Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Stout]

Because what's more democratic than doing it for yourself? We ain't gonna help no weak losers, you gotta make it happen, all the opportunities are just waiting for, because this is a free country..Civic life? Who needs that commie crap, you don't work hard enough, so you don't deserve it...I can still say and wear what I want, even 'tho I might not eat so great or be able to afford my own house nowadays or decent healthcare down the line.

Yep, this is what our country's fought for, all dem third-worlders who died in Vietnam, Iraq, the gooks here, stupid Taliban (yeah, that's right, piss on dem S.O.B.'s), that's right, we gonna take out Iran next, all dem be damned, we gotta keep buying into a system which keeps the money rolling in for the stars of this game, 'cuz they make our country great...And lookee here, we got Jung-seok and Young-min supporting our game, gonna do like we say, 'cuz they know where the good life is at, it's all about gettin' your share, linkin' up with the other dudes on top, and you can't stand the heat, you can just hang yourself, there's the next guy waitin' in line...yeah we're No. 1, baby, REMEMBER THAT, No. 1

http://www.truth-out.org/have-super-rich-seceded-united-states/1326127151

It was in 1993 during Congressional deliberation over the North American Free Trade Agreement. I was having lunch with a staffer for one of the rare Republican members of Congress who opposed the policy of so-called free trade. I distinctly remember something my colleague said: "The rich elites of this country have far more in common with their counterparts in London, Paris and Tokyo than with their own fellow American citizens."

That was just the beginning of the period when the realities of outsourced manufacturing, financialization of the economy and growing income disparity started to seep into the public consciousness, so at the time it seemed like a striking and novel statement.

At the end of the cold war, many writers predicted the decline of the traditional nation state. Some looked at the demise of the Soviet Union and foresaw the territorial state breaking up into statelets of different ethnic, religious or economic compositions. This happened in the Balkans, former Czechoslovakia and Sudan. Others, like Chuck Spinney, predicted a weakening of the state due to the rise of fourth-generation warfare and the inability of national armies to adapt to it. The quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan lend credence to that theory. There have been hundreds of books about globalization and how it would break down borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.

I do not mean secession in terms of physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens occasionally.(i) It means a withdrawal into enclaves, a sort of internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well-being except as a place to extract loot. Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension - and viable public transportation doesn't even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call, who cares about Medicare?

To some degree, the rich have always secluded themselves from the gaze of the common herd; for example, their habit for centuries has been to send their offspring to private schools. But now this habit is exacerbated by the plutocracy's palpable animosity toward public education and public educators, as Michael Bloomberg has demonstrated. To the extent public education "reform" is popular among billionaires and their tax-exempt foundations, one suspects it is as a lever to divert the more than one-half trillion dollars in federal, state and local education dollars into private hands, meaning themselves and their friends.(ii)

A century ago, at least we got some attractive public libraries out of Andrew Carnegie. Noblesse oblige like Carnegie's is presently lacking among our seceding plutocracy.

In both world wars, even a Harvard man or a New York socialite might know the weight of an Army pack. Now, the military is for suckers from the laboring classes, whose subprime mortgages you just sliced into CDOs and sold to gullible investors in order to buy your second Bentley or rustle up the cash to employ Rod Stewart to perform at your birthday party. Courtesy of Matt Taibbi, we learn that the sentiment among the super-rich toward the rest of America is often one of contempt rather than noblesse; Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, says about the views of the 99 percent: "Who gives a crap about some imbecile?"

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/01/113_102755.html

Another savings bank CEO kills self

3rd suicide since prosecution begins probe into irregularities

By Kim Rahn

The head of a savings bank allegedly committed suicide Thursday ahead of being questioned over illegal loans.

Kim Hak-heon, 57, chairman of Ace Mutual Savings Bank, was found dead in a room at the Seoul Palace Hotel in southern Seoul at around 8 a.m., police said, adding that he had presumably hanged himself.

This is the third suicide by officials of savings banks since September when a team of investigators from the prosecution launched an intensive probe into alleged financial irregularities in the secondary banking sector.

�Kim was already dead when found at the hotel, and we suspect he choked to death after hanging himself with his necktie from a smoke detector installed in the ceiling. There were scars on his body presumed to be self-inflicted, and an empty bottle of whiskey was found in the room,� a member of the investigation team said.

[rollo]

Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has given millions of computers away to libraries in the U.s. Also has done substantial other work. Buffet also gives away a lot of money. Emory University in Atlanta operates mostly on huge gifts from Coca cola heirs.
The rest of it . big strong nations beat up weaker nations thats not new. In 19th century Britain their were clothing laws. the poor could not even dress like gentle folk or risk going to jail.
Human nature does not change. Social engineering experiments at least in the twentieth century usually led to the Gulag or the gas chamber.
It is bad, we try to make it better. On the positive side. Women can vote, China is no longer being brutalized by Britain. South America is gaining economic power, there are even some bright spots in Africa. I see a lot of positives. Bankers politicians. What did Twain say about polticians "Poli from the latin meaning many, Tic a blood sucking parasite". Everything changes, nothing changs.

[Stout]

True enough, Rollo. The difference is, now the type of information u mentioned is available to everyone, so whereas people were silenced because they didn't really know the why's or what's of, say robber baron banks manipulating markets, now people have the opportunity to take an active part in shaping what kind of world we live in.

'Course those who don't have the courage or choose to remain in the dark out of laziness deserve what's coming to them- a life of being someone's pawn.

[rollo]

Absolutely agree with you on this. Make things better.