Who Owns America

[L. Coyote]

Run time: 04:43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dyR9SPs7Q   Posted on YouTube: January 03, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: December 02, 2008 By DU Member: L. Coyote Views on DU: 369

 
Contrary to popular belief, the lion share of wealth does not reside with a broad middle class.

Michael Parenti: Ph.D. in political science from Yale University has taught at several universities,
colleges, and other institutions. He is the author of twenty books and many more articles.
His works have been translated into at least seventeen languages.

[Phred42]

1. Only the republican base dosen't realize this

Great clip though - Thanks

[FormerDittoHead]

2. The disparity is even greater when you take CONTROL and DECISIONS into account...

While the middle class does own considerable corporate wealth, they don't have ANY say about corporate policies or behavior.

To make this even worse, I have never known pension or mutual fund managers to take an active part in corporate decisions, even though, for example, as an agent, Fidelity owns trillions in corporate wealth. I am unaware of Fidelity, for example, ever exercising any influence on the companies which they own shares in.

This last part about mutual funds is the worst because, assuming that most middle class people own stocks through one of those diversified plans, even if the middle class were united somehow in influencing corporate policies (e.g.: CEO compensation) by owning mutual funds, the individual investors are given ABSOLUTELY NO VOTE WHAT SO EVER (let alone a minority vote) in how companies are run.

The very few own the vast majority of corporate wealth, but even more so, they *CONTROL* virtually 100% of it. And consider that when they make decisions, WHOSE benefit are those decisions for? I would suggest that the answer to that would be radically different if you're worth hundreds of millions...