Internet billionaire Nick Hanauer warns of coming revolution

BBC News ^ | 6/30/2014 | BBC

[Nextrush]

Nick Hanauer, internet entrepreneur, has a message for his fellow "zillionaires", the revolution is coming.

Mr. Hanauer, an early investor in internet retail giant Amazon.....

Now, he writes in Politico magazine, he sees a different kind of future, and the outlook for people like him is not a bright one:

"If we don't do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn't eventually come out"

Do you think the US is special or different, he asks. You're wrong. No nation is immune, he says-just ask the Russian tsars or the French aristocracy....

Mr. Hanauer endorses what he calls "middle-out" economics. He advocates raising the minimum wage and endorses Seattle's recent move to raise the lowest hourly wage for an employee in the city judisdiction to $15....

Rick Newman of Yahoo Finance thinks Mr. Hanauer is getting a bit too worked up, however.

"The rich out to chill out," he writes. "While the masses may envy their wealth, there's no evidence of a revolution brewing, or even a well-behaved civil disturbance.".......

"It's nearly inevitable there will be government spending cuts and, yes tax hikes, when the government's finances become unsustainable, which could take a decade or more," he says. "When it happens, the politicians in Washington will find ways to spread the pain around, and America will muddle through."..............

[Ron H.]

Sorry Mr Hanauer but raising the minimum wage is not the answer. Possibly helpful in the very short term but harmful or even destructive in the longer term. Minimum wages get passed on to the consumer, many of which would likely benefit from the minimum wage boost but suffer even worse from the out of control inflation resulting from the raise. Inflation would spiral immensely.

Want to really help? Stop the greed by people like you and your kind. Seal the borders and stop taking jobs from real American workers.

[hattend]

Mr. Hanauer endorses what he calls "middle-out" economics. He advocates raising the minimum wage and endorses Seattle's recent move to raise the lowest hourly wage for an employee in the city judisdiction to $15....

Mr Hanauer, your solution is the drive the cost of goods and services higher so even more people can't afford them?

[Smokin' Joe]

...but as long as most people have food and distractions, they are unlikely to get violent.

As long as there are bread and circuses, Caesar is safe....

[CodeToad]

Dollar to donuts he’s got a stash of cash and metals at home.

[dr_lew]

Juvenal’s famous lament was made in the depths of Roman decadence, which he felt acutely. “Now that no one buys our votes, the people have long since cast off their cares.”

These remarks were made in the context of the demise of Sejanus, who had been immensely popular, and a presumed successor to Tiberius, but was lynched by the mob, in response to a “great and wordy letter from Capri”.

It’s not as though the populace was being appeased by “Bread and Games”. They were already far gone.

[dragnet2]

The middle class in this country is dying.

Yep, everyone can call it what they want or blame and point fingers in every direction, however it is rapidly declining certainly dying.

Then throw in government pensions where many retire in their 50 with $80,000 plus per lift plus top shelf benefit, while others who worked just as hard in the private sector have had their wages slashed, hours cut, benefits made worthless or eliminate all together, savings and retirements put off or gone....

All this while the price of everything has doubled or more as their wages have been totally stagnant for well over 15 years now...

One not need be a senior economist to figure out this eventually detonates.