Kurt Vonnegut saw this coming in 1965:

[ehrnst]

“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.”

~ Kurt Vonnegut, 1965 (God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)

[Scuba]

1. Still grateful to my college literature teacher for turning me on to Kurt in 1967.

[randr]

2. Always thought this way one of Mr. Vonnegut's most important books-nc

[bemildred]

3. A seminal work that gets too little attention.

Masterful in it's ridicule of our wealthy "elites".

[Jim__]

4. Kurt Vonnegut saw a lot of things.

It's too bad the US ignores its artists.

[snagglepuss]

5. Thanks for posting. I've never read it but now will.

[Gregorian]

6. He's also one of the very few who talked about overpopulation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_the_Monkey_House_%28short_story%29

[Bluenorthwest]

7. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine

The full title of that great work.

[LiberalEsto]

8. Player Piano, one of his earlier books

describes a United States where almost nobody has a job except a ruling cabal of high-ranking corporate PhDs. The average person is unemployed and useless, or doing basic trash collection and street cleaning work.
Machines do everything else. The president of the U.S. is a telegenic moron who says what he's told to.

I can see us headed in this direction unless we can restrict corporate power.

[GiveMeFreedom]

9. Hmm?

The president of the U.S. is a telegenic moron who says what he's told to.

Speaking of Raygun and Prince Bush?

[LiberalEsto]

11. Oh, absolutely.

They are prime examples.

I hope Vonnegut is wrong in his prediction of a nation of unemployed where all work is done by computers and robots. But I'm afraid we're headed in that direction.

[pamela]

10. I'm reading that now.

I swear I almost posted that exact same quote.

[hifiguy]

12. I am so glad that when I discovered "grownup" books

at the age of 14-15 the first authors I encountered were Vonnegut, Orwell and Bradbury. I pity the poor kids who first found, and trudged through, Ayn Rand.