As SHFabian points out: "The middle class supports those policies that have been phasing out the middle class, and has wiped out those policies that created the massive middle class we had from WWll until Reagan."

Fascinates me no end, how these "sheeple" could be so clueless as to willingly support the scheme behind their own demise. Reminds me of that poignant old fable about the Pied Piper, charming swarms of rats into the river to drown. - Alice I.W.

P.S. I've begun reading my new copy of Howard Zinn's People's History... After all the times I've heard or read it mentioned, in this blog and elsewhere, I just had to check it out. As I anticipated, it is eloquently written. But what a sad, depressing book! It validates my basic assessment of this country, past & present. What it vividly illustrates are the never-ending cycles of power struggles and strife that humanity has been locked into for millenia. It's a constant battle, between the interests serving need and those catering to greed. We either get past this or we're doomed to extinction. Talk about unsustainable!

Thom's idea to outlaw the billionaires makes good social economic sense. It's interesting to note that during the 1930's Senator Huey Long proposed limiting private fortunes to 50 million. This was just part of a larger program called Share Our Wealth. His slogan was " Every Man a King." Maybe it's time has finally come! In fact it's long overdue.

SHFabian, I'm sorry. You may not know how to take my post. In re-reading your two posts I gather you're suggesting the existance of some kind of class warfare going on between the middle class and the poor. But "austerity"? When you use that term, what do you mean? In my mind "austerity" is the essence of what ails us (both the middle class and the poor). It's the answer to "THE DEFICIT". It's what the right wing exponents of tax cuts for the wealthy advance as the cure to the problem of us sand bagging middle class and poor parasites. No more social safety net. Sink or swim, assholes! So what do you mean when you use the term "austerity"?

President Obama isn't waiting for Congress to take on election reform

"in deep do-do"? We sank well below the "deep do-do" level with the "events" of 9-11; and we're still going deeper.

The middle class supports the austerity agenda. At least, they do when it comes to the post-middle class/poor. If austerity gives the poor the extra little push needed to do alright, imagine how much more the middle class will benefit from austerity! Face it, folks. The rich are simply doing to the middle class what the middle class already did to the poor. It's not the first time in our history that the richest few gained a dangerous degree of control over the US. The only difference is that this time, the poor and middle were first deeply divided, so there will be no push-back. Divide and conquer.

Our politics are set up as a whores game. Until we have politics set up to be a non paid privileged and honorable public servant position, I believe this country will continue its detructive slope until its done. My observation based on what I see. Look around and prove me wrong,please.

Thom says....."Republicans refuse to end tax breaks for big corporations and billionaires!"

The Corp. Media simply reports... "the Democrats want tax hikes to replace budget cuts!"

So the Corp. Media wants the average disinterested citizen to get the message the Democrats are the tax and spend party that wants to take even more from your pay check and give it to the so called 47%...the "takers." In stark contrast, Thom's comment is accurate, responsible, and not at all misleading. As simple as all of this sounds, a tragic truth exists.... unbiased reporting from a free press, which has historically been mandated to be adversarial in order to maintain govt. honesty and integrity, has to a great extent vanished.

I'm not talking about the obvious billionaire propaganda tools like Fox. I'm talking about outlets like ABC radio news, NPR, Meet The Press, etc. When was the last time Senator Sanders was on Meet The Press? At least 70% of the population is in agreement with his ideas. No problem with Paul Ryan, who is even to the right of Fascism making an appearance. I don't think 1% stand behind his beliefs.

This sell-out is a major blow to any hope of a functional democracy. The media prostitutes enriching themselves at the expense of we the people should be ashamed of their complete lack of professional standards, and worse yet...... their lack of respect for democracy.

btw. Uncertainity can undermine the strength of the projections used by Wall St to evaluate their investments, but it is removed by confidence in the outcome - period. It doesn't matter if the uncertainty is removed by securing an outcome favorable or unfavorable to the People, just so long as the financial or stock analyst knows which.

Furthermore, most of your financialized money is made during times of uncertainty rather than certainty. Uniform information (widespread concensus) tends to dampen opportunities for profit.

"uncertaintiy" like "energy independence" and "exporting democracy" are simply sound bites from a body of propaganda whose main use is to manipulate something out of the People.

When the domestic economy is crushing the People, Wall St can use aspects of the same economy to make money. And that speaks to a fundamental problem with Wall St controlling our Government.

HalFonts, you wrote 'A few micro grams of ferric-oxide on some disk-drives change state -- the sum-total of our "wealth."' (I loved that line;-) But I think you summed it up nicely in your last paragraph where you wrote "Wealth is not the issue; it's what wealth can do, and who and how wealth is managed that are the questions we (or some humans) will answer."

I believe the concept of the "uber rich", the "fat cat", the "shady billionaire" pushing a self serving agenda through a bought and paid for congress has earned the term "billionaire" a bad connotation in the mind of the average person. It's a lot like what's happened to the otherwise perfectly good word "entitlement", to which A.I.W. alluded. So to put it in personal terms, it's not the billionaire, it's how the billionaire behaves. Of course, in a world of finite resources, and "in the limit" as they say, if one player in the game ended up with all the chips everyone else's material quality of life would swing heavily on how that person felt about sharing. (And, human nature being what it is, that situation would quickly resolve itself one way or the other.)

I believe there are a few notable "good billionaires" out there, maybe Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to name a couple. But it doesn't take a lot of experience in our capitalist society to understand that those with highly developed predatory instincts are the ones who generally end up with the bigger nest egg, no matter how you keep score.

But, stepping back a light year or two, it really is a zero sum game. "Nobody lives forever, you can't take it with you, what goes around comes around and our health is our wealth" are a few hackneyed (but true) phrases that apply when we assess a person's true "wealth". If an individual does no good with their accumulated ones and zeros, chances are he/she will die bankrupt, which is to say, unhappy. If that's any consolation to the rest of us;-)

Somehow the Republicans of today are what some Psychologist define as “Counterfactual reasoning”, according to a Northwestern University study I stumbled across in my personal research in causation shows this identifies a unique cognitive process that might be able to grow into a wrong balance all the while claiming to be right.

So, we negotiate in a sequestered way to hammer out issues. The striking thing here is that this is not anything new. Under the cover of the word bi-partisan with the help of our rich gouging flamboyant, cavalier, and breaking news media, all the while themselves, the media is breaking government via the billionaire controlled electromagnetic journalist pound out for decades what they want America to know. It’s the media stupid. The channels of Fox and hate radio pounding out hate twenty four seven.

In political parlance this might be a simple rhetorical tool that gives a political opponent, keenness, and quickness of perception or discernment; ingenuity to be able to keep and gain power by popular vote. However, in the Republican sense at the expense likely destroying part of the electorate it needs. Such a tyranny is illustrated in the current movie “Brave heart” where the King shoots arrows into his own army to win the ground war. Exampled by the red state electorate not on guard, that can be “carrot slicked” or loony tuned by the hate mongering and fear of broken dreams.

Cultural steering through repeated commercials too. My personal opinion is GEICO does not care if it sells insurance, it sells away of culture.

Perhaps as a suggestion to Thom and a link for the paper a pdf file only six pages but loaded with some interesting connections to any society though it ponders about the Chinese.

http://groups.psych.northwestern.edu/gentner/papers/YehGentner05.pdf

With this key knowledge given to the average blogger Dan Rather prophesy is about to appear. The Internet will become a leading edge in the news industry. Twenty four seven cable, will slide behind the curve as simple paparazzi, tabloid, and comic book style junk media. Because the very exact example of self-regulation especially in the news media given the right to inform and educate but governed by billionaire money is obviously is not workable. Billionaire capitalism has evolved to the new age tyranny. Don’t feel depressed, there is a way out hopefully smoother than the guillotine.