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In reply to the discussion: Global ruling class to world: "F--k off & die" [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)42. The hell with humanity! Thankfully, the rich'll be A-OK in floating cities...
The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles
By Mark Ames, AlterNet
Posted on June 2, 2010, Printed on June 2, 2010
What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?
SNIP...
The floating castle is a longtime dream of libertarian oligarchs -- a place where they can live their lives in peace free from the teeming masses of starving losers and indebted parasites and their tax demands. Since theyve grown so rich off of America, they have enough spare change to fund projects like the Seasteading Institute, run by Milton Friedman's grandson, Patri Friedman, and financed by the bizarre right-wing PayPal founder, Peter Thiel. It couldn't have come a moment sooner for Milton Friedman's grandson, who was best known until recently for running a grotesque advice blog for married swingers, PUA4LTR (Pick Up Advice For Long-Term Relationships). Actually, Patri Friedman ran that pick-up advice blog with his wife--the two of them are apparent big-time cyber-swingers, apparently--posting blog entries saying things like "Why Should Husbands Become PUAs? Because otherwise, your wife will talk like those wives on the blog My Husband Is Annoying."
Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy--last year, Thiel wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, "Democracy is not the answer." Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It's probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman's grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair--Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O'Keefe's smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.
While Thiel and Friedman are busy cooking up their libertarian dystopia, the Frontier Group investment firm -- an offshoot of the Carlyle Group -- has already entered the realization phase with the Utopia floating castle. Frontier Group, was founded by some of the same big names from the notorious Carlyle Group--the private equity firm that brought together right-wing oligarchs like George H. W. Bush and other top American officials with their billionaire pals in Saudi Arabia like the Bin Laden family, who together raked in enormous profits thanks to the War on Terror that their kids Dubya and Osama launched.
While neither Bush nor the Bin Ladens are principals in the Frontier Group, its founding director, Frank Carlucci, is a name they know well, and you should too. Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group as its chairman from 1989 through 2005, right around the time that the wars started going undeniably bad, and floating castles started to look like a viable plan. But Carlucci's past is much weirder and scarier than most of us care to know: whether it's his strangely timed appearances in some of the ugliest assassinations and coups in modern history, or serving as Carter's number two man in the CIA, and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, if Frank Carlucci (nicknamed "Creepy Carlucci" and "Spooky Frank" is the founding director of a firm that's building floating castles, it's a bad sign for those of us left behind.
CONTINUED...
http://www.alternet.org/story/147058 /
In addition to helping keep the Pentagon chubby after the Cold War, Carlucci is/was a big wig in the Carlyle Group.
By Mark Ames, AlterNet
Posted on June 2, 2010, Printed on June 2, 2010
What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?
SNIP...
The floating castle is a longtime dream of libertarian oligarchs -- a place where they can live their lives in peace free from the teeming masses of starving losers and indebted parasites and their tax demands. Since theyve grown so rich off of America, they have enough spare change to fund projects like the Seasteading Institute, run by Milton Friedman's grandson, Patri Friedman, and financed by the bizarre right-wing PayPal founder, Peter Thiel. It couldn't have come a moment sooner for Milton Friedman's grandson, who was best known until recently for running a grotesque advice blog for married swingers, PUA4LTR (Pick Up Advice For Long-Term Relationships). Actually, Patri Friedman ran that pick-up advice blog with his wife--the two of them are apparent big-time cyber-swingers, apparently--posting blog entries saying things like "Why Should Husbands Become PUAs? Because otherwise, your wife will talk like those wives on the blog My Husband Is Annoying."
Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy--last year, Thiel wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, "Democracy is not the answer." Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It's probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman's grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair--Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O'Keefe's smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.
While Thiel and Friedman are busy cooking up their libertarian dystopia, the Frontier Group investment firm -- an offshoot of the Carlyle Group -- has already entered the realization phase with the Utopia floating castle. Frontier Group, was founded by some of the same big names from the notorious Carlyle Group--the private equity firm that brought together right-wing oligarchs like George H. W. Bush and other top American officials with their billionaire pals in Saudi Arabia like the Bin Laden family, who together raked in enormous profits thanks to the War on Terror that their kids Dubya and Osama launched.
While neither Bush nor the Bin Ladens are principals in the Frontier Group, its founding director, Frank Carlucci, is a name they know well, and you should too. Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group as its chairman from 1989 through 2005, right around the time that the wars started going undeniably bad, and floating castles started to look like a viable plan. But Carlucci's past is much weirder and scarier than most of us care to know: whether it's his strangely timed appearances in some of the ugliest assassinations and coups in modern history, or serving as Carter's number two man in the CIA, and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, if Frank Carlucci (nicknamed "Creepy Carlucci" and "Spooky Frank" is the founding director of a firm that's building floating castles, it's a bad sign for those of us left behind.
CONTINUED...
http://www.alternet.org/story/147058 /
In addition to helping keep the Pentagon chubby after the Cold War, Carlucci is/was a big wig in the Carlyle Group.
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"The money is there to solve these problems -- if our leaders wanted to solve them."
Fumesucker
Jul 2013
#4
Majority of Americans today are brainwashed sheepie, not caring, not understanding and I think
RKP5637
Jul 2013
#16
Yeah, they have a plan to deal with catastrophic climate change and the global resource
Warren Stupidity
Jul 2013
#7
The Oligarchs Own The Politicians And Control The System For Their Benefit - To Hell With The Proles
cantbeserious
Jul 2013
#9
They stumble with blinders on and fall hook line and sinker for all types of propaganda, becoming
RKP5637
Jul 2013
#17
K&R. I say we demand and elect politicians willing to pass CCFR, Complete Campaign Finance Reform!
Dustlawyer
Jul 2013
#22
I reject this 100% (nothing personal, because I know my opinion is just that...opinion)
Moostache
Jul 2013
#58
It's not about the money at that level, they already have far more than they could ever need.
Egalitarian Thug
Jul 2013
#35
At a certain point, they won't be able to work together to the extent they do now.
RedCappedBandit
Jul 2013
#39
Exactly. They, as a group, are precisely the wrong people to achieve anything positive.
Egalitarian Thug
Jul 2013
#40