Just Three Economic Choices Left

Now that the parasitic rich and their minions in Congress have dropped the pretense of caring about workers, the poor or any semblance of an equitable society, their options are clear. 

 

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

The problem for the Right is that the middle classes of industrialized nations are not going to be dragged into a hell pit of full-time labor that still doesn't put food, shelter, education and healthcare on the table. Decent food, shelter, education and healthcare will still be available one way or another, because these things are human rights. They're certainly not going to be taken away while corporations and the wealthy are living higher on the hog than ever. Most people understand that teachers provide more value to society than Wall Street traders do; we're willing to watch the Wall Street trader make ten times as much money only so long as the teacher can still pay their bills.

So the passive income crowd and their conservative and third-way backers have basically three choices as the number of jobs dwindles and wages continue to decrease:

1) Create a society of the wealthy few with good jobs, the poor many with bad or no jobs, and a hefty basic income to make up for it, similar to wealthy petro-socialist states in the Middle East;

2) Reorient the economy toward providing everyone decent employment with a decent wage, removing the incentive from the asset class to kill jobs in order to leverage more profit; or

3) Hope that the middle class accepts its impoverishment under the thumb of a security state designed to protect the interests of the asset class, rather than engaging in violent and bloody revolution.

If I were wealthy I probably wouldn't take the third bet. It would be dangerous, and history says I would probably lose. But history also suggests that's exactly what David Koch, Glenn Reynolds and Mickey Kaus will attempt to do. I can't say I wish them good luck, because I don't.