Teaching a pig to dance is a waste of your time and it irritates the pig.
Oh good! I’m glad I amused someone besides myself.
I’m not saying they owe us anything. I’m saying we owe it to ourselves to be informed about what these greedy fuckers are investing in.
Why? It’s their money - they can do what they want with it. What business is it of yours?
Anything they want with it? Does that include making their money with complete disregard for the effects it has on others who aren’t employed by, or connected to their little enterprise?
Come on. Who wants to take a guess?
How many people do you have to shit on to make a billion pound sterling?
I take it you buy nothing but Fair Trade and locally produced items. You certainly wouldn’t shop at a regular supermarket, given the conditions migrant workers toil under. Of course, all discount stores are right out, given the provenance of most of their wares.
How does living by the system you were born into, compare to being a billionaire who has his underlings find the cheapest country possible to produce the goods he sells for exhorbitant profits? I’m not the one living a life of luxury while some of my employees are working for a pittance.
You ARE living a life of (relative) luxury, while buying stuff that you know was produced by people earning a pittance. Make no mistake about it, you are part of the problem. Every time you walk into Tesco, you endorse the system.
If “(relative) luxury” means having access to the internet, I don’t suppose I can argue about that.
Not true. I’m pretty sure it’s something like 80% of millionaires that are first-generation. They made it themselves.
Bullshit. I did it. Most of my family has done it. We’re not fantastically rich but we’re making 6 figures. We’re all children and grandchildren of immigrant steel mill workers. We didn’t do it by shitting on the little guy. We did it through a little bit of planning, a little bit of determination, and a lot of hard work.
How about easy, regular, and safe access to drinking water? How about the ability to be mildly picky with your produce choices? Access to medical help in case of an emergency? Reliable electricity? Cheap clothes?
By your own standards you *regularly *fuck over scores of people every day.
Grow up and get some perspective.
I think those things should be basic human rights for everyone who lives in a capitalist society. If you are unfortunate enough not to be born in one of those places, I feel for ya, but I’m not gonna come and join you. That doesn’t mean I won’t try and do my little bit from my more fortunate position.
I’m plenty grown-up, and my perspective is obviously different to your own.
Yes, since the FACTS that ColdPhoenix has provided show pretty clearly that you are wrong.
1% of the world’s population (6.7 Billion) = 67 million.
There are 10 million millionaires in the entire world. 10 million people with assets in excess of 1 million US dollars. 10 is less than 67. These 10 million people represent 0.15% of the world’s population. 0.15 is less than 1.
The top 1% of the population of the world are NOT all millionaires. Some of this 1% have assets of a little LESS than a million dollars US.
From ColdPhoenix’s cite, we can see that those who can be said to be REALLY rich (assets of over 30 million dollars US) comprise only 0.001% of the population of the world. 0.001% is much, much less than 1% That’s 93,100 people. In the world.
Those with assets above 100 million are called “hectomillionaires”. Given that there are less than 10,000 of those in the world, we can safely say that the number of those in the world with “hundreds of millions of dollars” is around** 0.00015%**
To be clear, 0.00015% is less than 1%
So in other words, you feel that billionaires should take positive, measurable actions to help people less fortunate than them, but your contribution of internet ranting is sufficient to assuage your conscience about people less fortunate than you.
gonzo,
To expand on my previous porcine analogy, the entire US electorate, from our inception, has been wrapped up in various debates on the proper extent of governmental social and economic regulatory powers and how best to pay for them. Yayada.
Anyone who cannot see that our present govt (indeed, the entire planet) has been COMPLETELY bought and is firmly in the pocket of World Inc., mystically endowed by SCOTUS in 1889 with human rights and few of their responsibilities, is fucking blind.
Anyone who thinks that there is an national electoral solution to inequity has his head up his ass.
Me, I’m just trying to teach pigs to dance.
There is one theme that has played out since 1899 in US history.
The Left Hand Giveth and the Right Hand Taketh Away.
- The Sherman Anti-Trust Act gave our Rockefeller (aka Big Stick Chief Imperial Roughrider) Trustbuster the power to scatter the Rockefeller Oil Trust into 32 little Rockefeller local monopolies. Power to the people and JD became the richest man on earth.
Oh yes, this was also THE Federal Statute which granted personhood to corporations.
By 1931, our governmental sanction of war/corporate imperialism abroad and the encouragement of unbridled consumption (oh, them Roaring Twenties) and unsustainable private debt at home drove the world into The Great Depression and armed revolution was pretty much inevitable. Time for The Left Hand of Wealth to kick down handsomely.
Let’s see.
Social Security, Glass-Steagall and a powerful trade union movement. Pretty darn progressive, happy days are here again. Then we get Medicare/Caid and Blacks and Women break the glass ceiling and, before you know it, anyone worth knowing can afford an HDTV. God Bless America, Happy Birthday!
But once everyone is fed and entertained it’s time for The Right to taketh away. Wall St regulation? Fagedaboutit. Labor as capital? Fagedaboutit.
Social Security? I figure that by the time the USG stops direct depositing my contractually paid for monthly SS payment and has given up any pretence of legitimacy, I will be safely elsewhere.
SS must be whittled away. Hey, if they cut me off today, I’d be under a bridge tomorrow harboring subversive thoughts. Much better to slowly raise the temperature in that kettle of Fresh Frog Stew.
Early on (2000?, I need a cite), Condoleeza Rice, previous Exxon exec and neo-con theorist, wrote a white paper outlining her idea of Cuba’s post-Castro return to American normalcy.
To sum, her plan dictated later worker retirement with lesser benefits and reduced social services for all. Condoleeza neglected to mention that “peacefully” establishing a Cuba Inc. bureaucracy would be as simple as moving that Miami hornet’s net of vengeful Cuban Patriots to Havana. And, lo and behold, Fla fo de wealty white folk now, with commodious Cuban harbors and nightlife just a day’s sail away. Gatsby never had it so good.
That’s the plan here. Arbitrarily and without public consent, start increasing the retirement age and then get folks talking about raising the working man’s compulsory annual cap for his buyin to “social security”.
Ring any bells, frogs and pigs?
Fuck you all, 'til you dance. 
Not bullshit. an exception, an increasingly rare one ,is not proof. That is the point. people will cling to the belief it will happen for them. But it gets harder and harder all the time. There are many people on this board who have good educations, worked hard and the financial pros blew up their lives. That is what we have now.
The funny thing is: I’m in the top 1% (as are many on the Dope, I’m sure).
I sure don’t feel that evil.
gonzo,
To expand on my previous porcine analogy, the entire US electorate, from our inception, has been wrapped up in various debates on the proper extent of governmental social and economic regulatory powers and how best to pay for them. Yayada.
Anyone who cannot see that our present govt (indeed, the entire planet) has been COMPLETELY bought and is firmly in the pocket of World Inc., mystically endowed by SCOTUS in 1889 with human rights and few of their responsibilities, is fucking blind.
Anyone who thinks that there is an national electoral solution to inequity has his head up his ass.
Me, I’m just trying to teach pigs to dance.
There is one theme that has played out since 1899 in US history.
The Left Hand Giveth and the Right Hand Taketh Away.
- The Sherman Anti-Trust Act gave our Rockefeller (aka Big Stick Chief Imperial Roughrider) Trustbuster the power to scatter the Rockefeller Oil Trust into 32 little Rockefeller local monopolies. Power to the people and JD became the richest man on earth.
Oh yes, this was also THE Federal Statute which granted personhood to corporations.
By 1931, our governmental sanction of war/corporate imperialism abroad and the encouragement of unbridled consumption (oh, them Roaring Twenties) and unsustainable private debt at home drove the world into The Great Depression and armed revolution was pretty much inevitable. Time for The Left Hand of Wealth to kick down handsomely.
Let’s see.
Social Security, Glass–Steagall and a powerful trade union movement. Pretty darn progressive, happy days are here again. Then we get Medicare/Caid and Blacks and Women break the glass ceiling and, before you know it, anyone worth knowing can afford an HDTV. God Bless America, Happy Birthday!
But once everyone is fed and entertained it’s time for The Right to taketh away. Wall St regulation? Fagedaboutit. Labor as capital? Fagedaboutit.
Social Security? I figure that by the time the USG stops direct depositing my contractually paid for monthly SS payment in my debit card accessable account and has given up any pretence of legitimacy, I will be safely elsewhere.
But to appease you latecomers, SS must be whittled away. Hey, if they cut me off today, I’d be under a bridge with most of you tomorrow harboring subversive thoughts. Much better to slowly raise the temperature in that kettle of Fresh Frog Stew.
Early on (90’s?, I need a cite), Condoleeza Rice, previous Exxon exec and neo-con theorist, wrote a white paper outlining her idea of Cuba’s post-Castro return to American normalcy.
To sum, her plan dictated later worker retirement with lesser benefits and reduced social services for all. Condoleeza neglected to mention that “peacefully” establishing the Cuba Inc. bureaucracy would be as simple as moving that Miami hornet’s net of vengeful Cuban Patriots to Havana. And, lo and behold, Fla fo de wealty white folk now, with commodious Cuban harbors, beaches and nightlife just a day’s sail away. Gatsby never had it so good.
That’s the plan here. Arbitrarily and without public consent, start increasing the retirement age and then get folks talking about raising the working man’s compulsory annual income cap for his buyin to “social security”.
Ring any bells, frogs and pigs?
Fuck you all, 'til you’ve learned to dance. 
You’ll notice that the OP has slunk away and hasn’t posted since that was proven.