on Greece's required ''austerity measures'' it occurred to me they are never applied to the rich

[yurbud]

programs for the poor and middle class are cut and taxes on CONSUMERS are raised.

If you read THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, none of these austerity measures should come as a surprise, but they hardly seem like logical penalties or correctives for the problem.

Wouldn't it make more sense to penalize the investor class, the wealthy, banks, and transnational corporations that set up the shell game scams that caused the problem?

Wouldn't it make more sense to raise THEIR taxes, take away their passports, and seize the assets of those directly involved in setting up the debt scams, and essentially put them on probation so they are subject to random forensic audits, wiretaps, etc.

Essentially, what is done instead is the equivalent of punishing lynchings in the Jim Crow South by making blacks pay for the sheets, torches, and rope.

[Hannah Bell]

1. no, it wouldn't make more sense. "investors"are in power, why would they sanction themselves?

[Rex]

2. The rich don't live in the same world as the working class

that is why they hate the middle class and love the poor ignorant fella that will work 60 hours a week for peanuts. Those with the money make the rules.

[yurbud]

3. they shit, we wipe

[county worker]

4. Because they will go GALT on us! That's what some freeper told me.

It's like this. Only the rich are productive and everyone else needs them to survive. So if you punish the rich they will turn on the rest of us and we will have nothing.

But in other societies the reality is that when wealth is spread more evenly everyone survives even the rich.

[blindpig]

5. One more time...

[KamaAina]

6. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.

:eyes:

[ZeitgeistObserver]

7. Depends on who you're calling rich.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all