If you want to really understand what's happening see; http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/ We in the West have never had real freedom be it economic or at the polls.

Dr Paul Craig Roberts was the assistant secretary to the US Treasury during the Reagan years.

Sounds good: we need to keep the idol of economy in check, to have a real life instead of this rat-race of going after material things - so if inequality stops economic growth, then we need more of it!

Really, who cares whether money concentrates in the hands of a few wealthy individuals or in the hands of government: for us, ordinary people, they are one and the same - let them all choke on their wealth, nor do we need democracy so we could (in theory) have a part in the decision-making of what government does with its wealth. You both - take your money and go, just go away and leave us alone!

Stalin is our father, Russia is our mother - may we all be orphans!

"George W Bush is our father. The U.S. is our mother. May we never be born!"

Yuyutsu, I loved your comment. As usual, you shine a light into the dark places where the moronic lowlife plot and plan.

Cheers.

In the UK almost one in 60 people are now having to use food banks to avoid starvation and malnutrition - an increase of over 160% in just 12 months. This has been directly attributed to the increasingly punitive assaults by the Cameron government on the welfare system and British working class.

Hockey, Abbott and co. have been teething at the bit to get their chance to emulate Cameron's war on the British poor, who have been gradually ground into the dirt by the pathological neoliberal belief system that has dominated the global economy of the last 30 years. Hockey, Abbott and co. are all ideological worshippers of Cameron's same 'big society' philosophy.

This ideology has nothing whatever to do with real economics - it's entirely driven by the self-interest of the rich and privileged.

Who cares if too much wealth concentrates in too few hands?
Well given our real wealth has real finite limits, those of us receiving less of it in real terms, for a growing production output. Real wealth has very real very finite limits.
Yes we did go through a period of unprecedented prosperity, just after the war, and because we continued to follow Keynesian economic principles and the gold standard!
Only to see that prosperity and and more real equity, wound back by some very unintelligent people, who thought their power was being diminished or somehow eroded by more genuine equality.
When ideology replaces reason and verifiable facts, this is what we get!
I mean, we may well be selling millions more newspapers, but far less advertising!
Could that possibly have anything to do with more an more of our finite wealth concentrating in fewer and fewer hands?
The very immutable cause and effect reason, we had the Great depression!
In recent years, we've bought our economic growth with increasing private, foreign, domestic and govt debt.
That model is patently unsustainable as is simply and stupidly, concentrating more and more of our finite wealth in fewer and fewer hands!
Money does the most economic growth work, when it passes through many hands, and does nothing whatsoever, hoarded in company vaults etc.
Who cares if money concentrates in too few hands, are the many corporations and others, who are facing bankruptcy, due to economic downturns, none more so than an export dependent Russia!
Who cares, [thanks to the immutable law of cause and effect,] those who must now face the new Great depression caused by the very phenomena outlined, and indeed, virtually proven by 200 years of irrefutable hard data!
And given we follow the mindless and or are lead by the blind, we will visit another great depression, replete with a huge unemployed poor, tent cities, rust belts and soup kitchens!
Oh, we have those already?
Well if that isn't the proof of the pudding, I'd like to know what is?
Rhrosty.

People like Rhrosty have very limited ideas about wealth. Money is not wealth. The knowledge and skills of people are wealth and a few people have used the counterfeiting of our money to steal that wealth.

They now call it Quantitative Easing and is used the toxic derivative market to achieve their evil ends.

With all the money printing our economies have not improved. There are 50 million people on food stamps in the USA and half are employed. The money printing has made the share market bubble bigger while the real economy shrinks.The situation in much of Europe and South America is worse.

This malaise is coming to Australia because we have the most over inflated house prices on the planet with no manufacturing and lots of debt.

Who cares if too much wealth concentrates in too few hands?
I do.

I care that these people can use their wealth to buy political influence to further increase their wealth at the expense of those of lesser means.

I care that public assets built up by previous generations can be plundered at will and put into the hands of these individuals to increase not only their wealth but their influence on our daily lives.

Likewise I care that they can bypass public interests in favor of commercial greed at the expense of the environment for future generations. Like the corporations they own, they have the ability to trash everything and then move on like locusts.

I care that future generations will live like serfs, serving their masters.

Capitalism is fine, as long as it is regulated and kept under public scrutiny. The Cult of the CEO and the GFC are what happens when it isn't.

Rhrosty and Arjay. Despite differences ,which I respect, you share basic understanding of the big issues , like "we now face the new Great Depression". I wish you would stop intimidating the less well informed, and turn OLO into a genuine forum of argument to dispel the ignorance you both deplore.

Wealth ? How to define wealth. You can have monetary wealth, a wealth of knowledge or in Australia's population's case a wealth of ignorance & apathy. How else would you describe the abundance of citizens within this population who literally are racing each other to bring this country to its knees.

Leslie, I'm intimidating no one. I just get frustrated at the ignorance and corruption which pervades our system.

We have not much time left.The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum had a message which predicted our economic demise. When you understand 'The Secret of Oz' by Bill Still, then freedom will be on your horizon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI

Not only the UK, it would appear, Killarney.

>>In the UK almost one in 60 people are now having to use food banks to avoid starvation and malnutrition - an increase of over 160% in just 12 months. This has been directly attributed to the increasingly punitive assaults by the Cameron government on the welfare system and British working class.<<

There is this to consider as well:

"One in 10 people suffers food poverty in Ireland, new figures have revealed... people in Donegal are among the worst hit, with one in nine unable to afford basic meals... 'Food poverty in Ireland today is part of a policy-made disaster'"

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/one-in-ten-people-suffers-food-poverty-in-ireland-1.1628724

Fortunately, they can always rely on some help from their neighbour in their times of need...

"President Higgins thanked our friends in the United Kingdom for their support during the economic crisis and said the country was deeply grateful".

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/state-visits/president-higgins-human-cost-of-financial-crisis-in-ireland-has-been-enormous-30172270.html

Makes your heart swell with pride, does it not.

Oh Arjay. Are you still beating on this tired old drum?

>>The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum had a message which predicted our economic demise.<<

It never made any sense to me, but I was too lazy to do anything about it. Fortunately, someone else has actually taken the trouble to dissect it and show beyond a shadow of doubt that it is all a load of old cobblers.

http://pragcap.com/debunking-the-biggest-scam-in-the-history-of-mankind

The fact is, Arjay, that the human mind is capable of deceiving itself in all sorts of ways. Here's one delightful example (there are many) that caught my eye recently, in which the object under scrutiny is the song "Telephone", by Lady Gaga:

"...this “deeper meaning” found in Gaga’s video relates to mind control, a covert practice used by the military, the CIA, religious cults and the Illuminati elite. It is used to program human beings to become mental slaves and to execute specific tasks."

http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusiness/the-hidden-meaning-of-lady-gagas-telephone/

This sentence is classic Arjay:

"The video basically says: America is ready to eat any poisonous crap the elite serves them, and that is accomplished through controlled puppets".

C'mon, 'Fess up. You wrote this, didn't you.