Reflections on Hating the Rich and Evidence of More of it to Come

I recently posted a few articles about that examine, from a more practical viewpoint (meaning mine) how government deficit spending and high taxes are destroying the economy (add that to a rapidly aging society which is a problem in the United States but especially in Japan)... It seems obvious to me that anyone with a basic understanding of economics could follow the train of thought.

Me and my wallet

Nevertheless, it seems that far too many people do not. The first post of the topic was entitled Japan is Collapsing. I was writing about how the economy has fallen over these last few years and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Japanese government spending us into debt at 237% of GDP. I also pointed out that Japan now has over 15.7% of the population under the poverty line. I even backed up my article with commentary by Mish Shedlock.

Even with those facts, some claim that the fault lies with rich people or private industry. The last letter on that post I received, said this:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Japan is Collapsing":

So say you are not able to send your kid to the most expensive school in Tokyo and you claim every other option is crap. Turns out, you are not entitled to that school. If they made a better school, 10x more expensive, you wouldn't be entitled to that either.

(No. I said my kid goes to that school and the company pays.... Just like everyone else - it's a corporate tax break! - Mike)

If now, in a moment of economic downturn, those schools don't lower prices it must mean they have enough rich people to pay for it. Too bad you can no longer afford it. Too bad that woman won't sell a couple of BMW and perhaps start working to be able to afford the education she wants for her kids. But guess what, if you can't make enough money you can't get in.

If you want to live in a world where all services are private so taxes are low, where only money can get you into the really good stuff, you need to be prepared to not being able to afford the best. It's what you signed up for.

  
This commentator doesn't come out and say it directly but he also blames the rich. Let's examine his last paragraph once again:

"If you want to live in a world where all services are private so taxes are low, where only money can get you into the really good stuff, you need to be prepared to not being able to afford the best. It's what you signed up for."

I wonder what world this person is speaking about? I'd like to live in a world where taxes are low so I could pay for services. That certainly isn't Japan, I'll tell you that! In Japan corporate taxes are 46%. After that, when I pay my employees, there's another 20% taken off the top of that. I'd consider that outrageously high.

I'll trade back that more than 68% of the money taken from me in taxes and pay for my child's school ten times over.

It's obvious this person thinks government provided services are "good" (kind of reminds me of the British guy who told me NHS (National Health Services) in the UK were great because they were "free!" I asked him how they could be "free" if they are paid for through taxes?)

As I said, his hidden meaning is that government spending is good. This person needs to read the classic "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt to see just how far off base he really is. Yes, my friend, I want to live in a world where taxes are low... Give a guy a break and tell me where that place exists!

Laughingly, he writes, "It's what you signed up for." No. It's not what anyone signed up for. I'll drop the government spending to zero and see my disposable income increase ten-fold and spend it on the real economy; not paying off government debt or having the government hire their crony friends for building bridges to nowhere.

Sorry. Your defense of socialism and government out-of control spending is illogical and ignorant of the situation here in Japan. See? This guy defends the government and socialism... Another under-handed attack on the so-called "rich."

I examined the hatred of the rich in more detail in yesterday's blog post as it has been a subject that I've thought about for a long time and it really has come to the fore over these last 2 years or so (it seems to me). Class warfare is alive and well in the USA.

From yesterday's post, I received two letters that I'd like to repost here:

Michael C commented oo: "The United States and the West Are in Big Trouble....":

I think most of the rich hate in the U.S. stems from the fact they don't pay the same tax rate the rest of us do. It's BS that Romney only pays a 12% tax rate. You can argue it's due to his 'charitable contributions' but he can donate to a non-profit Super Pac to get tax deductions, that spends the donated money supporting Romney, it's a pretty screwed up system.

Also, the fastest growing Rich in the U.S. isn't job creators it's the financial industry. A hedge fund doesn't make it's money from creating jobs, it makes it's money from shuffling around investments.

Entrepreneurs are the ones that create jobs, but the likelihood of getting incredibly rich as an entrepreneur is minuscule to the financial markets.

Almost everything here doesn't really bother me but Michael C seems to make a mistake that is common. Michael, my friend, may I ask you why you think that,

"...hate in the U.S. stems from the fact they (the rich) don't pay the same tax rate the rest of us do. It's BS that Romney only pays a 12% tax rate."

Michael, the problem with the US economy and the collapse of the middle class has zero to do with what tax rate the rich pay versus the middle class. If anything the taxes across the board are way too high. The problem with the US economy is many but it's not what you've been lead to believe with this mass media - soundbite nonsense. 

The real problems are many but just let me name a few: 

1) The Federal Reserve devaluing your money 97% in the last 100 years.

2) US military empire and bases in over 160 countries.

3) Financing foreign wars by borrowing trillions and trillions of dollars from the Japanese and Chinese.

4) Extremely loose monetary policy and low interest rates.

5) US Total Unfunded Liabilities at 99 Trillion Dollars

6) Total US debt as of the writing of this blog: $16,160,432,335,905.30

7) Taking tax monies and bailing out insolvent banks and foreign corporations on the back of the American public.

There's a whole litany of problems for the US economy... Whether or not people like Romney pay 14% or 40% ~ 50% (like everyone else) on $250 million dollars ain't gonna make a drops worth of difference in the Pacific Ocean. 

This one argument has been common and, I think it points to, and makes a strong case for me, that the Hate of the Rich is growing. The "Hate the Rich"  trend is useful for the government as it deflects attention away from government mishandling of the economy. It's also good for the mass media (populism builds ratings and sells advertising).

Think about it.

Finally, I do want to share with you a comment that I basically have no qualms with at all. Anonymous commented on "The United States and the West Are in Big Trouble....":

I think these last blog entrys are really on perception and need to be put into perspective. The United States citizen hates the decline of the middle class, loss of spending power, high unemployment, and the ultra-high concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. 

Do politicans exploit this angst and muddy the waters for their own gain, you betcha. Mike Rogers decrys cronyism, and I believe is part of the solution. The United States is not the same country it was when M. Rogers left it. 

I proudly voted for Ron Paul. The press decried Ron Paul's idea that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should not bail out rich people who could easily buy private insurance for their expensive beach front properties. 

The upper echelons of the Democrats are fabulously wealthy. The finanical collapse of 2008 was really eye opening for this generation. The banker bailouts proved it was Socialism for the rich, and free market for the rest. One only has to look at the last four president's cabinet members. Its made up of bankers galore. The same type of bankers that are hurting Japan with allowing so much debt. 

Harvard educated Americans become lawyers (mainly corporate) or bankers. People in the mid to late 2000's really thought if they could get a 2nd house they could be famously wealthy.The free market proved otherwise and the government got the tax payer to bail them out. 

Both Obama and Bush 44 voted for the bail out.

Yep! Exactly! Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting.

America Doesn't Have Free Elections Anymore - Ron Paul Can't Win as a Republican

Ron Paul came in second in the exit polls for South Carolina. Some say that projected him into a possible second place upset. Nevertheless, in spite of that, he finished fourth for the state in the Republican primary.


I think this is really damaging to the Ron Paul campaign.

As always, way before the votes are tallied, the results are projected. I wonder how, with only a percent or two counted, they can project winners? The actual projections for these primaries shouldn't be about Ron Paul or who is going to win that state. The actual projections should be for the health of the United States of America for the next 5 years. I project that within five years the US government will be bankrupt and this entire mess will come crumbling down like a house of cards. Within twenty years the entire edifice of the American Dream will have rotted from the vine and there will be tens of millions of Americans who are going to be starving and out of work.

There will be no hope for these people and the government that currently runs that country. The military industrial complex and Wall Street bankers will have sucked the last bits dry. The American worker and the American economy will be wheezing for breath like a heavy cigarette smoker after years of choking, coughing, spitting, spittle, blood marbled phlegm and emphysema.

People who read this blog know I like Ron Paul. I think the readers of this blog do too. But the media and the powers that be will never allow him to win. That today, with South Carolina's black box voting machines that leave no paper trail could still be in use in the United Sates after the fiasco of the 2000 election, shows that the people behind the curtain have no intention of allowing free elections for the American people.

That Ron Paul could be consistently polling at the top or second in all primaries until today, and consistently come in third or forth smells really bad. To think that something fishy isn't going on here is the height of naivety.

With results like this, why even vote? Someday, "they" will even make voting more automated by arranging it so that the people do not even have to vote for the results to be tabulated the way "they" want them to be and the predetermined winner to be chosen. Then they'll call that "progress."

Perhaps Ron Paul will be allowed to use his few delegates at the Republican convention to make a speech or negotiate a point. But it won't matter. It will be merely throwing a bone to the dog... The powers that be are betting that the people will not rise up and fight. Considering the recent past record, they are making a pretty safe bet.

The people after all do not bark. Even if they do, why bark if they've nothing to say?

The powers that be are happy with an Obama or a Romney or Gingrich. They are all the same. The best way to defang Ron Paul is to marginalize him and keep him in the race and pacify him at the Republican convention. After all, what difference does it make to our real masters who is president as long as they follow orders and keep the game going? That's the plan here folks.

Everyone knows that Gingrich is the same as Romney, who is the same as Santorum, who is the same as Obama, who is the same as Bush, who is the same as Clinton (Bill or Hillary). They are all the same.   

Anyone who isn't asleep knows that we aren't getting actual news on the TV or from the big networks. We haven't gotten any real news from the networks since who knows when. Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, all the major newspapers, etc. etc. are all completely biased and they don't even try to hide it anymore.

Why bother hiding it? 90% of America is watching the latest reality TV show.

The major networks are part of the elite who don't care about America or you or me. They only care about profits and their bonuses. And, when they can't get those bonuses anymore from the United States, they will move somewhere else to continue the rape and pillage. 

These people do not care about the country. They certainly do not care about you or me or our children.

But even with total control of the government and the economy and the police state, what is going to get better for them or us? The economy? Our lives? Food? Jobs? Hope? No. Nothing, my friends. Nothing is going to get better for them, you or me, our children or our children's children. 

The way things are going now, and this includes the USA and Japan, the only thing keeping society from collapsing will be McDonald's, Citibank branches, Playstation 3, chronic food shortages, lack of jobs, alcohol, reality TV and professional sports.

And, it's not just here at home where every which way is bad. No matter what they do or which way they turn, Iran can't win. The west, with the USA in the lead, is heading us headlong into a war with that nation that will bring us into total war with China and Russia. This war has nothing to do with Iranian nuclear weapons but has everything to do with controlling the world's oil supply. We are so close to the shooting starting that it's a miracle that it hasn't started already. 

What's stopped the war in Iran? Well, when the shooting starts and oil prices climb to over $250 a barrel, that would get rid of Obama's chances of re-election. It would be, once again, a Ron Paul prophesy coming true. They can't have that! Someday soon this entire facade is going to crumble. The powers that be just don't want that someday to be before election day 2012.  

Murdering John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King did nothing to stop their ideas. Arresting Ghandi and putting him in prison didn't prevent his ideas from capturing the hearts of the entire world. 

The plan is to cheat Ron Paul. He can win, and would, in a free election. But America doesn't have free elections anymore. Ron Paul won't be allowed to win. We will have to witness and endure the 2012 election being stolen right out from under our noses. The only way that this isn't going to happen is if the American people wake up from their slumber. Sure, many have awakened, but there are still far, far too many Americans who are deep into the depths of dreamworld.

But, never fear, Ron Paul's ideas are immortal as is the immortal spirit of men. The spirit of man will rise. The stolen elections will not put out the fire, but they will only help to make the fire started burn even brighter in the hearts of men. The dark days are coming, but after that, the dawn.

As Charlie Chaplin said in the film "the Great Dictator":

"The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope, into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up."

They can steal the election from us. They've done it before... But this cannot, it must not, be a fight between them and sunny day patriots. Like Ron Paul said, "This is the beginning of a long hard slog..."

Are you in it for the long haul? I expect that Ron Paul will keep up the fight in order to attempt to change the Republican platform.


I now hope for one of two things (or both):


1) It may sound like I am contradicting myself, but I am not. I hope Ron Paul keeps fighting for Republican nomination until the last minute then goes third party. If he does, I believe he has a chance to win outright. And why not go third party? The Republican party is dead with a Gingrich or Romney anyway. Like I said, there's no difference between either of them or Obama, so why not take them on?

2) Also, Rand Paul in 2016! 




UPDATE: It seems that I am not the only one bringing this subject up. I wrote this last night and now, this morning, I see others thinking the same thing. This is a MUST READ: There’s something very odd about GOP primary pre-polling and vote: http://www.infowars.com/theres-something-very-odd-about-gop-primary-pre-polling-and-vote/

Japan Finally Grows Some Balls: Oil Embargo Against Iran is an Act of War - Japan, China and S. Korea Opt Out

Update at bottom!


Good News! Centuries of American hegemony and imperialism have just been given a black eye. Japan, following China's and South Korea's announcement, has stated that it will not abide by an oil embargo against Iran. It is the right choice. 


I think that Japan would know a thing or two about how oil embargoes lead to war. The USA under Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted an oil embargo against Japan that lead to the moderate Japanese government of the time being ousted for a more hard line militarist government that soon lead Japan into total war.

A US enforced oil embargo against Japan in July 1941 lead to this in December 1941.

We have US presidential candidate Ron Paul repeatedly stating that embargoes lead to war and we have history as proof that embargoes lead to war too. Japan was the victim of a US led embargo in July 1941 which lead to the ouster of the then moderate Japanese government of Fumimaro Konoe to the hard core right wing nationalist government of Hideki Tojo that lead Japan to war with the United States and England. The militarists insisted, with good evidence, that the Americans were unreasonable and impossible to be dealt with. They came to power and the rest is, as they say, history. 


Here is what Ron Paul says about embargoes:

Embargoes and blockades are acts of war under international law. Americans should know this. That's why, in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy did not call the blockade of Cuba a "blockade" but called it a "Quarantine."


Considering embargoes, the following information came out at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials - the defense of Japan by court appointed US lawyers - and meetings with lawyers in Washington. These transcripts and points were covered up by subsequent US governments for decades.

The website of revisionist historian C.W. Porter, quoting word-for-word from official documents writes:

On December 7, 1928, a group of distinguished Senators gathered in the Capital Building at Washington D.C. to discuss ratification of the Briand-Kellogg Peace Pact, an instrument whose purpose was to “abolish aggressive war”.

Among those present was the author of the Pact, Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg.

During the course of the recorded discussions, the following exchange took place:

“Q: Suppose a country is not attacked - suppose there is an economic blockade...?

A: There is no such thing as a blockade [unless] you are in war.

Q: It is an act of war?

A: An act of war absolutely... as I have stated before, nobody on earth, probably, could write an article defining 'self defense' or 'aggressor' that some country could not get around; and I made up my mind that the only safe thing for any country to do was to judge for itself within its sovereign rights whether it was unjustly attacked and had a right to defend itself and it must answer to the opinion of the world.”

The above was quoted during the Tokyo Trial by American defense council to show that Japan's War of the Pacific, according to the very terms of the Brian-Kellogg Pact itself, did not and could not constitute "aggression".

Briand-Kellogg Peace Pact, signed by US president Calvin Coolidge 

in 1929, made embargoes an act of war.

Like I mentioned Japan has seen with her own eyes (China and Korea too) what happens when a nation is backed into a corner with an embargo. That's probably the biggest reason they want no part of it.

The article continues:

Japan’s War of the Pacific was a war of self-defense for the following reasons: 

- blockade is an act of war (p. 43,051);

- every nation is the judge of what constitutes self-defense (ibid); 

- self-defense is not limited to defense of the national territory (p. 42,239); 

- Japan was provoked into a war of self-defense (pp. 43,050-175);

The Americans froze Japanese assets (in violation of a treaty) and began to embargo oil. It was demanded, as a condition to restoring normal relations, that Japan sign an agreement with various other nations who had never before been party to the negotiations, including Thailand and Soviet Russia (pp. 43,678-98).

To obtain agreement with the other nations in accordance with this demand could have taken months or years; and might never have been possible. Japan had enough oil for a few months only. A conference was held at which it was decided that if there was to be war, it must come now; by spring Japan would be too weak to fight. In any case, the attack on Pearl Harbor was an act of utter desperation. The oil embargo meant the destruction of Japan’s independence and perhaps survival as a nation. (emphasis mine)

(Through an oil embargo) Japan faced immediate military defeat in China; total industrial collapse at home; and destruction through coastal shelling of all the major cities by any one of five traditional enemies (America, Britain, China, the Netherlands, and particularly the Soviets).

Oil had been supplied to Japan for two years in the teeth of hostile public opinion. It was believed essential to keep war out of the Far East;

When this did not work, Japan was forced into war, crushed with atomic bombs, and her leaders hanged for “aggression”. (Read more here).

Could anyone in the world be so naive to think that the USA isn't just itching for a war with Iran and is hoping that, with sanctions and illegal embargoes, that they can trick Iran into firing the first shot - like the USA did to Japan - even if it would be legally justified as "self-defense" under international law? Law or no law, you know the USA (a government who has ignored international law for years) would try to claim the moral high ground by saying, "But they fired first!"

One guess which is the US navy? How dare the Iranians

threaten us with their mighty dreadnoughts off the shores of their own country?

This information needs to become common knowledge for people, especially Americans (who will never be taught the truth in school or on American mass media), to realize that these sorts of actions, namely economic war in the form of things like oil embargoes, by the US government are acts of war and we the people must rise up and stop this madness. It seems that the USA is just waiting for an excuse to turn Tehran into a gravel parking lot. This must be stopped.

That China, Japan and Korea have put their collective foot down and said, "No!" is a great sign that the US empire is finally deflating; especially when you realize that, since 1945, Japan and South Korea have been the staunchest of American allies. This rejection of US will is a total embarrassment for the US government.


It couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of folks.


Yahoo News Reports in Japan Refuses to Stop Iranian Oil Imports:

Japan's foreign minister said Monday that his country would not stop imports of Iranian oil, striking a rare note of divergence with the United States during a visit to Washington.

After talks with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (war-mongerer) that focused mostly on North Korea, Japan's Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba highlighted Japan's sanctions imposed on Iranian institutions due to concerns over its nuclear program.

But Gemba said: "I conveyed my view that there is a danger of causing damage to the entire global economy if the imports of Iranian crude oil stop."

Think about it. Of course Japan has to say "No!" Not only do embargoes start wars, Japan just suffered through the nightmare of March 11, 2011. The earthquake, tsunami and then Fukushima nuclear disasters leading to half of all of Japan's electrical needs being stopped due to nuclear power plant's termination of service. Throw on top of that reconstruction costs and you have a Japan that cannot afford to pay higher bills for oil!


Oil is already over $102 dollars a barrel today! What will happen to Japan's economy if oil hits $250 a barrel as some analysts have predicted?

This is the kind of propaganda Americans are fed. What? How dare the Iranians taunt US warships off the coast of Iran! I wonder how Americans would feel if Chinese warships were buzzing the coastline of California?

Thank god that, like I said, Japan finally has the guts to stand up the the USA. Or, as Americans would say, finally Japan has, "Grown some balls!" I wonder if Obama will make ridiculous statements like Bush did with his "Coalition of the Willing" that included about 8 minor countries that were paid off to support the invasion of Iraq?


Well, Obama can make those statements, but when three of the world's top economic powerhouses don't join in, the USA is starting to look more and more like a paper tiger.


Not a moment too soon. 


UPDATE: What timing! Zerohedge confirms my thesis on the USA pushing Iran towards war with this report on Iran this morning in Hyperinflation Comes to Iran: 


Hyperinflation has struck again, this time at ground zero of the most sensitive geopolitical conflict in ages: Iran. EA WorldView reports:

An EA source reports that a relative in Tehran ordered a washing machine for 400,000 Toman (about $240) this week. When he went to the shop the next day, he was told that --- amidst the currency crisis and rising import costs --- the price was now 800,000 Toman (about $480). Another EA source says that the price of an item of software for a laptop computer has tripled from 50,000 Toman to 150,000 Toman within days.

, and gave America the green light to enter the war.

And so the opportunity cost for the Ahmedinejad regime to preserve its status quo gradually grinds to zero, as the entire economy implodes (courtesy of a few strategic financially isolating decisions) making further escalation virtually inevitable, in a 100% replica of the US-planned Japanese escalation that led to the Pearl Harbor attack.

...Need I say more? The military industrial complex (and criminal government) of the United States must be stopped from constantly destabilizing regions and causing wars. The true terrorists of our times are easy to identify... And they don't live in caves in Afghanistan... Washington D.C. is their mailing address.