 Noah VailSon made my AvatarPremium
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Re: Fed judge OKs subpoenas of Internet users IDs said by fAcEtIOUs:A federal judge has allowed a copyright owner to garner Internet user names from an ISP even though the users fought the subpoena. A couple decisions like this and ISPs won't bother refusing to turn over user names when a copyright owner demands them. I'm saddened
that the long slow path
to citizens becoming government property
continues to bring you such pleasure.
I've no objection to your happiness. But I wish it wasn't bound to the relentless process of destroying certain rights endowed by our Creator.
NV
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Any Goal that is Driven by Animosity, is Empowered through Deceit. |
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| Citizens have always been property. People fought for rights, but now the pendulum is swinging back the other way. It is most noticeable in the work place where workers rights have been replaced by "you're lucky to have a job", even though corporations are sitting on more money then ever before. The middle class is being wiped out by "free-marketeers". However, nothing in his response said he was happy about this.
So those rights you believe were bestowed upon you by the Almighty will have to be fought for again!
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BF69~~~Please stop suffocating gerbils! |
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 ·magicjack.com
3 edits | said by S_engineer:The middle class is being wiped out by "free-marketeers". Last night I found a study from UC Santa Cruz which may interest you. It contains some remarkable information concerning the growing disparity of wealth and income in the US. And, how this relates to real, individual power.
Particularly interesting is a preliminary finding that after the recent financial meltdown
quote:
there has been an "astounding" 36.1% drop in the wealth (marketable assets) of the median household since the peak of the housing bubble in 2007. By contrast, the wealth of the top 1% of households dropped by far less: just 11.1%. So as of April 2010, it looks like the wealth distribution is even more unequal than it was in 2007.
-- http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
I guess that's not surprising when you consider how Goldman Sachs was in a position to give record bonuses just months after being rescued with taxpayer money.
I believe that gets to your point: 30-40 years ago, Americans would have rioted in the street over such shameless "free market" behavior. Today, we just accept it like we know our "place" in society.
The UCSC article linked above touches on the same phenomenon, showing the growth in disparity between CEO and worker pay over 45 years. CEO pay rose from 43 times the average worker in 1960 to 411 times in 2005. (Other studies show 33:1 in 1977 growing to 300:1 in the year 2000.).
To me, that's a sign of how our collective expectations of the American Dream has changed. Like we "worship" wealth in the same way superstars and ballplayers are idolized.
Adam Smith, darling of "free marketeers," denounced such conditions by observing: "the disposition to admire, and to almost worship, the rich and powerful," is "the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."[1]
That corrupt idolization of the wealthy leads directly to our money-driven political system.
Going back to the UCSC study linked above: Table 5a shows concentration of stock ownership in the US. The wealthiest 20% of the population control over 81% of all shares of stock. The remaining 80% of the population controls just 9%.[2]
With that information in mind, consider how corporations are created by society. They are legal, yet fictional "persons" created by legislative fiat to stand as the fall guy -- shielding officers and investors from their personal liability for poor business choices. A "socialization" of what would otherwise be private businesses operating in a "free market."
For the past 100 years, those "fiat persons" have been increasingly treated as possessing the same rights as natural, living persons.
The "circle of life" is thus completed. Consider the following:
1. We use society to create fictional "fiat persons," to primarily benefit the wealthy.
2. Those socially-created "persons" are "animated" (a legal term) by actors holding corporate offices (i.e., officers of the corporation).
3. Those who control the corporation (1% of the population controlling 38% of shares) are said to "capitalize" the corporation. Which is to say, they give it "life."
4. It is through that "life blood" of capital that officers "animate" the corporation with a legal, fiduciary interest to shareholder. Lobbying Congress for the interests of the shareholder.
Ergo: the socially-created "fiat person" is "animated" by and for the benefit of shareholders -- shareholders who are the top 1% of the population having a 38% interest (and the top 20% of the population having 81% interest). The "rights" of that "fiat person" to influence public-policy decisions will be used to represent that small segment of society. It's a legal requirement.
In other words: A backdoor way to give a small segment of society two political voices. Their own, and the "fiat person" created by all society for the benefit of a small segment to operate against the interests of all.
This same point is seen in the concentration of capital income (income from stock, dividends, interest, rent). "In 2003, the top one percent of the population received 57.5 percent of all capital income."[3]
That leads back to the "cycle of life." Corporations represent a tiny fraction of society, and have political rights (and a legal, fiduciary duty to represent the interests of that tiny fraction). That fraction receives the majority of income from corporations. And, that fraction lobbies for reduced taxation of that form of income on the basis that "we'll all benefit" ("trickle down") by encouraging capital investment.[4]
The perplexing thing is how Americans have accepted these conditions. When we question how "we all benefit" when income and wealth disparity increases (while the average American's income remained flat for 30 years), we're told we're engaging in "class warfare."
We're told it's the ugly sin of "envy." Even though, to lower taxes on a tiny segment of Americans, our greed was appealed to.
We just roll over and don't expect better. That's what's amazing.
[1] Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments pt i, sec. i, ch iii, para 28 (1759).
[2] One final point of interest: The 9% of corporate stock owned by 80% of Americans is held primarily in mutual funds which do not give the investor any voting rights over the corporation.
[3] »www.cbpp.org/files/1-29-06tax2.pdf
[4] »www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1008
Note: The 9% of stock owned by the bottom 80% of the population is held mostly in 401k plans, which are not the beneficiary of reduced capital-gains taxation. |
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 tapeloopNot bad at all, really.Premium
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One
kudos:1 | ...not to mention the lifting of the restrictions on corporate political donations.
»www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/po···tus.html
Just keep getting better, don't it? 
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"I love mankind. It's people I can't stand."
--L. van Pelt |
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·magicjack.com
1 edit | That's my point. When you realize who owns corporate stock[1] and the direction and velocity of that trend[2], it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who benefits when socially created "fiat people" (corporations) are recognized to have the same political rights as you, a natural person.
Then, consider how average Americans who own stock actually own mutual funds (in 401k plans). Those are non-voting shares. So, when considering how 80% of the population owns only 9% of corporate stock, that's compounded by a very weak ownership. It has no real control over the corporation. It's the mutual-fund manager who votes. Your "keeper," so to speak.
It really is a "circle of life." We create these things through public law. Through the state legislatures that exist through the vote of all of us. And these things (fiat people) become political voices for 10% of the population. A second voice. An amplifier. Working against the wishes of the 90% who created them. Having a legal *duty* to work against the wishes of the 90%. (I.e., a legal duty to operate in the interest of the 10% of the population who have a majority financial investment.).
[1] See Table 5b here.
[2] See Table 5a and Figure 5 at the same link, showing the change in ownership of stocks and share of capital income (income from investments) over time. |
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·magicjack.com
| reply to tapeloop
BTW: This short story from 1955 (The Tunnel Under the World) has some thought-provoking parallels to socially-created "synthetic people" (corporations), and perhaps the way corporations (and the 10% of the population who own them) control our perspectives (and our place in society).
It's about 25 pages. 30 minutes to read. You won't regret it. |
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tapeloopNot bad at all, really.Premium
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One
kudos:1 | said by amigo_boy:BTW: This short story from 1955 ( The Tunnel Under the World) has some thought-provoking parallels to socially-created "synthetic people" (corporations), and perhaps the way corporations (and the 10% of the population who own them) control our perspectives (and our place in society). It's about 25 pages. 30 minutes to read. You won't regret it. That novella was a great read. Thanks for the recommendation.
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"I love mankind. It's people I can't stand."
--L. van Pelt |
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