Them and Us? Makers vs. Takers
Straight or crooked...
THERE is an "us versus them" that is real...and matters, writes Bill Bonner in his Diary of a Rogue Economist.
But it's got nothing to do with Republicans vs. Democrats, Black vs. White, Protestant vs. Catholic, US vs. Mexico or any of the other regular categories.
Instead, it's the oldest two groups in the world:
Those who earn wealth...and those who take it away from them.
As you know, there are only two ways to get what you want in life – honestly and dishonestly.
Either you provide a service or a product, willingly...most often, your time...in exchange for something else. Or, you hold up a liquor store...rip off customers...or get a claptrap giveaway from the feds.
Over time, in a stable political system, more and more people figure out how to game the system, using the feds' muscle to get what they want. That's why they're willing to spend millions of Dollars to win an election; they know it will pay off.
And it's why corporate lobbying has become such a big business. And why Washington has become so much richer than the rest of the nation. And it's why we have a $22 trillion national debt. And it's why we have wars on drugs, tariffs, poverty...wars in Afghanistan and hundreds of US military bases around the world.
Just follow the money; it leads to some segment of the Deep State and its cronies.
And it's also why we have a fake money system, and a central bank, that steals trillions of Dollars from the middle classes and shifts it to the insiders and the elite.
Contrary to what Warren Buffett believes, the rich didn't get so rich by participating in great American enterprise. Over the last 30 years, stocks have risen twice as fast as the economy. That didn't happen by accident. Instead, the fix was in. And here is what it produced, financial writer Nomi Prins:
The top 1% of Americans now take home, on average, more than 40 times the incomes of the bottom 90%. And if you head for the top 0.1%, those figures only radically worsen. That tiny crew takes home more than 198 times the income of the bottom 90%. They also possess as much wealth as the nation's bottom 90%...
But the real "us vs. them" is not the "people versus the rich"...it is the honest public versus the takers...the crooks and chislers...scoundrels and scalawags...the think tanks, policy advisors, contractors, GS16s, unions, trade associations, Mnuchins, Abramses, Pences, Flynns, Clintons, Powells, Bernankes, Gores, and on and on...schemers and dreamers...power junkies and jackasses from both parties...
Our job here at the Diary is just to try to connect the dots, not to improve things. But it would be easy, in theory, to get the drop on these rascals: Simply, cut the federal budget. But that's not going to happen. And you know why. For the same reason the Fed is not going to "normalize" interest rates: because the insiders control the budget and monetary policy.
We'll come back to this subject often in this Diary. We believe it explains how America came to be what it is today...
...and why it is impossible to stop the coming fiscal disaster.