http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-09/news/30376927_1_inequality-wealth-alarmists
Thoughts?
Money isn't wealth, enough said.
Yeah, I have a couple problems with this. First of all, the large wealth concentrations do not reside in the hands of an individual featured in the Forbes list. I do not believe the queen of England or the king of Saudi Arabia has ever appeared in the Forbes 400 list, yet the family wealth controlled by these individuals must be staggering by any account.
Which brings me to my second point. We really don't know who has how much wealth. You can count a lot of the wealth controlled by governments and you can count a lot of the wealth controlled by corporations and you can count a lot of the wealth controlled by the poor and middle class and even some of the rich. But you really cannot have confidence that you have counted all the wealth of the Rockefeller family or the Vanderbilt family.
Finally, if you define "ownership" as de facto control of a physical resource, you realize that whoever controls a government essentially owns all "public" resources which that government controls. All power is ultimately private. Therefore, the controlling interests in the government are all ultimately private. Mao had it wrong - power grows not out of the barrel of the gun but out of the paycheck that feeds the man holding the gun. What is the net worth of the family who has controlling interest in the US government and can dispose of public lands to its own benefit or the benefit of those they choose to reward? I would love to see a pricetag put on that. I think it's more like the Visa commercial... "Having controlling interest in Trump Tower: $100 million... Having controlling interest in a major national government: Priceless."
Clayton -
Clayton:Finally, if you define "ownership" as de facto control of a physical resource, you realize that whoever controls a government essentially owns all "public" resources which that government controls. All power is ultimately private. Therefore, the controlling interests in the government are all ultimately private. Mao had it wrong - power grows not out of the barrel of the gun but out of the paycheck that feeds the man holding the gun.
Good point, and actually Mao was partly right: there are several kinds of power, including media, government, banking industry, academia, religious leaders, major corporations, and of course the military. They all wield power in different ways, in different spheres, and over different time-scales.
Why anarchy fails
I believe that Elizabeth II and Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud are respectively estimated at 450,000,000 and 18,000,000,000 USD. This might not account for land ownership, and you're definitely right in thinking about the net worth of individuals who have effective control over areas of government, but I doubt that's the case for the Queen. The British/Commonwealth monarchy is constitutional and largely ceremonial these days; to quote Senator Palpatine, the bureaucrats are in charge now.
I believe that Elizabeth II and Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud are respectively estimated at 450,000,000 and 18,000,000,000 USD.
Says who? Independent auditors??
This might not account for land ownership, and you're definitely right in thinking about the net worth of individuals who have effective control over areas of government, but I doubt that's the case for the Queen. The British/Commonwealth monarchy is constitutional and largely ceremonial these days; to quote Senator Palpatine, the bureaucrats are in charge now.
LOL
Absolutely - in fact, I think of it in a more particularized sense than this... I think of power as composed of many specific "power centers"... the Federal Reserve (banking), the Pentagon (military), Hollywood, etc. Control over these power centers is not monolithic... the days of a monarch wielding absolute power over every blade of grass within a territory are long gone. But the Old World is alive and well... stronger than ever. The only difference today is that the ranks of the nobility have grown somewhat and titles are a bit more scarce.
The power of the crown comes from the scepter, the power to punish. As long as the monarch can punish, he (or she) can impose discipline within the ranks of the nobility who, in turn, impose discipline upon the masses and enforce the will of the monarch. None of this has to be explicit or done in full view of the masses. The absence of kings and counts prancing about from operahouse to palace in full view of the public says nothing about the true nature of the status quo.
If you read the CBO report, http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf (pdf), the picture becomes pretty clear. It's not that the rich are stealing income from the poor that the poor are entitled to (in absolute terms the median income of the lower quintiles has increased 13%, and the poor people from 30 years ago are not necessarily still poor today). It's the simple matter that the before-tax income of the top 1%, specifically their wage rate, has gone up. If you have one dollar and I have one dollar, your share of total income is 50%. If you earn $1000 and I earn $3000, your share of total income is now around 25%. Halved. But your absolute income has increased by $1000!
Praetyre: I believe that Elizabeth II and Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud are respectively estimated at 450,000,000 and 18,000,000,000 USD. This might not account for land ownership, and you're definitely right in thinking about the net worth of individuals who have effective control over areas of government, but I doubt that's the case for the Queen. The British/Commonwealth monarchy is constitutional and largely ceremonial these days; to quote Senator Palpatine, the bureaucrats are in charge now.
From Wikipedia:
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, born 21 April 1926[note 1]) is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
So, the queen basically owns a lot; all those natural resources (gold, oil) in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
From Wikipedia: Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, born 21 April 1926[note 1]) is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. So, the queen basically owns a lot; all those natural resources (gold, oil) in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Pfffft, the bureaucrats control it all now. This is the End of History, duh!
But who controls the bureaucrats?
To what practical extent can the Queen actually exercise power over these areas, though? The Governor-General, her representative, is a nonentity in New Zealand, whose only real non-ceremonial purpose is to rubber-stamp Parliament. Some lands may be "Crown" lands, but in practice they are administered by self-serving, faceless bureaucracies, and rarely make a cent of profit. Take the foreshore and seabed controversy.
@Praetyre: Take a look at public choice theory. The bureaucrats represent a dissipated and unvested interest. The ownership class (monarchy, nobility, industrial families and even a few ultra-wealthy individualists), on the other hand, are concentrated, vested interests. The prime minister is just a minister, a servant of the Elites. The idea that the Queen is a purely symbolic figurehead with no more real power than a famous author or social thinker is actively promoted by the Elites precisely because it's utterly false. The authority of the Royal family is as real as it ever was. And to the extent that the Royals have had to share power in the past, it is a mistake to think that this power was ceded to "the people", it was ceded to the nobility.
The orthodox historical narrative could also be termed the Moron Theory of Monarchy. Basically, it goes like this. In the late 18th/early 19th century, France was hit with a series of anti-monarchical revolutions. King Louis XVI lost his head by guillotine in 1793. Meanwhile in London, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin and so on, monarchs hardly noticed and certainly didn't care that one of the largest, wealthiest and most powerful countries in Europe had just beheaded its King in the name of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.
Instead of trying to understand how this had happened in France and how to prevent it from happening to their own crowns, they raised taxes higher, built bigger palaces, clamped down on public opinion, restricted commerce, launched pointless wars and pretended that "democracy" did not exist. Then, in 1917, when the Bolsheviks had run Nicholas II out of town, later murdering him and his family and throwing their bodies in a shallow, unmarked grave on the edge of an abandoned forest, the remaining European monarchies decided to party it up bigger than ever. Communism shmomunnism. "Those democrats, liberals and communists are just a bunch of shaggy hippies who cannot present the slightest threat to us!" they cried. Anyway, this must be true since only 9 Euroepan monarchies remained intact after the Second World War out of 22 prior to the war.
And they continue merrily on their way today, 200+ years after Louis XVI lost his head, 100 years after the Romanovs were murdered by the NKVD, and 65 years after the European monarchies were thinned by over 50%. Yep, the Queen of Denmark, the King of Norway, the Queen of England, and so on all remain blithely ignorant and stubbornly convinced that monarchy will go on forever, democracy be damned! They're all a bunch of inbred morons after all, right?
By the same virtue, you might as well ask why Italy and Iraq aren't governed by the descendants of Tiberius and Gilgamesh. To say bureaucracies represent an unvested interested is decidedly untrue; there's nothing "unvested" about big government salaries, bonuses and benefits, and I can tell you from personal experience that New Zealand local politics are highly corrupt and inbedded in "good ol boy" relationships between non-blood related individuals.
In what way does Herman van Rumpuy, for example, benefit the Queen? In what way can the Queen actually exercise power over the country, and in what recent history can you give me documented examples of such? I'm especially suspicious of this thesis in the case of neighbouring Australia; it's not unlikely they'll become a republic in the next 20 years, if not sooner. Gillard, of course, is obviously a globalist puppet, but not to the Governor-General, that's for sure.
Clayton, do you have any - even anecdotal - evidence that the royal family has control over anything in these countries? As Praetyre noted, the figures in Australian politics who are clearly globalist puppets/plants (in particular Gillard, Rudd, Turnbull) are opponents of the monarchy, and were close to abolishing it just over a decade ago (they were foiled by the public)*. Unless that is all an even deeper conspiracy...
A telling story is that when the newly elected Kevin Rudd organised his so-called '2020 summit' - made up from all the 'best and brightest' people of the nation (i.e. statists) - a group voted on whether Australia should become a republic: out of the best and brightest, literally 99% voted for a republic. This was only 8 years after the motion failed to receive a majority vote from the public.
*What actually happened was that the monarchists perceived a vote on the republic to be inevitable, and so chose to hold a vote when it looked like it might fail. Since then it seems that the monarchy has only become more popular.
@Praetyre,Aristippus: It is actually really difficult to make the case against the monarchy/aristocracy. My approach is to just work back to when they had more influence and ask "what has really changed"? When you look at it with a microscope, the official explanation for how the monarchies lost power is filled with magical thinking – the hallmark of propaganda.
"The people" got tired of being bossed around by a mere mortal (as if this had ever NOT been the case) and decided "enough is enough!" Then they joined forces and overthrew the mean old kings and queens and now they have democracies and they are free. The end (of history). In fact, we are even seeing this same pattern repeated in North Africa with the so-called Arab Spring! The Arab peoples have tired of their dictators and tyrants and have decided to stop putting up with oppression! (Or, it’s a CIA operation).
Look at this photo of George V and Nicholas II. Most of the European royalty are close blood relatives. You’re going to tell me that these family relatives (they are human beings, too, they do care about their family relatives) are going to stand idly by as their ranks are slaughtered by the public? You don’t think, at some point, they’re going to take an active interest in influencing public opinion… something their predecessors (sometimes ancestors) had been doing for thousands of years?
Have you never heard the phrase “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”? I believe that’s what this new “making the world safe for democracy” crap is really all about. Communism, the New World Order, Pax Americana – it’s not about ruling the world (unless they can pull it off, then it’s about that, too). It’s all about pushing a reworked version of liberalism that has had its fangs pulled out. Instead of prairies-and-blue-sky freedom, we’re supposed to content ourselves with a vote.
A truly revisionist history is complicated by several factors. First of all, the Elites go to great lengths to keep their activities discreet. If you want to get the gist of what I mean, watch Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut then watch Alex Jones’s video on YT of the Bilderberger meeting in Istanbul in 2007. They’re not playing around. It’s not a game.
Second, the Elites are at war with each other as often as they are with us. This is the biggest mistake made by all the New World Order conspiracy types. They present the Elites as a monolithic, inbred cult of devil-worshippers bound by blood oath to Satan Himself. Supposedly grassroots revolutions are a perfect pretext for getting other people to do the dirty work of taking out your opponents. If the King of Ruritania can spark a Republican revolution in Moldavia, thus toppling the King of Moldavia, he has accomplished his goal as surely as if he had invaded, fought the armies of Moldavia and killed the King of Moldavia. He no longer needs to invade Moldavia. He simply sends in his intelligence guys to do "wet work" and show the "big men" (business magnates, old nobility, etc.) of Moldavia that there's a new Sheriff in town and they better keep their mouths shut about it if they know what's good for them.
Third, there are both nationalist and internationalist elements. Some power centers are more territorial and nationalist in nature (the British crown, for example), others are more inherently international and globalist (the central banking network, the Vatican, etc.) So, it’s not just a story of royals prancing about in purple silk, it’s about all the power groups who hold real power, that is, un-deputized power.
Sorry to be so wordy but I think that there is no easy “smoking gun”. The closest thing I can think of a recent smoking gun is the murder of David Kelly. A British weapons expert turns up dead when he publicly challenges the pretext of a war started by the American President. The official narrative is “suicide” (LOL!). The subtext narrative is “the American President is the most powerful man in the world and has friends in high places even in Britain so if he wanted to pull strings, he could.” (This is about as deep as a Bourne Identity novel might go, for example.) But there is another, more insidious interpretation… that the war in Iraq was started by the Bush administration at the behest of the Elites and their action against David Kelly was direct and did not require the approval or involvement of the US President. They were simply closing the loop on their own project, a project in which Bush was only notable because he was their primary operational guy in Iraq.
That's a rather curious interpretation, given that Tony Blair was frequently portrayed as Bush's lapdog and Britain has long been a junior partner to the US in foreign affairs (though a significant segment of British elite culture, particularily that of the BBC, despises the US). I mean, if you want to find some shadowy figure to blame for Iraq, why not Halliburton? And it's not even remotely implausible the CIA would be behind the Kelly thing, looking at the history of the Americas.
Aristippus: Clayton, do you have any - even anecdotal - evidence that the royal family has control over anything in these countries? [...]
Clayton, do you have any - even anecdotal - evidence that the royal family has control over anything in these countries? [...]
Well, let's not forget that the Bush family and the royal family are related.
The Bush family and the Saudi royal family might be related, but certainly not by blood.
I was talking about the British royal family.
To Aristippus: Wasn't the vote against Australia becoming a Republic a result of how the question was phrased? In that the choice wasn't between "I want a republic" and "I want a monarchy", rather it was between "I want a republic with a president appointed by parliament" and "I want a monarchy", isolating voters who wanted a republic where the president was elected directly (like America). I guess it could be argued that this is an example of 'elites' manipulating the question, so as to divide the republican base and cause the referendum to come out in favour of maintaining the monarchy? (Although I wouldn't personally make that argument)
What do people think of this study? It argues that almost all studies of "income inequality" in the US rest on meaningless income tax data that fails to take into account changes in tax policy over time.
When individual tax rates were reduced after the 1981 tax act and again after the 1986 tax act, it provided a strong incentive to shift from reporting business income on corporate returns to individual returns by filing as S-corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs), partnerships, or proprietorships. [...] One result is that those attempting to measure incomes by what has been reported on individual tax returns may erroneously view these large increases in income at the top as real changes in American’s incomes. Instead, they were simply the result of a bookkeeping change in the way business incomes were reported. Switching income from corporate returns to individual returns did not make the rich any richer—it simply made more of their income show up as “individual income” in the CBO and Piketty-Saez estimates. Since "income inequality" is a ratio (income going to top X percent/income going to bottom X percent), the disparity can be made to look larger than it is by inflating the numerator, as income tax data does. Shrinking the denominator will also do the trick: income tax data does not include the many transfer payments that the poor receive and the larger returns the middle class is increasingly earning on tax-favored government savings accounts. If you control for these factors, as the study does, the supposed increase in the share of income going to the top 1% becomes negligible. The trend of increase in CEO compensation also disappears (since CEOs have been taking more stock options in individual income), and CEO pay instead appears to merely rise and fall with stock prices. | Post Points: 5