Why are the elites winning? Look in a mirror!

I am so tired of the finger pointing and the disempowerment. The elites aren't winning because they are sociopathic or hyper-intelligent or aliens or involved in secret societies. The elites are winning because they are independent planners who know how to coordinate with others and follow through on their plans, sacrificing short term comforts for long term outcomes. The elites are winning because they know when to compromise and when to play hard ball, and they do each when their own self-interests requires those things to be done.

The bankers are wealthy because the average person wants a loan. The bank itself earns very little off of any of these large scale loans, but it makes its money over time in volume of customers served. If we were content to save yesterday for that which we consume today, the banks wouldn't have nearly the power they have today. Instead we consume today with tomorrow's labor and we pay the banks their interest for empowering us to do that. The bank will always get a higher ROI off the back of a poor person struggling to pay off a mortgage than off a fortune 500. The reason being risk. Everything in a capitalist country revolves around getting the highest ROI, not for the money invested, but for the risk involved. A poor person might default on their mortgage. Exonn-Mobile almost never will.

The corporations are wealthy because the average person wants cheap products and a job. If we refused to work for them and refused to save money at Walmart, avoiding them to buy our goods and services from sole-proprietors instead, these corporations would sink like the bureaucratic nightmares they truly have become. Entrepreneurship is difficult. Unemployment and uncertainty are terrifying. Buying from sole proprietors is costly. We are the reason these corporations are in power. It is because we want to avoid temporary discomfort that we accept permanent bondage.

The politicians are corrupt because we accept corruptible governments and an atomistic society. We accept this because most of us are ungenerous and truly believe that someday we will have a large enough piece of the pie that we want to forego leveling the playing field for the chance that we might become wealthy someday. We each have our scapegoats. We look to drug addicts, broken families, the entry level wage workers, and the homeless as parasitic proletarians and we look to ourselves as some great specialist who will overcome the nature of our civilization. We refuse to accept how weak we actually are and we refuse to work together to enact laws that serve our best interests. The elite have no power of us really at the end of the day, especially not in a democratic society. We are the ocean that fixes this society in its place.

If tomorrow morning each of us quit our corporate and government jobs, quit paying our bank loans, quit buying our products from corporations, quit listening to absurd laws, started to get to know our neighbors, started to participate in our local government and started to think mutually and in absolute terms instead of constantly worrying only about only ourselves and our families, we could probably rectify this civilization in a week or two, but we won't go through fourteen days of discomfort because, God forbid, our goals for a comfortable retirement which will most likely elude us might be arrested, casting us into uncertainty.

Uncertainty is the price you pay for progress. Without swimming in its oceans, you can never get to paradise. I don't say this to deflate anyone, but to wake people up to the options we still have available to us. We could save this world tomorrow if we truly wanted to. The power is entirely in our own hands.

Actually......you are completely right.
We rant and rave about what's going on, how they are enslaving us and taking our Freedoms, but we do nothing. There are billions being manipulated by thousands. Until we get tired of being used the games will go on.

a reply to: Nechash

Your post reminds me of a saying I once heard.

"You could take every penny from the wealthy today, and in five years, most of them would be wealthy again."

They have a strategy, most people don't.

a reply to: Nechash

Are you going to lead the party and go off-grid ?

I was in agreement with you, but I just realized the elites really basically do own us. We would have to give up basics like electricity, work, grocery stores. Is water free these days ? Everything. Then there's the stuff like our phones, our ATS, our whole lives. I'm eager, but really. You're suggesting the whole world does that. It's not going to happen.

a reply to: Emerald53

When someone is organized and powerful, nothing they set out to do will truly be impossible for them. Three hundred million people voting as one interest is a power worth more than all of the armies and capital of this entire planet, of 300 planets. Such a force has never existed before in human history, and such a force, once rendered into reality, would be unstoppable.

What people don't understand is that ownership is meaningless. Control is everything, and the birthright we hold in being the electorate of the American Republic is the power to control everything short of heaven itself. If we break laws in our pursuit for freedom, we'll just make what we did legal retroactively. Do you realize how many revolutionaries in human history have won their offices from inside the prison system of the government they eventually rise up to depose?

Private property rights and corporate personhood are simply our current social arrangement. Tomorrow we could awaken to a world where the people own everything equally and money has been abolished once and for all, creating a truly democratic civilization.

a reply to: Nechash

overall OP you are correct but it does help to be born into money you know.

I am not saying there are no Self-Made Elites

but usually money helps

a reply to: WineWithIce5

For laughs.

a reply to: Nechash

First and foremost, we have to also be able to look in that mirror and ask ourselves why our beliefs are more important than others!

We can't stop anything unless we undo the divisions that we have allowed our politicians to implant into our minds that allow them to divide us into multiple other groups that end up fighting each other instead of them!

The biggest threat to any government is any man/woman who can rally the masses to become peaceful with one another.

a reply to: seeker1963

Firstly, I'd like to distinguish between productive inventors, politicians and capitalists.

Productive inventors, specialists, business leaders and entrepreneurs: people who actually earn their money and get things done in a tangible way are people we need going forward. It is senseless to ask them to sacrifice themselves so that the masses might have temporary comfort, because if we eat the rich including the specialists, we'll have no one left to help us run productive efforts in order to keep civilization moving along.

The bankers, the monied capitalists who don't produce anything and the politicians are totally unnecessary to a democratic civilization. They exist as a product of the corrupt system that we all hold into place and they would have nothing to offer anyone in a moneyless world.

At one time politicians were political philosophers and military leaders who understood how to preserve a self-governing Republic, but today they are lawyers and popular local celebrities who have never done anything remarkable in their entire lives other than get elected for public office.

At one time wealthy people were Aristocrats and businessmen who had been trained in classical literature and history, who understood the responsibility of wealth and power and how to thrive in a deflationary economy. Today, they are immoral card sharps who are growing fat in an inflationary economy while they debase the rest of us. They are asking us every day to sacrifice ourselves and our futures for the sustainment of their system and so I have no moral qualms about demanding that they sacrifice themselves to restore sanity to the world.

I can think of a social arrangement where anyone earning less than $500k per year would be better off than they presently are, thereby unifying 99.99% of us on a global scale, and the birth of a grand new world where all of us soar into greater prosperity only requires the curtailing of the "rights" of maybe all of 20,000 people on a global scale. The fact that we permit this elite few to spoil things for all the rest of us is amazing to me.

a reply to: Nechash

I agree with you!

Making money isn't wrong! It's how many people you screw to accomplish it!

Sounds to me like you are making a lot of points that those who follow "Meritocracy" believe in. I must say I am more favorable of a system like that, than the current "Crony Capitalism" that has taken over.....

As you already pointed out though, the change will have to come from those of us who believe our governments will suddenly find Jesus and change. They won't!

If the masses could ever drop their prejudices and individual beliefs, as far as realizing that others have the same right to self righteous freedom, (I use the term self righteous, to just show how, so many people believe in their freedom based upon what they believe in, while wanting to deny others their freedom, just because it doesn't appeal to their way of thinking) that they expect, so that instead of speaking in many voices, we speak as one, nothing will ever change for the better.

a reply to: seeker1963

Earning your position in society is a goodness, because if something is just handed to you, you are very unlikely to give it the respect it deserves.

Hierarchy is a blessing when it is sensible because it concentrates the power, resources and decision making abilities into the hands of those who will be most responsible with it. In this way we all get to enjoy a greater return on our resources and time because our efforts have been invested into the most profitable endeavors or at the very least those that have the most optimal outcome for everyone involved.

Aristocracy is a responsibility, not an inheritance to be enjoyed entirely selfishly. Anyone with greater power, intelligence, wisdom, strength, wealth, ability or insight has a responsibility to the rest of humankind to see them forward in this journey of individualized evolution. If we only use our time here to keep everyone else in the dark and to acquire the most comfort for ourselves at our collective expense, we all will perish in a world of eternal darkness.

I personally don't have a problem with money. I have a problem with a system of fiat money that has at its pinnacle a people who produce nothing but ink, paper and decimal points in a database yet who hold the keys to everything in the palm of their hands. If we can create a system of money that is decentralized and non-inflationary, I'd be all for that. If we can transcend to a moneyless society where everyone gets a relatively equal economic vote, I'd be for that too. I think the latter system might deincentivize entry level labor too much, but with a high enough standard of automation, this shouldn't be an issue for very long.

If everyone has equal economic power and no one wants to flip burgers at McDonald's thereafter, what does that say about our present social arrangements? For centuries, the lowest classes have been motivated to be servile out of their economic desperation. No one want to put up with the constant temper tantrums of an egoist consumer population. It takes a desperate people on the brink of starvation to provide service with a smile. No one wants to stand in the same spot on concrete for 14 hours a day trying to keep up with a conveyor belt. It takes a family at home yearning for a better future to keep a person glued happily to that spot.

Would it be so terrible for us to sit down and divide labor equally across all economic lines based upon the collective goals of human society instead of constantly pigeonholing people into a suboptimal life simply to keep this disposable materialist society moving along for one more day? Who needs Nike shoes? Who needs McDonalds? When compared to the gilded world the Victorians imagined, they are lifeless garbage. Today, the culture of McDonald's and Walmart is disgracing places as amazing as Paris and Hong Kong. It is time for this madness to reach its end, and we have the power to gracefully usher it off into oblivion and to wave it farewell forever.

a reply to: Nechash

As far as flippin burgers goes, I have always thought of that as an "entry level" position for anyone newly getting into the work force.

Everyone has to start somewhere right? That person then had an open book as far as proving their skills, abilities to follow directions, listening to and working for those in leadership positions etc etc.....

These USED TO BE the necessary stepping stones to actually step into a better earning job! For instance make $5 an hour, prove your ability to learn and step up or out of the fast food world and into a better paid job! Like manufacturing where in the good ole days was a hard, but well paid job, that enabled the middle class to thrive.

It isn't like that anymore! Where did the manufacturing jobs go? pffffft, gone! Even those that do exist do not pay anything close to a medium income.

People saw it coming, so then pushed for college educations. Then what happened? They priced it so high, that only the well off could survive it comfortably. Then all of a sudden what good jobs were left, were taken up very quickly and those who now had tons of debt to pay back, ended up taking the entry level jobs just try and pay back their debt, let alone survive!

Now that throws us into the welfare issues we fight over. Those without educations are now pitted against those with education fighting over jobs that pay slightly above the poverty level! That is IF you can find a full time position!!!

Ehhhhh, it's a rigged game of new age slavery!

Those struggling to survive that have jobs are pissed at those who can't get one and the controllers are laughing their way to the bank, while every day more and more people drop down a "class level".

Soon everyone will be poor and dependent on the government. It's a carefully crafted plan of global enslavement if you ask me......

The world has become a complicated place, knowledge is power and nobody can be a master of all trades.
The wealthy can pay people to do the leg work for them and keep them up to date on all things.
The common working man doesn`t have the time or money to keep himself up to date on all things so he lacks the knowledge and insight in to what is really important and what is just distractions.
That is why the wealthy are winning.

I do agree that we, the average person, may have some responsibility for our current situation, maybe we bought too much on credit, etc. But remember, the elites didn't simply gain power in the last couple of years, they most likely have had undue influence on the government and society from the very foundation of the U.S. and many other countries around the world.

They are the ones that decide on and set the guiding philosophies of the age, so this means that they decided on and set the guiding philosophies that led people into massive debt and corporate "bondage". Remember that the guiding philosophies of the past age emphasized spending beyond one's limits and borrowing on credit as way to grow and sustain the economy. So, the current economic condition is not entirely our fault.

It is easy for an elite group to compromise, make long range plans, and to carry them out. Since the power elites own the system, they don't have to contend with competitors with overwhelming resources that will stifle their plans, infiltrate their groups, create tensions between group members, create divisions among people based on every difference they can exploit, obfuscate the truth, invade their privacy, monitor their thoughts, gangstalk them into compliance or death, manipulate data and world events, and obfuscate the very methods and philosophies by which one uses to reason and to search for the truth. There may be power elites with differing intentions and philosophies, but they are more or less equal in influence and power so they are not overwhelmed by one or the other, only in this situation is true compromise possible.

You see the problem. Even IF a group of well intentioned, non-inflitrated, highly disciplined people was formed, with philosophies and ideas that went against the intentions of the elites. The elites, with overwhelming resources, would either take actions to eliminate the group, or as they usually do, infiltrate the group and slowly but surely distort their philosophies, goals, and methods so as to be in line with their own intentions. This applies to politicians as well, you can elect nearly any politician into office, but once they get there these elites start working on them and before you know it they have to compromise on nearly every promise they made, so you end up with more or less the same type of politician.

Another problem with the elites is that they take steps to make the world believe they don't exist. In this manner they are never blamed nor criticized if thing go wrong and the people responsible are never found nor held accountable. Not to mention it allows them the ability to manipulate large world events all the while making it seem as if they happened "organically".

a reply to: deloprator20000

Well said!

Made me think that maybe our evolution as a species is not evolution at all, but the shedding of our cognitive dissonance, so that we can see again or maybe for the first time what the true meaning of being free actually is?

Edit: Reminds me of a song that had a line, "Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose".......

How free are we if it gets to that point?

This is where the majority of people either laugh at the situation and make a joke out of it or scroll past it. Was the world taken over through consent or through conquest? People often wonder why no one will rebel or wake up.

Easy, everything we need is provided by the system in one way or another. Yes yes I know the air is yours, the seeds are yours but no matter what you do, you'll encounter and interact with the system in one way or another.

Consent or conquest. It happened by consent.

a reply to: seeker1963

Flipping burgers builds character for a 15 year old for about one summer, after that it is soul crushing. The fact that pensioners and widows who have worked their entire lives building up this civilization are becoming greeters at Walmart so they can afford to feed themselves is abhorrent to me. It used to be that you gave a company 45 years and you could expect to live comfortably for the rest of your life. Now, you are lucky if you can hold a job for a few years at a time and retirement is a total joke.

A 401k is not a pension, although with a 401k you can earn millions if you are smart about it. For malinvestors, which is the majority, it offers no guarantee of comfort in their final years. Social security is mandatory malinvestment with a 100% estate tax associated with it, and it has no accrual of true value. You cannot take out a loan against your social security account which is evidence #1 that it is not a proper retirement fund. Plus the SSD/SSI program is totally broken in this country. A depressed teenager or a heroine addict could get SSI tomorrow, but a working class male who has 15% mobility in his right arm doesn't qualify for SSD, and there is no such thing as partial disability, which should exist for the person who has had their income potential severely limited by disability.

I was mowing yards and shoveling snow as a preteen for extra money. That is an entry level job, and it teaches self-motivation and basic levels of entrepreneurship. Running a lemonade stand as an eight year old is a good entry level job. The "entry level jobs" of today are not even blue collar. These jobs are so menial that a robot and a point of sale kiosk could easily perform them. Expecting someone to devote a significant portion of their lives to jobs like these is insanity to me.

I'd rather someone have the moral courage to call me useless and to put a bullet in my head than to insult me by suggesting that my only use to the future of civilization is to stand at a counter all day operating point of sale. At least that would save some oxygen for the rest of the animals on this planet. The simple fact is that the means of production have become so efficient that civilization no longer requires a 40 hour work week from its people. What is wrong with that? Can't we move down to a 30 or 20 hour work week, offer a bit more in wages and allow more people to have more disposable income and free time?

This would create opportunities in the entertainment and tourism industries, and could cause another boom in the economy. People are so contemptuous of others, but every time we distribute the means of production laterally, there is an economic explosion. Just imagine what will happen when 3D printing technologies become more readily available. I'm sure that if people had more free time, many, many of them would waste it on drugs and video games, but some of them would utilize that time to create things worthy of a free people, and it is those creative few that are the backbone of a renaissance, not the distracted and complacent many.

That is the benefit of a Bohemian age, you liberate the people to bear their creative talents into reality and in the process of creation, they create a better world for all of us. Instead of being big fish in a small pond, the elite get to become elevated to be sharks in an ocean, and yes they may not be as significant relativistically, but the lifestyle they enjoy is greater and the world they live in is more aesthetically pleasing in absolute terms.

Here is my basic point towards corporations... if your people cannot afford to feed and house themselves on a full-time schedule and you cannot aide them in a retirement program, then you should be responsible to pay back the cost of educating those workers, providing them with public assistance benefits and providing them with social security and medicaid in their later years. Essentially, these programs are not a benefit to the poor, but a subsidy to the corporations so they can externalize the cost of caring for their own labor force.

originally posted by: Nechash
a reply to: seeker1963

Flipping burgers builds character for a 15 year old for about one summer, after that it is soul crushing. The fact that pensioners and widows who have worked their entire lives building up this civilization are becoming greeters at Walmart so they can afford to feed themselves is abhorrent to me. It used to be that you gave a company 45 years and you could expect to live comfortably for the rest of your life. Now, you are lucky if you can hold a job for a few years at a time and retirement is a total joke.

A 401k is not a pension, although with a 401k you can earn millions if you are smart about it. For malinvestors, which is the majority, it offers no guarantee of comfort in their final years. Social security is mandatory malinvestment with a 100% estate tax associated with it, and it has no accrual of true value. You cannot take out a loan against your social security account which is evidence #1 that it is not a proper retirement fund. Plus the SSD/SSI program is totally broken in this country. A depressed teenager or a heroine addict could get SSI tomorrow, but a working class male who has 15% mobility in his right arm doesn't qualify for SSD, and there is no such thing as partial disability, which should exist for the person who has had their income potential severely limited by disability.

I was mowing yards and shoveling snow as a preteen for extra money. That is an entry level job, and it teaches self-motivation and basic levels of entrepreneurship. Running a lemonade stand as an eight year old is a good entry level job. The "entry level jobs" of today are not even blue collar. These jobs are so menial that a robot and a point of sale kiosk could easily perform them. Expecting someone to devote a significant portion of their lives to jobs like these is insanity to me.

I'd rather someone have the moral courage to call me useless and to put a bullet in my head than to insult me by suggesting that my only use to the future of civilization is to stand at a counter all day operating point of sale. At least that would save some oxygen for the rest of the animals on this planet. The simple fact is that the means of production have become so efficient that civilization no longer requires a 40 hour work week from its people. What is wrong with that? Can't we move down to a 30 or 20 hour work week, offer a bit more in wages and allow more people to have more disposable income and free time?

This would create opportunities in the entertainment and tourism industries, and could cause another boom in the economy. People are so contemptuous of others, but every time we distribute the means of production laterally, there is an economic explosion. Just imagine what will happen when 3D printing technologies become more readily available. I'm sure that if people had more free time, many, many of them would waste it on drugs and video games, but some of them would utilize that time to create things worthy of a free people, and it is those creative few that are the backbone of a renaissance, not the distracted and complacent many.

That is the benefit of a Bohemian age, you liberate the people to bear their creative talents into reality and in the process of creation, they create a better world for all of us. Instead of being big fish in a small pond, the elite get to become elevated to be sharks in an ocean, and yes they may not be as significant relativistically, but the lifestyle they enjoy is greater and the world they live in is more aesthetically pleasing in absolute terms.

Here is my basic point towards corporations... if your people cannot afford to feed and house themselves on a full-time schedule and you cannot aide them in a retirement program, then you should be responsible to pay back the cost of educating those workers, providing them with public assistance benefits and providing them with social security and medicaid in their later years. Essentially, these programs are not a benefit to the poor, but a subsidy to the corporations so they can externalize the cost of caring for their own labor force.

I am not disagreeing with you, but showing my age by making comparisons to how things used to be! Even though I am old, it doesn't mean I can't see how we are being played like a fiddle to further decline our "value" to the puppets whom rule over us.....

I get people pissed at me all the time when I tell them I am against raising the minimum wage! It isn't because I don't care, but I can see the domino effect that it will have on the economy and how it will increase inflation! The corporations ARE our government, thru the use of lobbyists and money!

I am just trying to beat around some ideas based upon how I see things in relation to your OP. There our many facets to how we got to where we are now, and to fix them we should look at every damn angle that they have used against us to get us to this point.....

Hell, look at how "SCIENCE" has even been bought and paid for by the wealthy elite! Science used to be based on well researched facts! Today, science is based upon those who receive the most funding.........

a reply to: seeker1963

Honestly, we probably would be better off without a minimum wage at this point, because then at least people could get some type of employment. As it stands today, unless someone can earn an employer at least $40 an hour through their efforts, employing them would cost the company money by the time you take minimum wage, taxes, workman's comp and all that other noise out of the profit margin. Minimum wages only make sense when you already have full employment and higher workforce participation. When you only have 60% of the people working, minimum wage increases don't seem like the answer to me.

Personally, I think government wage matching makes more sense, because this doesn't discourage entry level work, but it also doesn't put the burden of the minimum wages onto the employers. If the government matched employers wages on all workers up to the minimum wage mark, this would raise wages without causing unemployment. Taxes would probably have to go up unless the congress nationalized the federal reserve, but it is easier for a company to avoid paying taxes than it is for them to front the increased cost of labor.

originally posted by: Nechash
a reply to: seeker1963

Honestly, we probably would be better off without a minimum wage at this point, because then at least people could get some type of employment. As it stands today, unless someone can earn an employer at least $40 an hour through their efforts, employing them would cost the company money by the time you take minimum wage, taxes, workman's comp and all that other noise out of the profit margin. Minimum wages only make sense when you already have full employment and higher workforce participation. When you only have 60% of the people working, minimum wage increases don't seem like the answer to me.

Personally, I think government wage matching makes more sense, because this doesn't discourage entry level work, but it also doesn't put the burden of the minimum wages onto the employers. If the government matched employers wages on all workers up to the minimum wage mark, this would raise wages without causing unemployment. Taxes would probably have to go up unless the congress nationalized the federal reserve, but it is easier for a company to avoid paying taxes than it is for them to front the increased cost of labor.

Not to say your idea doesn't have merit or at least looking into? We still have to rely on those who we elect that pander to the corporate lobbyists to accomplish it.

I just do not see that happening. Plus not to sound like a Tea Partier, but I think any time we ask the government to step in, they create MORE government and agencies that have no purpose whatsoever than to siphon even more money from the tax payers coffers......

Anyhow, I appreciate our back and forth! Thanks!

I am off to get some damn low hanging fruit most of us call house work done!