And why would they be happy when they are all totally corrupt :O)
Submitted by Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
“2005 marked the beginning of the global democratic recession,” wrote Cambridge University’s “Global Satisfaction with Democracy 2020″ report.
“That year also marked the all-time high point for satisfaction with democracy.” In 2005, just 38.7% of citizens globally were dissatisfied with democracy. “Since then, the proportion of dissatisfied citizens has risen by 18.8% to an all-time 57.5% high.”
This leap in dissatisfaction is led by the US, Brazil, Nigeria and Mexico. But America’s surge has been most pronounced. Having spent many post-war decades with fewer than 25% of our citizens reporting dissatisfaction, a 55% majority are now dissatisfied with democracy.
The problem with that is twofold. A healthy democracy requires the vast majority to believe in fair elections. Checks. Balances. Institutions of integrity. Rule of law. Respect by the majority for rights of the minority. If that faith is lost, then each faction quite rationally fights to dominate its opponents at all costs, by any means. That is tribalism.
Which leads to the second problem – America was built by immigrants who left tribalism behind. Working together we’ve shown humanity the great wonders achievable through cooperation, integration, assimilation. Optimism. Idealism.
“For much of its modern history, America has viewed itself as a ‘shining city on a hill’ – a model democracy, and one that can serve as an example unto others that wish to emulate its success,” wrote the report’s authors. “Following the 2008 financial crisis, however, that has begun to change, with Americans’ evaluation of the functioning of their political system continuing to deteriorate year on year.
Rising political polarization, government shutdowns, the widespread use of public office for private gain, a costly war in Iraq, and growing spatial and intergenerational inequality have all weighed against Americans’ view of the ability of their democracy to deliver.”
What will happen when a majority of citizens in the world’s leading democracy, its largest economy, and mightiest military, lose faith in its very foundation?
I’LL TELL YOU WHAT >>>>>>> TEAMHUMANTY
“I Want To Build A World Where Someone Like Me Is Impossible” – Meet The Trust Fund Brats Trying To Destroy Capitalism
by Tyler Durden Sat, 11/28/2020 – 19:30
Roughly 18 months have passed since New York Magazine published a cover story declaring that, in the age of President Trump, all the new “it” kids in Brooklyn (we use the term “kids” loosely; most are well into their 30s) are avowed socialists.
As the reporter explains, the new generation of Brooklyn cool kids have blue check marks on twitter and low-paying editorial jobs at digital magazines like the (now defunct) Outline, Deadspin (a media outlet ostensibly dedicated to sports but realistically covered whatever its reporters and editors felt like writing about on any given day) or Jacobin, a magazine that has been described by some as “straight up Marxist” in its editorial slant. Almost all of them were white women, the most oppressed class.
One year later, a staff uprising at the NYT exposed just how deeply embedded these new crypto-marxist values have become in the modern American media environment. Staffers successfully ousted Opinion Page editor James Bennett over his decision to curate an essay from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton despite the fact that the opinion page is supposed to be an entirely separate editorial entity from the NYT’s newsgathering operation.
This week, the NYT has published a story about a handful of wealthy heirs who have embraced the socialist credo, and who see their massive piles of inherited wealth as a symbol of shame, not a blessing for which they should be extremely grateful.
Take 25-year-old Sam Jacobs, for example. Described as “a socialist since college”, he reportedly sees his family’s “‘extreme plutocratic wealth’ as both a moral and economic failure”.
“I want to build a world where someone like me, a young person who controls tens of millions of dollars, is impossible,” he said.
Fortunately for Jacobs, his grandfather was one of the founders of Qualcomm, the ubiquitous chipmaker. And even if he gives $30 million away, he’ll still have another $70 million or so coming to him over the course of his lifetime. And what’s more, he’s not alone. As the NYT reports, for all their kvetching about student loans, American millennials will soon become the beneficiaries of what social scientists are calling “the great wealth transfer”: tens of trillions of dollars are expected to pass from the hands of baby boomers to their millennial and Gen X spawn over the coming decade.
However, most American millennials won’t inherit anything, except for “debt, dim job prospects” and a “figment” of the social safety net (that seems like an exaggeration, especially considering that literally every single American citizen who reaches the required age will receive a monthly check from the federal government, part of a program called “social security”, not to mention medicare/medicaid).
But as both a “trust-fund kid and an anticapitalist”, Jacobs “is in a rare position among leftists fighting against economic inequality”. And he’s hardly along in trying to navigate “what it means to be with the 99%, when you’re the 1%” – embracing the type of reductive, us-vs.-them thinking promoted by Bernie Sanders and his allies.
30-year-old Rachel Gelman is another example. Her wealthy family gave generously to liberal causes growing up. Now, as a 30-year-old preparing to inherit millions from her parents, Gelman is trying to find a way to give back since most of her family’s money “comes from stocks…which means it comes from underpaying and undervaluing working-class people, and that’s impossible to disconnect from the economic legacies of Indigenous genocide and slavery.”
Of course, no story about modern day socialism would be complete without a quote from professor Richard Wolff, an “economist” who currently teaches at the New School in Manhattan (an overpriced university dedicated to serving the overprivileged elite who could score high enough on their SATs to get into NYU).
As Wolff, known to millions of millennials for his guest appearances on the left wing podcast “Chapo Trap House”, explains, all the money being inherited by today’s millennials came from “a mammoth redistribution away from the working masses, creating a super-rich tiny minority at the expense of a fleeting American dream.”
Later on in the story, one of the heirs whose wealth comes from a chain of strip malls, said the business model just reeks of “intersectional oppression”.