Olbermann: Bush's 8 in 8

While Bush is scrambling around trying to find his "legacy," some have accused him of being an incompetent idiot. The fact is that he succeeded rather well in his goal of shredding the Constitution and making Congress irrelevant.

For someone who didn't spend much time in the White House, preferring to whack innocent shrubbery at his Texas "ranch," he managed to get a lot done, even if every single bit of it was damaging to the nation.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann sums up Bush's 8 years of accomplishment in 8 minutes. It's quite a list.





current-events

Why We Fight, Part III

In case you missed it:

Big Oil and the War in Iraq

"IT TOOK five years, the deaths of 4,100 US soldiers, and the wounding of 30,000 more to make Iraq safe for Exxon. It is the inescapable open question since the reasons given by President Bush for the invasion and occupation did not exist, neither the weapons of mass destruction nor Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"The New York Times reported last week that several Western oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, BP, and Chevron, are about to sign no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government. Western oil had a significant stake in Iraqi oil for much of the last century until the government nationalized the industry in 1972. The Associated Press quoted Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit as saying he believed the contracts were a first step toward production-sharing agreements. "These companies are in it for the money, not to make friends," Gheit said.

"This of course blows a hole in another ancient Bush fallacy, the one in which former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "the oil wells belong to the Iraqi people" and former secretary of State Colin Powell seconded him by saying Iraqi oil "will be held in trust for the Iraqi people." Former Deputy Defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz once claimed there was so much oil in Iraq that "When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government." - Boston Globe

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This time next year, you should be able to fill up your monster truck with Iraqi oil, if the bank hasn't repo'd it yet.



current-events

Get ready for the resource wars

Time is running out for us all.

We live in a dangerous moment of history. Irony of ironies, Americans in the near future may be conscripted en mass into the armed forces as America declares resource wars on the rest of the world in order to escape the consequences of the two Iraq wars, which now include a second Great Depression (breaking news).

If you're now scratching your head pondering what I'm talking about, consider Obama's or Clinton's refusal to state unequivocally that we will pull ALL of our troops out of the Middle East now. While the invasion of Iraq was in part at the instigation of the neoconservative cabal in their support of the racist policies of the Zionists (fundamentalists) of Eretz Israel, for the Eastern elite who rule us (and the oil cowboys of the Southwest) it was always about the oil. Cheap oil, easy-to-get sweet crude oil, a resource that is about to get real scarce all too soon. The phenomenon is call "Peak Oil."

Peak Oil has been a fact of life for some time, as even Dick Cheney cops to. And while it sounds good to the American public that we went into Iraq to remove a terrible dictator, it really doesn't sit well with Joe Q Public that our fair Republic often throws its weight around for purely economic and selfish reasons.

In all fairness, if the subject of Peak Oil were spoken of more honestly by the oil conglomerates and the politicians, Americans at large might have a better idea of the seriousness of the issue and plan accordingly. They might even stop buying 4-ton Hummers and Cadillac Escalades that get 10 MPG. But they have been coddled and spoon-fed the fairy tale of a glorious consumerist future - mostly involving huge SUVs and endless highways to a perfect suburbia - for so long that there's little room left in their greedy ignorant heads for the real world, a world rapidly running out of easy-to-get cheap oil. Not to mention that for the most part, most Americans don't even know that the rest of the world exists, except as a "resource."

But not everybody is an idiot or uninformed, and that includes Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They both know that the end of cheap oil is upon us, and it behooves America to hang on to all the oil-producing territories that we can, for as long as we can, and also to grab all the new oil territories we can, the sooner the better. Russia's Vladimir Putin knows that, too, which is why we're starting to see headlines like the following in the foreign press - but not the US press, because there is no such thing as an end to cheap oil in the dreamland of the American mainstream media.

Climate change may spark conflict with Russia, EU told
Alert over scramble for control of energy resources in the Arctic
Ian Traynor in Brussels
The Guardian, Monday March 10 2008

European governments have been told to plan for an era of conflict over energy resources, with global warming likely to trigger a dangerous contest between Russia and the west for the vast mineral riches of the Arctic.

A report from the EU's top two foreign policy officials to the 27 heads of government gathering in Brussels for a summit this week warns that "significant potential conflicts" are likely in the decades ahead as a result of "intensified competition over access to, and control over, energy resources".

[...]

The officials single out the impact of the thawing Arctic and its emergence as a potential flashpoint of rival claims, pointing to the Kremlin's grab for the Arctic last year when President Vladimir Putin hailed as heroes a team of scientists who planted a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed.

Developments in the Arctic had "potential consequences for international stability and European security interests".[i.e., resource wars]

"The rapid melting of the polar ice caps, in particular the Arctic, is opening up new waterways and international trade routes," the report notes. "The increased accessibility of the enormous hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic region is changing the geostrategic dynamics of the region."

The report also stresses the volatility of the regions that hold large mineral deposits and predicts greater destabilisation in central Asia and the Middle East as a result of global warming

This "scramble for resources" and the warnings of conflicts from government agencies put the lie to the arguments of the deniers of global warming, inasmuch as there would be no scramble if the resources - oil - were still plentiful elsewhere.

Cheap oil is indeed running out but global warming is affording an opportunity for a race for resources in previously inaccessible regions. The greed of stock-jobbers and our mindless preoccupation with McMansions in suburbs that can only be accessed by giant, luxury trucks masquerading as family vehicles have blown apart the economic stability of the markets of the world. Americans are pigs who can't stop eating, consuming fully half of the world's resources while the average Third World person lives on less than a dollar a day. George Kennan is considered to be the most important foreign policy analyst of the last century; as the architect of the Cold War policy of containment of the USSR, he put it in no uncertain terms:

"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population . . . In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security."[1]

These are soft and weasely words, but words that point to inevitable resource wars, unless we stop our gluttonous energy consumption now.

The warming climate and the end of cheap oil is a recipe for a bloody future for everybody, and we have no one but ourselves to blame.

Happy motoring, indeed.

------------------------------

[1] George F. Kennan, "PPS/23: Review of Current Trends in U.S. Foreign Policy." First published in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, Vol. 1, 509-529, it has been reprinted in Thomas H. Entzold and John Lewis Gaddis, eds., Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press), 226-28; the quoted passage is at 226-27.

current-events

Cutting of Internet cables no accident?

Countries affected by cut cable shown in red. Kish Island is in the Persian Gulf, upper right.
Map courtesy DailyWireless (dot) org

Mostly ignored by big media here in the United States, the recent flurry of undersea cables being cut across the Middle East and the Mediterranean have all the earmarks of military action, possibly as a means to stall the opening of the Iranian oil bourse, originally scheduled for this week (Feb. 1 – 11), but now postponed due to the interruption of Internet service, suggests Market Watch, a respected online financial newsletter.

A number of cables, possibly as many as eight, have been cut, all within a matter of hours. Affected areas include parts of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and India, and significantly, an island off the southern coast of Iran – Kish - where the Iranian oil bourse is headquartered.

The Iranians have been moving for some time to open the bourse, which has as one of its main purposes changing the denomination of oil trades from US dollars to the euro. This is, of course, threatening to Western powers, which have a vested interest in continuing to use the US dollar – and that’s putting it mildly - as the international trade in crude oil is the bedrock of international trade and hence, the stability of governments all over the world. Specifically, a shift from dollars to the euro (which is now trading better than par with the dollar) will further erode America’s already staggering trade deficit, and possibly trigger an abandonment of the dollar altogether, completely trashing the value of Treasury bills, which are only ultimately backed by the “full faith and credit” of the United States.

Recall President Bush’s assertion that “all options are on the table” in dealing with Iran; most people would assume that to mean armed intervention, but there are other “options” besides the use of guns and bombs.

For instance, Venezuela recently had a major bank account in the United States frozen (maybe) as the Venezuelan national petroleum operator Petroleos de Venezuela SA suffered a judgment brought against it by ExxonMobil in US, Dutch and British courts, to the tune of $12 billion. The judgment came down at roughly the same time the Internet cables were cut, by the way.

As for cutting the cables themselves, there are several possibilities and culprits. The US Navy has already demonstrated its ability to interfere with underseas cables with Operation Ivy Bells, back in 1971. There is also the existence of the USS Jimmy Carter, a fast attack submarine which has been retrofitted with an extra section in its hull, which some have claimed includes a room devoted to cable dredging equipment similar to that employed in Glomar Explorer, the joint CIA-Howard Hughes venture to retrieve a downed Soviet submarine back in the early 1970s. If in fact the Carter has these capabilities, it would be a major technological coup, as undersea cable operations are highly problematic.

That said, the present location of the Carter is unknown (the location of all US submarines while deployed is Top Secret as a matter of policy), but it has been estimated by those who know about these things – including myself – that Carter could not be responsible for more than one of the cable incidents, distance and travel times being a severely mitigating factor (the Carter would have to be traveling at near light speed to arrive at all the places in the given time frame– not even theoretically possible – and that’s leaving out the time required for the cutting operations themselves). Israelis? Maybe. They have submarines and the knowledge and motive. But then, so do the Chinese.

It’s a kettle of fish, frankly, but no doubt all a part of the Big Con.

current-events

This loathsome campaign

The Parade of Fools

If, for some bizarre reason bordering on insanity, your pay grade or your corporate affiliation you were forced to watch the Republican presidential debate from St Petersburg, Florida last night, well, I pity you and pray for your swift recovery.

The collection of batshit crazy fucks on display on that stage defies probability as well as the power of words to describe adequately the unclean crapper that the Republican Party has become, but there they were anyway.

I won't waste your time repeating the filth that they were spouting, but I do want to pass along something from the only borderline sane old white man on that stage that night: John McCain.

Objecting to some rather bizarre assertions by Gov Mitt Romney about Mitt's non-position on torture, McCain emerged from his stupor long enough to blurt out some rather heart-felt words on the subject, to wit:

"Then I am astonished that you would think such a -- such a torture would be inflicted on anyone in our -- who we are held captive and anyone could believe that that's not torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Convention. It's in violation of existing law. And, governor, let me tell you, if we're going to get the high ground in this world and we're going to be the America that we have cherished and loved for more than 200 years, we're not going to torture people. We're not going to do what Pol Pot did. We're not going to do what's being done to Burmese monks as we speak.

"I suggest that you talk to retired military officers and active duty military officers like Colin Powell and others, and how in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me."

Regardless, nobody but nobody in any campaign is talking about shit like this or this from our oil buddies.


current-events

Hillary laughs and Iran gets bombed

For some time now I have been tracking the developments as this administration pushes for a strike on Iran, if not a full-blown bombing campaign. While real progressives shy away from any expansion of the conflict in the Middle East, it has become increasingly apparent that many leading figures, including, evidently, the entire Senate (with only a couple of exceptions) buy into the notion of some sort of punishing blow on Iran, probably quite soon.

To name but one prominent Senator who recently voted up the Kyl-Lieberman resolution, on Amy Goodman’s recent “Democracy Now!” radio program, Hillary Clinton actually laughed at Senator Mike Gravel when he violently protested her vote on Kyl-Lieberman. This was followed by Seymour Hersh's observation that she was beholden to "Jewish money", by which he meant AIPAC and the rabid pro-Zionists in her New York constituency. What Senator Gravel (and any number of commentators as well) missed was the full extent of his misapprehension – Hillary’s laughter was of a two natured kind: the laugh of the guilty party who has been found out and affects a cavalier attitude, and hysterical relief that Gravel had not revealed her more basic rational, one that Gravel is either not privy to or has not signed on for.

In her heart of hearts, Hillary Clinton is a fervid believer - along with the majority of the Democrats and Republican leadership in Congress - in the US policy of Full Spectrum Dominance in support of corporate transnationalism, aka “globalization.” [See below]

… the "moderates" in the[Bush] administration, as well as the leading Democratic candidates and virtually everyone in the Democratic Party leadership -- have been supporting the threat of war against Iran for years, in large part because they share the illusions of power that go with being the militarily dominant state in the world. [Their] chief illusion is that one can and should use U.S. power to coerce an uncooperative state.

The entire spectrum of political leadership in this country now appears to accept that idea, which is an indication of just how far U.S. military dominance has tilted the policy debate in this country. - Gareth Porter in The Huffington Post (my emphasis)

Key policy makers going back to the Wilson administration have been pushing for total American military hegemony. In this policy - backed by the über-rich for whom these policies were designed - they were joined by the Neoliberal economic cheerleaders (including the Clintons), because it means complete American military, political and economic control of the world and outer space.

Simply put, this policy is most recent revision of the philosophy - first formulated by President Woodrow Wilson - that the United States must carry “democracy” (not to mention American commercial interests) to less enlightened states, by force if necessary.

President Wilson’s vision was one that some political scientists call “moral.” In modern times, this has been transmogrified and revised into what some call transnationalism, or globalization. These policies are not subject to public debate, by the way, but arise from the secret meetings of economic cabals such as the Bilderberg Group and Rockefeller’s only slightly more public Trilateral Commission. These cabals are not composed of darkly evil people looking to be the masterminds behind One World government; they all believe that they are helping to build a more humane, just and economically-flattened transnational world; to Tom Friedmanize the planet, as it were. To a realist’s eye, it’s all hokum, of course; just gussied-up royal prerogative. On the other hand, it bears repeating that J. Paul Bremer, prior to his appointment as governor pro tem of Iraq, was the president of Kissinger Associates, advisors to transnational corporations looking to make a fast buck in Third World countries. Closely associated with the Clintons is Mack McLarty, a Kissinger alum. As Adam Smith might put it, they are all motivated by pure greed.

In this regard, one only has to look at Bill Clinton’s bombing and invasion of Bosnia to confirm that the Clintons are of the same mind on the use of military might in pursuit of foreign policy goals. It’s also worth mentioning that this is one of the core beliefs of the Neoconservatives: the promotion of democracy and Neoliberal economic policy to benighted régimes, regardless of the social or cultural milieu that underlie monarchial, authoritarian, and/or theocratic states such as Iran or even Saudi Arabia.

As for our relations with democratic states whose economic policies aren’t in sync with ours, it is significant that when it was revealed that the Bush administration actively helped plan and finance the military coup that ousted democratically-elected Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 2002, Hillary – or any other leading senator for that matter - didn’t utter so much as a squeak.

The whole point is, of course, control of the oil, and with it, the economic destiny of the world.

Additional sources:

1) Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992)

2) Simon Reich, What is Globalization? Four Possible Answers (The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, 1998)

3) Stephen Gill, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)

4) Howard Zinn, The Uses of History (from a broadcast on Democracy Now!, 11/24/06)

current-events

Why We Fight, Part II

Advanced Energetics Increase Shareholder Value





Double digits!!

current-events

Imperial fortress beside the Tigris

The US Imperial embassy rises beside the Tigris River in Baghdad. The largest embassy of any nation in the world, larger than Vatican City and built as a fortress, it puts the lie to the claim that we are not intent on remaining in Iraq indefinitely.

At 104 acres, the US embassy under construction in Baghdad is roughly half the size of China's Forbidden City (177 acres), but still larger than the Vatican City.

Amazingly, the $592 million (!) project is coming along nicely, on time and under budget, according to informed sources. Not so amazingly, part of the reason is that the construction firm, Berger Devine Yaeger, Inc of Kansas City, MO, is using imported labor, which has raised some interesting questions.

This aerial plan shows that the embassy will be, in fact, a small city, albeit heavily fortified. Residents of the present-day embassy in the Green Zone (a former Sadaam Hussein palace) are required to wear flak jackets and helmets when going out of doors. The present embassy operations involve about 1,000 staff, and an annual budget of over $1.2 billion. God only knows what they do.

From these virtual images, the embassy looks for all the world like a prison complex. Note the blast-resistant walls running around the entire compound.

These images were pulled from the Arthur Magazine website, as the same images on the BDY site were pulled at the request of the State department, for "reasons of security." An images request at BDY's site results in 404 error messages.

"In total, the 104-acre compound will include over twenty buildings, including one classified secure structure and housing for over 380 families," the Web site says. The compound will include the embassy building, housing, a PX, commissary, cinema, retail and shopping areas, restaurants, schools, a fire station, power and water treatment plants as well as telecommunications and wastewater treatment facilities.

One assumes that the brig facilities will be outsourced. Probably to Uzbekistan.


current-events

It's still about the oil

US soldier guards Iraqi oil facility

Well, let's see how we're doing there in ol' Iraq.

Hmm, it doesn't look good. General Pretaeus is saying that "there is no military solution"; then he condradicts himself and says, "As citizens feel safer, conditions will be set for the resumption and improvement of basic services."

Duh, how does he figure that citizens will "feel safer"? From what I read, 50,000 Iraqis a month are fleeing the country, as I have previously pointed out. Among those leaving Iraq are the blue-collar technicians who used to run the "basic services." At this rate, there won't be anybody left in the country to vote for the new, unified, and harmonious government, much less "improve" what's left of a country and oil industry in freaking ruins.

President Bush continues - against every standard of sane or reasoned thinking - to hope against hope for some kind of victory in Iraq, any victory, even going so far as to grudgingly start talking about "benchmarks."

However, let's make one thing perfectly clear: the only benchmark that really counts for Bush and his neo-con cabal (and plenty of Democrats are secretly in agreement with these thugs) is the "oil law," and remember, when push comes to shove - fuck "victory" - it's still all about the oil.

current-events

Iraq Study Group is all about the oil

The Iraq Study Group has released their report and, as we all expected, it’s just more of the same, but with a cute twist that most commentators have missed.

Generally speaking, this group of ten "noble" men has proposed that we remain in Iraq until the Iraqis stand up so we can stand down (sound familiar?), but until at least 2008 (that could be either one year or two years, depending on how you’re counting, and when you are counting from) but there isn’t a deadline in sight, no timetable, just a vague reference to some foggy internal “benchmarks.” But the real nitty-gritty is the requirement that the package be accepted in toto, and no picking and choosing the parts we like.

So what? you ask. Well, here’s so what: Recommendation No. 63 calls on the US to “assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise.” (my emphasis)

The present Iraqi constitution as written would need amending to authorize the privatization of Iraqi oil fields, so Recommendation No. 63 calls for the US government to “provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law.” To button all this up, the report calls on the US to commit troops in Iraq to provide continuing security for Iraq’s oil infrastructure, for the foreseeable future and probably beyond.

As Antonia Juhasz writes in an editorial in The Los Angeles Times:

“All told, the Iraq Study Group has simply made the case for extending the war until foreign oil companies – presumably American ones – have guaranteed legal access to all of Iraq’s oil fields and until they are assured the best legal and financial terms possible.”

It’s about the oil and American profits; it was always about the oil, and it will continue to be about the oil and American profits.

The matrix explained

Congressman John Murtha is being hammered by both the left and the right for having the temerity to call for withdrawal from Iraq now. Bushites reject his call as “traitorous” or worse, “cowardice,” while those on the left, including some 200+ Democratic representatives, simply don’t want to face up to the fact that both the American public (55-60% according to the latest polls) and the Iraqi representatives at the Cairo conference last night, have called for us to leave, immediately. But I sense a weather change here.

We might actually have turned the corner in the debate about our presence in Iraq. Instead of bushwa about “supporting the troops,” “staying the course,” etc., we may well have started an actual, rational public debate about real issues, like how to get the troops home without too much egg on our collective face and Iraq in chaos.

Many, including the redoubtable Juan Cole, have voiced concerns that our withdrawal would have as an immediate result a civil war in Iraq. Cole argues that while we might characterize the present insurgency’s attacks on the militias, police and Iraqi military as civil war, that’s not what he means by civil war. He’s talking about set-piece battles, possibly tank warfare, and the participation of Turkey, Iran, et al. Personally, I think that’s a little over the top, but Cole had also proposed a withdrawal plan back in August not unlike Kerry’s recent one. Cole’s seems reasonable to me – as did Kerry’s - because he realistically admits that there will continue to be insurgency and counter-insurgency attacks in the major cities, which he sees – rightly so – as an Iraqi civilian police problem, and not our concern. Hear, hear.

Still to be debated - or at the very least, dragged out into the light of day - is the National Security Strategy. You know, that plan to occupy the Middle East until doomsday or the oil runs out, whichever comes first. This is the plan to which Clinton, Biden, Lieberman and others (Republicans and Democrats) are paid-up subscribers.
This is a very troubling item, as while it can be reasonably argued that we need to protect our access to oil with global troop deployment - particularly Middle East oil - in order to maintain the Western Way of Lifestyle and help the rest of the world come up to some decent standard of living, etc., we also need somehow to throttle back OPEC’s artificially high crude oil prices to avert a potential world depression. Unfortunately, this involves the industrial-military-petroleum-Halliburton matrix of the House of Saud, the Bush family fortune, NAFTA, al-Queda, French rioting, Chinese/Wal-Mart commercial dominance and mad bombers. Quite a mess, and a situation not well-served by monotonously chanting the Support Our Troops mantra, or calling the other sons of Abraham “Islamo-fascists,” an oxymoron if there ever was one.

The NSS leaves untouched any mention at all of alternative energy source development, even though this is a national security priority, the neglect of which is evidenced by the war in Iraq, economic riots in Europe, terrorism, as well as growing global warming and its attendant consequences.

Here’s how it breaks down: the NSS is based on the assumption that petroleum is the single source of energy economically feasible for the foreseeable future. Therefore we must protect our access to petroleum. OPEC controls the production quotas of crude, led by Saudi Arabia, which affects oil prices by virtue of its being the world's largest supplier of sweet crude. The House of Saud maintains its precarious rule of Saudi Arabia – and its millions of Israeli-displaced Palestinians - by its military and secret police, which are materially supplied by the US, funded by its OPEC income, and despised by bin Laden, a son of the desert himself. The Bush family has been in bed with the House of Saud for generations, so if the House of Saud falls, so does the House of Bush, therefore Bush has no interest in helping depose the House of Saud. OK so far?

An American-dominated Iraq will be pressured to decline to join OPEC, thereby keeping its oil fields open to Shell, ExxonMobile, et al. as joint partners, lowering the price of crude. This is actually what the oil companies would prefer, as oil company CEOs are really all nice guys, as well as being upstanding citizens and parents. But in the long run, the oil companies couldn’t care less whether OPEC or independent companies are the suppliers; they earn outrageous profits in any case. However, as long as the Middle East is unstable, stable oil extraction is iffy, and the oil companies stand to lose potential billions. OPEC, while expensive, guarantees stable production at the potential cost of a world depression, due soon at this rate.

Enter Osama bin Laden, who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the oil; he just wants the House of Saud to fall, the Palestinians out of Saudi Arabia and back in Palestine, and the Israelis to stop terrorizing the Middle East. And, oh by the way, as long as we prop up Israel, he’s going to suicide-bomb us, too.

On the other hand, an independent Iraq might just decide to join OPEC, and presto, sky-high oil prices until we go back into the Middle East in about eight to ten years time, but now with about 5 million real coalition troops, including NATO, Russia and probably China to avert the next Great Depression. Colonel Larry Wilkerson said so.

Now, remove BushCo and the Saudi connection breaks, Shiia Muslims control the oil fields, and we still have a mess on our hands until we develop alternative sources of energy.

All because the Bush family likes desert dudes who own oil wells, and Junior won’t admit the weather is getting hotter.

Speaking of things that are not what they appear to be: while it is true that the folks in the Netherlands (Holland) seem to enjoy a free-wheeling lifestyle – minimal drug enforcement, red light districts, draft-dodging immigrants, gay marriage, etc. – it is well to bear in mind that the majority stockholder in the Royal Dutch Shell company is the über-rich House of Orange, Holland’s ruling king and queen and family. What I’m saying here is that you might want to look on Holland as a model of what a reasonably prosperous society looks like when the filthy rich control the world: they don’t give a poop what the serfs do as long as they get the big quarterly returns. Meditate on that for awhile.