It is small comfort to me to see my dire predictions starting to ‘bear fruit’. That said I have yet to be accused of being ‘Chicken Little’ either.
It is obvious to even the most obtuse among us that all is NOT well.
However, things are much worse than they appear to be on the surface…
No. 384: Markets, July Retail Sales, June Trade Balance August 12th, 2011
Financial Circumstances Remain Unstable and Threatening
U.S. Dollar Is in Serious Trouble
Retail Sales Gain Was Statistically Meaningless and Largely Reflected Inflation
Trade Data Suggest Downside Pressure on Upcoming GDP Revision
You all know that the above bullet points are true; you are also aware that NONE of them made headlines…
Such trivial matters are beneath your notice.
The sad truth here is they are beyond your ability to change/compensate for them…
Which will prove tragic in the end.
Like this article which pretty much proves the old axiom ‘ignorance is bliss’
[Considering the second factor,] people do not understand how much wealth has been withheld from them. The average person has never personally experienced or seen the excessive wealth and luxury that the mega-rich live in. Wealth inequality has grown so extreme and the wealthy have become so far removed from average society, it is as if the rich exist in some outer stratosphere beyond the comprehension of the average person.
As the Guardian report states:
“… having little daily contact with the rich and little knowledge of how they lived, they simply didn’t think about inequality much, or regard the wealthy as direct competitors for resources. As the sociologist Garry Runciman observed: ‘Envy is a difficult emotion to sustain across a broad social distance.’… Even now most underestimate the rewards of bankers and executives. Top pay has reached such levels that, rather like interstellar distances, what the figures mean is hard to grasp.”
In fact, the average American vastly underestimates our nation's severe wealth disparity. This survey, featured in the NY Times, reveals that Americans think our society is far more equal than it actually is:
“In a recent survey of Americans, my colleague Dan Ariely and I found that Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent – believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans.
It is true that most of us ‘satisfy’ ourselves with our lot in life, it is our ‘ignorance’ of how badly we are being ‘ripped off’ that keeps our collective outrage in check.
I have repeatedly pointed at the, er, ‘injustice’ of what makes the wealthy, wealthy but most of you could care less, you’ve got yours so you don’t begrudge them theirs…
And this is because you turn a blind eye to what this ‘indiscriminate robbery’ results in for the stratums below your ‘okay place’ on the proverbial ‘totem pole’.
In fact, it is these ‘unfortunates’ that make you ‘grateful’ your circumstances aren’t worse than they are…(how sad is THAT?)
In this respect YOU are responsible for THEIR suffering! YOU are condoning being ripped off by blindly accepting the ‘excuse’ that the ‘unfortunate’ brought their circumstances upon themselves…
Weird little circle there, isn’t it?
I hope it leaves a mark, a permanent one on your soul! (Leave aside the debate of whether or not atheists believe in immortal souls, the jury is still out on that one…)
Understand good citizen, there is and always has been only one solution to the crisis of ‘inequity’ and that is intolerance!
But no, it seems the grasping and the greedy have deluded themselves into thinking they can hide it from the rest of us or perhaps more laughably, fight us all off!
If you’re going to start shooting to ‘protect’ what you think is yours, you’d better have enough ammo to kill all of us!
You know, this blog was originally titled ‘it’s all in how you look at it’, well, once again we see that your entire perspective changes depending on your ‘point of view’.
It is even more ironic to note what we ‘tolerate’…
Worse, it is positively chilling to contemplate what we willfully ignore.
Go along to get along has had some very tragic consequences especially if we look at it from the perspective of our children’s future.
I am NOT wagging my finger in your face and this definitely isn’t a ‘holier than thou’ speech.
It IS a ‘I can’t do it alone’ rant…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
2 years after…yes, it was 2 years ago today.
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