Samantha Bee of The Daily Show interviews various people about raising the minimum wage. The rich person she speaks to displays the arrogance, callousness, and cluelessness that have come to typify that class. These people seem to have no sense of the growing anger against them. They seem to feel secure that the power of the state can protect them. They don’t seem to realize that all societies, even the US, have a breaking point.
The Daily Show
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Randomfactor says
Someone noted that the appropriate model for what’s coming is not Nazi Germany but Revolutionary France.
Marcus Ranum says
The US is not anywhere close to being in the kind of condition pre-revolutionary France was in, nor has there been as long a history of abuse. To get that kind of anger, to that level of violence, is practically a work of art.
Rob Grigjanis says
Maybe someone should start the Tumbrl networking site. Pour encourager…
Francisco Bacopa says
I think the response to the Occupy movement showed pretty clearly that the rich can count on the media and police to protect them.
I never saw the hardcore Oakland brutality in any Occupy Houston action, but we still got ground down by a Federal grand jury on terrorism charges for the D12 Houston action even though the judge initially wanted to drop the charges.
You’ve never lived until you’ve faced charging horses and seen the menacing red tents. I’ve been on the barricades. it’s awesome. I’d love to do it again. Search on youtube for “red tent occupy houston” and you can see what I mean.
wtfwhateverd00d says
Two alternative points of views from (mostly/relatively) progressive liberal sources:
1. Bill Gates suggesting that raising the minimum wage can cause jobs to flee to lower wage areas AND cause jobs to be destroyed by giving automation a higher return.
So for instance a company might find an automated burger conveyor belt broiler like the ones used (or used to be used?) at Wendy’s is more affordable than the people that McDonald’s employs.
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/110131-answer-msnbc-host-looking-bill-gates-raising-minimum-wage/
In the end Gates suggests it’s a complex issue that needs to be studied to determine who will gain and who will lose.
2. Then in the Atlantic, Venture Capitalist Bill Davidow
The Internet Is the Greatest Legal Facilitator of Inequality in Human History
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-internet-is-the-greatest-legal-facilitator-of-inequality-in-human-history/283422/
wtfwhateverd00d says
Interesting articles:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865592089/Robots-vs-minimum-wage-As-pressure-grows-on-McDonalds-Applebys-does-an-end-run.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/ff-robots-will-take-our-jobs/all/
raven says
1. As economic inequality goes up, political instability goes up. This is poly sci 101.
2. US economic inequality has been increasing for half a century.
3. Guess what? We are becoming more and more politically unstable. The attempted coup d’etat by the Tea Party to keep a few million people from accessing a private insurance exchange was just the latest obvious example.
4. And the solution is? Got me. Got everyone. Nobody knows.
This increasing inequality is a long term trend and is bipartisan. Can’t blame the GOP or the Democrats.
raven says
Every society does have its breaking point. The French revolution, the commie takeover of Russia (October revolution), any nunber of liberation wars in the third world.
But there is a huge distance between stable and all out revolution. Political instability covers a wide range and can go on for decades. It wouldn’t surprise me if this becomes the norm in the USA.
Naw. The ultrarich could care less. When the tumbrils come, they will be in their private jets, going elsewhere. Much of their money is already offshore. Romney has a $100 million IRA in Bermuda. I want one of those too.
raven says
The Romans knew how to keep a society from reaching the breaking point.
Bread and circuses.
These days we have cable TV, the internet, and food stamps.
Oddly enough, the GOP/Tea Party wants to abolish food stamps and have already made some cuts. They haven’t thought it through very well. Abolishing food stamps could result in millions of desperate, starving people down the road. At that point, I wouldn’t want to be a GOP politician. My head does not want to be stuck on a pike.
lanir says
Not sure pikes or tumbrils are on anyone’s radar. And they probably shouldn’t be. I’m not sure the mechanics of representation appear to be broken enough yet (whether they are in practice or not is immaterial, mobs form based on immediate perceptions not carefully researched facts). And honestly there’s the convenient “terrorism” label for anyone who takes a stand, even one that is non-violent and subject to police state brutality. And as amazing as it sounds, police brutality actually appears to add support to the idea that the group they’re targeting is violent when the media reports on it.
It would take quite a bit of work to get everyone who wanted change organized. I would expect several more movements like the fast food workers and occupy to spark and fade before they begin to network together. The immediately relevant segments of the government do not appear to recognize many rules or limitations when engaging sizeable populist movements. So the movements will have to get quite large and deal with a considerable amount of persecution (actual persecution, not the made-up BS some religious groups seem to think is in fashion) before any results start to pop up.
I don’t think we’re in a spot where that can happen right now. Maybe in a few years if we have a Republican president with House and Senate majorities. Or if another Wallstreet looting spree kicks off another economic collapse.
hyphenman says
Good morning Mano,
I fear that neither tumbrils nor torches are in our near future because people don’t resort to those extremes until their children are starving.
Do all you can to make today a good day,
Jeff Hess
Have Coffee Will Write
doublereed says
Oh Peter Schiff.
Oh god, he’s actually pretty well known for hawking Austrian Economics and nonsense like the Gold Standard at people. People say he’s intelligent because he predicted the Housing Crisis. But Austrian Economics is essentially all about constantly predicting crisis after crisis without fail, so it’s really just a matter of a “broken clock being right twice a day.”
For instance, like many Austrians, he has constantly predicted that hyperinflation is just around the corner. You’d think after being wrong so often would make him stop, but Austrian Economics is not falsifiable, so realistically he never will.
flex says
@ wtfwhateverd00d at comment 5,
The studies have been done, and the results are that the elasticity of employment , i.e. how many jobs are lost, when the minimum wage has changed is around zero.
Here is a link to a discussion of a recent meta-study of the affects:
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/raising-the-minimum-wage-the-debate-begins-again/
Bill Gates has been laughably wrong with many of his predictions; read his book, “The Road Ahead” for examples. Bill Gates is also not an economist and may not be familiar with the economic studies which have been done on this issue. Gates dissembled, and I don’t blame him, but I wouldn’t rely on his opinion. Why do you?
Wylann says
Nick Gotts says
Hilarious,
wtfwhateverd00d@5 refers us to articles by a multi-billionaire and a venture capitalist to tell us why raising the minimum wage is a bad idea. Gates and Davidow may be among the more thoughtful members of the 1%, but that socio-economic stratum is still where their fundamental assumptions come from and where their allegiance lies. They are not about to entertain the idea that there might be anything fundamentally wrong with the capitalism that has given them such rich rewards.
wtfwhateverd00d says
@13 Gates is referring to minimum wage hikes leading to more automation, especially in a world of an internet of things and robots. Jared Bernstein didn’t touch on that at all.
Much of your comment is ad hominem, but for what it’s worth, I am not relying on Bill Gates, I am offering you a different perspective from an intelligent, progressive voice that has done absolutely remarkable things in the past 20 years to dig the world out of poverty and illness.
You can choose to be comfortable with your well known sources restating the same old talking points and shibboleths
And you can also speech police as you do, not bothering to read the articles, and trying to ad hom and shame alternative points of view.
Or you can try to understand what others are saying and encourage conversation, dialog, and end up with an enriched understanding of the world.
@15 Davidow isn’t saying stiff the poor and isn’t saying take away the social nets, Davidow is talking about increasing the EITC, improving education and accessibility to education, helping us realize that sometimes what we need are more Walmarts and less Amazons and Whole Foods, and explaining how increasing minimum wage can create perverse incentives and other road blocks that will help no one.
He certainly is a member of the 1%, but I don’t see much in his piece that isn’t first about trying to support the middle class.
You should probably also look at Jeremy Rifkin’s The End of Work which describes how our economy is losing jobs completely and how we should organize for that.
It is difficult for me to read Davidow’s article where he calls for increased EITC, and better education, and how we are failing our middle class and why that is so important to address and then understand how you can write that he cannot entertain the idea that there might be anything fundamentally wrong with capitalism.
wtfwhateverd00d says
Peter Schiff defends himself and explains why it is good to remember the Daily Show is on Comedy Central.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/02/peter-schiff/i-knew-i-was-walking-into-a-trap/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter