The Oligarchs Don't Understand That Economic Collapse Happens When They Get All the Money

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/danger-ahead-oligarchs-dont-understand-economic-collapse-happens-when-they-get-all-money




Let’s face it, if your opponent in Monopoly scoops up Boardwalk, Park Place, North Carolina Avenue, Pacific Avenue, both utilities, and the four railroads – that’s game over.

The other players, all of whom have been relegated to mere consumers instead of property owners, will slowly go bankrupt having to pay higher and higher costs for rent and services, utilities, and transportation. Eventually, one player has all the money and the losers have to clean up the board game and put it away.

But let’s assume the Monopoly game doesn’t end there. Let’s assume the broke players keep rolling the dice and keep going around the board. They essentially keep living their lives desperate and broke, using their credit cards and home lines of credit to stay in the game. Maybe they end up in jail. If they’re lucky, they land on Baltic Avenue and can afford to stay a night in the slums.

Meanwhile, the oligarch who owns everything can no longer collect any income. The other players can’t afford to pay rent, they can’t pay utilities, and they can’t ride on the railroads. Eventually, without consumers spending money, the Monopoly oligarch goes broke, too. His properties and businesses disappear and suddenly everyone is broke!

[Fridays Child]

1. k/r

[Petrushka]

2. Another revealing article . . .

. . . in the same vein:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-destruction-of-the-1-percent.html?_r=0

[wellspring]

19. Don't be ridiculous.

What could possibly go wrong if the rich get everything??????? Just because nobody has any money to buy what the rich produce is no reason to think anything could be amiss. Give everything to the rich. It'll all trickle down. Yeah. You'll get TRICKLED on........

[Petrushka]

31. . . .

[HiPointDem]

3. i think they understand full well and regularly tank the economy to collect all the monopoly

money and buy up the reading railroad on the cheap so they can restructure the board and restart the game -- only with more power in fewer hands than the last game.

some people go broke, but it's not usually the real oligarchs, just the wanna-bes.

[Live and Learn]

5. I'm afraid you are correct. The results are to obvious for

them to not have taken them in to consideration....unless they are just that greedy.

[BobbyBoring]

8. Correct!

We are right where we were during the "Gilded Age". The whole thing finally fell apart in the depression and thanks to FDR, we got the New Deal.

What are we going to get this time around???? The Grand bargain! I can't wait!

[Coyotl]

12. They only need to steal the money once every 20 years

The interest carries them over as we pay in on the stolen money they loan back to us.

[HiPointDem]

13. once per generation. after that, you get gun shy so not as easy to pump the big bubble.

[Starry Messenger]

18. So true.

I wonder if it is a conscious process though, or a mechanical one. Either way, it is insanity.

[Mothdust]

4. but after americans all jump out their windows

Like they're doing in Spain, these players can shift their game to China and India where they have billions of more lives they can play with to keep the game going for some time : (

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. The economy prospers when money is in motion. Oligarchies tie it up in yachts and real estate.

Investments in jewellry and artwork don't generate economic activity the way an investment in machine tools do.

This is why if you want to stimulate the economy with greatest effect, pump it into the poor and lower-middle classes.

[tclambert]

7. Exactly right.

The Republican economic theory has it upside down. The cite the administration of John F. Kennedy to bolster claims that tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy. (He cut the top tax rate from 91% to 70%.) They overlook that the bulk of Kennedy's tax cuts actually went to the middle class and the rich got essentially a token tax cut. Afterwards, the economy grew. Republicans turned it around in the Reagan and W. Bush administrations, giving token tax cuts to the middle class and the bulk to the rich. Did economic prosperity follow? No. Will Republicans pay attention to their own experimental data? No.

[Coyotl]

15. Minimum wage raise is best economic stimulus. Also, incentivized tax breaks only

If the "job creators" want a tax break, then they should create a job to get it. Tax breaks shoiukld follow on specific investments ion the economy, not just go to anyone on the basis of being rich.

[tclambert]

22. I believe that about the minimum wage stimulating the economy, too, but I couldn't find research to

support it. When I looked a few years back, I found to my horror that economists had never looked into the possibility. In their modeling, they ASSUMED that raising the minimum wage has exactly ZERO net effect on the economy. The question I wanted answered--what effect, positive or negative, does increasing the minimum wage have?--they ASSUMED out of existence, ASSUMING that the positives and negatives perfectly cancelled each other out.

All they wanted to look at was what effect minimum wage increases had on the job market. Assuming zero stimulus effect, turning it into a zero sum game, pretty much guaranteed that any increase would reduce the number of minimum wage jobs.

[jtuck004]

9. They don't need to know this. The people around them need to know this.

All the oligarchs need to know is how to make it up the steps and where to lay their head.

[hifiguy]

28. It's all fun and games until

the masses wise up and wheel out the tumbrels and the guillotine.

[jtuck004]

29. I was reading a bit about Marie Antoinette this evening, thinking

that you don't actually have to STEAL the diamonds, people just have to not like you.

And Wall Street has moved themselves steadily along that path...

[marmar]

10. k/r

[unblock]

11. yup. they need a solid base of people to stand on and climb all over.

[daybranch]

14. Wishful thinking

Yes, those rich people with their hundreds of paid economists are not as smart as you and I. Must be great for our egos but it is self defeating. They know exactly what they are doing here and all over the world. Right now they are using giants like Walmart to milk the wealth out of this country and reducing their taxes at the same time. There is a big world ou there and when they have taken out the biggest target, the proud middle class and reduced us to third world class peasants grovelling at their feet for a pitiable existence they will have gone a long way to their ultimate goal which is to control all of us for their egos.
Get over this rising tide raises all boats mentality as if simply understanding that would inform the oligarch and they would suddenly become the allies of the middle class and the poor. My dad told me about the rising tidewhen I was less than 4 years old and I accepted it as a good democrat for many many years but as a child I thought as a child and now as a man I must think as a man. I cannot hope ohers who destroy our way of life will just come to their senses. I must fight them for myself, my children, and for my country. The last thing I need is to be confused about my enemy. And they are our enemies when they would try to buy our elections, try to influence our government to give them powers over, try to destroy the institutions such associal security the people depend on to make us vulnerable to their control.
First and foremost lets start by admitting those trying to control the country if not smart themselves can certainly buy enough smarts at least to overshadow you and I . Lets get off the ego trip. Second lets put aside that notion, that they would be satisfied with raising all boats when in truth their satisfaction can only be assured by climbs to more and more power over the American citizenry and workers around the world. The measure of their satisfaction is how far removed the powerful are from us.
Next rather than concentrating on wealth accumulation, lets attack the mechanisms which let them accumulate more and more power which in turn serves to increase trhat wealth concentration. The wealth is not the target for destruction but the concentration of power must be destroyed.
Fair elections and equal weight to each vote are the key to saving this country. We must fight for fair districting and destroy voter suppression. but lets dispense with these ignorant notions of educating the powerful for our benefit. It is not to their benefit to share- get it??

[L0oniX]

24. 740 Park Ave. NY, NY ...where the war should be!

[HiPointDem]

30. +1. cracks me up when people talk about how stupid the rulers are. they don't want to share

& they don't care if they overcomplicate or otherwise fuck up your life.

i spent a lot of my life thinking politicians were looking out for the general welfare & oligarchs were just ordinary folks with special talents that brought them, like cream, to the top.

been years since i was that stupid though.

[ProfessorPlum]

16. That's a brilliant way to put it

I've been searching for a way to articulate this very idea and haven't found anything better than this. Thanks for the link.

[Shankapotomus]

17. And I remember as a kid

when I was winning at Monopoly the only way to continue playing was to make excuses for giving my opponents some of the money I had amassed and give them a break if they landed on my property. Strange game. The only way to play is not to win.

[reformist2]

20. I think the whole point of the game is to teach people that monopoly capitalism sucks! :)

[Shankapotomus]

21. And it does!

I know that's what I took away from it.

[L0oniX]

23. Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream. We've lost our country!

Same Monopoly example used in the movie.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/

http://www.itvs.org/films/park-avenue

[FogerRox]

25. This is quite true. Thank you xchrom for bringing this important point up

Last edited Wed Nov 14, 2012, 12:53 AM - Edit history (1)

Please google "US list of recessions" to get an idea of what happened before the New Deal. Low taxes on the uber wealthy create an unstable economic system.

KnR

[hifiguy]

26. The good thing about laissez faire capitalism is

that it is ultimately self-liquidating. The bad thing about it is that it kills off everybody else before it terminates the capitalist parasites.

Which is pretty much the story of parasites everywhere in nature. They kill the host before they die off.

[WinkyDink]

27. I like the game that ends with: "The Monopoly oligarch goes to the scaffold."

[datasuspect]

32. they'll get it when their silk ties become nooses

that crush their windpipes.