First:
“While an after-tax income of $175k to $250k and net worth in the $1.2M to
$1.8M range may seem like a lot of money to most Americans, it doesn’t really
buy freedom from financial worry or access to the true corridors of power and
money.”
Ha, don’t know about the rest of you, but $1.2M would buy this commentator a
life free of labor for the remainder, and then some, of his life. Easily. If people
earning so much aren’t free of worry, they have no idea how to manage money
and so maybe should hire some poor person to act as financial planner. But
yeah, these earners probably don’t have much access to corridors.
Then:
“While income and lifestyle are all relative (indeed, as I’ve long maintained,
wealth is a function solely of massive poverty), an after-tax income between
$6.6k and $8.3k per month today will hardly buy the fantasy lifestyles that
Americans see on TV and would consider “rich”. In many areas in California or
the East Coast, this positions one squarely in the hard working upper-middle
class, and strict budgeting will be essential. An income of $190k post tax or
$15.8k per month will certainly buy a nice lifestyle but is far from rich. And, for
those folks who made enough to accumulate this much wealth during their
working years, the reduction in income and lifestyle during retirement can be
stressful. Plus, watching retirement accounts deplete over time isn’t fun, not to
mention the ever-fluctuating value of these accounts and the desire of many to
leave a substantial inheritance. Our poor lower half of the top 1% lives well but
has some financial worries.”
The first part is true: Even that income won’t buy the fantasy life depicted, or
rather offered up as bait part of the American-dream bait and switch, in TV ads
and programs. But certainly $15k per month qualifies as rich, whether upper
middle-class or upper class. And again, any in financial stress while earning
that income or somewhat less needs to have his head examined or undero
rehab for whichever behavioral excess.
(That amount is my annual income, and yes I’m taxed at 10%. I could tell them a
little something about real stress.)
No surprises otherwise, though always helpful when one of the insiders gets to
reporting some truth, and maybe reaches a few who never knew. And no
surprise the attitudes among the investment bankers who couldn’t be so dense
as to not know the damage they do, but then a tad too cleverly justify to
themselves via a widespread, absolutely instilled from childhood on capitalist
ideology: “After all, we earned it and so deserve it.” (Already a lie, but good
enough) That’s catch-all, serve-all, too convenient excuse for taking (which
really is expropriating) more than is needed, or rather one’s share, very often
also out of a very real feeling of insecurity.
And in the U.S. the threat of “freedom” to starve is certainly ever present, if
rather a lot more for many than for few under discussion.
Last, the laws and exemptions are of course in place to benefit those with
access to, or rather buyers of, power.
Quite right, most Americans have no idea, and not by accident when mega-
media that presents fantasy refuses to present facts. That very few Americans
gain access to the top 0.5%, or even top 20% or 30%, is the switch part of the
American-dream bait and switch.
And no one who does know of “these systems” could be so naïve as to imagine
those at the very top would ever so much as contemplate changing the rules.
Because ideology (and insecurity) runs deeper than any religious faith ever did
or ever could. Ideology is about the here and now, and even if a few—like the
woman mentioned—have some idea of the damage they do, they still believe
that damage to be the inevitable outcome of “natural (law or selection),” or in
other words, of human nature as conveniently mistakenly because circularly
defined by an ideology that is also a tautology.

VOTING ONLY GIVES LEGITIMACY TO AN ILLEGITIMATE PROCESS…AND
ABETS THE CRIMINAL MARKETEERS…CLEAN HANDS PROTECT A CLEAN
MIND..

Very interesting reading, not only the referenced article, but the side-bar topics, such as the Bohemian Grove’s function, etc. Will give you the inside scoop on the financial facts and figures of the top 1%, .5%, and especially the very top .1% who run this figmental democracy.

Fascinating article, but no surprise.  The rough
definition of a banana republic pretty well defines our
Republic - a politically unstable entity dependent upon
Wall Street and ruled by a small, self-selected,
wealthy, corrupt politico-economic plutocracy or
oligarchy.