Business week article: France: Laissez-Faire Capitalism Is Over
A couple of years old but still relevant to the cause…
Anger is sweeping America. True, this white-hot rage is a minority phenomenon, not something that characterizes most of our fellow citizens. But the angry minority is angry indeed, consisting of people who feel that things to which they are entitled are being taken away. And they’re out for revenge.
No, I’m not talking about the Tea Partiers. I’m talking about the rich.
These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again.
Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans. You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.
The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office. At first, however, it was largely confined to Wall Street. Thus when New York magazine published an article titled “The Wail Of the 1%,” it was talking about financial wheeler-dealers whose firms had been bailed out with taxpayer funds, but were furious at suggestions that the price of these bailouts should include temporary limits on bonuses. When the billionaire Stephen Schwarzman compared an Obama proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland, the proposal in question would have closed a tax loophole that specifically benefits fund managers like him.
Now, however, as decision time looms for the fate of the Bush tax cuts — will top tax rates go back to Clinton-era levels? — the rage of the rich has broadened, and also in some ways changed its character.
For one thing, craziness has gone mainstream. It’s one thing when a billionaire rants at a dinner event. It’s another when Forbes magazine runs a cover story alleging that the president of the United States is deliberately trying to bring America down as part of his Kenyan, “anticolonialist” agenda, that “the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s.” When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilized (and rational) discourse no longer apply.
At the same time, self-pity among the privileged has become acceptable, even fashionable.
Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.
These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.
And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it. “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.
The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.
You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.
And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.
But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.
Campaign finance reports filed Aug. 2 reveal that the measure’s backers include some of the Bay Area’s wealthiest and most influential players. Among those who have donated a total of $50,800 to date are two major Silicon Valley financiers, a former Wells Fargo CEO, a local high-society philanthropist who runs a real-estate company and the principal of a Michigan-based development firm.
See the article from the Bay Citizen here.
For more on Sit/Lie see Sidewalks are for People
comic strip by journalist Shawn Gaynor and artist/musician/novelist Andrew Goldfarb
See the beautiful graphic novel “Sit, lie, get deported?” here
We urge Congress to do the right thing: let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% expire at the end of the year. We also believe Congress should extend the middle class tax cuts for The 98% of households that earn less than $250,000.
Our nation borrowed $700 billion since 2001 to allocate tax cuts for the rich – and we can’t afford another $826 billion, including interest payments, to extend them for another 10 years. After a half century of reducing taxes for the richest 2%, it is time to rebalance the tax code and ensure the wealthy pay their fair share.
As Part of Heather Sparks’ BIG RETURN Rebecca Walker contributed:
Pics so low quality, but works in overall buyer’s remorse energy. Here’s one: The Item.
Item, wrapped, waiting on desk to be returned.
Item wrapped in original tissue paper.
List of emails that came up under search for Rogan, store to which item to be returned. Long search for “RA” number and directions. Priority mailed it yesterday, after a month of trying to get it done. Didn’t take photo of it all nice and neat in USPS envelope because…in hurry to pick up son from school. Ultimate irony: item is “timeless watch” a watch with no face, signifying emptiness.
As Part of Heather Sparks’ BIG RETURN Kendall Karam contributed:
The pictures I have submitted for Heather Sparks’ Big Return are centered in Baltimore, Maryland’s African & African American Community. Baltimore is roughly 60% Black.
The 1st pictures are from Go Logo, a store on Greenmount Ave, but instead of buying an returning something, I bought a fake Gucci cap for $20 and tagged it up, as I like to do to anything that has materialistic intrinsic value…
The owners are from Africa, but I must return to ask again from where in Africa, I asked, but have forgotten. The next set of pictures are from my Nigerian mechanic’s shop near Greenmont Avenue, his friend Lola was there with her baby Tobe. I loved their clothing, they & Lola’s dress are also from Nigeria. Lola is doing her master’s degree in social work at Morgan State University (MSU). The gray dress is my design based on Kuba clothe from the Congo, I designed it for a class, Traditional Arts of Africa, at MSU. All African Art is Art for Life Sake, not Art for Art Sake, like Western Art. The pictures of the two men with their baby girls distinctly resolves a change that is happening; young black fathers enjoying their children stereotyping away from the same demographic of young black men in jail.
I attend an HBCU, (Historically Black College & University) working on my doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership. I intend to change policy, and work towards fully integrated arts education both theory and practice. My studies are based in a mix methods Theoretical Framework of Critical Pedagogy, Critical Race Theory, and an Afrocentic base. I have been teaching children in the Baltimore City Public school system techniques in Curved Space Geometry of Painting for the past year, utilizing images and the history of World Art, African & African American Art. I have been painting my whole life and find contemporary African American children to have the gift of art intrinsic in them. My art can be seen at www.CurvedSpaceGeometry.com, and I showcase other Baltimore artists at www.KolorUrban.com.
Barack Obama to authorise record $60bn Saudi arms sale
Biggest arms deal in US history will shore up a Gulf ally against Iran threat, but angers Tehran and worries Israel
Barack Obama is to go ahead with plans to sell Saudi Arabia advanced aircraft and other weapons worth up to $60bn (£39bn), the biggest arms deal in US history, in a strategy of shoring up Gulf Arab allies to face any military threat from Iran.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration is also in talks with the Saudis about possible naval and missile-defence upgrades that could be worth tens of billions of dollars more over five to 10 years.
Plans to go ahead with the package, which has been under secret negotiation since 2007, have been known for some time and have raised angry objections from Iran and to a lesser extent from Israel, an even closer US ally which is anxious to maintain its strategic edge over any potential adversary in the Middle East.
In its notification to Congress, the administration will authorise the Saudis to buy as many as 84 new F-15 fighters, upgrade 70 more, and purchase three different types of helicopters – 70 Apaches, 72 Black Hawks and 36 Little Birds, the Wall Street Journal reported. The package would be subject to a review by Congress.
According to earlier reports, the administration has already decided out of deference to the Israelis not to sell Saudi Arabia so-called stand-off systems, advanced long-range weapons that can be attached to F-15s for use in offensive operations.
The US is the world’s largest arms supplier and the Saudi deal alone is said to support up to 75,000 jobs, according to firms such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and General Electric. Last year, despite a recession that hit global arms sales, the US increased its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a congressional study.
In 2008, Saudi Arabia was the second biggest arms buyer in the developing world, spending $8.7bn, making it second only to the United Arab Emirates. Britain and France are also in intense competition to sell in this market.
US-Saudi ties suffered a serious dip after the 9/11 terrorist attacks exposed al-Qaida’s Saudi background to ordinary Americans, but the military relationship is in good order. Analysts say the deal will significantly boost Saudi Arabia’s ability to defend its airspace against aircraft and missiles, to undertake “very painful” deterrent strikes and to police coastal areas.
It will also lock Riyadh into a close military relationship with Washington for at least another 20 years. Questions about democracy, freedoms and human rights in the kingdom clearly have a lower priority than security issues.
The package is expected to win congressional approval with limited amendments, although probably not until after the 2 November mid-term elections. It is a striking reflection of a convergence between the strategic concerns of the US, Israel and conservative Arab states about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and bid for regional influence.
Saudi Arabia has denied recent reports that it has secretly agreed to allow Israeli planes to pass through its airspace on the way to bomb nuclear sites in Iran.
“Interviews with six demographers who closely track poverty trends found wide consensus that 2009 figures are likely to show a significant rate increase to the range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.”
See full article HERE.
