in finding a viable alternative to not wanting to be rich. Quit playing their game and work to create a replacement from the bottom up – not from the top down. Think longterm and act with purpose on a day-to-day basis. This is the only way to sever this “gordian knot” and change the game permanently.

kevinearick says:

The corporate stimulus, phase II, is now going into replacing the technology they can’t fix, with the same technology. Meanwhile, they continue to habituate their minions to the technology. It will end badly, but there is still plenty of hoarded goods in the communities.

The assumption of the empire is that it can out-wait the individual, which is a pretty good assumption, in most cases, and why most tend to bet with the empire, liking it or not.

With each bet, however, the empire gets fatter, dumber, and slower. If an automobile factory is automated and capitalized over 30 years, what is the financial and human consequence when the automobile is no longer viable?

The law is like freeway, which was once an animal trail, an indian trail, a wagon road, and a highway. What happens when the destination is no longer viable, and the population “knows” no other path?

CDSnotWMD says:

Fits perfectly well with the most read article on FT’s website today about rich Americans giving up their passports – simply genius of a coincidence…

Below a few lines from the article, rest on FT website or Yves can provide a link on this:

Americans who swap passports
By Ellen Kelleher

Published: August 2 2010 19:42 | Last updated: August 2 2010 19:42

At the US Embassy in London, there is a waiting list that none of the officials likes to discuss. On the list are Americans hoping to give up their citizenship, as they seek shelter from the Internal Revenue Service.

One lawyer fighting for her clients’ right to do so is Suzanne Reisman, a former civil rights lawyer, who is now a private-client lawyer in Mayfair, central London.

“You make a lot of sacrifices when you have to pay US taxes and live outside the country for a long time. But you also make a lot of sacrifices when you give up your passport,” she says.

Having lived in London since 1998, Ms Reisman herself has considered giving up her US passport. But she probably won’t. “I don’t think I want to die in the UK,” she says.

With many executives living away from their countries of origin, the reasons to change citizenship range from clarifying tax status, making it easier to cross borders, particularly in the case of passport holders from emerging markets who find themselves working in countries such as the US for a prolonged period of time, or discovering that over time their allegiances have changed.

While any individual will need to weigh the pros and cons of any change in status, both in terms of the hassle it can entail but also the long-term consequences, it also poses challenges for employers.

The backlog at the US Embassy, where no appointments are available until February, stems from a rise in the number of American expatriates living in the UK who have been seeking to escape paying US tax on their worldwide income and capital gains since the simplification of US tax laws in 2008.