Forum Post: Rentier Perfidy: A Looming Threat to American Life
Posted 3 years ago on Jan. 7, 2021, 1:28 p.m. EST by agkaiser
(2516)
from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The greatest threat of human extinction after pandemic, nuQclear holocaust and climate change is the neoliberal scourge of concentration of wealth put on steroids by Margaret Thatcher and her lap dog Ronald Reagan. The looting of the economy by the parasitic FIRE sector accelerated dramatically in the 1980s. They say we all benefit from their profitable investments. Hoover said what's good for big business is good for America.
As the real economy of production and consumption of material goods and services has suffered from the pandemic, the Wall St. billionaires have increased their wealth by more than a trillion dollars since March, 2020. Many are unemployed facing hunger and eviction. The conservatives can't afford to relieve our suffering by more than a one time $600. Their billionaire donors don't want to give back even a little of their windfall profits over the same period.
While most conservatives are Republicans or Libertarians, centrist pukes like Carter, the Clintons, Biden etc. are too far to the right to promote anything but mediocre initiatives. Maybe Obama meant well but was handicapped by neocon obstructionists? I'd like to believe that.
Links are listed in order at the bottom for three recent articles that support my assertions:
First. "A Hard Look at Rent and Rent Seeking with Michael Hudson & Pepe Escobar Posted on December 30, 2020 by Yves Smith"
Next. Blackstone still rings the same shrill tone. Their rentier evil will undo them in the end. If we don't wake up and do them first, it will take us with it. see "Wall Street Mega-Landlord Blackstone Prepares to Reap the Spoils of Another Crisis Posted on December 29, 2020 by Nick Corbishley"
And last, on January 6, 2021: Three Major Threats to Life on Earth That We Must Address in 2021 by Noam Chomsky – Vijay Prashad
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnDWcQhc56lTnSx7G3PXAg
Video link https://youtu.be/NavT6TwsF6Q
Rents are more expensive than mortgages in most places, but to get a mortgage you need a ton of cash, which only the wealthy have.
It's a vicious cycle of the rentier class gaining more and more wealth on the backs of hard working Americans. With rents so high, Americans can't save the friggin' down payment to buy a house! This is a failure of government to protect the ability of it's citizens to live decently.
https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/personal-finance/surprise-paying-a-mortgage-is-cheaper-than-renting-in-42-states/
It's a failure that has it's roots in Joseph, the commodity broker of Egypt who enslaved his Israelite people with debt incurred to avoid starvation due to a famine.
The story of Joseph is told in the final [37-50] chapters of Genesis. It describes the fundamental paradigm shift that prescribes human culture of the past 4000 years. Donald Trump and the rest of the ruling elite parasites that control our economy, government and lives (and threaten the survival of the human race) from their headquarters on Wall St. can trace their spiritual ancestry to the strategy and tactics of debt slavery introduced by Joseph in Egypt about 4 millennia ago. The rest of the bible includes instances of prophets, leaders and laws that attempted to mitigate or eliminate the evil that was invented by the favored son of Jacob/Israel.
Don't take my word for it. Read for yourself how Joseph married economic and state powers to collect 20% of the national product, during boom times. Then he used the grain he'd taxed to buy the property, land and finally selves of those he'd robbed as the price of staving off starvation in the inevitable bust that followed. Once he'd taken all the land and wealth in Egypt, he put the former owners to work on the land they used to own and continued to take the 5th part of all they produced. Sounds like Pinochet in Chile or any of the speculators, giant hedge funds (think Blackstone) or banks on Wall St. today.
I don't know if anyone called Joseph, an ancient commodities broker, on his larceny and enslavement by extortion. If so he probably answered like Trump when Hillary questioned his tax avoidance/evasion behavior, "Because I'm smart!"
Genesis: The Beginning and the End
The Irish Potato Famine had it's roots not only in the potato blight itself, but in the fact that the Irish were tenant farmers, farming for the British landowners (Britain had colonized Ireland since 1169) who required that they export food while they themselves starved.
"Still, these changes failed to offset the growing problem of the potato blight. With many tenant farmers unable to produce sufficient food for their own consumption, and the costs of other supplies rising, thousands died from starvation, and hundreds of thousands more from disease caused by malnutrition.
Complicating matters further, historians have since concluded, was that Ireland continued to export large quantities of food, primarily to Great Britain, during the blight. In cases such as livestock and butter, research suggests that exports may have actually increased during the Potato Famine.
In 1847 alone, records indicate that commodities such as peas, beans, rabbits, fish and honey continued to be exported from Ireland, even as the Great Hunger ravaged the countryside.
The potato crops didn’t fully recover until 1852. By then, the damage was done. Although estimates vary, it is believed as many as 1 million Irish men, women and children perished during the Famine, and another 1 million emigrated from the island to escape poverty and starvation, with many landing in various cities throughout North America and Great Britain."
https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-famine
Never forget. Inequality. Colonization. Profits. Debt. All of these things kill people.
"As an Eviction Crisis Looms, Tenant Organizing Explodes Across the Country"by L.Jedeed & S.Burley:
fiat justitia ruat caelum ...
Sister Helen Prejean: "Capital punishment means 'those without the capital get the punishment.'"
from ... https://twitter.com/helenprejean/status/1350334166819241984 - and also see:
https://twitter.com/helenprejean/status/1350303646257274901 re. Sotomayor dissent
https://twitter.com/Shadz66Shadz6t6/status/1350346081968730112 (my tweet re.this)
https://twitter.com/Shadz66Shadz6t6/status/1350228330897940488 (2 tweets re. OP)
Many thanx for this excellent forum-post agk & for Dr. Hudson in particular. Solidarity to U & yours.
e tenebris, lux?
Trump executed 3x as many people in the last 6 months as have been executed over the past 60 years. And, none until his sicko administration took office had been executed in the previous 17 years.
https://www.businessinsider.com/sotomayor-slams-us-govt-after-13-inmate-execution-since-july-2021-1
Absolutely Sickening Statistics! On top of The Fact that U$A
incarcerates more of its people than ANY other nation on Earth!
Further to which facts & per OP, now please also try to consider:
fiat lux!