<div class="gmail_quote"><br>Similar tendency in european countries ? ( found via J. Medaille fb wall )<div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/have-super-rich-seceded-united-states/1326127151" target="_blank">http://www.truth-out.org/have-super-rich-seceded-united-states/1326127151</a><div>
<br></div><div><h2 style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-size:35px;font-weight:normal;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;line-height:1.2em">
Have the Super-Rich Seceded From the United States?</h2><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:16px;line-height:24px">
<span style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-size:14px">Tuesday 10 January 2012</span></div><div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;color:rgb(153,0,0);font-size:14px;font-style:italic;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;line-height:24px">
by: Mike Lofgren, Truthout | News Analysis</div><div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<span style="font-size:14px;line-height:24px"><i><font color="#000066">excerpts :</font></i></span></div><div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<b style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">"financial sharks typically take their compensation in the form of capital gains rather than salaries, thus knocking down their income tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. "</b></div>
<div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">"But that's not the only way Mr. Skin-in-the-Game benefits: the 6.2-percent Social Security tax and the 1.45-percent Medicare tax apply only to wages and salaries, not capital gains distributions. "</span></div>
<div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px">"The real joke is on the rest of us. "</span></div><div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px">"In 1950, payroll and other federal retirement contributions</span><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">�</span><a href="http://www.gpoaccess.gov/eop/tables10.html" style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(153,0,0)" target="_blank">constituted</a><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">�</span><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">10.9 percent of all federal revenues; by 2007, the last "normal" economic year before federal revenues began falling, they made up 33.9 percent. By contrast, corporate income taxes were 26.4 percent of federal revenues in 1950; by 2007, they had fallen to 14.4 percent."</span></div>
<div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">+</span></div><div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">"</span><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px">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"</span></div>
<div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px">"</span><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px">ii. This stratagem follows the template of Halliburton's privatized military logistics activities as well as George Bush's proposed Social Security "reform": funneling public dollars into corporate hands."</span></div>
<div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif">
<span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">"</span><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px">A century ago, at least we got some attractive public libraries out of Andrew Carnegie.�</span><em style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">Noblesse oblige</em><span style="font-size:16px;line-height:23px;text-align:left">�like Carnegie's is presently lacking among our seceding plutocracy."</span></div>
<div style="margin-top:0.2em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif"><p class="sweet-justice" style="margin-top:1em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.467em;text-align:left">
"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.</p><p class="sweet-justice" style="margin-top:1em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.467em;text-align:left">
I do not mean secession in terms of physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens occasionally.<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/have-super-rich-seceded-united-states/1326127151#i." style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(153,0,0)">(i)</a>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?"</p>
</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px">
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px"><p style="font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:16px;margin-top:1em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;line-height:1.467em;text-align:left">
"The super-rich have seceded from America even as their grip on its control mechanisms has tightened."</p><p style="font-family:Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:16px;margin-top:1em;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;line-height:1.467em;text-align:left">
<em>A version of this story originally appeared at�<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/05/have-the-super-rich-seceded-from-the-united-states/" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(153,0,0)" target="_blank">Counterpunch</a>.</em></p>
</div></div></div></div>
</div><br>