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Is There Risk in a Professional Military?

With the pot boiling in Ukraine, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande have spearheaded a plan to bring Russia, Ukraine along with France and Germany to a peace summit that may be held this week. That may or may not lead to anything, but, our Republican Chicken Hawk leaders in Congress have already decided it is a wimpy response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Sen. John McCain is reported by the Telegraph to have compared this initiative to the Munich Agreement in 1938 between Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, and Adolf Hitler, which allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland:

History shows us that dictators will always take more if you let them…They will not be dissuaded from their brutal behavior when you fly to meet them to Moscow – just as leaders once flew to this city.

Mrs. Merkel said that she was against supplying Ukraine with lethal aid. McCain’s reaction to the leader of Germany? He summed up his reaction to Ms. Merkel’s speech with one word: “Foolishness.”

What has to happen before we stop listening to the Chicken Hawk wing in Congress? Clearly, losing wars isn’t enough for us to stop using military force to meddle in other nations’ problems. The “War on Terror” has been a transfer of national wealth to the corporatocracy. War and weapons of war are strategic US exports, peace just isn’t that profitable.

But today, let’s step back and look at the confluence of two emerging societal issues with our military, and the risks they could bring.

First, the risks implied by having a professional military have been examined by the Wrongologist. This has two effects: It divorces the rest of us from the consequences of foreign wars. Out of a population of 310 million, only about three-quarters of 1% served in Iraq or Afghanistan at any point in the post-9/11 years. It is also skewing the demographics of our military. Today’s map of the states of those in military service align closely with today’s red states:

Montana, Alaska, Florida, Wyoming, Maine and Texas now send the largest number of people per capita to the military. The states with the lowest contribution rates? Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.

What’s clear from the data is that a major national institution, the US military, now has tighter connections to some regions of the country than to others, something that wasn’t true when we had a draft. The uneven pattern of military service is not an insignificant reflection of the cultural differences that characterize different regions of our country, and this has broad ramifications for our future.

Second, according to the WaPo, we’re “optimizing” the Federal civil service for Veterans:

Obama began accelerating the hiring of veterans five years ago in response to the bleak employment prospects many service members faced after coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Veterans benefit from preferential hiring for civil service jobs under a law dating back to World War II, but the Obama administration has increased the extra credit veterans get, giving them an even greater edge in getting those jobs. The government has also set hiring goals for veterans at each agency, and managers are graded on how many they bring on board, officials said. WaPo says that the result is that veterans made up 46% of full-time hires last year, according to the Office of Personnel Management. They now represent a third of the federal workforce, holding positions throughout the Federal government.

Here is the concern: Heidi A. Urben, studied the attitudes of the officer corps, and found that about 60% said they identify with the Republican Party. But, that’s not all:

Officers who identify with the Republican Party display lower levels of trust for their civilian superiors

The Wrongologist is pro-military. He served during the Vietnam era. Yet, is there a perfect storm brewing?

• We have an all-professional military that doesn’t really trust civilian superiors.
• Those who leave the professional military are staffing one-third of our federal workforce.

Charles J. Dunlap Jr., a retired Air Force major general at the Duke Law Schools says: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

I think there is a strong sense in the military that it is a better society than the one it serves…In the generation coming up, we’ve got lieutenants and majors who had been the warrior-kings in their little outposts…They were literally making life-or-death decisions. You can’t take that generation and say, ‘You can be seen and not heard.’

The Wrongologist has no idea what the effects of having veterans become a majority of our federal employees will be, but the active duty and the retired military are part of a fraternity. They share common training and values. They share political views, they come from the same states.

It is not hard to imagine that there is an iceberg straight ahead that we are ignoring.

And as the captain said on the Titanic: “Iceberg? What iceberg?”

Monday Wake-up Call – February 9, 2015

Today’s wake-up is for people in Vermont. Most of us know that Latin is considered to be a dead language, because it is taught in few schools, and very few of those are public schools. Thus, very few people can read it, and, aside from a few Roman Catholic priests, almost one speaks it.

In an interesting cultural study of America’s rural North East, an eighth grader in Vermont thought it would be a good idea for the state to adopt a Latin motto, “Stella quarta decima fulgeat” (“May the fourteenth star shine bright”).

You may not know that Vermont entered the union as the 14th state.

A Vermont Republican state Senator, Joe Benning, introduced legislation recommending that Vermont adopt the eighth grader’s idea as a motto. Things got stupid in a hurry, as indignant Vermonters took to the Twitter machine and the Internets. Here are a few samples:

I thought Vermont was American not Latin? Does any Latin places have American mottos?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! Sick and tired of that crap, they have their own countries

How do you say idiotic senator in Spanish? I’d settle for “deport illegals” in Spanish as a backup motto

Hell No! This is America, not Latin America. When in Rome do as the Romans do!

So if they think Latin is the language of Latinos, what do they think Pig Latin is? The language spoken by Latino police? While it’s safe to say that the number of Vermonters who can’t tell Latin from Latino are a minority, it’s just sad that they feel emboldened to advertise their ignorance online.

The issue isn’t “just” that there are some people who do not know Latin. More disturbing is that people don’t even know there IS a language called Latin, and because of their anger, or their sense of American Exceptionalism, they make extremist, xenophobic statements.

Oh, and have they never heard of “E Pluribus Unum”?

This leads straight to your Monday musical wake-up song, Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in The Wall, Pt. 2”, from their album, “The Wall“. PF’s biggest mainstream success, it was written by PF’s lead vocalist, Roger Waters. ABITW Pt. 2 is a protest song against rigid schooling and boarding schools in the UK. It was the band’s only number-one hit in the United Kingdom, and the US. The song talks about how the student had a personal wall separating him from the rest of the world, how the teachers were just another brick in the wall. ABINTW Pt. 2 became a protest song for certain South African students in 1980 during the Apartheid regime, and the song was subsequently banned in South Africa.

Here, for Vermonters who have never heard of the Latin language, is the “We Don’t Need no Education” clip from “Another Brick in The Wall”:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 8, 2015

Today is Sunday, the day when Christians worship their God. So, it’s appropriate that we focus on the reaction of certain right-wing Christians to Mr. Obama’s talk at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday. He spoke for about thirty minutes but the part of the speech that the right wing are focusing on is when he brought up the Crusades: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

Humanity has been grappling with these questions [violence in the name of religion] throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.

The righties are complaining that Obama is saying that Christianity is equivalent to ISIS. Which of course, isn’t what he said. He was saying that Islam was not ISIS, and demonizing Islam for the sins of ISIS is hypocritical, because, among other reasons, Christians have plenty to answer for, given their historical actions in the name of religion. So, conservatives are slamming Obama for not equating terrorism with Islam. For example, Jim Gilmore, former Republican governor of Virginia said:

He has offended every believing Christian in the United States…Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.

The blog Red State said:

Barack Obama, leftwing community organizer and closet theologian, used the National Prayer Breakfast to throw a tu quoque at anyone critical of Islam while continuing to fancy himself as the Pope of Islam

When did the clearly dominant religion in the US develop a glass jaw?

Mr. Obama has attended this prayer breakfast each year to speak about his faith. And the things he said this time were things that Christians agree with: that at times, the religion has been perverted, that we have to walk humbly before God, that God’s purposes are mysterious to us. These thoughts are accepted by every Christian. And so what he said was normal, a recognition of historical fact, and an urge towards some level of perspective and humility.

But what Obama says is never enough for these crypto-Christians. And as for American’s Christian conservatives, they love, love, love violent retribution. One example is their love affair with torture. Do you need the reminder that Sarah Palin said about waterboarding:

that’s how we baptize terrorists

Here is your OTHER approved form of Sunday worship:

But today, we have as many deniers as believers:

Mr. Christie, a denier, needs a different vaccine:

Mr. Romney’s exit creates a stampede:

Bibi gets to address Congress, but teleprompter has ideas:

Brian Williams not always honest:

Friday Music Break – February 6, 2015

Today we have music, but first, here is our latest Police State Watch: Vox reported that NY Police Commissioner Bill Bratton unveiled a new militarized police unit that will be trained and armed with heavy protective gear, long rifles, and machine guns to restrain terrorists and social justice protesters. Bratton explained the purpose of the unit, which will consist of 350 officers: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

It is designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris.

Our recent protests? He’s speaking of the reaction to the killing of Eric Garner, most of which was peaceful, if antagonistic to the NYPD. The nation watched in horror last August as police officers deployed tear gas, sound cannons, and armored vehicles against crowds that were peacefully marching and chanting on the streets of Ferguson Missouri. Many of these protests grew increasingly lawless, partly as a result of police responding with military-grade gear.

But there’s more. Here is what Mr. Bratton said at the time of Garner’s killing:

You must submit to arrest, you cannot resist…The place to argue your case is in the courts, not in the streets.

Now, it looks like he supports punishing people arguing a misdemeanor arrest or who are protesting a perceived injustice even more harshly for resisting arrest. Bratton told a hearing at the NY State Senate:

If you don’t want us to enforce something, don’t make it a law.

That’s just the opposite of how resisting-arrest cases work in NYC. Most cops bring in very few cases of people resisting arrest, while a few cops bring in most of them. New York’s Public Radio station, WNYC analyzed NYPD records and found 51,503 cases with resisting arrest charges since 2009. Just 5% of officers who made arrests during that period accounted for 40% of resisting arrest cases — and 15% account for 72% of such cases:

It seems that “resisting arrest” charges say more about the police than they do about the demonstrators or defendants, and making resisting arrest a felony won’t lower the number of arrests, it will just give more power to the police.

This means you take your life in your hands if you engage in public dissent in NYC. You could be facing a heavily armed small army. You are certainly facing possible prison time and a permanent criminal record for getting on the wrong side of the wrong cop.

Your freedoms, particularly your First Amendment right of assembly, is under attack by Mr. Bratton and others like him all across America. First, they say you cannot resist arrest. Second, they have a military-style army mobilized to make sure you are busted hard, and fast.

So, with all this talk about cops and arrests, here is Janis Joplin doing “Ball ‘n’ Chain” at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. This was Janis’ first large-scale public performance, and it was as a member of Big Brother and The Holding Company. At Monterey, she owned the song, the stage, the crowd, and the festival. Columbia Records signed Big Brother and The Holding Company on the basis of this performance. Here is a live performance for the ages of Big Momma Thornton’s song:

See you on Sunday.

Chris Christie: Pro-Life, But Anti-Vaxx

Here is some humor for your Wednesday:

Chris Christie: "Parents should choose whether their child spreads deadly infectious diseases to all their classmates, not the government."

— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat) February 3, 2015

There's no vaccine against stupid.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 3, 2015

Say hello to the triumph of ignorance, fear, and science denial. And along come the Republican politicos, starting with Governor Chris Christie, who was quoted by the NYT:

It’s more important what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official. I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well.

But, here is what Mr. Christie said in reference to a much less deadly disease, Ebola:

All these contagious diseases must be contained and killed dead in their tracks.

Christie quarantined the Ebola nurse, Kaci Hickox against her will near Newark Airport after he ordered 21-day mandatory quarantines for all returning health workers.

What’s different other than the politics?

When the Wrongologist’s kids were in school, if your kid wasn’t vaccinated, they weren’t allowed to go to school. Period. That may have been the single largest reason that measles was declared virtually eradicated in 2000. Now, because of the anti-vaccine movement, the fight against deadly (and preventable) childhood diseases has taken a huge step backwards.

Here’s the reality: We’re all in this together, so your refusal to vaccinate your children has greater ramifications than just your narrow self-interest and magical thinking. The truth is that vaccination ISN’T a personal decision; it’s a social obligation. Maybe Republicans believe we don’t have a society, that America is simply a collection of individuals who can make any damn choice they please, because, liberty!

That pernicious belief must be stamped out if the nation is to survive.

So, why is Christie parsing this? This isn’t something Mr. Christie needs to hedge about. You simply say, the people who are choosing not to vaccinate their children based on some Internet BS or the spouting of some half-wit television person are endangering your children and mine. Go get the shots. Period.

The refusal by the anti-vaxx community to meet its obligations to preserving the public’s health is irresponsible, and arguably borderline criminal. This is what happens when many in the country believe demonstrably false things and then, emboldened by weasel politicians, cherry-pick the science to fit their prejudices.

Monday Wake Up Call – February 2, 2015

Waaay too many Mexican appetizers last night, not to mention margaritas and beer. Anyway, another national football excess is in the record books, congrats to Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Get your day started with this hilarious meditation on football vs. baseball by the great George Carlin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=qmXacL0Uny0&x-yt-cl=85114404

Monday’s hot links:
There’s no such thing as Nacho cheese. On the day after the Super Bowl, when so much nacho cheese was consumed, this shows how little can be taken for granted. Inquiring minds are wondering—do people expect nacho cheese to be a particular flavor? Or color? Or texture? Or is it just any cheese that happens to be on nacho chips? Here’s the truth: There are no standards for nacho cheese, it is just whatever we believe it to be. Does this bring up deeper, non-cheese-related existential questions?

Yosemite Park reported the first confirmed sighting of a rare Sierra Nevada red fox (Vulpes vulpes necator) in nearly 100 years. Park wildlife biologists documented a sighting of the fox on two separate instances (December 13, 2014 and January 4, 2015) within the park boundary. The Sierra Nevada red fox of California is one of the rarest mammals in North America. Estimates say there are fewer than 50 in the US. Check it out:

Mississippi has the highest vaccination rate for school-age children. It’s not even close. Last year, 99.7% of the state’s kindergartners were fully vaccinated. In California, epicenter of the Disney measles outbreak, almost 8% of kindergartners (41,000 children) were not immunized against mumps, measles and rubella. In Oregon, it was 6.8%. In Pennsylvania, it was nearly 15%! The secret of Mississippi’s success stems from a strict mandatory vaccination law that lacks the loopholes found in almost every state.

Leaving Afghanistan has become one of the most difficult operations the US military has ever undertaken. A Colonel in charge of packing up Afghanistan last year called it “a logistics Super Bowl.” Here is Lt. Gen. Raymond Mason, who headed Army logistics until he retired last year:

Certainly in our lifetime, it’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest operation in terms of complexity, size, and cost.

The dirty little secret is that our military knows how to get people, weapons and supplies into a war zone, but has little experience getting them back out. This may cost the taxpayers more than $2 billion before it is done.

China has sent drones to Nigeria. As the Boko Haram insurgency enters its 7th year, China is busy building a better relationship by selling drones, MRAP vehicles and smart bombs to Nigeria, (most of which the US has been unwilling to provide to Nigeria due to human rights concerns). China wants to become a first tier exporter of military equipment, and is looking to lock up Nigeria as a supplier of oil. On January 25, 2015, a photo appeared online showing a Chinese CH-3 UCAV drone which crashed in Nigeria’s Borno Province. Borno is the area where much of the Boko Haram violence occurred in 2014.

Your thought for the week: We hear all the time from yahoos on the web and yahoos in Congress something like this:

Isn’t it unfair that corporate dividends are taxed twice?

The answer is no, and here’s why:

A corporation is a legal entity. If it has an “accession to wealth” (meaning, a profit in tax legalese), in our system, the corporation must pay taxes. A stockholder is also a legal entity. If a stockholder receives a dividend, he/she also has an “accession to wealth”, and thus, pays a tax.

Why is this hard to understand? No one claims that when a worker gets paid a wage, and pays a tax on that income, and later spends some of that after-tax income paying someone to mow their lawn, that it is double-taxation for the lawn guy to pay income tax.

This is really simple folks: Money moves from entity, to entity, to entity, and each time, income tax applies.

And, if someone makes the argument that the shareholder is the corporation, they don’t get what a corporation is. It’s a separate legal entity that exists to protect shareholders from the business’s liabilities. The fact that it pays taxes is a normal consequence, and the entire point of its existence.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 1, 2015

The Super Bowl is today. There will be queso con chorizo and enchiladas at the Mansion of Wrong.

It was a busy week. Obama has bromance with India’s Prime Minister Modi, then flies to the funeral of the Saudi King. The Republican beauty pageant began; we learned that the Koch brothers plan to spend nearly $900 million to elect Republicans in 2016, but Mitt isn’t running. Mitt didn’t leave gracefully, but perhaps he showed the self-awareness to avoid further indignities. He signed off calling for an “end to the grip of poverty,” which, considering the source, should be received by most with something between a snort and a laugh.

The Koch brothers are almost their own political party. The biggest contenders for the Republican nomination went to Palm Springs for their audition with the Koch funding team. This means if you are a candidate, you will shade your story and beliefs to please the Kochs and their fellow travelers. That means you are going to spend more thought about getting and keeping your Koch money, and less time thinking about which policies matter. Or maybe, its just birds of a feather.

Choose your poison at the SB:

Thank you, Supreme Court, politics is now forever in your debt, and democracy has left the building:

We will soon leave the snow season for the money season:

Mitt decides not to be the next Adlai Stevenson:

Mr. Obama visits Saudi Arabia, makes sales call:

When will they ever learn?

Your word for the week: Agnotology.

Agnotology is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.

Does this concept bring to mind any particular group?

Friday Music Break – January 30, 2015

“We know something about billionaire consumption, but it is hard to measure some of it. Some billionaires are consuming politicians, others consume reporters, and some consume academics.” – Thomas Picketty

Today’s music has a populist message designed to help you fight the Plutocracy over the weekend. It is “First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin”, written and performed by Leonard Cohen. The song was originally recorded by Jennifer Warnes for her 1987 album, “Famous Blue Raincoat”. Cohen recorded it a year later for his album, “I’m Your Man”. This version was recorded in London in 2009:

It has become an occasional anthem for Syriza, the Greek Populist Party that just won power on an anti-austerity, anti-European Union platform. In Greece, it was played with the words, “First we take Athens, then we take Madrid!”

Sample Lyrics:
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I’m guided by a signal in the heavens
I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin
I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

You loved me as a loser,
but now you’re worried that I just might win,
You knew the way you could have stopped me,
but you never had the discipline,
So many nights I prayed for this,
to let my work begin.

See you on Sunday

Is The Waze App Killing Cops?

You may not have heard of, much less used, the mobile phone GPS app Waze. Waze is a free social GPS app that has turn-by-turn navigation to help drivers avoid traffic. That makes it just like a lot of other smart phone navigation apps. But Waze is different, since it’s also a community-driven application that draws information from other drivers. And it even learns from users’ driving times to provide routing and real-time traffic updates.

Developed by an Israeli start-up, Waze has gained a strong following worldwide. Over 50 million users globally use it. In June 2013, Google acquired Waze for $966 million. The charm is that it makes the auto industry’s dashboard navigation systems obsolete. While auto navigation systems offer beautiful graphics and larger screens, they have their faults. Aside from expensive prices, most of these systems require updating via pre-made DVDs, instead of the Internet. This is far less competitive than real-time updates by apps like Waze. In the case of Waze, the updates are crowd-sourced in near-real time.

One Waze advantage is that it lets users know where police are located along the driver’s route. That feature means that ~~our whiniest~~ the police are far from pleased with that feature of the Waze app. Waze users mark police, who are generally working in public spaces, on maps without much distinction other than “visible” or “hidden.” Users see a police icon, but it’s not immediately clear whether police are there for a speed trap, a sobriety check or a lunch break:

(This screen shot is illustrative, the police could be more than .2 miles away)

That might make you want to download the app right now. But there is trouble in paradise. DailyTECH reports that the Los Angeles PD’s Chief, Charlie Beck, is among a growing contingent of police officers nationwide who claim Waze and its new owner Google, are endangering officer safety by warning people of the location of police. To some in law enforcement, this feature makes Waze a stalking app for people who want to harm police; and they want Google to disable the feature. In a letter sent on Dec. 30, Chief Beck warns Google that the app: (Brackets by DailyTECH)

[The service’s information could be] misused by those with criminal intent to endanger police officers and the community…I am confident your company did not intend the Waze app to be a means to allow those who wish to commit crimes to use the unwitting Waze community as their lookouts for the location of police officers.

There are no known connections between any attack on police and Waze, although the Associated Press reported that Chief Beck said in his letter to Google, that Waze was used in the killing of two New York Police Department officers on Dec. 20. The fact is that Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s (the gunman) Instagram account included a screenshot from Waze along with other messages threatening police.

But, it was impossible for Brinsley to have used Waze to ambush the NYPD officers, since he tossed his cellphone away more than two miles from where he shot the officers.

This is not the first time law enforcement has raised concerns with these types of apps. In 2011, four US Senators asked Apple to remove all applications that alerted users to drunk driving checkpoints. The effort to disable Waze’s police function reminds us of when police tried to give tickets to people who would flash their headlights to warn oncoming drivers of speed traps. Last year, a Missouri Federal Judge decided that it violated the 1st Amendment free speech rights of the people ticketed.

The cop killer argument is hilariously wrong. You could simply look up the address of your local police station and drive nearby if your plan is to kill cops. The honest reason the police are against Waze is because it helps people avoid speeding tickets. You can’t take something that was used once by Ismaaiyl Brinsley and label it a “cop killer” app.

Google isn’t “helping” people break the law. It’s not against the law to tell someone where an officer is. People just want to know where those nasty speed traps are – it doesn’t have to be so complicated! But, if you are caught by one, you can at least be comforted by the thought that there is legal help available to you, should you find yourself facing repercussions.

We already live in a police state. They monitor us dozens of different ways, some of them unconstitutional, like the Stingray devices. But the second someone makes a video recording of an interaction with a cop, or uses an app that indicates their whereabouts, they get all indignant about their privacy and security.

Waze isn’t increasing the exposure of the police force to “cop killers”.

The 1% Are Heading to Galt’s Gulch

(Galt’s Gulch was the sanctuary in Atlas Shrugged where Ayn Rand’s Real Men of Genius spurned American socialism for their own libertarian paradise.)

Welcome to the economy that has just turned the page. But not that page.

The World Economic Forum ended in Davos Switzerland. This is their 45th annual meeting at Davos. Who attends? 2,500 business leaders, politicians, diplomats and a few celebrities take part in the meeting. As in the past, 73% of the delegates are men, and almost 800 of the attendees are from the US.

According to CNN, most of the 1% flew in to Davos on private jets. Roughly 1,700 private flights landed in Switzerland, 5% more than last year. The Guardian reported that, for Davos insiders, the big story was the world economy, but this year, they weren’t concerned all that much about income inequality. From The Guardian’s live blogging at Davos: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

A year ago, Davos attendees said income disparity was the top threat to world stability, as years of lobbying by the likes of Occupy Wall Street hit home. Today, though, the issue doesn’t appear in the top 10. The Ukraine conflict, and the turmoil in the Middle East, have elbowed it out.

However, another Guardian article described that many of the global oligarchs attending Davos are already planning their escape. These people know full well that the current game won’t last forever. Their response is to take as much money as possible, and flee before the pitchforks emerge. At a packed session in Davos, former hedge fund director Robert Johnson revealed that worried hedge fund managers were going to create an oasis of uber-wealth and then lock the doors:

I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway.

They want to leave to live in a Galt’s Gulch of their own creation. And Hedge fund managers are just a small part of the Plutocracy. The concentration of wealth and ownership in very few hands is growing, and that process has reached epidemic proportions.

In fact, according to the anti-poverty charity Oxfam, the wealthiest 1% will soon own more than the rest of the world’s population. Oxfam’s research shows that the share of the world’s wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year. Based on the current trend, Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world’s wealth by 2016.

But, hasn’t our economy turned the page? Apparently, the Davos 1% types are way ahead of the Obama administration. From Monday’s NYT: (Brackets by the Wrongologist)

The middle class has shrunk consistently over the past half-century. Until 2000, the reason was primarily because more Americans moved up the income ladder. But since then, the reason has shifted: [Now] there is a greater share of households on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

The Times uses yearly income of $35,000 to $100,000 to define middle class. The $35k amount is about 50% higher than the official poverty level for a family of four.

Here is the NYT’s graph of the current breakdown by income:
(All numbers on the solid black lines in the chart are percentages of the US population and do not add to 100% due to rounding)

From the NYT:

Even as the American middle class has shrunk, it has gone through a transformation. The 53 million households that remain in the middle class — about 43% of all households — look considerably different from their middle-class predecessors of a previous generation…

Recently, the fastest-growing component of the middle class has been households headed by people 65 and older. Today’s seniors have better retirement benefits than previous generations. Also, older Americans are increasingly working past traditional retirement age. More than eight million were in the labor force in 2013, nearly twice as many as in 2000.

A December New York Times poll showed that 60% of people who self-identify as middle class think that if they work hard, they will get rich. But the income and census data suggest that goal is moving increasingly out of reach.

If 60% of the middle class still think they can get rich, despite clear evidence to the contrary, the Plutocrats and lobbyists have successfully brainwashed the American public. They are unable to see just how systematically and catastrophically they have been played.

We may be able to take back control from the Plutocrats and the Oligarchs. But they now have control of our militarized police, they control cyber spying programs aimed at American citizens, and they control a byzantine political system completely removed from the average person’s day-to-day.

Gone are the days when we could storm the castle with torches and pitchforks, demanding change, and win.

If we succeed in bringing about real change, and not the faux change marketed by politicians, it will not be a pretty affair. They will fight. And they have the means to do so.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Author: wrongologist