Ultra-rich man's letter: "To My Fellow Filthy Rich Americans: The Pitchforks Are Coming"

Hoax.

All this talk, there is only one way to affect the rich…and that is taxes.

The GOP will then say: “They’ll move their money overseas”

And we’ll stop them from doing business with Americans!

Move to Grenada then make them ONLY do business in Grenada.

See were their profits go then.

What about Apple going to Ireland?

Put a tariff on their products

It could be done, but it’s probably too late. The president and congress have been bribed, bought and sold by these rich people, so it doesn’t look good.

What happened is that some conservative guy wrote a book a few years ago demonstrating that the middle class is responsible for the rise of the economic structure not the rich or the poor.

So what did the conservative elite decide?
GUT THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE LOWER MIDDLE CLASS

The others went along through greed

a reply to: KarensHoliday

Amen my obscenely rich brother! This man speaks the truth. The rest of the unelected elite ought to pay attention to these words if they value their lives (let alone their assets).

a reply to: WCmutant

Just want to say--amazing post. I couldn't have said it any better. I honestly think that the motivation at this point isn't so much as buying yet another house but being the top dog of all the planet and the tracking of it is beyond ridiculous. God forbid, William Buffett lost $223 million today according to Forbes. Gasp! Some of these people probably couldn't spend their money in their entire lifetimes while 50 years ago, the super wealthy could lose their fortunes in a single irresponsible generation through gross excess. See the story of Barbara Woolworth Hutton. Hutton was one of the wealthiest women in the world and spent the majority of her fortune before her death in a mixture of lavishness and charity. This woman was one of the wealthiest women of the world with a paltry $2 billion. Contrast that with Bill Gates who, no matter how hard he seems to try to give money away to a myriad of charities, he's still the richest man in the world. It's hardly made a dent.

There comes a point where the amount of money one holds is beyond ridiculous and just becomes stupid especially when the continual growth of it is built off the backs of billions...of people.

The income inequality in this country is completely ridiculous. It's staggering. At least this rich guy actually sees that. Sure, some people will climb up high like him, but it's structured like a mountain-top. Only a few can sit at the top in "high-up" positions such as CEO's, Senators, etc. There's a whole lot less positions like that compared to positions such as clerks, waitresses, and attendants. Most people who do arrive in such high positions are usually cronies or family members. But there are some lucky ones who strike it big and climb from the bottom to top. "It's called the American dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."

I know what it's like first hand. I work in a grocery store, the chain is quite large in the U.S. I won't say which company it is, but I get paid good ole minimum wage. In my state, it's $7.50, now, they shouldn't even call minimum wage $7.50 in the first place. Mainly because about 20-25% of my earnings go directly to the government. About 20% is taken out automatically, and on top of that, the food tax rate is about 3.475% or so. And regular non-food items are about 6.375% I can't remember exactly what the % is at the moment, but it's close enough. So let's do the math on that real quick. In reality, I make roughly $5.75 an hour after taxes. I'm on track to make less than $10,000 this year. I'm still pretty young, so I don't expect to be rolling around in money, but at the same time, I'd still like descent money that way I can save up and try to live at least somewhat comfortable in the future.

They could probably care less about me. It really sucks going to work knowing that. But at the moment, I have no other choice. It was very difficult even finding a job around me. And it's better than nothing. And you better believe people are going to get fed up eventually. I'm already a little fed up. People are losing houses, benefits, pensions, jobs, hours, overtime, insurance, and anything in between. While a lot of companies refuse to pay their workers squat. Their just trying to fed their monopoly fantasy/hoarding disorder. If the time comes, and it gets real bad, you can go ahead and toss a pitch fork my way.

Pitchforks murder.
It's why they are being handed out left, right and centre.
The 'poor' will never touch the uber wealthy, the poor will end up using those pitchforks on those perceived to have things which they do not. That means in reality, the pitchforks are being given out to massacre the middle class...the ones who have a "decent" house and a "decent" car. The Rodney Kings if you will. The suburban soccer mom. The Walmart manager. The tech guy.

And it will be done by those consumed by rage, anger, greed and revenge. Whilst they stab them with their steely pitchforks, they will have no clue that the devil handed them those pitchforks after having manipulated their hearts to fill up with revenge and murder. They never learned contentment but instead fell for people like the 'charming pope' who appealed to the desires in their hearts for the very things that a naive soccer mom enjoys....and she will be the intended victim all along.

The uber rich in the meantime will be overhead in their private jets...

a reply to: Year1

while you might be onto something; I think you have it backwards.

www.newspeakdictionary.com...
(from The Theory And Practice of Oligarchial Collectivism, a book-within-a-book from George Orwell's 1984)

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives -- is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.

originally posted by: Tsurugi

originally posted by: Chiftel


Alright, so after that lovely, fabulous little pep talk about how the left vs. right divide is not real or the left and the right can supposedly come together to do what's right and what not, answer me this.

Can you find me one Republican / Conservative / Tea Partier in favour of this rich dude's proposal?

That is to say, a $15/hr federal minimum wage?

Nope. Having studied economics, we know about price controls, price floors and price ceilings, and the massve misery-inducing distortions such things have on the market(look it up, if you want). Minimum wage is a price floor on labor.

Also having studied history, we are aware of the despicable purposes for which such price controls on labor have been implemented in the past...that is, to freeze certain kinds of people out of the labor market entirely.

Fine, perfect.

Institute a guaranteed minimum income that's enough to live a decent life on, a la the 21st century. Then employment is almost completely voluntary.

And you can then abolish the minimum wage to your heart's content.

The guaranteed minimum income per person per year shall be no less than the M2 money supply divided by the United States' population according to the latest census.

A new census shall have to be conducted no later than every 3 years.

You don't participate in the census, you forfeit your Guaranteed Minimum Income.

The guaranteed minimum income, by law, shall only be paid from money newly printed for this purpose by the Central Bank.

THERE SHALL BE NO DUTY FOR THIS PAID INCOME TO BE REIMBURSED AT ALL, LET ALONE WITH INTEREST, BY EITHER THE FINAL RECIPIENTS OR A STATE OR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

How's that?

Any more objections now, tea party libertarian?

Can you please try and feign concern for the poor and minorities again now?

a reply to: lindalinda
I think raising minimum wages is a temporary fix as you suggest.
Either way it goes, it does start with destroying or implementing policies at the government level. Why are large corporations and banks funneling more and more money into politicians pockets? Because they know it is through policies they write and hand off to their cronies in DC is the way to get things done.

Everyone else needs to be subject to the totality of market forces but not them.

How come a McDonalds worker can make $15 hour in North Dakota and another $7 hour in Chicago? Because of supply and demand. McDonalds in North Dakota is competing with the oil field workers that get paid a lot more.

Which brings me to the point of our Foriegn Trade Pacts with China and South America and our loose borders which work toward the benefit of the rich in terms of supply and demand.

Take care of those things and the current trend we are on would reverse course. But since the rich own our politicians I dont see that happening unless enough people can rally aroung candidates not backed by big money.

Fascinating fact:

The $6.4B he got for the acquisition of their marketing firm in 2007 *IN CASH* would be 64 tightly stacked about 3ft high industry-grade skids of $100 bills. How would that look like?

They did the deal with Microsoft and then he literally got delivered several truck-loads of money ("cash" according to his own words)? The only comparison I'd have there would be when I was reading Donald Duck comics when I was a kid where Scrooge was money diving, although the $6.4B would actually be more money than what would fit in Scrooge's house : ) He must have had an extra building or secured warehouse or something to even be able to store $6.4B of money in cash.

And yeah, those $6.4B are only from that one acquisition, of course this is not counting his other billions he made with Amazon etc...

Interesting... It might have been said already, but so much to cover I've been paging through a bit.

To me, he's doing like the new Pope, reading the writing on the wall by us lower-middle-class nobodies that are hanging tenously on the edge. It's not something he came up with, but at least has the insight to say something about it. If not for his wealth, his statement would likely have no more relevance than the original source that most of modern society is happy to ignore.

As for the pitchforks vs. modern army and drones somebody mentioned... The pitchforks is only a figure of speech, you know? Keep in mind if all goes to hell in a handbasket and becomes lawless with infrastructure falling apart, you're going to have a disgruntled lot which is much craftier you're willing to give credit for. Basically it could end up a pandemic insurgency situation with the expected anarchy and various warlord or "tribal" territories. High tech warfare requires a secure base of operations, which will fall apart without the necessary logistics. Stuff like IEDs (which can be surprisingly low-tech) are the biggest thorn in the side a policing operation. Many hardend vets have come to know the tactic very well from being on the wrong end of it. Other than IEDs, caltrops are very basic and can limit manueverability of most wheeled vehicles. Airport runways could be made nearly untenable by combining caltrops with "spud-gun" shoulder-cannon tech. Likewise, "spud-guns" could give molotovs about as much reach as some fire arms. All other supplies can either be appropriated or burn very nicely. At that point, the high-tech is out of the picture. Anyone leaving their guilded fortress would be fair game, and it would really suck as their supplies run out.

If you're rich, you really don't want to bring about the Mad Max scenario. Eventually it'll bring you down to the same level.

Basically the best thing to do would be to go back to a 1950's-ish economic model of capitalism and institute some degree of fairness for the working class, rather than chasing this current model's rat-tail of diminishing returns. Spreading the wealth around actually has a multiplier effect, but it seems that was forgotten. If you're smart enough to understand that, and in position to get the ball rolling again, the answer shouldn't be that hard.

a reply to: Tsurugi

Marx knew his economics; his writings show he had a firm grasp on the principles of free market capitalism.

I keep wanting to leave this thread, and then I see something like this.

Marx knew his economics? Have you read Capital? It begins with a huge, totally mistaken assumption about how the value of a good is derived and builds on it a fantasy theory of economics that has nothing to do with real life.

And speaking of real life, a man who was so bad with money that he allowed one of his daughters to starve to death can hardly be called a man whose economic theories have any grounding in fact.

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originally posted by: Astyanax
Marx knew his economics? Have you read Capital? It begins with a huge, totally mistaken assumption about how the value of a good is derived and builds on it a fantasy theory of economics that has nothing to do with real life.

Marx's theory of value is actually correct, if you really think about. You just haven't thought about it enough. That's why you don't GROK it.

I do.

Of course, the human labour necessary to produce something is not the only component of the value of a commodity.

But it is a huge chunk. Quite possibly the most important chunk.

Why else would prices go down with automation or increases in productivity?

Does not the same amount of physical resources and energy go into the production of that commodity?

Why is it cheaper when less human labour (by time and/or effort) is necessary to produce it?

How much would stuff cost if we had replicators (basically no human labour required to either manufacture commodities or transport/distribute them)?

Nothing.

Why? Wouldn't resources and energy still be required to build that stuff?

Well, unless it took human labour to generate the necessary energy and mine and refine the necessary raw materials, those would be free as well.

You see, stuff only costs money because people have to work to produce it and you need the money to pay them to do it.

But money become useless and pointless when there's no labour required any more.

It's human labour that back up money.

originally posted by: Astyanax
And speaking of real life, a man who was so bad with money that he allowed one of his daughters to starve to death can hardly be called a man whose economic theories have any grounding in fact.

So, if you're bad with money you can't be a good scientist or economist?

a reply to: WCmutant

I totally agree that the US is going downhill. You'd pretty much have to be blind not to see the US going downhill, so whether some rich dude thinks so, too, well I couldn't care less. I have worked with a lot of wealthy, successful people who made me wonder how they even get themselves dressed, they are so dumb. He has obvious gaps in his own logic. He is just another limousine liberal who could certainly do tremendous good with his own money but he'd rather legislate everyone else. He looks around and sees his billionaire friends can absorb the cost of regulation after regulation, but he apparently doesn't realize that not every business owner is a billionaire. Many struggle and they will go out of business because they can't afford to pay unskilled, inexperienced workers $15 an hour.

I just talked to a guy who spent something like $15,000 to open a hot dog stand because of all the regulations, not even counting his equipment! It all went to upgrading plumbing and electric to comply with crazy building codes meant for operations 100 times his size. How many hot dogs will this guy have to sell to recoup those costs, and meanwhile cover his rent, utilities and cost of goods? He can't afford to pay someone $15 an hour and all the taxes and costs that go with it.

If we really want to save this country, the answer is not paying unskilled people more, or giving more handouts. That only attacts more of the underclass here and gives young people no incentive to stay in school or make better life decisions. The answer is getting the government out of every detail of our lives so we can innovate and create value.

I don't see our society ending any other way than pitchforks.

The uber rich will not give up any of their wealth, and with every passing day it becomes harder for a startup to enter a corporate system that owns D.C..

As he said there won't be many warning signs (I think we're already seeing them) it will just happen.


Out of my group of lifelong friends only 2 of the 9 are doing better today than they were 10 years ago, and both of them work for Fortune 500 companies. The rest of us either own our own businesses or work for a small employer, and we've all taken hits.

I wish there was a way out of this, but short of government takeovers of all private concerns the gap will continue to widen.

Being broke is much more expensive than being rich.

Rich people don't have any 18% debt, they don't pay late or overdraft fee's, they have the luxury to buy things in bulk or at market lows while poor people have to buy when they absolutely need it.

Once you find yourself dead broke and living paycheck to paycheck, the only way to ever get out is to win the lotto or have a rich relative die. And since most of us don't have rich relatives, and the lotto odds are long, we're stuck.

a reply to: WhiteAlice

I honestly think that the motivation at this point isn't so much as buying yet another house but being the top dog of all the planet.

This is exactly right. And it is the sovereign reason why simplified prescriptions of equality and 'enough for everybody' don't work. The competition isn't really for money; it is for status, and it comes right out of our primeval heritage as social mammals. We can't get rid of it without changing our nature, and human nature doesn't change to suit human wishes.

No matter how much we have, it will never be enough for some people.

a reply to: Chiftel

Marx's theory of value is actually correct, if you really think about. You just haven't thought about it enough. That's why you don't GROK it.

I have thought about it quite hard enough, thank you. It's a very noble idea, and in an ideal world it would be true. But this is the real world, in which the value of a good is set by demand and supply: always has been and always will be. All attempts to alter this fundamental fact of human social interchange have ended in ignominious failure: what you get are black markets, perverse incentives, nomenklatura, odious repressions and pervasive corruption.

If you're bad with money you can't be a good scientist or economist?

Nobody said anything about scientists. 'Political science' is not a science and Marx was a romantic philosopher, not a scientist or an economist as we understand those terms. And yes, if you're bad with money it means you're a lousy economist.

a reply to: Astyanax

Yeah, I don't think he wanted to set up a viable economy, he was trying to construct reasons to implement central planning by elites. Yes, his work is horribly flawed if you view it from the standpoint of him trying to develop an economic theory...but if you look at it as an attempt to gather support for a centrally planned economy run by authoritarian elites, it was a massive success.

I think he knew what he was doing. Thomas Sowell says Marx studied economics intently and knew it well. He calls the Manifesto "a masterpiece of propaganda".

As to the economic ideas put forth by Marx, I agree they are mostly ludicrous or based on ludicrous concepts like the definition of value you mentioned.

As to his terrible finances, again I refer to Dr. Sowell, who says knowledge of economics does not necessarily correlate to financial success.

Sorry I kept you from leaving the thread, was not my intention.

originally posted by: Chiftel

Marx's theory of value is actually correct, if you really think about. You just haven't thought about it enough. That's why you don't GROK it.

I do.

Of course, the human labour necessary to produce something is not the only component of the value of a commodity.

But it is a huge chunk. Quite possibly the most important chunk.

No. Value is defined by the buyer, not the seller, or the manufacturer, or the materials or labor or anything else.

Why else would prices go down with automation or increases in productivity?

Ahh, you are conflating costs of production with market value. They are not at all the same. Costs of production can affect market value in a competitive market, but remember that costs of production are not the same from business to business, even when those businesses are making the same product.

For instance, imagine we are both in business making furniture. The furniture we each produce is identical in terms of quality of materials and level of craftsmanship. However, I am inefficient in various ways compared to you and thus it takes me twice as long to produce. Does that mean my furniture is worth twice as much as yours? Of course not. My prices better be competitive with your prices or no one will buy my furniture, because they can get yours for a better price. But if I set my prices competitively, I'll only make half as much as you make, unless I can find ways to increase my efficiency and thus lower the amount of time it takes me to produce.

Does not the same amount of physical resources and energy go into the production of that commodity?

Why is it cheaper when less human labour (by time and/or effort) is necessary to produce it?

I think I answered these questions in the example given above.

How much would stuff cost if we had replicators (basically no human labour required to either manufacture commodities or transport/distribute them)?

Nothing.


Why? Wouldn't resources and energy still be required to build that stuff?

Well, unless it took human labour to generate the necessary energy and mine and refine the necessary raw materials, those would be free as well.

You see, stuff only costs money because people have to work to produce it and you need the money to pay them to do it.

And yet the value of something is based on the amount of money for which a given item can be sold. And that is driven by supply and demand, as shown in the furniture example. If you aquired a replicator and started using it to make furniture to sell, I would go out of business because you could lower your prices to something I couldn't possibly match and continue to pay the bills. In other words, the value of my furniture would go down even though I was still using human labor to produce it.