Creeping Plutocracy: The very rich are different from you and me

[cyu]

if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.

http://www.cagle.com/2012/11/ten-numbers-the-rich-would-like-fudged

TEN Americans made a total of FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in one year.

That’s enough to pay the salaries of over a million nurses or teachers or emergency responders.

That’s enough to feed the 870 million people in the world who are lacking sufficient food.

about two-thirds of the annual $850 billion in tax expenditures goes to the top quintile

median wealth for black and Hispanic women is a little over $100.

Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 A DAY FOR FOOD.

With an unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds of almost 50%, two out of every five recent college graduates are living with their parents.

Apple, which makes a profit of $420,000 per employee, can pay you about $12 per hour.

The American public paid about FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS to bail out the banks.

That’s about the same amount of money made by America’s richest 10% in one year.

[cyu]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/wall-street-buying-foreclosed-homes

deep-pocketed investors have bought more than 200,000 cheap, mostly foreclosed houses in cities hardest hit by the economic meltdown.

Few outside the industry have heard of Blackstone. Yet today, it's the largest owner of single-family rental homes in the nation. It's a company with a list of institutional owners that reads like a who's who of companies recently implicated in lawsuits over the mortgage crisis, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and of course JP Morgan Chase.

if Blackstone makes money by capitalizing on the housing crisis, all these other Wall Street banks make money too.

Last year, a real estate broker in Los Angeles began noticing something strange happening. Home prices were rising. And they were rising fast—up 20% between October 2012 and the same month this year. In a normal market, rising home prices would mean increased demand from homebuyers. But here was the unnerving thing: the homeownership rate was dropping. all his buyers—every last one of them—were besuited businessmen. they were all paying in cash.

Blackstone doesn't have a problem fronting money, given its $3.6 billion credit line arranged by Deutsche Bank. This money has allowed it to outbid families who have to secure traditional financing.

From 2009-2012, the top 1% of Americans captured 95% of income gains.

after months of hype, Blackstone released history's first rated bond backed by securitized rental payments. once investors tripped over themselves in a rush to get it, Blackstone's competitors announced that they would develop similar securities as soon as possible.

Blackstone wants money upfront to purchase more cheap, foreclosed homes before prices rise. So it's joined forces with JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank to bundle the rental payments and sell this bond to investors with mortgages on the underlying houses offered as collateral.

[erupt]

Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 A DAY FOR FOOD.

With an unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds of almost 50%, two out of every five recent college graduates are living with their parents.

Apple, which makes a profit of $420,000 per employee, can pay you about $12 per hour.


deep-pocketed investors have bought more than 200,000 cheap, mostly foreclosed houses in cities hardest hit by the economic meltdown.

Few outside the industry have heard of Blackstone. Yet today, it's the largest owner of single-family rental homes in the nation. It's a company with a list of institutional owners that reads like a who's who of companies recently implicated in lawsuits over the mortgage crisis, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and of course JP Morgan Chase.

if Blackstone makes money by capitalizing on the housing crisis, all these other Wall Street banks make money too.

Last year, a real estate broker in Los Angeles began noticing something strange happening. Home prices were rising. And they were rising fast—up 20% between October 2012 and the same month this year. In a normal market, rising home prices would mean increased demand from homebuyers. But here was the unnerving thing: the homeownership rate was dropping. all his buyers—every last one of them—were besuited businessmen. they were all paying in cash.

Blackstone doesn't have a problem fronting money, given its $3.6 billion credit line arranged by Deutsche Bank. This money has allowed it to outbid families who have to secure traditional financing.

From 2009-2012, the top 1% of Americans captured 95% of income gains.

after months of hype, Blackstone released history's first rated bond backed by securitized rental payments. once investors tripped over themselves in a rush to get it, Blackstone's competitors announced that they would develop similar securities as soon as possible.

Blackstone wants money upfront to purchase more cheap, foreclosed homes before prices rise. So it's joined forces with JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank to bundle the rental payments and sell this bond to investors with mortgages on the underlying houses offered as collateral.

Organization and opposition to the housing crisis is pretty urgent. The area I live has an above average foreclosure rate; each house is foreclosed on multiple times with different families because the new mortgagors or renters can't keep up with the finances just like the last mortgagors or renters. Families are doubling and tripling up in one house.

So, my question is why is there no attempt to educate these people and help them in their personal struggles, especially coming from community-organizing oriented tendencies like anarcho-syndicalists? I just can't see how self-reduction, rent strikes, etc., if large enough, wouldn't go over with the mass of people who are suffering, even if they're apolitical. Any help is good help when it comes to housing, and any argument that says something along the lines of letting the masses suffer more to awaken class-consciousness is null and void in my view.

Grass-roots organization on things like food prices, banking practices, price gouging, medication prices, housing, vehicle payments, etc. could only reinvigorate the working class and show people who are skeptical an attempt at an alternative is nothing but beneficial.

[rylasasin]

if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.

FYI, That's not actually true. (http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp)

[cyu]

That's not actually true.


Is it true of the working class? For our own sake, let's hope not.