News & Articles

In the smash PBS TV hit “Downton Abbey” the dowager countess and the mother of Lord Grantham played by Maggie Smith revealed what the “upstairs” plutocrats did not understand about the “downstairs” pissants that waited upon them head, hands, belly, butt, and feet when she asked: “What is a weekend?” Every day the countess “labored” to maintain her position and authority, insisting that “downstairs” servants serve her extended “upstairs” family 24/7 for their every need.  Weekdays were no different than weekends to the dowager.

   The words “plutocrat” and “pissant” have come into use lately to describe the burgeoning inequality in the world. These words have been around for many centuries. Plutus is the Greek god of good harvests and wealth, the son of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, and the hero Iasion after a bountiful liason in a “thrice-ploughed” field. I haven’t figured out the connection of “thrice-ploughed” except perhaps fields ploughed three times might yield more. Anyway the chief Greek god Zeus blinded Plutus so he could not see who he was sharing his wealth with. Zeus (Maybe the first Democrat!) wanted his wealth god Plutus to share it with everybody. But Plutus decided to keep all the wealth for himself. Thus came about the word “plutocrat,” meaning blind to poverty and starvation.
    I have started to use the word “pissant” to replace “peasant” because we have peasants growing crops today with $350,000 tractors and $700,000 combines, unlike the peasants of the French and American Revolutions who worked with pitchforks and hoes. “Pissant” not only comes from an insulting noun used as early as the 14th Century, it describes a type of wood ant that lives “downstairs” in earth mounds, as the servants in Downton Abbey live downstairs. The term “pissant” for the poor and the downstairs staff started from “pismire,” a Middle Ages term because the ant gives off an urine-like odor from their venom.

The Beginning Skirmishes Between Plutocrats And Pissants About Inequality

   Plutocrats around the world are getting very concerned about Asian, African, Arab, European, and South American pissants making real noises about income inequality. The revolutions in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria and protests in Thailand, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and many other countries are all economic-based although religion may be involved. Our attempts to birth democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned into bloody miscarriages.
  It is fascinating that Switzerland, the home of secretive banks where world plutocrats and the elite often hide their billions, recently had a political initiative sponsored by Swiss pissants about executive salaries and income inequality called 1:12 for Fair Pay. The proposed law would  limit CEO pay to 12 times the pay of average pissants. That part of the initiative did not pass in a national election, but a section on executive pay did pass. It will require that corporation shareholders approve executive pay and that there will be no more bonuses, golden parachutes, or exotic forms of compensation. It’s a very strong message to greedy plutocrats.
   The protests in Ukraine also add to the maelstrom of economic inequality. Once part of Stalin’s Soviet Union, the Ukrainian pissants are protesting by the thousands against the policies of plutocrat Vladimir Putin and his crony capitalists. Ukrainians want to join the European Union like their fellow pissants in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania did. They know what Putin is—and want no part of him. Russian pissants protested his election and policies  in 2011 and 2012 but he still has some support in the very conservative Russian countryside. Putin wants to keep Ukraine under his right-wing. When the Soviet Union dissolved, Ukraine had enough nuclear weapons to be the world’s third most powerful nation behind Russia and the United States. All were shipped back to Russia on 100 trains in the 1990’s.
   Over two years ago I wrote a column suggesting that World War Three had started, prompted by the rising income gaps between plutocrats and pissants. WW III is continuing to develop. Headlines about the income gap are becoming quite strident:
** AlterNet 12/2/13 “Global Elites Getting Nervous About Skyrocketing Inequality (But Won’t Spare A Nickel To Fix It)” ** Sarah Anderson 12/3/13 “How Fast Food Giants Avoid Taxes, Pay Execs Giant Pay, And The Workers Peanuts”
** Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers 12/1/13 “The Growing Resistance To The ‘Walmartization’ Of Our Economy” There are thousands of headlines like the three above.

Other Signs Of The Economic Rebellion

  Even Cal Thomas, the Christian Braveheart often published in the Fargo Forum editorial pages, wrote a column titled “Culture Trampled By Greed.” Cal blames an “entitlement mentality” and “income inequality alarmists” for our current troubles. Cal says, “We are out of control as we pursue happiness through prosperity in the false hope money and things will satisfy.” Being an income inequality alarmist, I was not surprised that Cal blames those who are on Social Security for the culture of greed. But Cal, what about the billionaires and millionaires living off corporate welfare purchased on campaign Lay-By from state and federal politicians? In his entire column there was no comment about the superrich’s role in the income gap. He quotes Ecclesiastes: “Whoever loves money never has money enough, whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.”  Cal, should all minimum-wage WalMart workers be satisfied with their incomes while the six Walton heirs now worth $136 billion are never satisfied? Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu had it right: “Those who know they have enough are rich.” Think about it, Cal.
   Another sign of pissant rebellion is the recent election of liberal Democrat Bill de Blasio as  mayor of New York City after five terms of Republican mayors. He replaced Michael Bloomberg, a three-termer with a $30 billion fortune. Bloomberg always used his own money to campaign. He is a moderate Republican who served New York City relatively well, but he did nothing to close the income gap. The bottom 20 percent of NY families earn an average $8,993 while the top five percent average $436,931. De Blasio won with a whopping 73 percent of the vote with this platform: (1) Increase the wages and benefits of the poor and middle class, (2) Expand pre-K and after-school programs, (3) Construct 200,000 affordable housing units (a 750 sq. ft. one-bedroom apartment rents for $2,700 a month), (4) Raise taxes on the rich making more than $500,000 to pay for all new educational programs. He won in Wall Street’s seedy backyard.

The Fast Food Pissants And Their CEOs Are Both On Welfare

   Ronald Reagan loved to talk about “welfare queens” driving their Cadillacs down to the welfare office to pick up checks. Times haven’t changed much. Now “welfare kings” who run corporations drive Lamborghinis to their Washington, D.C. welfare office on Capitol Hill to pick up their checks. In 1993 Congress capped the tax deductibility of executive pay at $1 million. In other words, if the corporation paid its CEO $10 million in salary it paid taxes on $9 million.
   But Congressmen earned their bribes by allowing US corporations to deduct performance pay, bonuses and stock options from federal income taxes. Naturally, the CEO ends up getting most of his pay that way so the company can lower its tax bill and have the rest of us pay it back in government subsidies for CEO pay. Get it? The pissants who work for fast food companies at minimum wage are paid so poorly they have to be on welfare to survive. The companies encourage their workers to apply for food stamps and other safety net programs for the poor. The average taxpayer in this country not only pays the bonuses and performance pay money for CEOs, he also pays for the welfare programs for their starving workers. Don’t you enjoy getting screwed twice by the same industry? In total, the National Employment Law Project figures that the ten largest fast food corporations go to Washington and collect about $7 billion of taxpayer money each year for screwing their employees. The welfare kings, queens, and jacks in amount of pissant and CEO welfare costs: McDonald’s- $1.2 billion, Yum! (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell)- $648 million, Subway- $436 million, Burger King- $356 million, Wendy’s- $278 million, Dunkin’ Donuts- $274 million, Dairy Queen -$228 million, Sonic- $164 million, Domino’s- $126 million, and Little Caesars- $125 million. Just the top six on this list paid their CEOs $183 million in performance pay, thus decreasing their IRS bill by $64 million over the last two years. We all paid the $64 million—unless it went on the national debt! McDonald’s CEO James Skinner got a $23 million performance bonus last year, forcing us to pay an $8 million tax deficit. Boy! Didn’t that Big Mac taste great?  But if you think you are getting screwed by the fast food companies, just wait until you get a good look at WalMart.

WalMart: One Of The Leaders Of Class Warfare

   I wonder if Sam Walton of Bentonville, Arkansas would understand that the U.S. taxpayers are paying an average of $2,000 each year in health care, food stamps, and other safety nets for each of 825,000 WalMart “associates” paid below poverty levels. Would he understand that the “WalMartization” of American retail has forced the closure of hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the United States? Would he glory in the fact that his six heirs are now worth about $136 billion, assets greater than the bottom 40 percent of the American population? Would Sam use some of the $17 billion WalMart made in profits last year and at least attempt to pay his “pissants” across the world a living wage?
   Would Sam call Henry Ford a socialist for doubling his workers’ pay so they could buy Model Ts? Sam’s heirs now have 4,135 stores in the U.S. A recent study by the House Committee on Education and Workforce of a single Wisconsin store indicated taxpayers would pay up to $1.75 million in public assistance to help the employees of that single store who are paid below poverty levels. Other economists have estimated that each WalMart in this country costs the taxpayers between $400,000 and $900,000 a year to supply Sam’s associate-pissants health care and food stamps.
   WalMart CEO Michael Duke is stepping down this year, evidently from the fact that sales are down in the last three quarters. He made $11,000 an hour last year, pocketing $20.7 million. His retirement package totals $113 million. And each Walton with an interest in the stores increased their net worth by $7 billion in 2012. That’s $26,923,000 a day. I wonder what their “enough” is.

Plutocracy Roadkill

   There are hedge fund managers and Wall Street banksters who make several million dollars per hour. One might think they would take care of the pissants who work for them in the hedge funds and banks. I almost find it amusing that 39 percent of bank tellers and their families in New York City are enrolled in public assistance and safety net programs. Don’t banksters ever have enough? They have serious mental problems if they don’t recognize what their pissants do for them. They are truly psychopaths dangerous to the civilized world. The total absence of empathy is striking.
    Speaking of psychopaths, remember Leona Helmsley, New York City’s “Queen of Mean?” One of the richest women in the United States at $5 billion, she had a reputation of treating her employees lower than dirt and even cheated them on salaries. One time she bragged: “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” To make a long story short, she and her husband Harry later faced 188 indictments for tax evasion. Leona  spent 18 months in a prison for “letting the little people pay her taxes.” Her closest friend was Imelda Marcos, another psychopath whose claim to fame was the worship of her 5,000 pairs of shoes.