winning...

I made a bet with my boss. He said that stocks (and bonds) are mostly owned by average joes, the wealth distributed amongst the people. He thinks that plutocracy and oligarchy are wild conspiracy myths. Lets see what outside sources have to report....

For some reason I doubt that a university professor from California will seem like a credible source, but he does supply these nice easy to read graphics....

Maybe CBS is more credible...
"The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans owned 33.6 percent of stock market wealth, while the poorest 80 percent owned less than 11 percent, according to an analysis of 2001 Federal Reserve data by economist Ed Wolff of New York University.

The 2.7 percent of Americans with household income above $250,000 owned 40.6 percent of market value, while the 59.2 percent of Americans who make less than $50,000 held 12.1 percent of stocks.

For the poorest 60 percent of American families, stocks accounted for less than 10 percent of total assets, compared with 28 percent of total assets of the wealthiest 1 percent. "

I think I win the bet...




Looks like we're heading to another depression....how depressing.

and here's a piece from AlterNet....let's see what they say about fracking....

here's a story that should be in the news, but I just got lucky with a surf

Meanwhile, Robert Reich voiced an opinion that I've been talking about and has inspired a Love your Gov initiative...don't drown Uncle Sam...imagine a bunch of fancy siuts trying to drown Uncle Sam in a big jacuzzi tub....and then rescued by a band of vets, cops, firefighters and teachers...when they rescue him they all chorus....a real patriot protects our goverment, OF, BY and FOR The People.....
and just the vets...against all enemies, foriegn and domestic....

Oops, wrong article above...the Reich blog, Dimon in the Rough should be a segway to further thoughts concerning democratic mundialization and the construction of a new social network charging a small subscription fee for the funding of new international organizations...

A couple of quick notes;

Deism should be revisited and Amend 2012 should be supported. Jeffersonian Libertarianism has some cool links. ..

I'd like to read The Fate of the Species and to find more from the author.

There seem to be two anti-violence organizations.....and the AVP....truth wins out.....

Vote4Energy is downright offensive...more tax write-offs for big oil...we could take those lessons from Nat Geo...

Gotta watch Franklin Roosevelt's RFC......

and here's a must read, what you need to know about state pension systems....

Vast accumulations of money can be dangerous and subversive to democracy. That's not a new idea, but was part of the philosophy of many of our founding fathers and has been expressed by many presidents and statesmen throughout our history.

If you're not familiar with the Koch brothers you should be.

Peter George Peterson is a fine example of a rich guy who uses his money to buy unfair influence of government. Peterson spent nearly one-half of a billion dollars to undermine social security and Medicare. How do those programs harm him? He barely pays anything to support them, so why does he fight to destroy these wildly successful programs?

Willian K Black thinks the best way to rob a bank is to own one and you can watch an interview with him and Bill Moyers. He made some good points on Up with Chris Hayes, May 20th. You might want to watch Jim Richards talk about Europes bank run.

The best of the best is The Inequality Speech That TED Wont Show You. Yikes! There are things that are simply too hot for TED, talks and slides and....

Michael Hudson speaks about What We're Becoming....

Meet the Christian Right-Wing Billionaire Out To Frack Our World. He's just one more example why mega money madness must be controlled.

Affluenza is available for your viewing, so check it out.

As we know, it takes a lot of energy to fuel the beast and nuclear is the tastiest fuel of all, but it is also the most dangerous. Here's a nice compilation on the subject.

Progressive Manifesto

Progressives need something like The Powell Memo to restore balance to The Force, if you know what I mean. That itself won't be nearly enough, but it would be a start.

Liberals will always be outnumbered due to the structure of the Spiral Dynamic. It is important to note that while Spiral Dynamics or Spiral Dynamics Integral may be a broad and useful sociological model, we now understand a few things that were not known when those models were developed. Modern neuro science is revealing that human have certain genetic materails that create predispositions for certain attitudes and behaviors.

There have been many new studies published in recent years concerning the differences between conservative and liberal minds along with the cause of those differences. Chris Mooney wrote the Republican Brain and cites many of the studies and Psychology Today published a weak commentary in response while Mother Jones provides an excellent supplement.

Two years after the disaster in the Gulf we have new reports that the waters are horribly toxic and is killing the marine life. Much of the science remains unavailable to us due to the litigation and the rules of law. You can watch Thom discuss the situation or read about it in Crude Awakening.

The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality is partly to blame. This is because that mindset is a regressive force in the fight for progress. You can listen to a podcast from Point of Inquiry with Mooney and find other informative stuff there too. He talks about integrative complexity...

How Wealth Reduces Compassion is an interesting article published in Common Dreams and it might be fun to look for more writings from Daisy Grewal....like The Evolution of Prejudice.

Chris Hedges on the Myth of Human Progress     

Joseph Tainter on the Collapse of Complex Societies on You tube

Chris Hedges The World as it is...he doesn't think that Maddow is progressive...but that can all be found in Hartmannland along with a synopsis of The Long Decent. The longer the better is what I say. Unfortunately we may be in for a quick collapse.

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As usual, I came here to

There is some evidence that conservative policies will cause harm, even death to many people. Demos has an article on the subject. It reminds me of the study that shows suicides increasing with conservative administrations...perhaps we need more play ethic....

It's not surprising, markets can be irrational as Ultimatum Game theory demonstrates...here's a youtube video, one of many...ah, here we are..an interview from marketplace about how irrational people make irrational markets so I'll have to watch this NOVA. Now we have the author and the book to help out with the perspective.

Saving What We Can

Many of us are familiar with our climate crisis, but fewer are aware of The Other Inconvient Truth. What are we to do?

Integral Activism is my suggestion. We need to create a social networking site that is a very modestly priced subscription service which will fund global democracy, education and charitable efforts for the greater effort of saving as much of the biosphere and the gains of civilization as is possible.

Brian Skerry read that 90% of the fishes have been caught and killed since he was born and that startling statistic inspired him to reveal the ocean's glory - and horror. Shall we save what ew can?

Jeremy Jackson is known for his deep understanding of geologic time..or so it has been written. If you can stomach it he will explain How we wrecked the oceans. I hope you're not faint of heart.