Yep, that's how it is; rising tides lift only yachts, not boats. This post's title is the subtitle of a leaked Citigroup memo from 2006, which is itself a more comprehensive version of the originally leaked memo from 2005. In these memos, directed at Citigroup's most wealthy clients, we find their "Plutonomy thesis"...
source: PxHere
I've written about the 2005 leaked document on a few occasions before, but now's exactly the right time to also include the 2006 document, and to focus on what Citigroup and the ultra rich capitalists in 2006 predicted would happen in the coming years. First though, I'll give you two links to these documents. Throughout the years they've become harder and harder to find online and I suggest you do like I did; save them to your hard drive! Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances - October 16, 2005. The Plutonomy Symposium — Rising Tides Lifting Yachts - September 29, 2006. Have you saved them? Then let's discuss.
First, let me give credit where credit's due: it was Michael Moore who brought under my attention, and millions more, the 2005 document in his 2009 documentary film Capitalism: A Love Story; watch it if you haven't yet done so. Now, this whole "plutonomy thesis" in the leaked Citigroup documents suggests and explains why the richest among us, the capitalists or plutonomists, can practically do without us; the economy, to stay healthy and growing, doesn't need a large consumer-class anymore. Why? Because the economy is moved for the greatest part by the economical and financial dealings of the billionaires and multi-millionaires among themselves and with Wall Street. For the economy as a whole, the scrawny little figures we, regular people, spend on our rents, mortgages, food and healthcare, are becoming increasingly insignificant. There, by the way, is the reason why the official economical metrics, like GDP and how well the stock-markets are doing, have no relation whatsoever with the REAL economy we all have to survive in...
Have you ever wondered why the "middle class" is disappearing? It's because they're not needed anymore. The only reason they were necessary to maintain was because of their vote in times when there was a real difference between the political left and right. A real ECONOMICAL difference. But those days are gone, as you know very well if you're a regular reader. The American oligarchy would prefer Biden to win in November, but they can live with Trump just as well, as Chris Hedges states in the below linked video. I'd go one step further; Trump represents the fascist reactionary movement that is always the oligarchy's ultimate defense against the threat of progressive and leftist forces gaining political significance in democracies. Here's what Citigroup's plutonomy reports in 2005 and 2006 predicted would happen politically under the heading "The risks to plutonomy":
Perhaps the most immediate challenge to Plutonomy comes from the political process. Ultimately, the rise in income and wealth inequality to some extent is an economic disenfranchisement of the masses to the benefit of the few. However in democracies this is rarely tolerated forever. [...] We see the biggest threat to plutonomy as coming from a rise in political demands to reduce income inequality, spread the wealth more evenly, and challenge forces such as globalization which have benefited profit and wealth growth. Globalization has come in for its fair share of attack of late. And political attention on immigration and protectionism is never far from the surface. As we suggested in our note in October last year, reactionary political forces are likely to rise as globalization persists and the losers in developed economies gain in numbers. To an extent we see this happening in Europe, for example, where the rise in the profit share (fall in the wage share) has come at the same time as the rise of right-wing, generally anti-immigration parties.
source: The Plutonomy Symposium — Rising Tides Lifting Yachts - September 29, 2006
There you have it; the insanely rich KNEW this would happen, they predicted Trump and his support from neo-fascist and other far-right movements. But hey, I myself and countless other have predicted it as well; it's just history repeating; when the masses feel like they're unjustly economically repressed, their first avenue of defense is to look for an easy scapegoat they can punch down on, instead of looking up to see their real suppressors, and there will always be a populist demagogue or two to take advantage of this dumb reaction. This is frustrating as hell for those among us who can see all this happen clearly, and it's difficult sometimes to keep one's calm under this amount of stupidity among the right wingers who stubbornly keep voting against their own economic self-interest, and that of everybody else. This misplaced trust in and love for capitalism is what keeps us all down and imprisoned in the status quo hierarchy that ALWAYS leads to the plutonomy championed by Citigroup and its insanely rich clients. So spare me the comments about "this is not REAL capitalism", or "this is cronyism, not capitalism"; if that's what you believe, you simply don't understand what capitalism is and that this "cronyism" is always its end result. I'll end with Chris Hedges' closing statement in the below linked video: "It's about resistance. And that resistance is a form of freedom, even if you don't succeed."
American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse.
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