| Denial of Natural Flow | Summary |
| The Root of All Smugness | Books |
| How to Become A Fat Cat | DVDs |
| Bandits | Links |
| Mitt Romney |
The wealthy behave so badly because they have a preposterously inflated opinion of themselves. Just what do I mean by badly?
The main reason the fat cats are so obnoxious is that they are in denial about most basic fact of capitalist economies. The capitalist system automatically causes wealth to flow from the bottom to the top. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, even if the wealthy do no work at all. This is because wealthy people earn money automatically just for owning money, usually called interest or investment income. Further, people who own businesses automatically receive a disprortionate cut of the income that each of their employees generates, relative to what each party contributes to generating the income pie.
If a wealthy person can earn say $10,000,000 a year, they consider themselves 1000 times more worthy than someone who earns $10,000. As such, they see it that the poor should be giving them even more money, not the reverse. They feel they should not be subsidising the poor by paying taxes. They see their privileged state as an accurate reflection of their wonderfulness, hard work, foresight, moral virtue… not primarily as a quirk of the way the economy works. They feel extremely resentful of any measures to slow down the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich or compensating for it in some way with a reverse flow, or any measure to level the playing field, such as progressive tax rates. They see such measures as robbery because they believe that the trickle up flow is their natural due, their money, their god rewards them with being so superior to everyone else. Their mind set is identical to the land-holding nobility of the middle ages, droit du seigneur. They deny how they really make most of their wealth, preferring a self-flattering delusion instead.
The way I see it, pretty much the only way to get super rich is to take significantly more from others than the value of the goods and service you give in return. Unfortunately, if you want to become super wealthy, you must first became a con man, a parasite and probably a criminal too, but certainly ruthless and unprincipled. You must find some way to anesthetise your conscience. Very few wealthy people are able to generate enough goods and services to honestly justify their massive incomes. Some entertainers and inventors manage it.
Did you ever notice that mobsters and con men like Bernie Madoff are extremely generous? They are not under a delusion they worked their fingers to the bone for every penny. They know their money is not really theirs, but money they were able to deflect their way. You don’t see them looking down on the common man. They are under no delusion a god sent them great wealth as a reward for virtue.
Mitt Wilbur Romney is the classic fat cat. There are three factors that contributed:
The fat cats’ delusion about the primary cause of their extreme wealth makes them into Scrooges. They imagine others must be working only 1/1000 as hard as they do, where in fact they probably work harder. The poor just get rewarded less for their efforts. The economy is not a fact of nature, but a sort of game we play to help keep track of who owes whom a favour and to distribute goods and services fairly and efficiently. The wealthy take the game very literally. They believe any way they can con or milk the system is legitimate so long as it is legal and they then thus must fully deserve all they managed to exploit from it. A primitive society would not put up with greedy, thieving, arrogant smug bastards like this. They would kill them or drive them out out, not revere them the way they do in the USA. Morally normal people don’t try to exploit others, even if they could get away with it. That’s why you don’t find many ethical wealthy people.
P.S. Rich people are just ordinary people who were indoctrinated with a set of values when they hung out with other rich people, usually their parents. They are not inherently flawed. Wealth consciousness is a fate that befalls people, one not nearly so fortunate as many imagine. It is just one of the many ways humans fall from grace.
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recommend book⇒Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | David Cay Johnston | 978-1-59184-248-4 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1948-12-24 age:69 | 978-1-59184-191-3 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Portfolio Hardcover | 978-1-101-21651-4 | eBook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 2007-12-27 | 978-0-14-314296-6 | audio | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| B000YJ67LS | kindle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How the American taxation system takes money from the poor to enrich the rich. It is about the fundamental crookedness and unfairness. He names names, how each of the famous rich Americans cheated to get their wealth. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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recommend book⇒Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Thom Hartmann | 978-1-57954-955-8 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1951-05-07 age:66 | 978-1-57954-627-4 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Rodale | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 2002-10-04 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How corporations have taken control the government and have used terrorism as an excuse to abrogate human rights. How they have used NAFTA and the WTO to squash labour and environmental protection. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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recommend book⇒Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class — And What We Can Do about It | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Thom Hartmann | 978-1-57675-463-4 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1951-05-07 age:66 | 978-1-57675-414-6 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Berrett-Koehler Publishers | 978-1-60509-869-2 | eBook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 2007-04-28 | 978-1-4332-1514-8 | audio | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| B001AFF25M | kindle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This book is simple and somewhat repetitive. It argues five main points.
Hartmann argues that historically the wealthy elite have always worked to eliminate the middle class and hence stomp out democracy. They can then run things for their own ultimate financial benefit. We are going through a period now where the middle class is collapsing as a result of the corporatocracy and wealth of the tiny elite at the top is exploding. Since they control the media, they spread all manner of myths that make people vote against their own self interest in favour of those of the elites. The book also discusses how the war business hijacks government to provide it with endless streams of money for perpetual unnecessary war. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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If you ignorantly believe there’s not enough life support available on planet Earth for all humanity, then survival only of the fittest seems self-flattering to warrant magna-selfishness. However, it is due only to human’s born state of ignorance and the 99.99 percent invisibility of technological capabilities that they do not recognize the vast abundance of resources available to support all humanity at an omni-high standard of living.
~ Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller (1895-07-12 1983-07-01 age:87) Grunch of Giants
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recommend book⇒Grunch of Giants | |||
| by | Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller | 978-0-9740605-1-4 | paperback | |
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| birth | 1895-07-12 1983-07-01 age:87 | 978-0-312-35193-9 | hardcover | |
| publisher | Book | B01HH77632 | kindle | |
| published | 2004-03 | |||
| Fuller was one of the first to notice the effects of corporate power and globalisation. He follows the history starting from WW II. | ||||
| Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder. | ||||
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recommend book⇒Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Robert Reich | 978-0-307-27799-2 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1946-06-24 age:71 | 978-0-307-26561-6 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Knopf | 978-0-307-26785-6 | eBook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 2007-09-04 | 978-1-4001-3461-8 | audio | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| B000VMBYSY | kindle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Robert Reich was minister of labour under Bill Clinton. He explains how competition between companies for favourable legislation has lead to a sort of lobbying arms race. He explains the consequences, cheaper consumer prices, but also lower wages and less job security. He points out that corporations have no interest whatsoever in community values. It is pointless to expect them to care about global warming, job security, health care etc. They are purely market-driven. He believes this is as it should be. (I strongly disagree. Corporations should be just as responsible as individuals, and all individuals should be personally responsible for their actions they perform on behalf of the corporation.) However, he calls for citizen involvement in government to ensure issues that affect entire communities are properly addressed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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recommend book⇒Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Ha-Joon Chang | 978-1-59691-598-5 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1963 age:54 | 978-1-59691-399-8 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Bloomsbury | 978-1-59691-738-5 | eBook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 2008-12-28 | 978-1-4233-4684-5 | audio | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| B003Z9L4NA | kindle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Explains some of the forgotten successes of protectionism and the massive failures of free trade, especially for small countries. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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recommend DVD⇒The Shock Doctrine | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DVD | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Michael Winterbottom [Director], Mat Whitecross[Director] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| birth | 1961-03-29 age:57 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| asin | B005CFBZAM | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| upc | 698452208732 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Documents with grisly footage certain themes in US foreign policy ranging from Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Afghanistan to Iraq including:
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