The New Catch-Phrase is 'The New Gilded Age'

The Supreme Court just made another decision in favor of employers, rolling back worker protections that were borne of blood. As old as they are, the justices seem to have forgotten the coal mine wars. Oh, you never heard of the coal mine wars? This is where the term 'Redneck' originated.

• Supreme Court backs employers over workers in first of two major labor cases 
• We are proud to be 'rednecks'. It's time to reclaim that term 
• The Mine Wars (PBS: American Experience video)
• Trump’s National Labor Relations Board will be anti-labor 

Rent's going up, and so are evictions:

• Decatur evictions are double the statewide rate. Here's a map that shows where they happened. 
• Reframing Evictions as a National Crisis 

Now everyone is starting to talk about "The New Gilded Age."

• Lessons From the Gilded Age 
• A comparison of income inequality and working conditions of present day to the late nineteenth century. Support for the working class peaked and began declining with the Reagan administration, and deregulation is accelerating.
• 'The Alienist' Stars on How TNT's Drama Shines a Light on New York's ... 
• The cast of 'The Alienist' reflects on their roles in the setting of New York in the 1890's, and mention the "timeliness" of the story.
• Montana's Primary Tonight Could Be a Testament to the New Gilded ... 
• Esquire report on a carpetbagging east coast real estate developer who was able to run in the state because an old law protecting fair politics in the state was erased by the Supreme Court's Citizen United decision.
• In the second Gilded Age, the mansions get bigger, and the homeless ... 
• Karma reaches a five hundred million dollar home in the hills of Bel Air in the form of a wildfire started from a portable stove at a homeless encampment.
• America's Second Gilded Age: More class envy than class conflict 
• Nine specific events from present day and the past are presented as indicators of our current economic and social status. A surprise about a new project by the creator of Downton Abbey. 
• Wall Street Needs a New Tom Wolfe: John Micklethwait 
• A profile of Tom Wolfe who wrote about Wall Street, among other authors who wrote about our Gilded Ages.
• It's Billionaires at the Gate as Ultra-Rich Muscle In on Private Equity 
• Avarice is leaving millionaires in the dust of bankers drooling for the absurdly wealthy.
• Opinion: Blame tax breaks for loss of historic neighborhoods 
• 15 year tax abatements are giving developers enough time to raze historic homes, build new ones at an extreme tax discount, then flip the properties at the last minute before the tax abatement expires, leaving the new owners hold the bag.
• PACIFIC • These five companies own the future 
• The future of monopolies and price gouging.
• America's new aristocracy: the 9.9% and their delusion of hereditary ... 
• And introduction and summary of a much longer article in the Atlantic about The New Aristocracy.

The pressure is on. What and where the breaking point will be is anyone's guess.

Siege in the 21st Century

Venezuela is under siege by the few companies it came to depend on for many critical products. The aim is to force the people to revolt and replace the current leadership, because they attempted to nationalize and socialize their oil industry.

What companies do we depend on for most of our products?

• Cargill 
• Conagra 
• General Mills 
• Info Graphic of other corporate ownership of products 

Some suggest that these companies were behind the market manipulation that devastated small farms in the 1980's, so the corporations could snatch up their land and build huge factory farms. Luckily, Farm Aid put a stop to it and continues to help small farmers today.

• Become aware of your local food producers and sellers.

Evo Morales Defends Venezuela Against the Empire

The Establishment Versus The People

It appears the DNC and the RNC are united with each-other, against the people. Power To The People!

It sure looks like the Establishment has pulled a huge one. A complete political party sabotage to lock in the Establishment's power for decades to come may have happened before but we weren't taught about it in public school.

• Three Key States Turn Themselves SOLIDLY Blue As Trump Train Derails
• ANOTHER GOP Rep Won’t Support Trump: ‘I Don’t See How I Get There Anymore’ (VIDEO)
• WikiLeaks Exposes Hillary’s Stunning Connection to ISIS — Mainstream Media Blackout Ensues
• Donald Trump’s Tiff With Paul Ryan Symbolizes Growing Divisions in the GOP Over Corporate Power
• Democrats want reform — but court big money in the meantime
• Dr. Drew Pinsky Says Trump May Actually Be Mentally Ill — What Does That Say About His Supporters?
• The Propaganda War With Putin
• Donald Trump Doubles Down On 'Rigged Election' In Nutty WaPo Interview

The Servile Wars Are Coming Again

I'm sure the Corporate Oligarchs around the world are wondering about Spartacus right now. Especially under the influence of an unceasing flow of information about them via the Internet. There was no such thing during the three documented Servile Wars in Italy between 135 BC and 71 BC. I can't imagine what it would have been like for Rome if they had the Internet at that time.

It's the very essence of why no Roman Legion was allowed to be stationed in Rome itself. Did they teach you that in history? I would not be surprised if they didn't. The vast numbers of unemployed men, and now women are joining the military as a means of escape from starvation at home.

Unlike some countries where everyone must serve at least two years with an option to stay in the military, the United States is made up of highly patriotic multi-generational members, members who sought a way to get into college, members who saw no other means of employment, and those who were ordered to serve by a judge, and don't tell me that's not true because I met those types when I served.

The point is the income disparity in the U.S. is growing so large that the oligarchs soon will not be able hide anymore, and the economic impact is already reverberating throughout the military, because many military families are finding themselves going to food banks and qualifying for government aid in addition to the meager benefits they have as spouses and children of military service members. The deplorable conditions of veteran services and hospitals is no longer news isolated away from active duty members.

The U.S. Intelligence community is adding fuel to the fire with domestic spying scandals, the Justice Department is adding fuel to the fire as a thug for the Internal Revenue Service which itself is scandalized by targeting political groups. Local law enforcement is regularly violating the U.S. Constitutional rights of citizens with impunity and the State Governors have organized into a separate clandestine national organization intent on breaking unions and undermining the authority of the U.S. House of Representatives in a bid for power. All financed by a handful of corporate oligarchs.

Military service members are seeing all of this. The Oligarchs are feeling the need to cull the disgruntled troops. Syria at this moment is an example of how the oligarchs can run a proxy war to thin out the combatants from a population, leaving behind a few troublemakers, but not need to worry for at least a couple of generations before they come back for revenge.

I don't know what's going to happen between the U.S. Russia, and China, but I can tell you the "leaders" won't mind an all-out war between all the troops from all sides if it diminishes the threat of a global revolution.

This is how the Arab Spring is being tamped down, by starting civil wars and fomenting sectarian violence, being deliberately shoddy at rigging elections to anger the populations, and injecting agent provocateurs with chemical weapons.

How much longer can we wait? Protesting is no longer effective in a rigged political system.

Fake Democracy Imploding the United States

In a democracy the majority of the people elect whom they want to make policy changes. The majority then makes those policy changes. If the majority of the people decide later that they made a mistake they hold elections to change the course of policy. That's what elections are for.

If people who voted for the losing side are proven right by the mistakes of the winning side, then the people will shift to their side and they will win the next election.

If people who voted for the winning side are proven right by the success of the winning side, then the people from the losing side must accept that they are wrong and participate in the successful outcome of correct policy decisions.

Why the U.S. is misrepresented as a democratic republic.

1. Most voters are conditioned to make their voting decision on the emotional pandering and empty promises of politicians. They don't think (period).

2. There are too many loopholes that allow policy gridlock and subterfuge by the losing side. The winning side is never allowed to prove the effectiveness of their proposals.

3. Most House of Representative home-districts are gerrymandered, creating Fiefdoms or miniature feudal states that include multi-generational dynasties of bureaucrats across the entire spectrum of federal, state, county and municipal, enriching themselves. This guarantees continued blocking of policy changes.

It's all smoke and mirrors anymore. The House of Representatives is full of Republican trouble-makers who are not willing to give Democrats a chance to test their policy ideas, because the Republicans know they are wrong. All they can do is use obstruction and deception to block democrats.

Republicans had their shot during the Bush Administration and instead of implementing successful public policies, they padded the Supreme Court in an attempt to cement their power, started a fake war with Iraq, And began to distort democracy into a theocratic plutocracy.

The mid-term elections of 2014 must usher out the door forever, the Republican party, or the United States will implode.

The looming Fiscal Cliff

What is the Fiscal Cliff? It's a future radical policy change in the U.S. federal  government that will take place automatically, potentially sending the economy back into a recession that will reverberate around the world.

Chaos may ensue, creating violent upheavals in all major urban centers where the largest federal, state and municipal employees will become unemployed due to the loss of Federal grants and other locally distributed federal discretionary spending.

The beneficiaries of money from the Greek government have already proved the consequences of these types of decisions. The Greeks are raging in Athens over their new austerity. But first, the private sector will feel the damage.

December 31, 2012 will ring in the new year with expiration of the Bush era Tax Cuts for the wealthy. The two percent "Payroll Social Security Tax Holiday" for employees will also expire. This may show up in the first paycheck of the new year. Employers as well as politically appointed upper-level bureaucrats will experience minor grumbling from the workers, however, upper echelon people probably should consider saving their vacation and sick time for shortly thereafter.

Also expiring will be the Research and Experimentation tax credit, also known as the R&D Tax Credit, which according to Wikipedia has already expired as of December 31, 2011, but the Council on  Foreign Relations (CFR) states this will not expire until December 31, 2012. According to Wikipedia, the magnitude of this tax credit in 2005 was $6.6 Billion, claimed by 17,700 corporations.

There may be a massive sell-off of shares in companies supported by the R&D credit in advance of its expiration.

Are you covered by Medicare? If your doctor's medical practice has a high percentage of patients who are on Medicare, your doctor's income from Medicare will be reduced by 30% According to the CFR. Will your doctor be able to maintain his practice without announcing that he can no longer have you as a patient?

Unemployed? Unemployment benefits will expire at years end as well. I think this also means that support systems for unemployed people receiving these benefits will also be affected. The anticipation of this event will have an impact on the Christmas holiday in 2012, if the unemployed haven't forgotten yet. There will be a huge reduction in spending on non-essentials which will also impact sales tax revenues for state and local governments.

The ranks of Anonymous and Occupy movements will swell to numbers unmanageable by the local and state police, but the military and national guard have been exercising in simulated urban environments that coincidentally resemble western architecture. There are many empty state prisons with factory-capable facilities for laborers who will eventually compete and overwhelm the private sector labor force, driving down wages in the United States. The U.S. having the most prisoners of every country in the world has the potential to also have the cheapest workers.

Thanksgiving is on Thursday, November 22, 2012. Black Friday of 2012 may be unlike any we have seen in history. The unemployed will be anticipating loss of benefits, grandparents on Medicare will be anticipating losing their doctors, employees will be anticipating a payroll tax-hike, entrepreneurs will be anticipating a lack of federal grant money and a tax hit that was once shielded by research and development of new products.

The final day of the one thousand three hundred year old ancient Mayan calendar is Friday, December 21, 2012. You would be wise to save up and plan a huge party, hunker in your bunker, or haven on Cayman.