The theory of the wealthy being anointed could go back to the Garden of
Eden.
God created Adam and gave him the Garden. To Punish Adam for his
disobedience, God did not smack his butt, nor stand him in a corner, He took
away the Garden He had given Adam, setting the example of the importance of
possessions.
And as far as women's rights? God took from Adam a rib and created for Adam
an Help Mate.
Adam possessed Eve, just as he had possessed his own rib. Just as Adam had
come from God, so Eve came from Adam. She could cleave unto him, but never
be equal to him.
While these stories have mostly fallen into the realm of Parables in today's
religions, back in Calvin's day they were still believed to be actual
historical events. Besides, the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is
filled with examples of God favoring certain chosen children with riches and
power.
As long as we humans continue to choose to believe in such rubbish, we will
be controlled by the possessors of material wealth, and the power that it
brings.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "ted chittenden" <tchittenden@cox.net>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: Five Reasons the 1% Do Not Want Unemployment to Decrease
The theory of the wealthy being anointed can be traced back to John Calvin,
the father of Calvinism (which was later known as Puritanism) who once
argued in writing that you could tell how much in favor with God a specific
human being was by how much wealth he (the female of the species never
entered Mr. Calvin's mind) had.
--
Ted Chittenden
Every story has at least two sides if not more.
---- Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
Wednesday, 19 February 2014 08:28
Five Reasons the 1% Do Not Want Unemployment to Decrease
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
(Photo: Jobs With Justice)BuzzFlash at Truthout isn't breaking any new
economic theory in stating that corporations and the 1% -- incuding the
increasingly dominant Wall Street financial stranglehold on the economy --
are actually quite happy with permanently high (as long as it doesn't cause
political de-stabilization) unemployment.
1) The most important value to high unemployment to the 1% is in the
ever-increasing profit margin that comes from lowering the cost of labor by
decreasing salaries and benefits. This result from competition for jobs
among a group of desperate employment seekers is that they have no choice
but to accept low-paying jobs.
Therefore, while the media likes to use the benchmark unemployment
statistics as a sign of the economy "improving" if the government figure
goes down, the 1% actually sees its lopsided share of US assets increase
when the unemployment figures are higher and wages lower.
This reality, largely ignored by the mainstream media, is of course
facilitated by the globalization of jobs to lower cost (often slave wage)
settings, devaluing the US labor market even further.
A corporation that may best illustrate this is the favorite of many
progressives: Apple. Apple, as a New York Times series revealed awhile
back, ruthleslly contracts overseas for labor at the lowest possible cost.
According to Robert Reich, only 6% of the cost of IPhone production
expenditures is spent in the US.
Apple doesn't lower its prices to reflect lower labor costs, either. It
sits on tens of billions of dollars in cash profit, while selling overpriced
trendy, innovative hi-tech products, relying on the consumer to pay the
higher prices due to its brand identity.
2) By forcing US laborers into lower-paying jobs with reduced benefits, the
1% profiteers are forcing an increase in debt among the working class and
unemployed. This debt is then charged at interest rates such as credit
cards, which can easily reach around 30%. This is one of the fundamental
Wall Street financial expectations: there will be increasing workers who
need to debt at usorious interest rates to survive.
Of course, the debt servicers make millions of dollars in bonuses at the
expense of the decreasingly paid worker. (The salary of American workers has
been stagnant for decades, adjusted for inflation.)
3) Living paycheck to paycheck -- and if a worker has any spare money,
receiving literally .01 interest in a savings account -- laborers have
virtually no funds to support political candidates of their choice. This
leaves the campaign finance arena mostly to the likes of the Koch brothers
and other billionaires. Given that national and most statewide (and even
congressional) elections are hashed out over television and radio, the men
and women with the million and billion dollar bottom lines can write the
checks that pull the strings on what has largely become the appearance of a
democratic process -- but is in actuality a blended oligarchy.
4) Higher unemployment and lower wages means that corporations can "re-tool"
their products to a more affluent market that further increases their profit
margin, since the wealthy tend not to be bargain shoppers.
5) Over the years, we have read how some 1% figures, such as Steve
Schwarzman (who threw a 60th birthday party in the New York Armory in which
he reportedly paid Rod Stewart $1 million to sing for him and his
well-heeled) pals, bemoan their critics.
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins doubled down on a recent tasteless and
alternative reality claim that the wealthy were being persecuted as the Jews
were by Hitler (Schwarzman, who is Jewish, made a similar remark a couple
years back) with the notion that people should be allowed an increase in the
number of political votes based on the size of their humongous cash hordes
and financial holdings:
And, just as everyone was thinking that Perkins was a tiny bit off his
rocker, he suggested that he had the solution to America's problems. In
order to vote, he proposed, everyone should have to have paid at least $1 in
taxes.
"And those who have paid a million dollars in taxes," he continued, "should
have a million votes."
Later, he walked back the comment made at the Commonwealth Club of San
Francisco, by claiming, "I intended to be outrageous."
There's a theory that the wealthy do believe that they are anointed. This
speculation about their world view is not that different from the monarchies
that democracies revolted against. It presupposes that the people of the
world are set in sort of a pre-determined caste system. In this world view,
those who inherit wealth (which is a high percentage of the super rich --
just look at the Walton and Koch heirs) are inherently more deserving of
their billions. Those persons who ruthlessly claw their way to the top --
with money appearing to be their ultimate criteria for the value of their
lives -- have been chosen to acquire fortunes because of their basic
worthiness, this theory argues.
So, there you have it, five reasons the 1% do not really want unemployment
to decrease. They are in a gilded stratosphere of wealth right now, making
a killing with low labor costs and a generally soaring stock market (with
some recent readjustment).
Their economy is soaring to the heavens -- and for it to continue to reach
new unprecedented heights of opulence, it is essential -- in their thinking
-- that the cost of labor continue to be pushed down, further and further.
That can most easily be accomplished if there are a surplus of workers and a
scarcity of jobs.
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Wednesday, 19 February 2014 08:28
Five Reasons the 1% Do Not Want Unemployment to Decrease
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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
(Photo: Jobs With Justice)BuzzFlash at Truthout isn't breaking any new
economic theory in stating that corporations and the 1% -- incuding the
increasingly dominant Wall Street financial stranglehold on the economy --
are actually quite happy with permanently high (as long as it doesn't cause
political de-stabilization) unemployment.
1) The most important value to high unemployment to the 1% is in the
ever-increasing profit margin that comes from lowering the cost of labor by
decreasing salaries and benefits. This result from competition for jobs
among a group of desperate employment seekers is that they have no choice
but to accept low-paying jobs.
Therefore, while the media likes to use the benchmark unemployment
statistics as a sign of the economy "improving" if the government figure
goes down, the 1% actually sees its lopsided share of US assets increase
when the unemployment figures are higher and wages lower.
This reality, largely ignored by the mainstream media, is of course
facilitated by the globalization of jobs to lower cost (often slave wage)
settings, devaluing the US labor market even further.
A corporation that may best illustrate this is the favorite of many
progressives: Apple. Apple, as a New York Times series revealed awhile back,
ruthleslly contracts overseas for labor at the lowest possible cost.
According to Robert Reich, only 6% of the cost of IPhone production
expenditures is spent in the US.
Apple doesn't lower its prices to reflect lower labor costs, either. It sits
on tens of billions of dollars in cash profit, while selling overpriced
trendy, innovative hi-tech products, relying on the consumer to pay the
higher prices due to its brand identity.
2) By forcing US laborers into lower-paying jobs with reduced benefits, the
1% profiteers are forcing an increase in debt among the working class and
unemployed. This debt is then charged at interest rates such as credit
cards, which can easily reach around 30%. This is one of the fundamental
Wall Street financial expectations: there will be increasing workers who
need to debt at usorious interest rates to survive.
Of course, the debt servicers make millions of dollars in bonuses at the
expense of the decreasingly paid worker. (The salary of American workers has
been stagnant for decades, adjusted for inflation.)
3) Living paycheck to paycheck -- and if a worker has any spare money,
receiving literally .01 interest in a savings account -- laborers have
virtually no funds to support political candidates of their choice. This
leaves the campaign finance arena mostly to the likes of the Koch brothers
and other billionaires. Given that national and most statewide (and even
congressional) elections are hashed out over television and radio, the men
and women with the million and billion dollar bottom lines can write the
checks that pull the strings on what has largely become the appearance of a
democratic process -- but is in actuality a blended oligarchy.
4) Higher unemployment and lower wages means that corporations can "re-tool"
their products to a more affluent market that further increases their profit
margin, since the wealthy tend not to be bargain shoppers.
5) Over the years, we have read how some 1% figures, such as Steve
Schwarzman (who threw a 60th birthday party in the New York Armory in which
he reportedly paid Rod Stewart $1 million to sing for him and his
well-heeled) pals, bemoan their critics.
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins doubled down on a recent tasteless and
alternative reality claim that the wealthy were being persecuted as the Jews
were by Hitler (Schwarzman, who is Jewish, made a similar remark a couple
years back) with the notion that people should be allowed an increase in the
number of political votes based on the size of their humongous cash hordes
and financial holdings:
And, just as everyone was thinking that Perkins was a tiny bit off his
rocker, he suggested that he had the solution to America's problems. In
order to vote, he proposed, everyone should have to have paid at least $1 in
taxes.
"And those who have paid a million dollars in taxes," he continued, "should
have a million votes."
Later, he walked back the comment made at the Commonwealth Club of San
Francisco, by claiming, "I intended to be outrageous."
There's a theory that the wealthy do believe that they are anointed. This
speculation about their world view is not that different from the monarchies
that democracies revolted against. It presupposes that the people of the
world are set in sort of a pre-determined caste system. In this world view,
those who inherit wealth (which is a high percentage of the super rich --
just look at the Walton and Koch heirs) are inherently more deserving of
their billions. Those persons who ruthlessly claw their way to the top --
with money appearing to be their ultimate criteria for the value of their
lives -- have been chosen to acquire fortunes because of their basic
worthiness, this theory argues.
So, there you have it, five reasons the 1% do not really want unemployment
to decrease. They are in a gilded stratosphere of wealth right now, making a
killing with low labor costs and a generally soaring stock market (with some
recent readjustment).
Their economy is soaring to the heavens -- and for it to continue to reach
new unprecedented heights of opulence, it is essential -- in their thinking
-- that the cost of labor continue to be pushed down, further and further.
That can most easily be accomplished if there are a surplus of workers and a
scarcity of jobs.
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
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