Piketty on Sanders

Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the 21st Century, has written an article about the Berni Sanders moment. It is well worth reading. Do so here

I know that you are afraid

The economy has recovered. Put that in quotes, though. "Recovered" in that corporations and the very wealthy are doing great. The average worker, however, doesn't feel much recovery. Wages have stagnated. The advent of the 401k in place of a pension means that most people will die working. Retirement is gone. A few very wealthy families own everything and the rest of us fight over scraps from the table. The good jobs have left and they aren't coming back. The safety net has been shredded.

All of this is by design. This is not a bug, it is a feature.

This was the fever dream of Art Laffer and Ronald Reagan and their Plutocrat masters. But don't worry about that. Ignore it.

They know that they can keep doing this, keep redistributing the wealth upward, keep turning Americans into indenture servants as long as they keep you afraid.

FOX news and The Moonies and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh work for the Koch Bros. They do their bidding and do it well. They've made you afraid of Mexicans who will steal your job because they are too lazy to work and want welfare (?????). Afraid of Muslim terrorists who are stalking your every move and murdering millions of American every year (!!!!!). Afraid of Blacks who are commiting genocide against cops (seriously). Afraid of gays who are forcing you to have hot gay sex (at least, they are forcing Lindsey Graham to have hot gay sex). Afraid of hippes and vegans. Afraid of atheists who will steal XMAS (we atheists are all very much like the grinch).

Stay afraid. Be terrified. Vote Trump (or Cruz, or Rubio, or Jeb! or any of the other corporate tools). Soon you can work 18 hour shifts to get company script to spend in the company store. Just do as you're told and follow the part line.

Just because you're paranoid...

Doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you. It turns out that the KOCH assholes have their own private NSA. This shouldn't surprise anyone. These Facist-Capitalist bastards are planning a complete take over of the United States.  Spending billions on buying elections has not given them complete power yet. We can sort of guess what comes next.  Those dollars have gone a long way. Hell, they even bought a Supreme Court Decision.

Can Koch mercenaries be too far off?

Sam Harris and Capitalism

I stumbled across Sam Harris' interesting article about the wealth gap in which he suggests a one time tax on truly massive fortunes to fund infrastructure and energy independence. Reading it I kept thinking "weak sauce, Sam". His heart is in the right place, but truly this suggestion is a bit like using chewing gum to repair a massive hole in a large dam. It's just too little by far to make any serious difference.  That being said, I was shocked to see the sort of response his suggestion brought.

This nation is fully brainwashed. We as a people are so heavily invested in supporting the the wealthy and powerful against our own self interest that we will rise up in anger at the mere suggestion that the plutocrats be asked to give lend even a hand to the betterment of society.

I should not be surprised. Capital has used its tools (Religion, the media, public policy) and it has warped our national ideals to the point that we as a people cannot see clear to act in our own self interest anymore.

We need a new media dedicated to telling the truth and to actually educating the people about economic principles. We need something to fight back against the Koch Cabal, and FOX News and the rest. We need it before it is too late.

and also