The Real Terrorism:
Hegemony Of The World
Through Hunger, Injustice,
Artificial Poverty
And Corruption
(M. Javed Naseem)
The Bible says:
“Rich people who see a brother or sister in need,
yet close their hearts against them, cannot claim
that they love God.” – (1-John 3:17)
“Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need
clothes and don’t have enough to eat. What good
is there in your saying to them, ‘God bless you!
Keep warm and eat well!’, if you don’t give them
the necessities of life?” – (James 2:15-16)
“Learn to do right. See that justice is done — help
those who are oppressed, give orphans their rights,
and defend widows.” – (Isaiah 1:17)
There cannot be peace without justice! Social justice is the core of any economic system in a society that enjoys peace and prosperity. The world has seen the Free Market Economy (the Capitalism) as well as the Socialism (or Communism). And they have both failed mankind miserably. One is accused of too much freedom while the other is criticized for too much control. There is a limit to everything and there is no such thing as ‘total’ freedom. The lines are drawn and laws are made to enforce those lines or limits. Both economic systems (Capitalism and Communism) looked good on paper (in theory) but both brought crisis after crisis for the lower and middle classes. Only the rich could benefit from them and became richer; the millionaires became the billionaires and they still want more. There is no end to it. Their greed knows no bounds.
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There are 36 million millionaires
in the world today and their number
is expected to grow to 44 million
by the year 2022.
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The Real Terrorists:
The Unique Brand of .01% Terror:
Making a Game of Tax Avoidance While 2,500,000 Children Experience Homelessness.
Wealth
ownership is not contemptible if the owners of that wealth accept
their responsibility to the society that makes their great fortunes
possible. But instead of paying taxes, the wealthiest Americans have
formed an “income defense industry” to shelter their riches,
with, according to the New
York Times, “a
high-priced phalanx of lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and
anti-tax activists who exploit and defend a dizzying array of tax
maneuvers, virtually none of them available to taxpayers of more
modest means.”
The .01% go about their self-serving tax
avoidance while 2.5
million children experience homelessness every year. The
corporations of the .01% hoard hundreds
of billions overseas while nearly two-thirds
of American families don’t have enough money to replace a broken
furnace.
This is real terror, facing life without shelter and warmth and sustenance, without a semblance of security for even one day in the future. It is terror caused in good part by the 16,000 people who don’t feel it’s necessary to pay for the benefits heaped upon them by a perversely unequal society.
(Coutesy: https://wakeup-world.com/2016/03/04/the-real-terrorists-the-01-percent/)
Just 5 Men Own Almost as Much Wealth
as Half the World’s PopulationBy: Paul Buchheit (Guest writer for Wake Up World)
A couple of years ago it was 8 men, then down to 6, and now it’s around 5.
The super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues to grow. An analysis of 2016 data found that the poorest five deciles of the world population own about $410 billion in total wealth. As of June 2017, the world’s richest five men owned over $400 billion in wealth. Thus, on average, each man owns nearly as much as 750 million people.
Why Do We Let a Few People Shift Great Portions of the World’s Wealth to Themselves?
Most of the world’s super-super-rich are Americans. We the American people created the Internet, developed and funded Artificial Intelligence, and built a massive transportation infrastructure, yet we let just a few individuals take almost all the credit, along with hundreds of billions of dollars.
Children are no longer living better than their parents did. In the eight years since the recession the Wilshire Total Market valuation has more than TRIPLED, rising from a little over $8 trillion to nearly $25 trillion. The great majority of it has gone to the very richest Americans.
In 2016 alone, the richest 1% effectively shifted nearly $4 trillion in wealth away from the rest of the nation to themselves, with nearly half of the wealth transfer ($1.94 trillion) coming from the nation’s poorest 90% — the middle and lower classes. That’s over $17,000 in housing and savings per lower-to-middle-class household lost to the super-rich!
A meritocracy? Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos have done little that wouldn’t have happened anyway. ALL modern U.S. technology started with — and to a great extent, continues with — our tax dollars, our research institutes and our subsidies to corporations.
Why Do We Let Unqualified Rich People Tell Us How To Live? Especially Bill Gates!
In 1975, at the age of 20, Bill Gates founded Microsoft with high school buddy Paul Allen. At the time Gary Kildall’s CP/M operating system was the industry standard. Even Gates’ company used it. But Kildall was an innovator, not a businessman, and when IBM came calling for an OS for the new IBM PC, his delays drove the big mainframe company to Gates. Even though the newly established Microsoft company couldn’t fill IBM’s needs, Gates and Allen saw an opportunity, and so they hurriedly bought the rights to another local company’s OS — which was based on Kildall’s CP/M system. Kildall wanted to sue, but intellectual property law for software had not yet been established.
Kildall was a maker who got taken.
So Bill Gates took from others to become the richest man in the world. And now, because of his great wealth and the meritocracy myth, many people look to him for solutions in vital areas of human need, such as education and global food production.
— Gates on Education: He has promoted galvanic skin response monitors to measure the biological reactions of students, and the videotaping of teachers to evaluate their performances. About schools he said, “The best results have come in cities where the mayor is in charge of the school system. So you have one executive, and the school board isn’t as powerful.”
— Gates on Africa: With investments in or deals with Monsanto, Cargill, and Merck, Gates has demonstrated his preference for corporate control over poor countries deemed unable to help themselves. But no problem — according to Gates, “By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world.”
Warren Buffett: Demanding To Be Taxed at a Higher Rate (As Long As His Own Company Doesn’t Have To Pay)
Warren Buffett has advocated forhigher taxes on the rich and a reasonable estate tax. But his company Berkshire Hathaway has used “hypothetical amounts” to ‘pay’ its taxes while actually deferring $77 billion in real taxes.
Jeff Bezos: $50 Billion in Less Than Two Years, and Fighting Taxes All the Way
Since the end of 2015 Jeff Bezos has accumulated enough wealth to cover the entire $50 billion U.S. housing budget, which serves five million Americans. Bezos, who has profited greatly from the Internet and the infrastructure built up over many years by many people with many of our tax dollars, has used tax havens and high-priced lobbyists to avoid the taxes owed by his company.
Mark Zuckerberg (6th Richest in World, 4th Richest in America)
While Zuckerberg was developing his version of social networking at Harvard, Columbia University students Adam Goldberg and Wayne Ting built a system called Campus Network, which was much more sophisticated than the early versions of Facebook. But Zuckerberg had the Harvard name and better financial support. It was also alleged that Zuckerberg hacked into competitors’ computers to compromise user data.
Now with his billions he has created a ‘charitable’ foundation, which in reality is a tax-exempt limited liability company, leaving him free to make political donations or sell his holdings, all without paying taxes. Everything has fallen into place for young Zuckerberg. Nothing left for him to do but run for President.
The False Promise of Philanthropy
Many super-rich individuals have pledged the majority of their fortunes to philanthropic causes. That’s very generous — if they keep their promises. But that’s not really the point.
American billionaires all made their money because of the research and innovation and infrastructure that make up the foundation of our modern technologies. They have taken credit, along with their massive fortunes, for successes that derive from society rather than from a few individuals. It should not be any one person’s decision about the proper use of that wealth. Instead a significant portion of annual national wealth gains should be promised to education, housing, health research, and infrastructure. That is what Americans and their parents and grandparents have earned after a half-century of hard work and productivity.
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