I Can't Take it Anymore - Feb 2015 update

Jan 2015 update. The sweeping victory of Alexis Tsipras's left-wing Syriza party raises hope for a better life in Greece and dashes Merkel's demands for endless austerity.  Read on.

"The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance. I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945"
Dmitri  Christoulas

* * *

Our Capitalist Manifesto: Welcome to laissez-faire Global Capitalism!! Anything goes! We the bankers and international oligarchs own the system, enforce the rules, and the public must pay for it.  As personal profit is our sole motive we shelter our wealth off shore to hide it from Nation States, lend without discipline and constraints to create collapsing bubbles, day trade for speculation from tax havens sums that exceed by many times the world's daily GDP , and take ownership of the media and flood the political system with largess to ensure it does our bidding. We grab hold of an ever increasing share of the nation's wealth from a less worthy citizenry and accept that many will provide their inexpensive labour within a modern framework of serfdom.

In the US, Canada, Great Britain and the greater part of Europe the public, largely disillusioned and passive, have retreated from participation in the public debate. Demonstrations are scattered, lacking teeth and soon forgotten. France is currently an exception that raises hope for revolutionary reforms. This hope for change comes from a movement on the Far Left that has become the third force in the election battle. It is a revolutionary call for citizens to take charge to gain their rights and bring an end to laissez-faire capitalism. It's apparent that there is an awakening of a disillusioned public, many of whom in the past have retreated from voting. With more than 15% of the popular vote and not far behind the UMP(conservatives) and PS(Socialists) they have become a deciding factor in who will take power in France. It is also a cry that is reaching the public in Greece, Spain and other countries now facing years of brutal restraints to pay off the bankers who are largely responsible for creating the financial mess they are in.

This movement is being led by a fiery orator,  Jean-Luc Melanchon who is attracting audiences of  70, 000 or more wherever he speaks filling public squares and surrounding streets.  Here is a video of his oration in Toulouse. You don't have be bilingual to gain an impression of his passionate delivery and the audience's enthusiastic response. 

His critics, of which he has many, say that his programs for radical reforms are unaffordable, in conflict with France's trading partners and excessively idealistic.Clearly his critics are right if France decided to go it alone, but I think Melanchon  is reaching out for an international audience to bring about unbearable pressures on laissez-faire capitalism and those fighting to maintain the status quo. 

The months ahead will determine whether this movement burns out from exhaustion or this is the beginning of a constructive and hopefully non-violent revolutionary movemencan't take it anymoret that will spread.

Alexis Tsipras

Feb 2015 Update!! On Jan 25th the Greeks finally gave voice to "I can't take it anymore" and elected the left-wing party SYRIZA led by Alexis Tsipras winning a legislative election for the first time ever, securing 149 out of the 300 seats, 2 seats short of an absolute majority. On the other hand, conservative and then-ruling New Democracy lost 53 seats and obtained it's worst result ever in terms of seats won.

It's Theft, Feudalism is Back

Ayn Rand: The only social system that fully recognizes individual rights is capitalism. When I say "capitalism," I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics.

the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest

The disciples of Ayn Rand and laissez-faire capitalism, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Reagan were the culprits who kicked off this mess and for the next 20 years Bush I, Clinton and Bush II ably guided by Greenspan and a dominant Republican congress joined the ride. It was quite a trip with a systemic enrichment of 1% of the population while flattening middle class earnings and reducing the buying power of another 40% of the population. It's what happened in the period leading up to the Great Depression.

I don't know what the outcome is going to be from this meltdown but I can't see a simple turnaround because in America greed has trashed the system and it has to be rebuilt.

We have returned to an 17th century feudal model where the wealth of the nation has gravitated to a small number of powerful people. The reality is that deregulation released those with power from any constraints on their desire to have more. Like the dukes and kings of old they took as much as they could; and if there was more they would take that too.

It's theft when a young hedge fund manager can earn in 10 minutes what the average worker earns in a year or many times the income of a Nobel Prize winner, the President of his country or that of an internationally renowned artist. It's theft when CEOs of merchant banks and hedge funds become overnight billionaires and Presidents of large organizations now average incomes eight hundred times that of an average worker. Forty years ago it was only 30 to 40 times an average workers wages. Its theft when they influence politicians to remove inheritance taxes and promote flat taxes so they and their children can take it all home. It's theft when they hide their ill gotten gains in offshore tax havens (and most do) so that they and their corporations can avoid paying their fare share. And its theft when each year they manage to gain a bigger share. (A 2007 study of the Congressional Office Bureau found the wealth of the richest 1 percent of Americans totalled $16.8 trillion, $2 trillion more than the combined wealth of the lower 90 percent of the population)

Now dumping public funds on financial institutions to flood the market with easy credit again and subsidizing mortgages and car buying avoids the basic issues facing working families and will at best put a temporary halt in the inevitable collapse that is bound to continue. The reality is that the wealth of the nation has been stolen, workers have lost buying power over the past twenty years, and unless that changes another frenzy of credit buying will just repeat the cycle.

America has to rebuild with a different model and I have my doubts they can do it. Too many powerful people have an inbred belief in laissez-faire capitalism and have too much to lose. That means, I believe, despite the good intentions of Obama, it is going to get a lot worse. If Merkel has her way the same will happen in Europe.