Home » Posts tagged 'pitchforks'
Tag Archives: pitchforks
Long Pitchforks And Water Cannons
Long Pitchforks And Water Cannons
The juxtaposition of the following two tweets is absolutely stunning and just freaking… WOW!
Potential Major Political Blowback
Can you imagine the political blowback that is coming if the economy doesn’t snap back soon as the levered bad actor oil companies (just to name one sector) have been bailed out while the Administration is still trying to kill Obamacare and even tried to cut food stamps to the poor earlier this year?
Nothing partisan here, we are just extrapolating the consequences and political analysis of the GFC to the current crisis. Think about it, last week Main Street registered another 6 million-plus hit in lost jobs and junk bond investors got bailed out of their risky and dumb-ass bets.
Op-Ed: Get ready for the recovery of the 1%
There were two important economic events on Thursday. The government reported that 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment, an all-time record. And the Federal Reserve announced a new program to flood the economy and financial markets with $2.3 trillion in liquidity — including buying up junk bonds from debt-laden companies.
Which one moved the market? The Fed move, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 500 points by midday.
The market jump, unemployment surge and Fed rescue efforts all converged to form a new split in the economy, between the asset-rich and the rest of America. — CNBC
Also, seeing a lot of the privileged Bailout Queens on Twitterati taking victory laps thinking they’re geniuses — and some even grotesquely posting pictures of their steak and lobster dinners like anybody gives a shit — after the Fed has saved their bacon for the umpteenth time. Yet they have no clue of the consequences of what may be about to come. Must be the ultimate contrarian signal.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Flash-Balls, Pitchforks And A Backstop
Flash-Balls, Pitchforks And A Backstop
It’s educational and even somewhat entertaining to observe the role of the western press in the ongoing erosion and demise of democracy in Europe. But while it’s entertaining, it also means their readers and viewers don’t get informed on what is actually happening. The media paints a picture that pleases the political world. And it it doesn’t please politicians to lift a veil here and there, too bad for the public.
The Shakespearian comedy that was performed last night in the UK House of Commons is a lovely case in point. Basically, MPs voted whether or not to allow PM Theresa May to change the Brexit deal she had told them about a hundred times couldn’t possibly be changed. Brexit has turned full-blown Groucho by now: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
It was exactly two weeks ago last night that lawmakers voted by a historic 432 to 202 count to reject May’s Brexit deal. And now they voted to a) let her change it and b) go talk to the EU about changing it though Brussels has said as often as May herself that it cannot be changed. Remember: the UK is set to leave the EU 59 days from now, and counting.
It’s like in a game of chess that has long turned into a stalemate or threefold repetitionsituation: you stop playing. No such luck in British politics. The only way the parliament could find ‘unity’ (in a narrow vote) was to agree to ditch the Irish backstop that is an integral part of why the EU accepted May’s deal to begin with.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Pie Is Shrinking So Much The 99% Are Beginning To Starve
Melissa E Dockstader/Shutterstock
The Pie Is Shrinking So Much The 99% Are Beginning To Starve
Social movements arise to solve problems of inequality, injustice, exploitation and oppression. In other words, they are solutions to society-wide problems plaguing the many but not the few (i.e. the elites at the top of the wealth-power pyramid).
The basic assumption of social movements is that Utopia is within reach, if only the sources of the problems can be identified and remedied. Since inequality, injustice, exploitation and oppression arise from the asymmetry of power between the few (the financial and political elites) and the many, the solution is a reduction of the asymmetry; that is a tectonic realignment of the social structure that shifts some power—economic and/or political—from the few to the many.
In some instances, the power asymmetry is between ethnic or gender classes, or economic classes (for example, labor and the owners of capital).
Social movements are characterized by profound conflict because the beneficiaries of the power asymmetry resist the demands for a fairer share of the power and privileges, while those who’ve held the short end of the stick have tired of the asymmetry and refuse to back down.
Two dynamics assist a social, political and economic resolution that transfers power from those with too much power to those with too little power: 1) the engines of the economy have shifted productive capacity definitively in favor of those demanding their fair share of power, and 2) the elites recognize that their resistance to power-sharing invites a less predictable and thus far more dangerous open conflict with forces that have much less to lose and much more to gain.
In other words, ceding 40% of their wealth-power still conserves 60%, while stubborn resistance might trigger a revolution that takes 100% of their wealth-power.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
