is more than the cost of ELIMINATING poverty in this country!

(I have listened to Dennis Trainor since he started out on YouTube. He's SOOOO good, and I so appreciate you posting this clip herein.)

“Having that much wealth consolidated within a mere 1% of the population, while a record number of people toil in poverty and debt, is a crime against humanity"

If this statement is true then for most of written history man has been toiling in poverty and debt.
For the better part of the majority of this history this 'crime against humanity" went unchallenged.

Occasionally we saw uprisings and even more rare were revolutions

So historical evidence suggests a revolution in today's situation is slim to none

"For example, it would only cost 0.5% of the 1%’s wealth to eliminate poverty nationwide."

Poppycock and hyerpbole!

We heard this same garbage from the delusional Marxists
That turned out real well didn't it?

"Also consider that at least 40% of the 1%’s accounted for wealth is sitting idle. That’s an astonishing $13 trillion in wealth hoarded away, unused.”

More hyperbole generated as mere 'mind pablum' for the unwashed.

If there is one thing a wealthy plutocrat does not do it is let his wealth sit idle.
No matter what they will find some means of their assets remaining valuable and not be stranded assets and they will assure that those assets appreciate

So does this appreciation of their assets translate to increased prosperity for all?
Of course not.

But if we are to see any real changes in the economic status of the masses we need to avoid simple hyperbolic screeds and get serious about reality

There has always been the 'have nots and the have mores)
Trying to change this reality is like wishing away gravity

The real answer is in accepting these facts while still being creative and resourceful enough collectively and individually to make the best of a bad situation

Workers CO-OPs and a Steady State Economic models would be a good start

Of course the sheep will have to first stand up (or at a minimum at least look up and see the cliff edge dead ahead) and demand to be recognized before that can happen.

I don't think the 1% are losing any sleep worrying about that happening anytime soon.

Hell the sheep even slept through the entire 911 noise and 'coyote attack'

I'm not even certain a nuclear bomb could awaken us from our bliss and self delusions at this point in history.

but I do absolutely agree that we need "to avoid simple hyperbolic screeds."

for a well thought out 'contribution' to the discourse

Now that's hyperbole

There were a whole four replies posted before you popped up. If you're going to earn that paycheck, you're going to have to get a lot faster.

Excuse me???????

No, it is not sitting idle. It is being used to buy politicians, and to push for privatizing of public services, education, prisons, etc. It is being used to manipulate the news and the media. It is being used to produce corporate friendly "science". It is being used to capture government regulators. It is being used to waste physical resources on extravagant homes and yachts. It is being used to support the capital requirements of foreign banks, that is, hidden from US taxes.

A violent revolution does not seem practical or wise, but some sort of revolt by the masses appears to be needed. If voting no longer works -- because the voting machines cannot be trusted, if law enforcement is no longer trusted, if the Supreme Court continues to be controlled by unethical right wing hacks, if politicians always protect the wealthy at the expense of the masses, if healthcare is blocked by stupid ass Republicans, if gerrymandering continues the push for a one party state, if civil rights are crushed, if wealth continues to be sucked up the economic ladder, if the environment continues to be destroyed by people like the Koch brothers and big oil, if big money Israeli sympathizers continue to manipulate the US government, etc., etc., etc., then something serious is bound to happen. Will it be a struggle between movements resembling Marxism and Nazism? Hopefully it will be mass awareness and mass action, yes, including drop-in-the-bucket efforts like co-ops, but some critical changes need to be made.

I suggest that "poppycock," "hyperbole," and "mind pablum" criticisms are less than helpful. It is tempting to elaborate on this point, but I am choosing restraint.

First let me take issue with you on feeling that my use of those three words is less than helpful.

I would maybe agree if I knew to what end you felt I was using them
To some it is obvious
To others not so much

But that's beside the point here

I can see you are worked up over what is now a totally dysfunctional government and country.

Good

Now let me suggest something that I'm certain will get me either flamed or laughed at or worse
But so what

This is not something I don't bring up even when all are asleep or ignoring me (more on that later)

Want a revolution?
A peaceful revolution?

How about just a knock on the front door of the Oligarchs and political Princes?

Would it not be labeled a revolution if by some miracle everyone on this site decided to agree to pick a date when they would as a group go to their local party functions and surprise the apparatchiks by having to find more than three or four chairs to seat them.

Then we could watch as these folks were more like a deer in the headlights when they discovered that not just their town, but towns across America were experiencing the same phenomenon.

Now that would require at a minimum the desire to plan and execute it but

Damn it sure would be something for the history books wouldn't it?

And it's too far fetched?
Not a big enough movement?

Yeah!
I can hear old Paul Revere saying

"Hey them Brits are just too big and bad"
We'll get our asses kicked"

The relatively tiny minority who actually got something done would have ignored him and just battled on.

Just a thought

Oh! The sleepers and those who ignore me?
The sheep in Democratic Party clothing who make up those locally that I have to tolerate since I don't have anyone else in the room who is willing to wake up and join in.

for this.

These things ignore that little thing called "human nature"

The "poor" don't all want social justice, some just want to be rich! The rich don't all not want social justice either.


Everyone struggles with the push and pull between altruism and selfishness.

Yin Yang, y'know.



Still... it's the journey and not the destination....

And the USA is a complete mess these days that denies the Founding Father's intentions or the workings of it's own Constitution.

I just don't know what the hell the purpose of coming together to form a country with a government is if the government's job is not to make the lives of as many as possible of its citizens better and worthwhile?

Some of them would consider "rich" to be $15 an hour.

True!

I'm not sure what that has to do with what I said except that's it's an interesting observation... but, y'know..."true."


Simply raising the minimum wage would mitigate so many problems, it's amazing!

Then... getting people and especially corporations (and religious institutions) to pay their taxes would alleviate so many more problems.

A work program to update our pitiful infrastructure and transpo options.... that would be so helpful and good for the whole country.


These are no-brainer things we could do.... but don't.

We ARE gonna build a bunch of military jets to fight....somebody..... however...whoo hoo! (not)

It's not just the workers out there laying concrete, steel and asphalt. It's also the clerks in accounting, the warehouse workers, truck drivers...

Another aspect people don't consider. Take an open field and run a superhighway through it with exit and entrance ramps. Suddenly all of the real estate around that structure shoots up in value, gas stations, restaurants, then later homes, factories or grain elevators, etc. An entire TOWN can spring up from an open field.

But Republicans will say, "The government has never created a single job." and 25% of the voters will be willing to start a fist fight based on that crap.

but on other points you're correct. Now to reconcile the "make the best of a bad situation", with let's make the bad situation better is the battle.

Thanks for posting some common sense.

You must be a fan of "Shark Tank".

we have a tax collection problem...

panacea for all that's wrong is front loaded tax cuts for the wealthy elites who fund republican dogma. We have become a rogue nation and international pariah because of the greed that controls our political system. We can thank the Supreme (really somewhere between mediocre and disgraceful) Court for saying money does not influence politics. They have legitimized oligarchy. We can only speculate as to whether or not the Justices have off shore accounts in money laundries.
A reenactment of Paris, 1789 is becoming more possible as the widening gap between the wealthy and everyone else grows.

Take the dollar. Since it's not actually keyed to anything tangible it's purchasing power is based on it's rarity. By keeping them from the general public it increases the value of the wealth of the already wealthy.

This is why Greenspan was obsessed with inflation. He was so cold blooded that he would recommend firing millions if the resulting suffering would mean increasing the value of the dollar by two cents.

You've interviewed them all..... right?

Instead I see their efforts to keep wages low, to keep healthcare expensive, to force global competition for jobs, to destroy labor organization, to turn education into pay-to-play, to make prison a profitable enterprise...

For every Warren Buffet there is an entire Walton family. And the Buffets aren't doing much besides talking a good game

years too soon .

Where have you been since Jan 2009?

Every person in power has guaranteed that we already have a guaranteed income, and Bush/Obnama economic policies have ensured that no one will tamper with it.

It's just that we have set it in stone so that it is received by the Banking and Financial classes.

No one will tamper with it, not even after it is proved that our Banking and Financial officials are crooks and thieves of the highest order.


When back in late summer and early autumn, 2008, Tim Geithner, as the head of the NY Fed, allowed the firms on Wall Street to rape Main Street, despite the heads of the House Financial committee saying there were laws on the books that made a great deal more sense than bailing out the very monsters that caused the economic collapse, Geithner just sneered at them.

Tim Geithner should have been wearing an orange jump suit and sitting in prison for racketeering. Instead, once Obama was elected, little Timmy got the top job at Treasury.

And so after bailing out Wall Street, Main Street is still licking its wounds. Twelve million households have been foreclosed, and the rest of us had a hard scrabble time during the bad years. Now when we need help for our bsunesses, we find out that Wall Street will not even LOAN us the money we need. (Although Wall Street will let you have tens of thousands of dollars to go to University online and get that degree in communications!)

Even nicer speech!