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As inequality in the US grows, the ultra-rich are pouring their spare cash not just into private jets, but into private security. Think there's a connection?

By Robert Frank

JULY 6, 2011

 

Last year, I was at a billionaire’s home in California and I asked him to describe his biggest worry. He pointed to a 19th century painting on the wall, which depicted a female beggar receiving alms from a wealthy gentleman and giving her patron a flower in return.

 

“That’s what I worry about,” he said. “But instead of flowers, she’s got guns. Violence in the streets, aimed at the wealthy. That’s what I worry about.”

 

It turns out he wasn’t alone. A new survey from Insite Security and IBOPE Zogby International of those with liquid assets of $1 million or more found that 94% of respondents are concerned about the global unrest around the world today.

 

Of course, Insite has an interest in getting the paranoid rich to beef up their security. Still, the numbers are backed up by other trends seen throughout the world of wealth today: the rich keeping a lower profile, hiring $230,000 guard dogs, and arming their yachts, planes and cars with military-style security features.

 

Granted, America isn’t a country conducive to class wars in the streets (even a mention by the President of rolling back the private-jet tax breaks sparked denunciations of class warfare). But at a time when most of the country is mired in unemployment, weak housing prices and a stack of bills from the bailouts, the rich have reason to fear public resentment. And some fear even worse.

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/20...ence-in-the-streets/

 

Jack London accurately detailed utter failure of our financial elite

Just about a hundred years ago, Jack London wrote The Iron Heel about the oligarchy in America taking open control of the government to crush the rising political power of the working and middle class.

 

George Orwell said essentially the same thing as London in 1984

From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations...


But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction -- indeed, in some sense was the destruction -- of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared...


For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. 

http://professorsmartass.blogs...financial-elite.html


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And that rich that is "secured to the teeth" includes the ultra-rich libby hollyweird crowd and other "richer than sin" liberals.  I guess it's OK to be filthy stinking rich if you're a democrat. They keep telling everyone else they should give their money away while they hoard theirs. There are as many if not more, rich democrats as there are republicans.

This is from a group called Patriotic Millionaires.  The point made in this article that interest me the most show that half of the Tea Party congressmen  are actually millionaires themselves.  There is so much misinformation in the media, I was watching CNN yesterday and I can't remember the name of the teabagger congressman making the statement but he was exalting that these freshmen teabagger congressmen were just average folks and not wealthy politicians.  This has been the general depiction throughout all of the hostage taking of the economy and I find it interesting that nobody has caught on to this to counter their protecting THEIR self interest even if the supporters of the Tea Party are too ignorant to protect their own self interest. 

 

The Patriotic Millionaires are a group of 200+ millionaires who have repeatedly asked elected officials to “put our country ahead of politics” and increase taxes on incomes over $1 million. Their efforts are coordinated by the Agenda Project, a New York-based public policy organization and Wealth for the Common Good.

“More than half of the members of the House and Senate – including members of the Tea Party Caucus – are millionaires,” said Erica Payne, Founder of the Agenda Project and coordinator of the Patriotic Millionaires.  “Patriotic citizens understand millionaires and billionaires need to pay more if we are going to get our fiscal house in order.  Unfortunately many Republican Millionaire Politicians care more about giving themselves a tax cut than doing what is right for the country.  Is patriotism really too much to ask from our politicians?”

According to Open Secrets.org more than HALF of the members of the TEA PARTY CAUCUS are millionaires.  Of the congress at large, research shows that more than 250 members are millionaires - according to an analysis of 2009 data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Just 1 percent of Americans are millionaires. According to the study, congressional members’ personal wealth increased by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009. Figures show that the median wealth of a House member is $700,000+, while the median wealth for a senator was over $2 million.  Note: Members of Congress are only required to report their wealth and liabilities in broad ranges, and federal financial disclosures don’t require members of Congress to report certain assets such as personal residences.

Patriotic Millionaires include: more than a dozen current and former Google employees, actress Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie); Susie Buell, Founder of Esprit; John Katzman, the founder of the Princeton Review; legendary philanthropist Michael Steinhardt; famed economist Nouriel Roubini; financial guru Andrew Tobias, top executives from Warburg, Pincus and other major financial firms, Dennis Mehiel, Chairman and Founder, U.S. Corrugated, Inc.; Ron Garret, Venture Capitalist – Former Google employee; Abigail Disney, Filmmaker, philanthropist; Peter Norvig, Computer Scientist; David Brown, Investor / Entrepreneur; Dal LaMagna, Co-Managing Partner IceStone; Leo Hindery, Managing Partner, InterMedia Partners; Frank Jernigan, Former Senior Software Engineer at Google; Michael Barr, Small Business Owner; Charlie Fink, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist; Daniel Berger, Attorney; Linda Gottlieb, Film / TV Producer; David Watson, Music Producer; Josh Kanter, Attorney; Garrett Gruener, Co-Founder / Director; and Dr. Robert Johnson, Executive Director – Institute for New Economic Thinking among others.

For more information about the Patriotic Millionaires, please visit www.patrioticmillionaires.org.

 





Rocky you need medication.  If that is the general depiction in the media then why can you only refer to one incident in which the media has depicted in and even then you can't tell us where and when the alleged depiction took place.  The tea party members weren't elected because people thought they were average "Joes".  They were elected on a platform and it wasn't some bull spit like "hope and change" either.  They were elected to restore some fiscal sanity.   Any intelligent person could see through your class warfare.

 

Originally Posted by Ronnie P.:

Rocky you need medication.  If that is the general depiction in the media then why can you only refer to one incident in which the media has depicted in and even then you can't tell us where and when the alleged depiction took place.  The tea party members weren't elected because people thought they were average "Joes".  They were elected on a platform and it wasn't some bull spit like "hope and change" either.  They were elected to restore some fiscal sanity.   Any intelligent person could see through your class warfare.

 

Ronnie P.

I know that your answer for everything is "medication" and given the amount of babbling you devolve to in your post, I had already figured out that most of the time you are heavily medicated.

I prefer to stay drug free.

I was simply pointing out something I found which was new concerning the number of millionaires in the Tea Party and how they were bene****ing from their own positions.

And the teabaggers were elected because of the money spent by the Koch Brothers to fund D*ick Armey and Freedomworks and from there went on to create a media campaign of misinformation through Fox News.  It also helped that they had healthcare reform as a starting point to whip the masses into a frenzy with lies and scare tactics. 

If they were elected to restore "fiscal sanity" why were they following the insane position of taking on the debt limit increase and risking the country's bond rating?

As for "hope and change", I will be the FIRST to admit that I am sorely disappointed with President Obama.

But, I am not hardened enough now, or do I think I will ever be, to see elderly people suffer, to see homeless families go hungry or to see the sick die unnecessarily simply because they are poor.  I know this isn't the religious forum, but that isn't Christ like and I try to follow an example.  And every position I see in the republican party and especially since this "tea party" faction has taken it over, violate that example.

And that is one of the functions of government.  To govern.  That is the problem with the Tea Party, great at rally's in 3 corner hats and costumes, but cannot govern since they HATE and want to abolish it.

 I know this isn't the religious forum, but that isn't Christ like and I try to follow an example. 

 

*********************************************************************************************************************

 

Oh pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee. GAGGGGGGGGGGG. Rocky you know nothing, and I mean nothing, about Republicans. All you know is the democratic line, and like I said that line or mindset is "give away your money but I'll keep mine thank you". Democrats think it makes them look good to talk about helping the poor and they love to do that, but it's only talk. When it get's to the *** cutting they back off and let someone else do it. It's like that old expression, "democrats don't care how you slaughter the cow as long as they get the steak".

As to organized violence, against the rich, and anyone they disagree with, that was and is the purview of the Democrats.  For almost a century, the KKK served as the paramilitary wing of the Democrat Party, rather like the brown shirts of the NSDAP.  Now disorganized and in disrepute, the purple shirted thugs of the SEIU have taken up the role of the KKK for the Democrats. 

Originally Posted by JimiHendrix:

Jennifer and the duck prove once again that they are on the wrong side. They are are like the Christians in the lion's den, and they are supporting the lions that want to eat them. There are those who would like to save them, but they insist on being eaten. Looney tunes!


Do tell? And just what are you going to "save us from"?

Originally Posted by Mr.Dittohead:

Most wealthy people that are afraid, are Dems.  They are worried about the radicals of the TEA Party akin to the recent Norwegian incident., That guy that was in communication with members of US Tea parties.   His manifesto was the Tea Party platform. 


No, they're worried that one day they might actually be told to "put up or shut up" and they will have to part with some of their wealth.

Breivik is the poster child from the DHS report on homegrown security threats.  His political affiliations, his cultural bias, his weapons hoarding, his survivalist tendencies all point to a card carrying member of the militant Tea Party, one such as Gellers Stop Islamization of America, a groups Breivik was in contact with.  

Ditzy,

 

"Breivik is the poster child from the DHS report on homegrown security threats.  His political affiliations, his cultural bias, his weapons hoarding, his survivalist tendencies all point to a card carrying member of the militant Tea Party, one such as Gellers Stop Islamization of America, a groups Breivik was in contact with."

 

Not even close, no cigar, not even a cigarillo.  If you read Breiviks manifesto and referrenced his background, you'd know more of him.

 

His references to christian is meant as old European ways and traditions, not actual christianity. Especially telling is his references to christian-atheists (Jennifer, no offence mean).  There are no such persons.  Our ancestors left that tradition behind.

 

Breivik's early political training was with the Labor Party.  They indoctrinated him with the idea of violence as a legitimate method of political expression. Certainly not, the classical liberal free market Norwegian Progress party.    

 
Keep on this meme and it will become an embarassment as Breivik's true nature is shown.   
 
Originally Posted by interventor1212:

Ditzy,

 

"Breivik is the poster child from the DHS report on homegrown security threats.  His political affiliations, his cultural bias, his weapons hoarding, his survivalist tendencies all point to a card carrying member of the militant Tea Party, one such as Gellers Stop Islamization of America, a groups Breivik was in contact with."

 

Not even close, no cigar, not even a cigarillo.  If you read Breiviks manifesto and referrenced his background, you'd know more of him.

 

His references to christian is mean as old European ways and traditions, not actual christianity. Especially telling is his references to christian-atheists (Jennifer, no offence mean).  There are no such persons.  Our ancestors left that tradition behind.

 

Breivik's early political training was with the Labor Party.  They indoctrinated him with the idea of violence as a legitimate method of political expression. Certainly not, the classical liberal free market Norwegian Progress party.    

 
Keep on this meme and it will become an embarassment as Breivik's true nature is shown.   
 


I didnt mention anything about christianity, thats your hangup.  Try again.

Cue the Duck. 

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