"The King's Head"
That government is best... which is occasionally decapitated.
by Bill Bonner
"The best government is a monarchy…with an occasional beheading."
~ Voltaire
Baltimore, Maryland - "Yes, Karl Marx was right about one thing. There’s a difference between people who work on the assembly lines and the people who own them. About $20 million of difference, per family. That’s the 21st century gap between what the average non-asset owner gained from his wages and what the average member of the asset-owning elite 1% gained. Our friend, David Stockman clarifies:
"Since money-printing went into permanent high gear after the dotcom crash in 2000, the top 1% of households have gained $20 million each in inflation-adjusted net worth. Likewise, the top 0.1% or 131,000 households at the tippy top of the economic ladder have gained $88 million each in inflation-adjusted net worth.
During the last 22 years the median real annual wage, as tracked by Social Security payroll tax records, has risen by only 14.5% or just $235 per annum. And, no, we didn’t omit any zeros from that figure. These piddling gains amount to just $4.50 per week on average.
These annual inflation-adjusted gains in the median wage compare to real net worth gains of nearly $1 million and $4 million per annum for the top 1% and top 0.1%, respectively. In relative terms, these annual wealth gains for the top 1% were 4,250X larger than the median real wage gain and 17,000X larger for the top 0.1%."
We, the Rabble: Pity the “People’… the non-deciders…the middle class… hoi polloi…the majority…the voters! They are like hungry mice waiting for crumbs to fall from the table. But ours is not a whine about ‘inequality.’ We take it for granted that all people are not created equal. Some are leaders. Most are followers. Some are thinkers; most leave the thinking to others. Inequality is inevitable…undeniable…part of the ‘way we are;’ we sort ourselves into teams, tribes, classes, castes, sects, clubs, nations and races. Some become members of the ‘upper’ class of deciders and influencers. Others, mostly do what they are told.
The elites – whether by conquest or ballot box – set themselves up as government…and use their power to rip everyone else off. We are exaggerating, of course. There’s always more to the story. And the ‘more’ here is that the elites are also very useful. They’re responsible for the administration of justice…for much of our science…some of our learning and great breakthroughs of capitalism…for making the trains run on time…keeping the airplanes from falling from the sky…and for much of the output that makes our modern lives more agreeable.
A Government of Laws: But over time, the deciders get more and more power. Power leads to corruption. That’s why the American Constitution was not meant to give them power, but to keep them in check. It expressly limits the power of government to certain things. Of the rest, it says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people, respectively.” The idea was to prevent Washington from getting too big for its britches. This is also why Jefferson remarked that we may need a revolution every 10 years or so. “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion,” he said.
Closer to our own time, Dwight Eisenhower warned, specifically, against the elite that he knew best: "We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
All that was foreseen – by Jefferson, Voltaire and Eisenhower – has now come to pass. And now, a revolt of the masses is not only unavoidable; it’s necessary. Kings are fine. But you need to chop their heads off from time to time. And it falls to the young and the outsiders to do the job.
A Time for Change: In the US, RFK, Jr. is the frontrunner among the under 45. The Rolling Stone reports: "Robert Kennedy Jr. is polling ahead of President Joe Biden, and former President Donald Trump among voters under the age of 45 in key battleground states, according to a new poll from Sienna College and The New York Times.
The findings in the poll reflect another recent study conducted by Quinnipiac University, which surveyed 1,610 self-identified registered voters. The poll found Kennedy to be the leading candidate for respondents between the age of 18-36, securing 38 percent of the demographic compared to Biden (32 percent) and Trump (27 percent)."
Not surprisingly, the young voters want a change. They turn neither to the Left nor to the Right… They know the game is rigged against them; they know, too, that both Republicans and Democrats are in on it. So, they turn to upstarts, unknowns…and mavericks.
Naturally, too, the mainstream press and politicians try to discredit the reformers as ‘kooky,’ ‘far right’, and ‘extremist.’ Very little of what is written about RFK, Jr. or Milei, for example, looks any deeper. And it is quite true that the outsiders have skeletons in their closets and some weird ideas. But what would you expect? They would have to be half-crazy to challenge the political bosses. The danger is high (Donald Trump faces 91 charges in 4 indictments)…and the chance of real success is slim (even if you win the White House…you still have the courts, the press, the bureaucracy, the Deep State, the universities…and Congress itself…against you) .
The promise of democracy is that (eventually) the masses will wake up and ‘throw the bums out.’ But both Democrats and Republicans, and all the Powers-that-Be, are desperate to keep the bums right where they are. More to come..."
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