The Oil Drum

173 comments on DrumBeat: May 3, 2007

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writerman on May 3, 2007 - 3:32pm

Personally I think this is too pesemistic a view. I don't think the government is particularly representative of the people at all. Rather Bush and his friends really represent the classs interests of about 1% of the population, well let's be generous and call it 5%. The fabulously weatlhy and powerful elite that controls well over 50% of the wealth of the United States.

These people also own, in a literal sense, the mass media. So their particulur view of the world, almost automatically becomes our view of the world.

For the last twenty odd years a "class-war" has been raging in the United States, where the rich grab more and more from almost everyone else and remove themselves increasingly from the sphere where most Americans live and work. Once borrowing becomes more difficult and the debt bubble bursts, the true extent of the massive re-distribution of wealth to the rich, will become startlingly apparent to all but the most obtuse.

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Seadragon on May 3, 2007 - 3:47pm

It amuses me to do so, but I can hold these two views in my mind at the same time; they don't seem all that opposed to each other. In fact, I believe there are major differences between nations in how they approach these issues (or, whether they acknowledge them at all, in the case of the US), and these differences reflect what one might call a "nation's culture." Do the people of the US have steeper discount rates than those of Sweden? Because they're sure acting like it.