Crystal Ball Time

Richest Americans’ Income Doubled as Tax Rate Slashed
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ar5uxG_wV87A&refer=us

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The average tax rate paid by the richest 400 Americans fell by a third to 17.2 percent through the first six years of the Bush administration and their average income doubled to $263.3 million, new IRS data show.

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It’s Theirs and They’re Not Apologizing
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/nyregion/31bonuses.html?ref=business

"On Main Street, 'bonus' sounds like a gift," he said. "But it’s part of the compensation structure of Wall Street. Say I’m a banker and I created $30 million. I should get a part of that."

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What can one say in this face of naked, violently agressive greed?

As the days pass, I am less and less hopeful about our ability to maintain the peaceful continuance of the status quo.

Here are two more bits:

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Seriously?
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/2364

It’s one thing for me to make bizarre speculations about the future; I’m nobody. It’s quite another to see a very similar ‘prediction’ show up in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Although, thanks largely to conservative gasbags, there has been some rumblings floating around the net on the topic of a second US Civil War.

Which is to wonder if the relative handful of conservatives would consider a ‘revolt’ against their ‘free market ideology’ as an issue anyone other than the investor class would be willing to defend?

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As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

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Pick up the pace Obama and Dems in congress, the future will not wait with empty bellies. Move fast, move boldly - you need to make up something like 20-30 million jobs and truly remake the economy of the U.S. Halfway measures will find you on the wrong side of history.