On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 8:35 PM, Paul Tanner <upprho@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 12:57 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Paul Tanner <upprho@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 5:26 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> > So this myth that there's a 1% elite of financially well-to-do that
>> > rules
>> > the world
>> ...
>> > There is no such thing as the 1%, or the 99%, but it helps to have a peg
>> > to
>> > hang your mask on anyway.
>>
>> It's a brute mathematical fact that now more than 90% of all newly
>> created wealth and income goes to the top 1% of the income
>> distribution, but even just recently it was much less than that -
>> under Clinton it was down around just 40%.
>>
>
> That doesn't translate easily into being a ruling elite though.  Look at
> history.
>
> I'm not saying I don't believe in smallish cliques and cabals with power and
> influence.
>
> A lot of them don't have tons of money though.
>
> It's not like the "1%" are all in collusion, planning the future behind
> closed doors, while the "99%" are out in the cold, clueless and not
> contributing.
>
> That's way too simplistic a caricature.
>
>>
>> > We don't buy in to the silly obsolete concepts they still buy "back
>> > east"
>> > where the infrastructure is more decayed and the people think more like
>> > Euros and Brits (poor slobs).
>> >
>>
>> Silly obsolete concepts? Poor slobs? It's a brute mathematical fact
>> that the Scandinavian countries are per capita the richest countries
>> in the world, where, for example, the per capita nominal GDP of Norway
>> is twice as large as that of the US. And it's a brute fact that
>> according to the science that actually tries to measure happiness
>> among countries, Norway is the happiest country in the world.
>>
>
> So by your reasoning do Scandinavian countries now rule the world?
>
>

I did not address "ruling the world" - that is your invention.


Not just my invention. 

I was talking about the rhetoric of Occupy and comparing the ill-defined nature of Education Mafia to the nebulous notion of a "1%".  In the rhetoric of Occupy,

It's not just that the "1%" are getting most the income, they're also some inner circle cabal who trick / fool the 99% in acting against their own best interest. 

There's a scapegoat mentality.  If the 99% are fooled and incapable of a competent response, even given their vast majority, then whose fault is that, really?

Here's the original context of my remarks;

"""
So do I know what the "1%" and the "99%" mean?  "Marketing" I say (tip of the hat to Sean).

Just because you're some rich dweeb with a yacht in the marina you're too busy to use and a few houses here and there, doesn't make you some "ruling elite".
"""

Like I said, it's not that there aren't cabals, there are, many.

There really was a monied group that approached decorated war hero Smedley Butler and suggested he could be the front man in a fascist revolution organized by Wall Street types, then angered by FDR's radical betrayal of his own class (as they saw it).

Smedley was a hero of Occupy too.  His name popped up a lot.  I should know.  I was there (though not sleeping in a tent -- unless my house counts as a kind of tent in a more permanent occupation known as the City of Portland.


I addressed your implicit denial that there are some bad things going
on in terms of democratic access to wealth and income in the US by
pointing out the facts that show otherwise.


I believe I know far more about all this than you ever will, ditto regarding science and math.  You should bow down and kiss my feet.  Just kidding.
 
I addressed your claim that so many wrongly believe that all of Europe
is a bunch of poor slobs by pointing out the facts that show
otherwise.

The "poor slobs" I was talking about are the ones who still think in terms of "capitalism versus socialism" this long after those terms were first introduced.

Was ancient Egypt capitalist or socialist?  Neither right? 

That proves a society can be neither. 

So who was the victor when it comes to world domination (Cold War rhetoric) the capitalists or the socialists?  Neither. 

People who think in those terms have mud between the ears. 

They're mush-for-brains losers, clinging to past jargons and therefore well-nigh incoherent. 

That's all I meant.  Euros aren't *all* that dumbed down, for sure. 

Many are leaning from Asians, and others, that these ways of thinking are not the only cogent or accessible ones. 

Other belief systems are known to exist, plus its possible to find work designing new belief systems (cyber systems) from scratch (new religions too).

Kirby