Income Inequality Will End in Revolution, Taxes, or War.

[JaneyVee]

PAUL TUDOR JONES: Income inequality will end in revolution, taxes, or war.

Legendary hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones II gave a dire warning about the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the US during a sold out TED Talk in Canada this week. 

"Now here's a macro forecast that's easy to make and that's that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest it will get closed. History always does it. It typically happens in one of three ways– either through revolution, higher taxes or wars. None of those are on my bucket list," PTJ said, according to a video of the event viewed by Business Insider.

-snip-

Over the last several decades, however, there's been a shift. 

Tudor Jones continued: "I've seen a lot of crazy things in markets ... And unfortunately, I'm sad to report that right now we might be on the grips of certainly one of the most disastrous certainly in my career." 

According to Tudor Jones, the problem has to do with how companies nowadays derive their value from profits, quarterly earnings, and their stock price. 

"It's like we've ripped the humanity out of our companies," he said, explaining that we don't value people based on their monthly income or credit score. "We have this double standard when it comes to the way we value businesses. You know what? It's threatening the very underpinnings of our society." 

Right now, corporate profits in the US are at all-time highs. This, he said, is increasing income inequality.

"Higher profit margins do not increase societal wealth. What they actually do is exacerbate income inequality, and that's not a good thing." 

He explained that if the top 10% of American families own 90% of the stocks, then they will take a greater share of those corporate profits and there's less wealth for the rest of society.

Link: http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-tudor-jones-on-inequality-2015-3

[F4lconF16]

1. Capitalism is fatally flawed.

It needs to consume to grow, and that consumption will always be on the backs of the disenfranchised. The system we have right now will not stand forever--the question is, how long will it take to fall?

[cstanleytech]

24. Capitalism is just a name, the truth is people are assholes and usually they become bigger assholes

as they become richer and or more powerful in just about every single government and system of barter around the world if left unchecked and they will then try to screw over the people who are not rich and or powerful.

[F4lconF16]

31. I disagree.

Capitalism is a structure. Unlike other systems where there are sometimes built-in restraints on people like that, capitalism inherently creates their existence and all but mandates their success. It is an intricate structure that is dependent on carefully balanced systems of oppression and separation. Capitalism is fundamentally flawed because of the constant opposition of its system elements. That opposition guarantees there will be resolution when the system, driven by an unfailing need for expansion (which comes at the expense of other elements), eventually consumes itself.

It's not just assholes who try to screw over others. Capitalism pits people against each other. It's because of that that you see such sharp class divides. There's a reason that historically the middle class and the lower class have been at each other's throats. Capitalism mandates that competition in virtually every level of our society.

[BlueEye]

40. To be fair,

Conflict theory, which is one of the sociological foundations of Marxism, also "pits people against each other", albeit in a different way.

To put Capitalism into Marxian terms, it is a system that demands the bourgeois use the labor of the proletariat as an input (literally, "capital" as in land, labor, and financing) in order to compete with OTHER bourgeois. Hence, people's labor is a means to an end for them.

Thus, the Marxian solution is for the working class to rise up and overthrow the owner class, and replace it with a more equitable system where the factors of production are collectively owned. BUT, I do believe hard leftism effectively does facilitate class warfare in a manner similar to hard right-wing ideologies.

Neither one have proven good for people, in the long run.

[PowerToThePeople]

41. To be fair

One of those has never been tried, for the long run.

Marxism.

[BlueEye]

43. Although it isn't Marxism,

I would argue that the collectivism of many Native American cultures successfully worked for many thousands of years. Howard Zinn demonstrated this point in his "People's History," as have many other authors. Likewise, I have seen some papers that effectively attempted to argue that various Eastern cultures of antiquity (Chinese, there are others though) did "communism" a hell of a lot better than any real communists of the 20th Century managed to do.

So I would say that socialist, collectivist societies HAVE been tried and have worked quite well, in the long run, just not using Marx's philosophical framework.

But! There is a common thread here. These societies all had a cultural inclination toward collectivism. The West has a cultural inclination toward individualism that dates right back to Ancient Greece, and that is why I believe you will never see a true, large-scale Marxist society work in the West over the long-run.

We Democrats are right to say Ronald Reagan sure as hell DID NOT bring down the Soviet Union. The USSR brought itself down. Even with the Eastern influences that exist in the pan-Slavic people, they had just enough Western individualism to ultimately not make Marxism work there.

That, or the Russians are just incompetent as a whole. I do believe you could not pick a worse nation to "try communism" in, from a cultural standpoint.

[PowerToThePeople]

44. I agree

BlueEye
43. Although it isn't Marxism,

I would argue that the collectivism of many Native American cultures successfully worked for many thousands of years. Howard Zinn demonstrated this point in his "People's History," as have many other authors. Likewise, I have seen some papers that effectively attempted to argue that various Eastern cultures of antiquity (Chinese, there are others though) did "communism" a hell of a lot better than any real communists of the 20th Century managed to do.

So I would say that socialist, collectivist societies HAVE been tried and have worked quite well, in the long run, just not using Marx's philosophical framework.

[cstanleytech]

46. What all of you ^ are forgetting in the end no matter the label they all involve people

and like I said people are assholes or atleast it seems alot of them who become wealthy and powerful seem to become assholes but if we could find a way to fix the people becoming assholes problem alot of the problems in this world would go away.

[PowerToThePeople]

38. exponential growth in the definition of a bomb

it is designed to destroy.

[octoberlib]

2. Nick Hanauer has been trying to tell them, too.

I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#ixzz3UsNBPMPd

[hifiguy]

6. The Hanauer piece is excellent.

Thanks for reposting this great link from last summer.

[octoberlib]

12. You've probably seen his Ted Talk , too. That was also excellent.

[closeupready]

21. TED tried to censor this Talk, but under criticism for doing so, backed down,

from what I understand. It was delivered, but was squelched from view upon doing a search.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hanauer#TED_Talk_controversy

[octoberlib]

23. I read about that. Hanauer called out the Republicans and neo-liberal economics

and TED was afraid he'd offend sponsors.

[appalachiablue]

26. Saw this in Politico last year & Nick on Thom Hartmann 2 years ago. He knows & says it. Thanks.

The inequality is extreme and dangerous; many are clueless b/c of our wretched corp. owned media or else they don't want to hear or believe it. It's like a bad cold that's advanced into full blown pneumonia but the patient and others are in denial or ignorant.

[librechik]

3. History shows this is always true. The US was designed to change this

But we aren't who we used to be.

[bluesbassman]

32. Ain't that the truth. We as a nation have lost our way...

I think we turned the corner during the Reagan years when greed was declared a virtue.

[F4lconF16]

33. The US wasn't designed to change this.

Our founding fathers were the economic elites of their time. They did everything they could to ally the lower classes (poor whites, that is) against a common british enemy while still keeping every possible class system intact. There were was still a wretchedly poor and large underclass after the revolution, and of course the slaves were treated as inhuman and the Native Americans as savages to be destroyed. Our whole system is corrupt, and has been since it began. Eventually, to really fix things, we will need a new system.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

4. If we could get all Americans to look at the chart that the Walton family ALONE has more wealth

than the bottom 40% of the population, if we could DRIVE that point home I really think we would see a revolution.

Possibly peaceful one, but the inequality is so huge, so stark, how do you explain it to people?

[madville]

9. They only have about 150 billion

How would a revolution work? Give shares of stock out to lower income citizens or maybe absorb it into the federal government?

The Waltons' fortune divided into the lower 40% would be $1136 per person. That would be spent in a month catching up bills or whatnot and then you're right back to square one.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

10. sigh

[rhett o rick]

16. No way. If the lower 40% all of a sudden got 150 billion and put it all

back in circulation, it would be a huge boost to the economy. Maybe eventually it would be removed from the 99% back to the 1%, but in the mean time a lot of good can be produced. Some would end up being taxes that could fix roads and bridges, etc.

[Kip Humphrey]

27. besides, a good portion of that $150bil would be spent at Wal-Mart -

both regrettable AND ironic!

[F4lconF16]

35. Um...

The Waltons aren't the entire elite. But, you know, little things like that...

[hifiguy]

5. It's inevitable.

The contradictions of capitalism exposed by Marx have only grown more apparent in the last thirty years. And any system based on infinite growth in the context of a limited planet has, shall we say, a fatal design flaw.

The lessons of history are blindingly obvious.

[Rex]

14. Well one thing I believe to be true, 83 people would have never gained half the world's money

under communism. That will be a hard pill to swallow one day for capitalists.

[rhett o rick]

17. I hope you are using Soviet and China's versions of communism as your source.

Neither would have passed Marx's test. We really don't know if real communism would work if we kept the thieves out. The same is true for capitalism. The thieves take over.

[hifiguy]

18. Yep.

And in the words of the old Czech proverb, the big thieves hang the little ones. Twas ever thus.

[7962]

25. The thieves ALWAYS take over, regardless of the system

Its just a question of which system works best for the most people regardless of the thieves.
We've seen that the usual versions of "communism" or whatever you want to call it, doesnt work. Russia, China, N Korea, venezuela, etc. Look at the difference in how much money Putin is worth compared to how much Obama is worth. Or Bush, or Clinton, etc. And you could look up Kim Jung as well as other "leaders"
As flawed as our system is, it has raised more people worldwide out of abject poverty & suppression than any other system in history.

[F4lconF16]

36. +1000

Growth cannot continue forever.

[bobalew]

7. Included in that is the complete manipulation of the stock market &

The overuse by extremely wealthy hedge Funds to manipulate & strip the market of its value through Short Sales, where they don't even have to OWN any stock. When you make more money betting against us than you do betting for us, it's a method whereby any actual company value is stripped & transferred to only a powerful few. You can see the pattern of "Dump & Pump" happen on a weekly if not monthly basis. It explains much of the idiotic volatility of the market, no matter what BS excuse " MSNBC Squawk on the Street" says is causing it every morning. The fix is in.....

[freshwest]

8. The war option is the one that is happening right now with the GOP budget. They're killing us.

But at least two million heard Bernie Sanders and signed onto his petition to strenghten the social safety net and save lives. But will the sounds of the deaths be played by MSM?

[Rex]

11. Most of history agrees with you.

Thinking things will turn out differently, is betting against overwhelming odds. I also think people fall into this illusion that technology will save us somehow from our own human nature. Nope.

[madville]

13. That's why the second amendment is so important

The wealthy will be able to fund their own armies and security forces in a collapse. All us poor people will have to depend on each other.

[hifiguy]

15. The army of the tenth-percenters is called

"the cops." They don't trust the uniformed military to fire on their own kind. The kkkops will eagerly and gladly turn on the populace. Hell, they're already doing it.

[octoberlib]

19. Don't forget Blackwater (now called Academi). It's the largest mercenary army in the world and

several journalists have questioned the wisdom of allowing it to get so big.

[hifiguy]

20. Mercenaries will always serve their paymasters,

whatever the task they are ordered to perform. They are a clear and present danger.

[Oneironaut]

48. Mercs would invade their own country if the money was good.

All mercs can be bought by anyone - it's pretty much always been this way. The US government is pretty stupid if they think that mercs like Blackwater have a sense of patriotism. They only fight for us because we make them rich. They are definitely a clear and present danger.

[workinclasszero]

29. Indeed, police state already here

What has already happened when people peacefully protested against our 1% masters during the Occupy Wall Street movement?

Cops were totally out of control and met peaceful protesters with extreme violence. The militarization of police forces in America was done to keep control of the 99% when even the most brainwashed fox news watching zombie finally realizes whats going on and gets pissed about it.

And just about everyday we see another story about legal murder and violent assault committed by cops against the poor and minorities in this country.

[closeupready]

22. Many wealthy do not give a diddly squat about income inequality. Greed

is something that, by definition, has no upper limit. That is, WHATEVER your starting point is, 1 or 1 gazillion, it will NEVER be enough for the greedy.

I'm pessimistic, I guess.

[pscot]

28. We're reading different histories, she and I

Income inequality has been the human condition for 5 millennia. The last 200 years have been a benign exception; a bright light in a dark landscape. If we lose what we have it could be gone for a long, long time.

[Jack Rabbit]

30. Those aren't mutally exclusive propositions

There will be wars to feed the defense contractors.

There will be taxes on what used to be the middle class, to be known as the nouveaux pauvres, because we have to feed the job creators who sit on their money waiting for it to hatch.

There will be revolution, because We, the prople, also known as the nouveaux pauvres, have had enough and would rather feed our children.

[raven mad]

34. I don't mind reasonable taxes -

but not if they go to fund corporations who already make billions, and the 1%.

So, come the revolution, I'm in!

[bbgrunt]

37. k and r for all the great links

[whereisjustice]

39. We know what the rich have decided - they want war, that's why they're militarizing police.

[Caretha]

42. Without reading

the rest of the replies, so I may be redundant.....


But "No Shit Sherlock" is what I said to myself after reading this article.

I hope these morons wake up before there is a "new" Bastile Day" here in the US.

[Oneironaut]

45. The rich are the termites chewing a fallen tree over a raging river.

Eventually, when the collapse comes, nobody hides from it. That's not to say that a collapse is coming, but it's something to consider.

Even if you get to live in a private, guarded neighborhood, is this sort of life even worth living? You could have unimaginable amounts of wealth, but in the end, you're still surrounded by death and misery. Pretending it isn't there doesn't make it go away.

We need to make a culture of shared prosperity and intellect again.

[ChiciB1]

53. You Might Want To Add That Anything You Build

starts with a foundation. Our foundation has huge cracks in it now and large craters in some places. When the foundation collapses enough, MAYBE someone will notice and DO SOMETHING. If not, we all fall down!

[RiverLover]

47. "It's like we've ripped the humanity out of our companies,"

But Trickle Down is so great!! Or it will be...right? not

Still waiting & hoping for our party to stop the trickle down charade.

Some are trying! These Dem house members talk about the sham that it is.

They're TRYING to DO something.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026384730

Show them our support! PLEASE Sign this~
http://www.signforgood.com/peoplesbudget/?code=kos

[nikto]

49. Tip those tables over...

[libdem4life]

50. Solomon: Nothing New Under the Sun. Plato: Five Forms of Socio/Political Structure:

Aristocracy...Timocracy...Oligarchy...Democracy...Tyranny. Read them and weep.

Bible Quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes

[ChiciB1]

51. And Then You Might Want To Read Thom Hartmann's...

The Crash Of 2016. No, I'm no related, just donated to FSTV and got the book. It tells a similar story!

[Zorra]

52. Revolution is the best option. My torches and pitchforks are

already next to the front door.

I'm ready.