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The new ruling classes | 168 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
"The entire US system was originally designed to protect the little guy"
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 07:41 PM EDT
Aye, it's all in that gap. And though it's not kings and queens by birth, the
benefits of having the money to buy the people who can give you things more
directly, and the judges to back that up, shows the corruption spreading.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The new ruling classes
Authored by: Ian Al on Saturday, October 06 2012 @ 07:21 AM EDT
In England, the monarchy and the peerage were the original ruling classes. The
monarchy could be voted out at the end of a sword (or a spear, arrow or axe) and
a new peerage put into place.

In the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the industrialists and senior
professional took over as the ruling class in both the UK and the US. When the
new ruling class exert their wealth, power and influence, they can tilt the
balance of the law and have done so for over a century.

Sometimes the ruling classes take the Constitution and English law to heart and
redress the tilting as far as they are able. William Garrow rebalanced the legal
system to the benefit of both the English and the US citizens.

Thankfully, he wasn't the only one. Others dealt with health, housing and
education, but they were still part of the ruling classes. For education, I
think of the libraries built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman
and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie between 1883 and 1929 in the United States,
Britain and Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, the Caribbean, and
Fiji.

In the US I see the various anti-trust actions such as that against Standard Oil
as a rebalancing against the excesses of parts of the ruling classes.

I don't know why or how things are put right, but I have faith that a basically
sound system like that of English and US Constitutional rights eventually steers
the system back on track, more or less.

It is a worry that actions like the setting up of Fannie Mae in 1938 as part of
the 'New Deal' to counter the Great Depression caused by the excesses of the
ruling classes was at the root of the Mortgage Crisis in 2007 which was caused
by the very same ruling classes.

I think things get towards the right path, although progress sometimes looks
like that of a monster truck on a motocross track.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

"The entire US system was originally designed to protect the little guy"
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 06 2012 @ 01:27 PM EDT
You can blame the President (Reagan perhaps?) and Congress
that lowered the top tax brackets below 50%. After that
happened, it all started going down hill, except for the
rich who were then able to become even richer.

Simple solution is, unless you are a Congressman, is to
raise the upper tax brackets to greater than 50% and set
the 50% mark at about 10 times the living wage (about
$45000?) level. Then use some the computing power of the
spy computers to keep track of what the living wage is and
adjust the actual 50% bracket value.

This gives the government incentive to keep the living
wage level low because the can collect more tax money
as the living wage drops. It also gives businesses
incentives to keep the living wage high so to pay less
tax money. It also reduces the undue and unfair influence
that the high income earners have on Congress.

Like said, this is an easy simple fix, except for Congress,
who unfortunately, are the only ones that can make it
happen.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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