[Plantagenet]

.... the wealthy .01% simply meet in private . . . all the time . . without notes, agendas, or lists. They are just . . . together. All the time in private clubs, corporate boardrooms, Capital Building Hallways, and at fancy resorts.

Of course. But if they are just together and they don't actually secretly agree on a secret agenda or a secret plot they are secretly carrying out, then its not a conspiracy.

Like onlooker, you don't seem to know what the word "conspiracy" means. FYI Here's what conspiracy means: an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; a plot.

Cheers!

[onlooker]

[onlooker]

I wonder if the Rothchilds are on facebook haha.

[Plantagenet]

Secret?

Plant I don't know what your definition of secret is, but mine includes private club membership. Onlooker and I can't simply walk into the Capital Building lunchroom like you can. We don't have access to your trust fund

1. Of course you can't walk into the Capital Lunchroom. That doesn't mean a mysterious cabal of the 0.01% are in there secretly running the government, except in your deluded imagination.

2. Then you claim I can walk into the Capital lunchroom. Dude, you are totally in a fantasy world.

3. Then you claim that I have a "trust fund". Dude---you are wacked out insane today. What are you smoking?

Wait a minute. I can guess.

---------

Ohshshshshshshsaaaaarrrgghgh! Peter knows all tells all secret cabal conspiracy controls government capital lunchroom trust fund 0.01% feel the vibe pass the joint oooshshshswwwwrrrthth!

[onlooker]

Careful Plant I heard they do not have too much of a sense of humor

[SeaGypsy]

Hey Pete, occupy weren't 2 decimal places out, there is no ultra rich 70 million, 7 million or 700k. My research tells me .0000001% or 700 people would be more like it.

[onlooker]

Hey Pete, occupy weren't 2 decimal places out, there is no ultra rich 70 million, 7 million or 700k. My research tells me .0000001% or 700 people would be more like it.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/meet ... the-world/
I would think this disclosure is fairly obvious and transparent. After all, Forbes comes out constantly with lists of the worlds wealthiest people. So 80 people are as rich as half the world. Sounds about right to me. I concede you do not need any kind of conspiracy just that fact means those 80 or so have an inordinate amount of power.

[Plantagenet]

Hey Pete, occupy weren't 2 decimal places out, there is no ultra rich 70 million, 7 million or 700k. My research tells me .0000001% or 700 people would be more like it.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/meet ... the-world/
I would think this disclosure is fairly obvious and transparent. After all, Forbes comes out constantly with lists of the worlds wealthiest people. So 80 people are as rich as half the world. Sounds about right to me. I concede you do not need any kind of conspiracy just that fact means those 80 or so have an inordinate amount of power.

Of course extremely wealthy people have inordinate power. And guess what? Wealthy corporations also have inordinate power. Thats why wealthy people and wealthy corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes, and wealthy people and banks and corporations aren't held to account when they break the law.

But I fail to see the conspiracy there. Its all out in the open. For instance, the Wall Street banks that created the 2008-9 meltdown were Obama's largest donors in the 2008 election, and then when Obama took office not a single CEO or individual in the big banks was prosecuted. Not even the jerk at Countrywide who had given special favors to D senators when they wanted their jumbo loans for their mansions. He wasn't even prosecuted, nor were the D senators prosecuted (although the one from the Connecticut at least had the dignity to not run again after it came out just before his re-election bid).

Was it coincidence that the Obama DOJ didn't prosecute these crooks and liars and fraudsters at the big banks? I think not.

But was it a conspiracy? Not really----its not in secret. The huge amounts the banks gave to Obama in 2008 and the fact that no indictments ever came out of the Obama DOJ after obama's election is all public knowledge. The Obama people even admitted they weren't prosecuting the banksters. It would be bad for the recovery, they claimed.

But of course its easier for most people to take another hit on the bong pipe rather then look at the Federal Election Commission campaign contribution data and see who Obama's big donors actually are, and then connect the dots to see how they got special treatment after Obama became president.

Nah...lets just make up things about secret conspiracies. Ooooohhhh....just imagine how evil the evil secret conspiracy of the wealthy is !!

Cheers!

[Ibon]

I think it was post 911 that many understood there was no more need to be covert about the nefarious way of wielding power.

[Newfie]

Lost me on that one Ibon.

Conspiracy theory?

[Newfie]

Oh! You guys have me dazed and confused.

Perhaps I'm in denial and can't see the obvious?

I've total lost the thread of this thread.

[SeaGypsy]

I think it was post 911 that many understood there was no more need to be covert about the nefarious way of wielding power.

In other words overt lying is now completely kosher, as proven by every MSM on 9/11.

[Ibon]

You could go back to Reagan and use the Contra scandal as an early opening act or as a learning experience for those in power. Nixon was impeached for far less than what Reagan did with the help of Oliver North and company going against congress and trading arms with Iran to fund the contras. The interesting lesson learned here was that the covert cover up was exposed and yet it was possible to manipulate the system with no one held accountable. Folks like Rumsfeld and Cheney paid close attention to this outcome and realized that next time around it was not really even necessary to be covert about it. I wont go into the 911 event itself, that only side tracks my main point into polarization so let's leave that off the table for a moment and just watch to see how the justification for going into Iraq by the Bush administration used overt manipulation tactics with the media and politicians got away with no accountability in basically illegally justifying the Iraq War. We can now jump ahead a few years to the pump and dump scam of the sub prime housing bubble. Ask yourself if anyone at Goldman Sachs or any politician or any other institution was held accountable or any individual go to jail over this? How many other examples can we see where there is no need to be covert about gaming illegally the system by those who hold power. Across the political spectrum.

Ennui, Plant, Pstarr, SeaGypsy, your all making the same point basically. It's not a point about confusion over the word conspiracy. It's all about extremely powerful and wealthy people and corporations and banks being exempt from accountability and able to be quite overt about it because of the way money buys power and can game the system and the electorate.

[onlooker]

Thank you my point has been made. Whether nefarious backroom meetings and plots or not the result is the same. The rich and powerful having taken us and taking us along paths which are not conducive to equality, justice or sustainability. By the way I would go as far as to say that this is all being done so overtly. The Media still fudge and distort information and present misleading information. Not only that as we know they are not revealing the full extent of the damage of these policies or how they are connected in terms of damaging the life support capacities of Earth and creating directly inequality and fostering such things as terrorism.

[davep]

Just saw this. What they said

[Pops]

Secret?

One of the leading candidates for POTUS just proposed lowering the top tax bracket for both human and corporate persons by a third, and eliminating the estate tax altogether.

How much less secret is there? You remember this guy, he is the "populist" Don Rickles candidate who charms the little people into thinking "rude" means truthful, bankrupt means shrewd, narcissism is a virtue and even knowing that, that he gives a rip about them.

The "secret" is not really a secret, just a misunderstanding.
People without money just don't get that people who have money think money is important.

[Ibon]

People without money just don't get that people who have money think money is important.

There are not many of us that have been there and back again, that have been in both worlds and understand the difference. No time now but I may share something on this subject at some point.