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In this article I describe the real genesis behind the so called nonsense of The Fiscal Cliff and its solutions. It's about YOU/ME US dying sooner and how the "powers that be" are going about doing just that in the interests of generating fiscal savings as well as further concentration of economic and political power at the expense of the majority. The causes are multi-factoral and relate directly to the fact that our political system is entirely owned and operated by Corporate America and the TOP 1%. Nobody in D. C. is working/representing the interests of "The Majority."
Please look for my latest publication entitled: The Rush To "The Cliff," The Deception vs Unspoken Alternatives
Let's get down to the real Nitty Gritty. The fiscal cliff is a crock" a kabuki dance of the very first order. We all know this of course... The so-called left wing president is no such thing. He is but the latest in a long list of corporate anointed apparatchiks who while pretending to be a voice for the people, is merely one more ultimate tier activist for "The Corporation" and the wealthiest of the wealthy, not only domestically but abroad as well. The Great Explicator is the supreme implement of the corporatists in that he can like no other, explain away especially to his grateful and fervent supporters any and all policy that is antithetical to his previously articulated "campaign" positions. President Obama is after all the maximum Trojan Horse.
As is anyone who reaches the lofty political heights, he is entirely bought and paid for, owned and operated by "Them" that brung him and he ain't about to let "Them" down. We hear that any of the aforementioned so-called cliff avoiding agreements bandied about from "either" side will according to leading economists of every sort bring about austerity, which will hasten recession and all that that will entail for many, but not all Americans. Remember, not everyone loses in a recession. Prices drop and for those with the cash to buy, what does that mean for them? Deals right? Real estate/stock prices sink once again and "investors" can buy up investments/properties CHEAP! After shorting on the way down!
You may retort by saying but the assets held by the wealthy will lose value too. Ah, that may be true, but the wealthy guy is more than willing to watch paper values drop temporarily if he/she is able to increase their volume of holdings long term. The wealthy are able to tolerate this in a way that the average guy cannot, due to shear scale and differing short and long term requirements of wealth, income and assets.
On the labor front, parallel dissimilar income utility/constraints prevail in comparing the well heeled to the everyman. Worker desperation leads to further drops in wages i.e., labor costs in the aggregate as lower and mid skilled workers compete amongst themselves for increasingly scarce employment opportunities. The net result being a little more "Shock Doctrine" medicine for the little guy and another wealth/power transfer away from the shrinking middle in the "politically engineered" shift of assets, wealth and income up the pyramid, further widening the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. Accordingly, the negative economic/political labor variance will most likely be of a permanent nature thus contributing to the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.
So the game no matter how you characterize it, unless you're still seriously deluded one way or another politically, is a bipartisan singular effort on behalf of the corporatists to further concentrate political power in the hands of the anointed few, through a concocted economic plan of necessity i.e., Simpson Bowles or any variation thereof. As Middle America becomes more fearful of economic loss or diminishment, their political power becomes commensurately less as well.
This, I am sad to say is not the greatest benefit to the corporatists and the haves who control this nation both politically and economically. It is however quite a bit more sinister than that which I have described above. In Washington, retirees are described by an acronym NPC, which stands for the term Non-Productive Citizens. The fact of the matter is that these people that are in charge, and I am not speaking of "Their" elected representatives, I am speaking of the people behind the curtain, ala the "Wizard of Oz" that controls these fascist puppets. The "Wizard's" determination quite clearly is that America cannot afford to have working people retiring and living another 20 years thereafter. "The "Wizard's" position is that working Americans need to find themselves a hole and jump in it not long after they stop working. The "Wizard" can't just execute us as it were, so that leaves the sneaky business of putting in place federal policies that will essentially provide the same desired result. "Their" minions are left to the task!
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Successful achievement of "Their" goal will be reflected in a modification of the actuarial tables along socio-economic lines through purposefully engineered government policy. Just think about it for a moment" Can you really trust Wall Street with your retirement money? What little you might be able to put away over the years with declining wages/salaries, increasing costs of living, health care costs, putting kids through college etc. will for most working Americans never be adequate to sustain you in retirement. After all, in order to save anything at all you must have discretionary income right?
What proportion of America realistically can say that they can afford to put a reasonable percentage of their income aside exclusively for retirement? Very few workers still have defined benefit pensions, which used to be part of the bargain between 20th century labor and big business. How many working people are really equipped to manage their investments/savings effectively for the long haul?
That leaves Social Security. The bipartisan team of "Corporatocrats" and "Corporaticans" are working in unison while putting on a broadway show worthy of a Tony award as if they were working for YOU irrespective of acknowledged ideology. It is a pretend adversarial relationship nearly identical to that of the WWF! There never was any broad ideology behind this scam other than mass deception, as no matter what, these puppets are marching to the same drummer and it ain't YOU!
The game is as I noted earlier is for YOU/I to die sooner than we otherwise might with a reasonable modicum of income and access to quality health care. What I say is irrefutable. If you work longer, you are that much closer to your end. If you have inadequate or no income, no health care, and you're eating cat food and cutting back on the heat in order to save money, how well are YOU going to do?
"They" may not have hired guns going door to door executing the peons as in some sci- fi flick, but "They" ARE going door to door nonetheless. "They" are funding tax cuts for the highest echelon on the backs of the poor and the soon to be poor, as "Their" minions in the congress and the White House do "Their" bidding by putting in place the policies that will result in what I describe without any doubt.
There was a reason why the New Deal was put in place, and if WE don't want to personally experience the same, WE better step up. Mussolini said it best in describing the corporatist state" "The alliance between big business and government to attain their mutual benefit." "Their" mutual benefit at whose expense? Why OURS of course!
Tomorrow, I will publish the solutions to the fiscal cliff box that "They" have put us in. The solutions are not that difficult, and would be less so IF we had a political system whereby candidates were not required to "SELL OUT" by play'n ball with "The Wizard." Your feedback is encouraged. John Russell, MS/ARNP-C, MBA Health Systems Mgt.