https://tinyurl.com/yjs8e82t
Aristotle described democracy as the political stage immediately
preceding oligarchy, and tending to evolve into it. Ever since his
epoch in classical antiquity, democracy has not been able to
protect populations from the financial sector using debt to reduce
them to bondage (in antiquity), expropriate their lands by debt
foreclosure, take their property and demand a rising share of
their income as debt service. ..
America today? Well, student loan debt, credit card debt, home
mortgage debt, state and local government debt, and business debt
- Americans, individually and as households, are among the most
indebted in the developed world. .. By allowing the costs of
higher education to skyrocket in recent decades, student debt has
become big business in America's financial industry, having
burdened generations of young graduates with career/soul-crushing
debt. .. In practically all other advanced economies in the world,
the majority of students graduate with no or low levels of debt ..
But what do you call a nation where a majority owes and a tiny
minority owns most things? Last year, the top one per cent of
Americans had a combined net worth of US$34.2 trillion, equivalent
to 30.4 per cent of all household wealth, compared to the bottom
50 per cent, which holds just US$2.1 trillion combined or 1.9 per
cent of all wealth. If there is a history lesson .. it is that
concentrated wealth and indebtedness translates into extreme power
inequality. One person one vote? You don't need to be a Marxist
to know economic power translates into political power, regardless
of the nature of the political regime, and extreme economic
inequality into extreme political inequality. ..
.. Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and
organised groups representing business interests have substantial
independent impacts on US government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no
independent influence. ..