Dana Blankenhorn

When the Rich Riot

Think of this as Volume 15, Number 49 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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It's easy to see when poor people riot. Things get broken. People get killed.

It's not so obvious to see when rich people riot. We tend to think it never happens. Why should they riot – they're rich!

But rich people do riot. They only do it once in a while, when their positions are threatened by their own stupidity. We're in the middle of such a riot right now.

A revolt by the rich doesn't look like one by the poor, because they already have so much power. Especially economic power.

That's the first indication of a rich man's riot. Money goes on strike. Money has been on strike here for a few years, and that strike is now spreading over Europe. There are lots of excuses for money going on strike – debt owed to rich people by rich people is the proximate cause this time – but why else would so many wealthy people, banks and businesses be ignoring the huge opportunities before us, except through a conscious decision?

Another way money goes on strike is by intimating everything is about to get a lot worse. This usually happens after it's gotten a lot worse for the poor. Predictions of apocalypse are a rich man's way of, first, excusing the strike and, second, preparing for the ultimate expression of a rich man's riot.

That's the power grab. Forces representing the tiniest minority try to grab power in the interests of capital. The excuse is order. It's often done in conjunction with other powerful interests – the military, organized religion – who become convinced their interests are also threatened. In any case they say they're going to organize things, make the trains run on time.

We know, from history, what results. The dictatorship of the money-tariat.

We're blinded to all this because the only result of such a successful strike, in our complex global society, became such a byword for unspeakable horror that, while we may speak its name, we refuse to accept it for what it was.

Fascism.

Green Comes From the Market

A lot of “green” advocates are feeling blue right now.

Google has dropped its energy efforts. There won't be a new green treaty any time soon. 

This is, in fact, good news.

It's further evidence that the market is moving toward real energy solutions. Headlines from a new IEA report on renewables  are a call for more favorable policies, but renewable energy “now accounts for almost a fifth of all electricity produced worldwide.”

What's really happening is that opportunity is starting to dawn. The market is taking over from the policy advocates. If you want change, bet on the market.

A Preview of 2012 from Bank of America

It's widely assumed that next year's elections will be a conflict between people power and the money power.

How will that go? Bank of America is the canary in the coal mine.

Since the Occupy movement first began targeting Bank of America, stock symbol BAC, for its proposed debit card fee, the company has been buying ad time like mad.

The ads are spin and lies.

The ads show happy retail customers getting “great services” from the bank, through its cards. And they show happy small businesspeople whom, it's inferred, are getting loans from the bank.

The company has backed this up with a PR campaign, resulting in headlines like this one from the LA Times.