Socrates Properties
Philosophies and Intellectual Properties for Democratic Progress

Why We Need The Real Democracy Project

and greater means for Spreading Equity and Collective Ownership

From the November 21^st edition of Newsweek Magazine:

Excerpted from Welfare for Millionaires, page 23:

“From unemployment payments to subsidies and tax breaks on luxury items like vacation homes and yachts, Americans earning more than $1 million collect more than $30 billion in government largesse each year, according to a report assembled by Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, who is so often at odds with members of both parties that colleagues call him “Dr. No.” The Internal Revenue Service provided the data showing how much money was going to the much-referenced top 1 percent. In all, millionaires receive hefty help from Uncle Sam. The $30 billion in handouts, to put it in perspective, amounts to twice as much as the government spends on NASA, and three times the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“Since 2004, people with seven-figure salaries have accepted more than $9 billion in Social Security.”

“More than 1,500 millionaires paid no income tax last year, according to federal records, mainly due to tax loopholes and savvy accountants.”

“The country is sucking wind right now,” Coburn says. “We end up subsidizing the very wealthy and not helping the ones who really need the help.”

“Republicans need to stop supporting tax breaks for the richest Americans so we can use some of that money to create jobs and reduce the deficit,” says White House spokesperson Amy Brundage.

Excerpted from The Wonk Who Slays Washington, starting on page 32:

Site Admin Note: the following excerpts highlight yet further examples of how the average westerner is playing an unfair game and is floundering with decaying resources and nonexistent political influence as a result! It’s like we’re the 2-14 NFL team playing the Super Bowl Champs every time on every single issue and opportunity of any significance, and always with EVEN betting odds! Now that’s fair!

“In the spring of 2010, a bespectacled, middle-aged policy wonk named Peter Schweizer fired up his laptop and began a months-long odyssey into a forbidding maze of public databases, hunting for the financial secrets of Washington’s most powerful politicians. Schweizer had been struck by the fact that members of Congress are free to buy and sell stocks in companies whose fate can be profoundly influenced, or even determined, by Washington policy, and he wondered, do these ultimate insiders act on what they know? Yes, Schweizer found, they certainly seem to. Schweizer’s research revealed that some of Congress’s most prominent members are in a position to routinely engage in what amounts to a legal form of insider trading, profiting from investment activity that, he says, “would send the rest of us to prison.”

“To me, it’s troubling that a fellow at Stanford who lives in Florida had to dig this up… The only group in America that we exempt (from insider trading regulations) is politicians, who are probably the last people about whom we should be saying, ‘Oh, we’ll take their word for it,’ (Schweizer) says. “That’s what’s so amazing to me… They have legislated themselves as untouchable as a political class.”

Site Admin Note: The article goes on to cite further evidence of an unfair investment advantage being given to members of Congress by bringing light to such advantages as the fact that members of Congress and other wealthy Americans have almost exclusive access to the IPO’s that often lead to almost immediate turn-around sales of stock and enrichment for investors, and the fact that members of the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. Government routinely give kickbacks to major campaign contributors that they themselves (the politicians) often end-up profiting from, either directly or after their retirement! The pattern for Congressional and Executive Branch members is often this: Legislate public money subsidies or start-up investments in select firms, often those in their districts or behind the funding of their campaigns, then invest in these pumped-up ventures at their IPO’s (initial public offerings) and sit back and enjoy massive profits and continued loyalty from the owners of those ventures!

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This page is dedicated to starting a collection of some of the most insightful comments and perspectives on the unjust nature of western capitalism and the directly connected innumerable ills delivered upon the average U.S. citizen as a conswquence. Almost all of our problems, and almost all miseries endured in the west, can be traced to the absurd and continually-growing disparity of wealth and happiness maintained between the top few percent and the majority of the citzenry.

While I have literally thousands of examples collected from over a decade of reading, actually posting all such valuable past insights on this page is a considerable task that will require a lot of time and energy on my part, so please be patient.

Also, please note that I have a "liberal bias," and that most of the commentary collected herein was taken from one of two resources: TIME or Newsweek Magazine.