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“Quite frankly, people are going to die,” says Bonnie Castillo of the California Nurses Association. “The vulnerable, the sick, children, the elderly, are all going to have the rug pulled out from under them.” [link here]

Here's a second quote, this one being words of wisdom more than 2,000 years old.

“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all Republics.” - Plutarch

I would guess there are one or two readers out there who would find this title offensive. Hopefully, there are a much higher number of readers who are more interested in the truth. The truth is that for at least the last 30 thirty years, the filthy-rich have become steadily filthier. Except for a very small cross-section of moderately wealthy Americans, everyone else has been getting steadily poorer for decades.

For further evidence of the preference in U.S. society to kill the poor, instead of taxing the rich, I offer CNN's latest mindless musings from June 10^th:

“The Golden State's only real option is to make big cuts now and balance its books.”

As I just finished pointing out, the billionaires and members of the hundred-million “club” are sitting on more than enough hoards of plundered wealth to bail-out California from this fiscal catastrophe. California's government lacks the will to tap into these idle billions, while California's residents lack the wits to force their government to engage in the only humane means of dealing with the crisis. This despicable fact is true in all of the world's wealthiest nations, the trend is simply even more extreme in the United States.

The numbers don't lie.

The top 1% of the U.S. population holds 35% of all wealth, and 56% of all stocks. Now you understand why U.S. government-puppets place such enormous importance in propping-up U.S. equity markets. However, this isn't the end of this “demographic horror-story”.

The top 20% of wealthiest Americans hold 85% of all wealth. Put another way 80% of all Americans hold only 15% of the wealth. These are wealth-distribution numbers which you would expect for a poor, Third-World nation.

It is long past time for Americans to jettison several “conservative” myths which are invariably reported as facts in the U.S. corporate-media. Let's start with the “grand-daddy” of all conservative myths: the “trickle-down theory”.

This economic tripe peddles the ridiculous concept that our economies should be structured in order to enable the accumulation of vast, individual fortunes. The justification for these gross concentrations of wealth is that for each dollar the rich obtain, a few pennies will slip through their greedy fingers into the hands of the impoverished masses.

Of course, right-wing propagandists never explain it in those terms. This is simply how the “trickle-down theory” actually operates in the real world.

Again, referring to the numbers above, for every new dollar of wealth generated in the U.S. , 35 cents goes to 1% of the population, 45 cents goes to the next 19%, while for the majority of Americans (which includes not only all the poor, but the entire “middle class”), roughly 80% get to divide up 15 pennies. Now you know why the propagandists choose the word “trickle”.

The claim from those at the top is that they are already paying such “outrageous” taxes that digging a little deeper into their vast hoards would be horribly “unfair”. The reason why this lie gets so much traction is that hardly anyone understands that it is impossible to ever have fair taxation with an “income tax” system of tax-collection. It is inevitable in all income-tax systems (no matter how “fairly” they are supposedly structured) that the poor pay slightly too much tax, the middle-class and upper-middle class are grossly over-taxed, while the obscenely-rich fat-cats get a free ride.

Again, the wealth distribution numbers cannot be contradicted. The 1% at the top get a free ride – which is how they accumulated more than 1/3 of all wealth. For those who would like even more proof, I wrote a short essay on this subject – which I have previously published “Income Taxation: a failed system”.

Turning to the economic catastrophe which is unfolding in California (“Schwarzenegger says day of reckoning is here”), there simply isn't time to re-design a fair, taxation system – which must (inevitably) be a flat, wealth tax. Instead, California has roughly one week before it starts to kill the poor, rather than tax the rich.

The only humane solution for this problem is an immediate “wealth surtax”. Between the poor (who have essentially zero wealth), and those Californians holding severely “under-water” mortgages, a large chunk of California's population currently has a negative net-worth – automatically exempting them from this tax.

Additionally, there could be an easily-affordable exemption for low-wealth Californians with a net-worth of less than $100,000, and a reduced rate for all those with a net worth of less than $500,000. The target of this wealth-tax is the greedy 20% - who hold 85% of all wealth. I can already hear the fat-cats howling in outrage, so let me address their nonsensical complaints.

As I pointed out previously, they cannot claim they are currently paying enough taxes, otherwise this tiny segment of the population could never have accumulated so much wealth. Keep in mind that for people in this wealth bracket, “annual income” (from work) is only a tiny percentage of the new wealth they accumulate every year.

The next argument from these arrogant misers is that if they are suddenly, fairly taxed that the fat-cats will all simply move away. First of all, in the immediate term a one-time wealth surtax would apply to all these people – even if they moved away tomorrow. One of the few positive aspects of U.S. “Homeland Security” is that the government is capable of tracking any American, anywhere.

The next obvious rebuttal is why would anyone want to encourage these wealth-parasites from remaining in California – and continuing to suck-dry all the wealth of that state? Collect the surtax from those who plundered the wealth of the state, and if they then want to leave: good riddance!

Of course, if all U.S. states began to fairly tax the ultra-wealthy (and the U.S. government placed a ban on any LARGE transfers of wealth out of the country by these economic pirates), then where would the fat-cats run?

Alternately, if the Californian government can't be persuaded into confiscating some of the ill-gotten gains of the ultra-wealthy, then the next, obvious target for revenues are California's grossly-subsidized, plantation owners. Among corporate free-loaders, the California agricultural industry is right up there with Wall Street. This is especially true if we look at not only the direct subsidies, but also the never-mentioned indirect subsidies.

U.S. plantation-owners receive more than $100 BILLION/year in government subsidies, with California getting the single-largest chunk of those hand-outs. However, what is even more outrageous with respect to California are the obscene water subsidies these corporate free-loaders receive.

Even just accounting for population-growth, water subsidies to California plantation-owners are completely unsustainable over the long-term. However, thanks to the same climate changes which the U.S. pretended did not exist, California is already facing a water crisis. Water allocation to California's agricultural industry is being reduced today not as a result of sensible, long-term planning – but because there isn't enough water to sustain these insane policies right now.

At a time when a number of commentators are suggesting that future wars will be fought over water-resources, how idiotic is it to structure an economy in order to deliberately produce a water-crisis?!?

Moving beyond the direct subsidies, I understand there are a couple of people in California who are upset about the problem of “illegal aliens” - and how they are “draining” California's economy. Guess who most of these “illegal aliens” work for?

I'll deal with that issue in a follow-up commentary.

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