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Truth & Transparency = A Stronger Democracy

March 4, 2015 by Ted 32 Comments

What the 1% Don’t Want You to Know

Economist Paul Krugman explains how the United States is becoming an oligarchy - the very system our founders revolted against. Visit the Bill Moyers site to...
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(July 20, 2012) There are forgotten corners of this country where Americans are trapped in endless cycles of poverty, powerlessness, and despair as a direct ...
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Filed Under: Bill Moyers Tagged With: Don't, Know, Want

Comments

  1. Brutus Cassius says

    March 4, 2015 at 5:44 pm

    Paul Krugman is not an economist. I refuse to acknowledge him as such. Just
    as I would refuse to acknowledge someone who insists that ailments like
    cancer or diabetes are caused by angry evil spirits invading the bodies of
    the sick as a “physician,” I likewise refuse to refer to Krugman, who
    believes that markets are inherently self-destructive & can only be saved
    by the mystical powers of government & central bank printing presses, as an
    “economist.”
    Sorry.

    Reply
  2. spaceorbison says

    March 4, 2015 at 5:47 pm

    Americans are slaves. They get paid slaves wages AND they carry the fucking
    weight by getting taxed on their labor. We need a tax rate of 90% on
    corporation the way it was in the 1950’s.

    Reply
  3. Bill D says

    March 4, 2015 at 6:16 pm

    Somebody among the wealthy read George Orwell’s novel of hideous dystopia,
    1984, (in which Orwell was actually talking about England in 1948) and
    thought “What a good idea! Let’s do this in America!!!” But it has only
    continued to become worse, as we now have a level of surveillance of the
    general population which Orwell could only dream about, or rather, have
    nightmares about.

    The super wealthy 1% includes the biggest corporations who don’t pay their
    taxes but instead receive government handouts of your hard earned tax
    dollars, and mine, amounting to billions of dollars every single year.
    Known as Welfare for the Rich or Corporate Welfare. See they don’t like
    it when poor people get taken care of by government, and for pitiful small
    amounts — and every penny of that is overseen by a social worker. But they
    love it when government bails THEM out for BIG BUCK$. (I have been in the
    board rooms and the offices of the biggest corporate CEO’s and I’ll say
    without hesitation from personal experience, that what I have seen is
    nothing but a bunch of pigs and liars.) That strategy of corporations
    taking their annual gifts from Congress is called Privatizing Profits and
    Socializing Losses. I just bought my copy of Piketty’s Capital in the 21st
    Century. I get it that it’s too important a book not to read all 700
    pages. If we don’t stop it now, right now, we will find ourselves right
    back in the 17th Century with a new aristocracy trampling everybody who is
    not a billionaire. 

    Reply
  4. Carlos Eddy says

    March 4, 2015 at 6:54 pm

    I love the IRONY of the assholes here defending Paris-Hilton billionaires,
    crying an end to “Death Taxes” and “socialism”. They will fight for people
    who think them slaves… and fittingly, they do it for free. All for the
    delusion of one day being among them 🙁 sigh

    Reply
  5. G.I. Joe says

    March 4, 2015 at 7:43 pm

    Isn’t it wonderful when the Federal government decides that you have too
    much money, so they take it from you. You don’t deserve to have your
    money, we need it, we want it, we’ll take it from you by force. We know
    better than you what to do with your money. Forget the fact that we the
    Federal government cannot balance a budget, over spend by 40% year after
    year, and is 17 Trillion dollars in debt.

    Reply
  6. eric cm says

    March 4, 2015 at 8:32 pm

    Does it make any sense at all to blame the ails of a Hispanic couple who
    pushed out four children before they secured good enough wages to house,
    feed, and educate them on the society they burdened? “Disparity”? Bullshit.
    Do we not honor responsibility of adults to make proper and intelligent
    decisions? Stop giving them everything for free(welfare, housing
    assistance, medical, education). Who’s greedy in this picture? Who has no
    respect for society as a whole and is only thinking about having the rest
    pay their way? Victims? Bullshit. Give them free birth control first and
    curb the problem at its .source

    Reply
  7. Chris Hill says

    March 4, 2015 at 8:46 pm

    I don’t give a shit what the 1% don’t want me to know. I am not a jealous
    liberal. I don’t care how much money they have. I dont care where they hide
    it, its theirs they can do whatever they please with it. I don’t want their
    money, I don’t want it redistributed to me. I don’t have any resentment
    towards the rich. I don’t think they should pay their ‘fair share’. Imagine
    how burdensome being a liberal us. Living life in a perpetual state of
    jealousy, hate, resentment, envy, and contempt. Always thinking people are
    the enemy. Always coveting everyone else’s stuff. Begging for higher
    taxes-unless it affects them. Etc etc etc

    Reply
  8. Chris Turnblom says

    March 4, 2015 at 8:52 pm

    When the super wealthy use mechanisms like charitable trusts to support
    their lifestyle, current policy and “progressive” suggested policy will do
    nothing to change the 1% situation or the .001% situation (we really need
    to focus on the later) it’s not the millionaires who are fixing the game it
    is the billionaires.
    The self made millionaires are usually the ones creating jobs. Well those
    making between 80,000 and 1,000,000 through their own ingenuity. I say this
    because I’ve worked for the both the millionaire and the billionaire. The
    millionaire is figuring out how to grow the economy as a consequence of
    lining his own pocket, and the billionaire is figuring out how to weaken it
    as a consequence of lining his own pocket.
    This, of course, is a general statement.

    Reply
  9. StarSeed says

    March 4, 2015 at 9:22 pm

    Krugman is another disinfo agent. Just like Obama he uses popular views to
    Trojan in more Police State Nazi bullshit laws like the NDAA, National
    Security Act, Agenda 21, etc. Obama told all the right lies until he was in
    office, then betrayed us. People who tell the truth who are not agents are
    either killed or hiding like Assange and Snowden.

    Reply
  10. Rubin Schmidt says

    March 4, 2015 at 9:59 pm

    The Central Bank, (BofE), “Capitalism” was the invention of Charles
    Montague, in 1694. The aim was to acrue all the power and wealth, and kept
    it in the hands of a few. The other objective was to control everything and
    every one with a system of debt and phoney money. Think the inheritors of
    the system, the Rothschilds, did quite well, out of it .!!!

    Reply
  11. Nytza says

    March 4, 2015 at 10:27 pm

    Equity is subjective, Efficiency is objective. You will learn this first in
    any economics class. Funny how so many people act as if social sciences do
    not have laws, or overly proven theories. Economics is more law-based than
    physics. Religion doesn’t belong in economics. People that distrust
    sciences belong to religion. Obviously there’s many theories that can’t be
    proven yet, like Relativity, Evolution, and Gravity, but its frustrating
    when people act like its a 50-50 chance that they exist, and its all a
    “matter of perspective”.

    There is no perspectives in economics, only truth. That doesn’t mean that
    someone has all the answers; It just means its not a religion that you can
    argue literally 100% of econ from Natural rate of unemployment theory to
    the law of diminishing returns. You learn things ceteris paribus because
    obviously there’s room for general error in less-competitive markets, but
    nearly all markets are rigorously (or potentially powerfully) competitive.
    Its remarkably difficult to control a market without laws protecting it.

    Its as if economists don’t care about people but their “country”. I have no
    clue how monatarists are being called “idealistic” in the slightest.

    Reply
  12. PlanetEarth Trimtab says

    March 4, 2015 at 10:30 pm

    Excellent article by $Billionaire Amazon investor Nick Hanauer. *”I see
    pitchforks.”*
    “At the same time that people like you and me (the top 0.01%) are thriving
    beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the
    99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and
    have-nots is getting worse really, really fast.
    “In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national
    income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1
    percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
    “But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is
    intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that
    inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day.
    “Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a
    feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class
    will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the
    revolution.”

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014_full.html#.VEboMBZrTNh
    

    Reply
  13. platoscave911 says

    March 4, 2015 at 10:50 pm

    Buyer beware, propaganda for a world tax and for people who don’t know
    (surprise) the tax is aimed not at the rich but everyone else, of course
    they’ll say its aimed at the rich and when that’s not enough and it never
    is you’ll have to start emptying your pockets to the globalist. Pure
    bullshit and for them to talk in a straight face about an up and coming
    oligarchy or that wealth inheritance is something new is bologny, because
    anyone with and ounce of history education knows its been going on for
    ever. They state that a large segment of society doesn’t know this info is
    true because the education and cultural system have been dumbing down the
    people for 80 years or better. Beware of the propaganda!

    Reply
  14. Anthony Danes says

    March 4, 2015 at 11:33 pm

    Good program long on problem s short on solutions but understandably the
    program was just saying we need to tax the 1% . This needs to be fixed but
    it don’t look good. Too many people go home and hug their guns calling
    people communist and thinking Mexicans are taking over or getting high on
    video games and drugs. Sad state of affairs.

    Reply
  15. Todd Lavigne says

    March 5, 2015 at 12:08 am

    Why are people so surprised at this. Look at Feudal times. The KIng and
    Queen had 99.9% of the wealth
    The peasants didn’t even own land and surrendered 90% of their crops as
    rent. Times may not be perfect
    but they are much better. Paul Krugman is part of the 1% because I’m sure
    he earns over 100k a year.
    Why doesn’t he just give his money away. Because we are all the same, we
    want to keep what we earn.
    Wether we work hard for it or not…we still want to keep it. Human nature
    is what needs to change. But
    that I’m afraid is highly unlikely.

    Reply
  16. Emiliano Zapata says

    March 5, 2015 at 1:02 am

    Marx explains that a capitalist mode of production leads to hideous
    economic inequality and oligarchical rule over society – gets blamed for
    Lenin, Stalin, Mao et al.

    Picketty writes a book displaying that this has happened (whilst
    simultaneously criticising Marx) – cherished and revered for it.

    Reply
  17. Lilian Saavedra says

    March 5, 2015 at 1:15 am

    Austrian economics, like most other radical trends and dogmas, has found a
    very wide reception on the internet. This allure perhaps responds to its
    theory’s simple and effective way of communicating ideas to the average
    person not well versed in economics, sociology, history, ethics. Its
    simplicity is what attracts most of its fans. Your average libertarian is
    american, young, dogmatic, naive, inexperienced, ignorant of geopolitics. 

    Reply
  18. Arathorn Dezeus says

    March 5, 2015 at 1:33 am

    jesus christ people if you tax the rich more all that your going to see is
    them coming up with some way to avoid it or reduce it to nothing
    all that will happen is the middle class will be further taxed because you
    know they don’t have the same resourses. so many people cry booo hooo the
    rich are evil ecetera ecetera, bullshit most people just fail to educate
    themselves and what these people try to do is steal from the rich as some
    sort of robin hood and all that will happen is they will end up screwing
    themselves. not saying the rich are good honest desent people well if there
    are it is a small minority comparitively, but that doesn’t matter they are
    rich or stay rich because of the education they have which is vastly
    different than the education the lay person gets.

    Reply
  19. mike gee says

    March 5, 2015 at 2:12 am

    @spaceorbison- funny thing, back when corporations did pay large taxes,
    they STILL paid union workers WELL, and made a PROFIT! Today the GOP and
    sadly quite a few Democrats are allowing the wealthy to control the U.S.
    while allowing the rest to suffer and fall. Our democracy will FAIL when
    the wealthy make the laws, meanwhile dumbass tea party drips yell about how
    the rich are unfairly taxed, how the EPA should be disbanned, and whine
    about nearly non existent gun bans…..

    Reply
  20. tiffsaver says

    March 5, 2015 at 2:36 am

    The vaunted economist explains that there is “always hope” of turning
    things around. The way things are. If that isn’t a Pollyanna comment, I
    don’t know what is. How do the peasants tell the king what to do??

    Reply
  21. James Anderson says

    March 5, 2015 at 3:04 am

    Krugman is an establishment lackey and stooge. It is not doctors and
    lawyers who have rigged the game (part of the supposedly ominous 1%). It’s
    bank cartels, separate laws for the 0.01%, and disinformation agents like
    this clown, who muddy the waters constantly. These 20 minute reads are FREE
    and they CRUSH Krugman’s misinformation campaigns. EXHIBIT #1
    http://daviddegraw.org/peak-inequality-the-01-and-the-impoverishment-of-society/
    EXHIBIT #2
    http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html

    Reply
  22. Lux Dei says

    March 5, 2015 at 3:47 am

    yes! most people have no idea what real wealth looks like and they get
    brainwashed by the elite’s plans to think that taking care of our society
    is being an idiot when most are idiots because the elite use our taxes too
    reinvest it and make even more money, we are their slaves!

    Reply
  23. mondovb says

    March 5, 2015 at 4:03 am

    Inherited wealth is only one part of the mess. Unlimited, uncontrolled
    campaign donations have poisoned american politics and business beyond
    repair. Unless, of course, the ignorant public wakes up one day and starts
    electing some new and qualified people to represent them.

    Also, this “legacy” crap in the education system allows alcoholic,
    coke-addicted, C- losers like George W. Bush to get into college, not to
    mention Yale and Harvard, while millions and millions of much more
    qualified but less priveledged students can’t event afford their ways into
    community colleges. That’s how unnecessary wars get started and huge
    recessions are instigated. W. led by faith, not brains, because he doesn’t
    have any.

    In a real world, faith only gets you so far. The real world is
    round, rotates once every 24 hours, is about 4.5 billion years old.

    Reply
  24. john jaekyll says

    March 5, 2015 at 4:29 am

    it matters not a whit that Cassius is mouthpiece for the trumpet of the
    obscene wealthy. When the time comes, as it surely must, he too will feel
    the blade of the Guillotine. All brutish stooges will meet the same fate as
    their masters. I am Elie, come to perform my duty. I am relentless….and
    well paid.

    Reply
  25. randy109 says

    March 5, 2015 at 4:40 am

    We talk about ‘equal opportunity’ a lot here in the USA. Like the game
    “Monopoly” when we sit down and start the game, as of the first roll of the
    dice we truly are all Equal. But if you are born today in the USA it’s
    like being born after the ten thousandth roll of the dice. Being born
    today thinking we have equal opportunity is no longer true…

    Suppose you come to my home and we sit at the table and play a game of
    Monopoly. After three hours let’s say I “win” and have 90% of all the
    property and you don’t have the money to even roll the dice again because
    you can’t pay the rent on the square you are on. What do we do now? Pick
    up the pieces and put the Monopoly money away and go watch TV.

    Instead, let’s say after I win that you MUST KEEP PLAYING for three
    generations, 8 hours a day. Do you think your Grandkids could get the
    money and property away from MY Grandkids? I bet it would be a LONG 100
    years after that first afternoon and Generation after Generation would just
    toil along. Welcome to America, would you like to play Monopoly??

    Reply
  26. James Lico says

    March 5, 2015 at 5:08 am

    Reply
  27. ryan cameron says

    March 5, 2015 at 6:02 am

    its an important message for us to pay attention to

    Reply
  28. Nuar Hegrat says

    March 5, 2015 at 6:45 am

    Well…. A.) Im a student, not a journalist. (Psych & Law) And B.) I wasnt
    happy about having to change the settings to filter.. But, frankly, I was
    not about to allow something I posted to become a forum for a bunch of
    trolls to post hateful, inaccurate, logical fallacy ridden remarks which
    are meant to distract or confuse the issue.. Which, unfortunately, is the
    case w/o filters I’ve found. I try 2 be as fair & ethical as possible re:
    what I approve vs. disapprove. More so then 2days media.

    Reply
  29. ryan cameron says

    March 5, 2015 at 7:41 am

    its an important message for us to pay attention to and its really bad you
    are filtering comments. that makes you lose credibility as a journalist.

    Reply
  30. Ranger4564 says

    March 5, 2015 at 8:03 am

    This is why I always hated Bill Moyers… he acts amazed, confused,
    unclear. Any thinking person can see this stuff. I can’t tell if Moyers is
    just such a fool, or if he is playing one to mimic most Americans, so they
    will listen and learn. Nonetheless, I always hated that condescending
    talking down at my level approach. Even when he was interviewing Joseph
    Campbell… just frustrating.

    Reply
  31. ryan cameron says

    March 5, 2015 at 8:56 am

    people are responsible for what they say online, you’re not responsible for
    what they say. As for people posting fallacies, the crowd generally weeds
    them out. Give some credit to the intelligence of your audience, they dont
    need you censoring on their behalf. They can hide/report comments. Anyway,
    thanks again for posting this.

    Reply
  32. Nuar Hegrat says

    March 5, 2015 at 9:16 am

    Well then thank you for helping to enlighten & educate others.. Lets all
    keep on fighting the good fight! — Best wishes to you and those you love..
    Cheers! 🙂

    Reply

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