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And, yes, I DO take it personally: The super-rich elites are intent on making serfs out of all of us
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The super-rich elites are intent on making serfs out of all of us

i suppose at one time, back many years ago before i wised-up, i fantasized about being a member of the elite community of the super-rich... it took me a while to "get it," that the more money i have, the more possessions i have, the more i'm "owned"...

i think it's the sad delusion of our times to believe that wealth brings either freedom or happiness... what i think it brings is a slavish devotion to the system that provides such riches... after all, why in the world would you ever want to bite the hand that feeds you...? and so, in order to keep your riches intact, in order to keep the pump pumping, you have to - metaphorically - close the door behind you, keep out the riffraff, make sure you never have to risk losing anything... the mindset this produces is, in many ways, limited, constrained, selfish, inwardly focused and willfully ignorant...

i find a great deal of freedom in being "asset-free" and, needless to say, even more so by being debt-free... do i need income...? of course... do i need to pay bills...? of course... do i want to maintain some level of comfort in my living conditions...? of course... do i want some resources to help me enjoy myself...? certainly... but i know that if anybody were to carefully scrutinize my income, bank accounts and expenses, they would be amazed i am able to live like i do on so little... speaking for myself, i find it very fulfilling to be able to do so...

however, with all that said, it would be a serious mistake not to understand that all of us who are the bedrock of the economic system that supports the super-rich elites are under attack... the greed of those people is boundless and if it means robbing us at gunpoint, they won't hesitate to do it... they not only won't hesitate, they are already doing it...

david degraw...

The Economic Elite have escalated their attack on US workers over the past few years, however, this attack began to build intensity in the 1970s. In 1970, CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. Due to technological advancements, production and profit levels exploded from 1970 - 2000. With the lion's share of increased profits going to the CEO's, this pay ratio dramatically rose to $90 for CEOs to $1 for the average worker.

As ridiculous as that seems, an in-depth study in 2004 on the explosion of CEO pay revealed that, including stock options and other benefits, CEO pay is more accurately $500 to $1.

Paul Buchheit, from DePaul University, revealed, "From 1980 to 2006 the richest 1% of America tripled their after-tax percentage of our nation's total income, while the bottom 90% have seen their share drop over 20%." Robert Freeman added, "Between 2002 and 2006, it was even worse: an astounding three-quarters of all the economy's growth was captured by the top 1%."

Due to this, the United States already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the average worker much harder than CEO's, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high. The economic top one percent of the population now owns over 70% of all financial assets, an all time record.

my point is this... even for someone like me, someone who gets by on very little, it's time to accept the hard truth... we are being pushed ever harder to crawl into a little box and stay there... our handlers don't want us to be free, they don't want us to be told the truth, they don't want us to be able to make informed decisions, they don't want us to be able to travel freely, they don't want us to do anything but line up dutifully to be their good little consumers... the best thing we can do is act free, learn the truth, make informed decisions, travel freely and stop lining up to toss our money at them 24/7...

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