OK, so the economic elite works out that the people doing the work that makes the money that assures their "elite" status have over-reached and it may be time to add a few more crumbs to the sustenance those workers feel is being withheld or, uh, redirected. These "elites" are not dumb people, in one sense. And yet the idea of spreading the wealth seems always and forever to elude their consciousness in a practical, put-it-in-my-paycheck way. Their glowing assessment of their own glowing agendas leaves them baffled that anyone should question, let alone contradict, their benevolence. Isn't it they, after all, who provide the jobs ... how much nicer could anyone be?
World finance leaders on Thursday decried a growing populist backlash against globalization and pledged to take steps to ensure trade and economic integration benefited more people currently left behind.
Their comments at the start of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank fall meetings signaled frustration with persistently low growth rates and the surge of public anger over free trade and other pillars of the global economic system....
"More and more, people don't trust their elites. They don't trust their economic leaders, and they don't trust their political leaders," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said during an IMF panel discussion in Washington.
The elites, so-called, are not satisfied to be elite. They demand to be well-thought-of. Like the news media that don the mantle of defending the public good while accumulating the wealth that mounts as news is replaced by entertainment, the "elites" long for a good name AND a solid gold toilet seat.
All wealth comes from the earth, mined, harvested and crafted by common folk who managed ok long before corporate masters became needful parasites. Wealth trickles up, not down, but they're able to pump the well dry, and see no reason not to do so. Cheny's quoted as saying roughly, "Who cares about future generations. What did they ever do for us?" The elites are not shepherds guarding the flock. They're the wolves.
ReplyDeleteCan we not talk about Haiti again this weekend?
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