In a response to Booman’s recent post Bad Economic News, MNPundit wrote:
As I said before, the problem is for the human race to maintain our current lifestyle, humanity must sell more than humanity can buy.
There is no way out of that that doesn’t lead to reducing standards of living.
You’ve got that one right, MNPundit!!!
And there is only one segment of the world population that can…and must…do that.
It’s us, baby.
It’s us.
Walt Kelly knew this 38 years ago.
Earth Day, 1971.
Ol’ Walt knew. Now we have to get it together.
Read on if you are so inclined.
We must lean down, and we must start doing so today.
America first, Western Europe next, much of the the Pacific Rim carrying up the rear.
Only…we cannot do this precipitously, because doing so would destabilize the world economy on a disastrous level. It’s got to be slow and steady. This is our new president’s REAL Job One. (Our lean new president…didja notice? And y’all thought that only his race was symbolic? He doesn’t go to the gym twice a day to stay dark, babies. Nope. He knows his symbolic place at all times. That’s what got him where he is today. Bet on it.) ) All the rest of his action…that’s tactics. Strategy? We’ve got to back offa the world feedtrough, and we have to do it now, before it’s too late.
This process is already in place, and it is market forces that are driving it. Food is more expensive; fuel fluctuates but is always headed up; consumer goods are more expensive; credit is (Thank God!!!) harder to get…the works.
Studies were done only last year by the U.N. that indicate the seriousness of this problem.
Read it and weep. (Weep if you still have not totally mortgaged your conscience, of course. Otherwise, feel free to get angry and defensive. Fatmerica is SO over, and so are you if you don’t get your shit together.)
Pioneering Study Shows Richest Two Percent Own Half World Wealth
The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth according to a path-breaking study released today by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER).
The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.
The research finds that assets of $2,200 per adult placed a household in the top half of the world wealth distribution in the year 2000. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world required $61,000 in assets, and more than $500,000 was needed to belong to the richest 1%, a group which — with 37 million members worldwide — is far from an exclusive club.
—snip—
Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe, and high income Asia-Pacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90% of total world wealth. (Figure 2: Regional Wealth Shares)
Although North America has only 6% of the world adult population, it accounts for 34% of household wealth. Europe and high income Asia-Pacific countries also own disproportionate amounts of wealth. In contrast, the overall share of wealth owned by people in Africa, China, India, and other lower income countries in Asia is considerably less than their population share, sometimes by a factor of more than ten. (Figure 3: Population and Wealth Shares by Region)
—snip—
Where do the world’s wealthy live?
According to the study, almost all of the world’s richest individuals live in North America, Europe, and rich Asia-Pacific countries. Each of these groups of countries contribute about one third of the members of the world’s wealthiest 10%. (Figure 4: Regional Composition of Global Wealth Distribution)
China occupies much of the middle third of the global wealth distribution, while India, Africa, and low-income Asian countries dominate the bottom third.
—snip—
A small number of countries account for most of the wealthiest 10% in the world. One-quarter are Americans and another 20% are Japanese. (Figure 5: Percentage Membership of Wealthiest 10%)
These two countries feature even more strongly among the richest 1% of individuals in the world, with 37% residing in the USA and 27% in Japan. (Figure 6: Percentage Membership of Wealthiest 1%)
According to Anthony Shorrocks, a country’s representation in the rich person’s club depends on three factors: the size of the population, average wealth, and wealth inequality.
`The USA and Japan stand out’, he says, `because they have large populations and high average wealth. Although Switzerland and Luxembourg have high average wealth, their populations are small. China on the other hand fails to feature strongly among the super-rich because average wealth is modest and wealth is evenly spread by international standards. However, China is already likely to have more wealthy residents than our data reveals for the year 2000, and membership of the super-rich seems set to rise fast in the next decade.’
—snip
Only redistribution can change this situation, and until some sort of organic redistrubution of the wealth of this world occurs the ongoing wars and resistances of which the Vietnam and Iraq conflicts were only the opening salvoes will continue. The nationalist movements in South America will be echoed eventually in Africa, and the Islamic fundamentalist movements…by far the most reactionary of such events and thus the most dangerous…will also continue. As I have said so many times on these blogs…”Them injuns got repeatin’ rifles now, Clem!!!”
Nuclear repeatin’ rifles.
There is no way on earth that we can continue to bogart this joint.
Sorry, folks.
Get rid of your empty, middle class, bourgeois, advertising-driven aspirations and join the working class.
It’s nice down here. You buy what you can afford and it all works out.
Try it.
You’ll like it.
Sell your McMansions…or break them up into apartments, whichever best suits your needs…sell your suburban McMansions and move into respectable, mixed-race working class neighborhoods. Get rid of your fucking SUVs; walk, use bicycles, public trans or motorized transport that fits your real space and travel needs; stop eating empty, nutritionless crap that makes you fat and stupid and join the rest of the fucking human race.
And yeah…I mean you. Whoever the shoe fits.
You know who you are.
And if you do not know who you are, you are about to learn. That shoe that fits? The other shoes are gonna drop eventually, and they are going to land right on your lardassed lives until you either wise up or go down swilling.
Bet on that as well.
Thank you and good morning.
AG