[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ian807', ' ')The closest hominid anarchy exists in Orangutans. They are solitary, for the most part.

[ian807]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ian807', ' ')The closest hominid anarchy exists in Orangutans. They are solitary, for the most part.

[bluekachina]

Isn't it funny that all the global warming deniers and right wing clowns are defending oligarchy.

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bluekachina', 'I')sn't it funny that all the global warming deniers and right wing clowns are defending oligarchy.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ian807', ' ')The closest hominid anarchy exists in Orangutans. They are solitary, for the most part.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bluekachina', 'I')sn't it funny that all the global warming deniers and right wing clowns are defending oligarchy.

[vision-master]

That would be all those ignorant poor ppl from the South. Maybe it's the inbreeding?

[ian807]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ian807', ' ')The closest hominid anarchy exists in Orangutans. They are solitary, for the most part.

[diemos]

Ownership and control.

Just because you own something doesn't mean that you control it. One of the core problems with both democracy and share holder capitalism is that when everyone owns something, no one does. Therefore control defaults to the managers that have been put in place by the owners to run things. The managers may not own the organization de jure but de facto they do. The managers act to insure their own continuing power and control.

Therefore oligarchy is inevitable.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'T')hat would be all those ignorant poor ppl from the South. Maybe it's the inbreeding?

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'T')he biggest tools of the oligarchy are Fox News and the Tea Party. They carry the water for the wealthy trying to undermine anything resembling an elected system of government.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I don't see how in the modern era, where knowledge and technology equates to a WHOLE lot of power and wealth, and increasingly so, can help but lead to a more and more skewed distribution of wealth.

On one hand, you have much of the J6P class losing their jobs, and being unwilling, unable intellectually, or unable due to lack of resources, to retrain to be competitive in a high tech. high education requirement (good) job market.

On the other hand, you have folks getting INCREDIBLY rich by figuring out how to automate things and eliminate jobs by the thousands.

And aside from empty rhetoric about education, and lots of whining from the left about unfairness and wanting to "fix" education by supporting teachers' unions -- there is almost NOTHING of substance being done to attempt to actually fix the underlying issue -- our education system.

Looks like it will only get worse. News flash. BOTH the elites on the left and the right seem to actually WANT this -- or they'd do more than propose more of the same (from the right) or to shuffle around wealth via higher taxes (from the left) to actually deal with it.

J6P remains clueless. Even the "educated" upper middle class continues to spend themselves into insolvency by buying stupid high maintenance trinkets.

The enemy is us. All the Oligarchs have to do is laugh and find a place to spend it all.

[Cid_Yama]

Only mental deficients would defend the Oligharchs Meal Ticket to the detriment of their own.

So why are the right-wingers on here defending oligarchy. Surely we don't have any billionaires or even half billionaires on this forum.

And by the way, the left-wing billionaires are still progressives and do not support right-wing policies, no matter how much the rightys would like to claim that.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nother 17 U.S. billionaires, including Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz as well as Morningstar’s Joe Mansueto, have pledged to give away at least half their fortunes in a philanthropic campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

A total of 57 billionaires now have joined The Giving Pledge, which was launched by Microsoft founder Gates and investor Buffett in June. The campaign announced the new pledges in a statement late Wednesday.

Gates, his wife Melinda, and Buffett have asked U.S. billionaires to give away at least half their wealth during their lifetime or after their death, and to publicly state their intention with a letter explaining their decision.

The Giving Pledge does not accept money or tell people how to donate their money but asks billionaires to make a moral commitment to give their fortunes to charity.

People wait until late in their career to give back. But why wait when there is so much to be done?” Zuckerberg, who gave $100 million in September to the beleaguered public schools of Newark, New Jersey, said in a statement.

Forbes magazine said the United States is home to more than 400 billionaires, the most of any country.

The full list of billionaires and their letters can be seen at http://www.thegivingpledge.org.

[Cid_Yama]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') remarkable study (Norton & Ariely, 2010) reveals that Americans have no idea that the wealth distribution (defined for them in terms of "net worth") is as concentrated as it is. When shown three pie charts representing possible wealth distributions, 90% or more of the 5,522 respondents -- whatever their gender, age, income level, or party affiliation -- thought that the American wealth distribution most resembled one in which the top 20% has about 60% of the wealth. In fact, of course, the top 20% control about 85% of the wealth (refer back to Table 1 and Figure 1 in this document for a more detailed breakdown of the numbers).

Even more striking, they did not come close on the amount of wealth held by the bottom 40% of the population. It's a number I haven't even mentioned so far, and it's shocking: the lowest two quintiles hold just 0.3% of the wealth in the United States. Most people in the survey guessed the figure to be between 8% and 10%, and two dozen academic economists got it wrong too, by guessing about 2% -- seven times too high. Those surveyed did have it about right for what the 20% in the middle have; it's at the top and the bottom that they don't have any idea of what's going on.

Americans from all walks of life were also united in their vision of what the "ideal" wealth distribution would be, which may come as an even bigger surprise than their shared misinformation on the actual wealth distribution. They said that the ideal wealth distribution would be one in which the top 20% owned between 30 and 40 percent of the privately held wealth, which is a far cry from the 85 percent that the top 20% actually own. They also said that the bottom 40% -- that's 120 million Americans -- should have between 25% and 30%, not the mere 8% to 10% they thought this group had, and far above the 0.3% they actually had. In fact, there's no country in the world that has a wealth distribution close to what Americans think is ideal when it comes to fairness. So maybe Americans are much more egalitarian than most of them realize about each other, at least in principle and before the rat race begins.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'T')he biggest tools of the oligarchy are Fox News and the Tea Party. They carry the water for the wealthy trying to undermine anything resembling an elected system of government.

[jbrovont]

The measure of all government structure and activity should be "Does an organization or activity benefit society and the individuals being governed?"

If not, then it should be adapted so that it does, or abandoned. The crux is, that every law and action must be constantly considered and reconsidered with this in mind as the society's needs change so that a government can continue to serve its intended purpose. All this, of course, is based on the (possibly) faulty assumption that a government exists to serve the needs of its people.

Obviously this is not the current situation. If we do our best to disregard any emotional rhetoric or claimed intent, and look only at measurable effects, it becomes painfully clear that what we have currently isn't "for the people."

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jbrovont', 'T')he measure of all government structure and activity should be "Does an organization or activity benefit society and the individuals being governed?"

If not, then it should be adapted so that it does, or abandoned. . . .

Obviously this is not the current situation. If we do our best to disregard any emotional rhetoric or claimed intent, and look only at measurable effects, it becomes painfully clear that what we have currently isn't "for the people."

[rangerone314]

Maybe we need to abandon ideology and emotion, and start subscribing to pragmatism and reason.

[Cid_Yama]

Sorry, pragmatism and reason are left wing principles and the rightys won't have any of it.

[NickyBoy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'S')orry, pragmatism and reason are left wing principles and the rightys won't have any of it.