Isn't it wild that we have a democratic system and a media
that are all in cohoots with the Banksters, trying to convince
us that the banks are not responsible for everything
falling appart.
Young folks are trying to Occupy this&that, but the police
are squeezing them out of the democratic public debate,
by taking away their public space.
Businesspeople of the billionnaire club, like Bush-pig
Aussie mining I'm-self-made-with-daddy's-inheritance,
are saying that it's just a question of working harder ,
for less money. So, we were supposed to get some
help from the 1%ers who were being shoved out by
the .01%ers. Not gonna happen.
The next battleground is the baby-boomers. The ones
who changed the world with peace, sex, dope and
rock-like music. Many of them left the muddy fields
of Woodstock and took on the business world,
making their thousands if not millions of bucks.
Now, it turns out that their retirement 'plans' have
been ruined because they cannot cash out their
houses and companies.
The Busters (like me), as with the Gens X and Y,
have no such illustrious track records. The boomers
had all the good jobs (as long as they cut their hair and
didn't smoke weed at their desks) all the good
opportunities and thus all the money. The Left-over
generations have no money to buy the retirees out.
As with the present retirees, they will also find
that their financial nest eggs have shrunk to near
zero, so all their life's work has been stolen by
the bubble economy and the outright theft by the
banksters, particularly over the last 5 years.
Are the boomers gonna take on the banksters,
or are they gonna believe the bullshit emanating
from the media (Wall Street Journal, Economist)
that it's all been a dose of bad fate, and that nobody
can be found to take the blame. Perhaps democracy
is to blame for "redistributing wealth to the people"?
AahAhahAHHAhAhahaha
Well, if they're that stupid, then boomers deserve to be
robbed. If they want to join us in the Occupy
movement, they will be welcome. They can start
to build on their immense financial and political
power to get the changes we need.
Or else, they'll be Occupying the bridges and
overpasses, the parks and the tent cities, with
the rest of us.
Checkitout: Economist Buttonwood
Democracies and debt
Voters are now facing a harsh truth
Sep 1st 2012 | from the print edition
ALMOST half the world’s population now lives in a democracy, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister organisation of this newspaper. And the number of democracies has increased pretty steadily since the second world war. But it is easy to forget that most nations have not been democratic for much of their history and that, for a long time, democracy was a dirty word among political philosophers.
One reason was the fear that democratic rule would lead to ruin. Plato warned that democratic leaders would “rob the rich, keep as much of the proceeds as they can for themselves and distribute the rest to the people”. James Madison, one of America’s founding fathers, feared that democracy would lead to “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property and for any other improper or wicked projects”. Similarly John Adams, the country’s second president, worried that rule by the masses would lead to heavy taxes on the rich in the name of equality.[How ironic, now that the rich are robbing us-Costick67] As a consequence, “the idle, the vicious, the intemperate would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them.”
Democracy may have its faults but alternative systems have proved no more fiscally prudent. Dictatorships may still feel the need to bribe their citizens (eg, via subsidised fuel prices) to ensure their acquiescence while simultaneously spending large amounts on the police and the military to shore up their power. The absolute monarchies of Spain and France suffered fiscal crises in the 17th and 18th centuries, and were challenged by Britain and the Netherlands which, though not yet democracies, had dispersed power more widely. Financial problems contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, with much of the democratic world now in the throes of a debt crisis, it is tempting to ask whether the fears of Madison and Adams have come to pass. Given the rise in inequality in America and Britain over the past 30 years, it is hard to argue that democracies have led to the confiscation of private wealth. Quite the reverse: modern American politicians either need to be wealthy, or need the financial backing of the rich....
Wall Street Journal via Yahoo
'The Economy Stole My Retirement'
Retirements in Peril for Entrepreneurs in Their 60s and 70s Who Can't Sell Their Companies
By Sarah E. Needleman and Emily Maltby |
Thu, Aug 30, 2012 12:50 PM EDT
Danny Sullivan dreams of gardening and spending time with his grandchildren, but that's just a fantasy. Retirement is out of his reach, at least for the foreseeable future.
The 62-year-old founder of a small catering company spends his days helping stock bars with beer and ice, wooing potential new clients and juggling the 20 to 30 different events his firm handles daily.
"I am so tired," he says. "I don't know that I'll ever be able to retire."
The weak economy has been tough for small-business owners across the board, with their total revenue inching up by just 3% since 2007 and declining in fields such as construction (-12%), real-estate services (-3%) and retailing (-2%), according to financial-software maker Intuit Inc. But for entrepreneurs in their 60s and 70s, the consequences have been particularly vexing.
Danny Sullivan has struggled to sell Arguello Catering. (Jason Henry for WSJ)Many of them are stuck in "business purgatory," unable to retire and forced to hang on for a recovery that economists say could still be a long way off.
Mr. Sullivan has struggled to sell Arguello Catering Inc., the Redwood City, Calif., business he started 21 years ago, at a price anywhere near the $850,000 or so he figures he needs to stop working. He reckons that about 70% of his nest egg is tied up in the 25-employee company.
Its annual revenue has fallen to roughly $2 million from $3 million before the recession, Mr. Sullivan says. He has tried, without success, to boost the business's value by branching into new markets, expanding hours of operation and adding healthier menu options. He says he got three offers for Arguello this year, but they were far too low.
Nearly half of the 799 small-business owners surveyed in August by The Wall Street Journal and Vistage International, an executive-mentoring organization, expect to retire after age 65, with 38% saying that their planned retirement date is later than they had predicted five years ago. In addition, 56% said most of their retirement nest egg is tied to their business.
Baby boomers, in many cases, were blindsided by the recession and its effect on their retirement plans, says George Vozikis, director of the Institute for Family Business at California State University in Fresno.
"Boomer entrepreneurs grew up believing in the American dream that you could start a business and eventually sell it for a good return or pass it onto your kids," adds Aaron Chatterji, associate professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in Durham, N.C. "Because of the financial crisis and subsequent recession, that is more difficult today."
Judy Lawton, 69, says she would like to sell the small staffing company she started 27 years ago. She figures she needs to sell it for close to $2 million to live comfortably. But her company was hit hard by the job-market slump, and its revenue is down by about 60% from before the recession.
.....more, at WSJ
