I subscribe to Charles Pierce's first law of Blog Economics , namely: "Fk The Deficit. People got no jobs. People got no money."
Pierce rightly notes that with the suicidal plunge of the teabag wing of the Republican party over the ACA, " the deficit fetishists are back. Even Messrs. Simpson and Bowles have rolled away the stone. They have their commission's recommendations to wave around. The Fix The Debt frauds are wandering the Green Rooms. While all this scrambling about defunding the ACA is going on, it is very likely that the various cultists in Congress, at the instigation of the White House, might decide to start feeding Vaal again."
Blame the douchebags members in the tea party? But of course. But it also turns out there may have been another culprit all along.
Nearly four years ago, I began writing a novel, set in the aftermath of the Norman conquest of 1066. Before I began to write, I spent six months sitting in the Bodleian library poring over books and journals to familiarise myself with the period. I soon realised that, apart from the story of the Battle of Hastings that everyone learns at school, I knew hardly anything about the impact of the conquest. I began to understand, too, how much of that impact is still with us.
By the end of the process, I had come to a slightly disquieting conclusion: we are still being governed by Normans.
Take house prices. According to the author Kevin Cahill, the main driver behind the absurd expense of owning land and property in Britain is that so much of the nation's land is locked up by a tiny elite. Just 0.3% of the population – 160,000 families – own two thirds of the country. Less than 1% of the population owns 70% of the land, running Britain a close second to Brazil for the title of the country with the most unequal land distribution on Earth.
Much of this can be traced back to 1066. The first act of William the Conqueror, in 1067, was to declare that every acre of land in England now belonged to the monarch. This was unprecedented: Anglo-Saxon England had been a mosaic of landowners. Now there was just one. William then proceeded to parcel much of that land out to those who had fought with him at Hastings. This was the beginning of feudalism; it was also the beginning of the landowning culture that has plagued England – and Britain – ever since.
The dukes and earls who still own so much of the nation's land, and who feature every year on the breathless rich lists, are the beneficiaries of this astonishing land grab. William's 22nd great-granddaughter, who today sits on the throne, is still the legal owner of the whole of England. Even your house, if you've been able to afford one, is technically hers. You're a tenant, and the price of your tenancy is your loyalty to the crown. When the current monarch dies, her son will inherit the crown (another Norman innovation, incidentally, since Anglo-Saxon kings were elected). As Duke of Cornwall, he is the inheritor of land that William gave to Brian of Brittany in 1068, for helping to defeat the English at Hastings.
And the Americans adopted a lot of British traditions-although the teahadists firmly deny it. Wealth inequality being one.
It might behoove our Galtian overlords to remember that England had more than a few ups and downs over the years in its quest towards total Plutocracy. "Though the Normans were never expelled, the spirit of the silvatici can be traced throughout later English history, from the Peasants' Revolt to the tales of Robin Hood. Not everyone takes conquest lying down. Today's elites might like to take note."
Skippy,
Interesting that you should point out a history lesson on the Brisith. But a funny thing happened the other day to the daughter of Tony Blair. It seems that her and her boyfriend and a group of friends were out walking their dogs in a Tony part of London near her £900,000 house that was a gift from dad (not bad for a 24 year old law school graduate) when they were robbed at gunpoint! And I thought that personal firearms were outlawed in Britian. Of course Blair commented that more needs to be done to protect the personal security of his daughter, and I can't blame him for that. But I guess my point is why does his daughter get to have a personal guard with a gun, but the rest of the Brisith don't get that luxury. You think that there are mouth breathing tea partyers in the USA, you should have caught some of the comments from "John Bull" the common man in the streets of Britian.
If you want to say there is a wealth inequality, there is, but it is not just caused by capitalist greed, or the lande aristocracy. After all, Blair is a Liberal poliitican and big on the Socialst form of government. It seems he and his family are doing quite well. Same thing in Japan. You have the political class along with the zaibatsu who run much of major businesses, and the millions of people caught in the middle trying to get ahead. All while the Emperor and his family sit by and do pretty much not a thing but make excuses for the medical conditions of the females in the family. At least with the Royals of England, the men do put on a uniform and go into harms way, even if they are well protected.
Remember, 7 of the 10 wealthiest members of Congress are in the Democratic party. So much for their supposed looking out for the rest of us.
IN my previous post, didn't meanto call being robbed at gunpoint as a"funny" thing, but more to the point that I thought the whole premise of banning guns was so that these things wouldn't happen. True they don't have the mass shootings as much as occurs in the US, but like the saying that all politics are local, so goes with crime. I hope that I am not ever a part of a massive gun violence incident, but on the other hand one is more likely to be in a situation where ones personal space is being infringed upon by a thug. I would rather have that option of defending myself with something rather than just standing there and waiting for the authorities.
I know what you meant. But the issue with income inequality is deeper than just one has more than the other. For one thing-massive income inequality restricts growth. In a society where the majority of consumers are on the express train to poverty, while a minority gets obscenely rich, the economy does not grow. Furthermore, it sows the seeds of social destruction. For most of the 20th century, smaller financial incentives attracted enough workers to meet the economy's growing demand for higher-skilled labor. That demand isn't being met today. The U.S. ranks at the very top of the economic inequality scale among industrialized countries, with Japan and other Scandinavian countries consistently exhibiting the reverse. Income inequality is more than a difference in earnings from one person to another. Above all, it’s a “relation between people.” When that relationship sours-stand by, that's how revolutions start.
Skippy,
I have seen more invome inequality here in Japan than people like to report. But here it is more like the people accept the fact that they are only going to be allowed a certain level, so they just make the most of it. All the while I see people driving Lamborghini's around Tokyo, and dining at high end places and living like they have no idea of what the rest of the world is doing.
Interesting that you should mention "the relationship between people and when that sours, that's how revolutions start." I am not sure if you have been able to catch the new NBC Sci-Fi show "Sleepy Hollow" but it is a remake on the Ichobob Crane story. Long story short, he was placed under a spell by his witch wife when he had killed a British Redcoat that General Washington had given him orders to kill during the Revolutionary War as part of a larger struggle between the forces of good and evil. He wakes up in modern day Sleepy Hollow, NY and with the help of a female sheriff deputy they are facing the rise of the headless horsemen, who is one of the "4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse"
Back to my point, in episode 2, Ichobob was treated to a bag of doughnut holes and is marvled at them, and then he pulls out the receipt and notices that the bag costs $4, but that there was a 10% tax on that. He started to go off on how we could let the government get away with that and that the people should rise up (of course he is still dressed in his 1781 style clothing, much like some of the tea partyers). The modern day sheriff tells him to calm down or he will go back to the asylum, and tells him it is no big deal. He then tells her that one of the reasons the Revolutionary War was started was due to an excessive tax of 2% that was levied on the colonies.
I thought it was interesting that a person who one would describe as a "tea party" member would make the demands for people to rise up against excessive taxation, since the show airs on NBC. I guess that scene must have been missed by GE and the rest of the screeners at NBC to make sure that the correct agenda is brought forward, like wth Law & Order SVU when we will get to see an episode with a Paula Deen type shooting and killing a Treyvon Martin type character.
My suggestion, is to vote them all out, and start over. Rep or Dem any one that is in needs to be put out. I don't think we could do any worse.
hmmm, well, i just finsihed again the lengthy tome, "Crucible of War" about King Phillips war in the colonies and in the book, much time is spent on Britizh politics at the time.
In truth and perhaps more importantly, in fact, the colonies were a disparate bunch of ingrates with ill trained militia that were no macth for the French and their sometimes, Inidan allies. The Indians themselves, of course were excellent at rading, killing, raping and kidnapping ..Anyway, the Brits, understandably, expected the colonials to help with the fighting and ALSO pay more in taxes to fund the additonal British troops. I know..How dare they!!!!
Maurice, did you notice at the end of Sleepy Hollow last night when Abbys incarcerated sister is given her mind altering meds she puts it under her tongue and the attendant does not know it?
Who, with a working brain synapse does not know that OLD trick? Oi vey…
@ Richard, I saw that little trick she pulled. The show's premise seems pretty good so far. Nice how they tie in George Washington and the Rev war and the witch trial hysteria from back then all together. What really amazes me, is the fact that I commented on earlier, someone at NBC/GE must be asleep at the wheel in letting this go by. Imagine them portraying George Washington as a leader who new that there were forces of good and evil out there, and a Revolutionary who is appaled by the high taxes we are paying now compared to back then. Pretty much goes against the grain with a lot of stuff that network seems to throw out there these days.
Actually, its NBC Universal, owned 100% by COMCAST. GE sold out to COMCAST in March 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal
@ Stork, you are correct. Maybe in the long run they will finally start putting out programming that is not so much agenda driven.
Hey Stork-are you moved?
Wie geht es Ihnen? Yes, we are in our house in Böblingen. Was a whirlwind summer with a trip to the states to work on our house in Houston and see the family, then return to Heidelberg to pack out and move down here and get the new house set up. Everything is done except putting up the pictures 🙂 And with all that going on I figured it was about time to learn the language so I've been taking the basic German class on Panzer. Matching the articles to the nouns and the verb conjugation is just so much fun, not.
I'll e-mail you off line.