What is their end game?

[digonswine]

It is apparent that many moneyed individuals have, as a goal, to privatize everything. They set long-term(and impressive) goals to undermine public institutions-education, post office, etc in order to justify this goal. Herr Walker, here, is already telegraphing future moves by implicating the tight budge--again.
The question is--in the end--how does this benefit them? I can see how it does in the short-term, but not in the long-term. I would suppose it is not about money, rather, about control.
So in the end, they control all. I don't get it.

Is it about money? Control? Power? I don't get the mindset.

As an aside--I was bitching about this to a friend, got frustrated, and said that I do not even consider these assholes to be human beings. Hyperbole-yes--but even when calm-I feel like I would not bother to cross the street to piss on these fuckers if they were on fire.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. That never even enters the equation.

[xchrom]

2. read this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2166874

A recent study of the global economy by three complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich "combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations," New Scientist reported.<1> -- It confirms that "a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy," Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie said. -- The study is based on "Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them" -- It "revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships" with "ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. . . . he 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms -- the 'real' economy -- representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues." -- In addition, it revealed "a 'super-entity' of 147 even more tightly knit companies -- all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity -- that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. 'In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,' says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group." --

http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/10633 /



*****they are Powers & Principalities on par w/ sovereign nations trying to exert their control.

[digonswine]

5. I'm sure that's it--

I just don't get it. It seems so meaningless to a thinking, feeling person. But we're not talking about those, apparently.

[pikajuna]

3. Control

Psychopaths get off on power, abuse and control, because they are incapable of actual deep human emotions.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. Nice first post.

...

[txlibdem]

16. Welcome to DU!!!

Have a smile on yer face when you talk about the psychopaths... just some advice... then back away real slow-like.

;-)

[Initech]

6. Their goal is for us to live in Mad Max society, with us killing each other for valuable resources.

And then it'll be broadcast on national TV for their own personal amusement.

[digonswine]

9. Sounds about right-

It just seems like the opposite of how reality should go. The psychopath assholes rise to the top, we admire them and let them control things. I think the majority of folks, if they were aware, would be appalled if they knew these peoples' true natures. I want to switch species.

[Initech]

27. Like I keep saying - the way to win against them is to follow the money.

That's it - there's a reason why the powerful are in the position that they're in and no matter what number of bad investments or anything like that they make, it can always be traced. And then we'll know who the real criminals in our society are.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

26. Like the movie Rollerball with James Caan.

Roller Derby plus murder.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Chris Hedges put it best: " All they want is ....more"

[digonswine]

11. Right

[The2ndWheel]

8. Don't get the mindset? Look at the human project of civilization

We're increasingly privatizing the profits of planet for a small percentage of life(humans) on the planet, while increasingly socializing the costs to the rest of life on the planet.

Think of human civilization as a corporation, and the planet as the government. The planet, like the government, is the regulating body. Now think about all the things in relation to corporations we like to complain about. Every one of those things is applicable in our relationship with the planet/environment/nature/physical reality/whatever you wish to call it. There's your mindset.

[digonswine]

13. I understand what you are saying-

and I agree to a point. We view things from an anthropocentric perspective. I don't think that those two things are equivalent. We sorta have a set standard for human behavior. How humans behave as a species is different and interesting subject.

[Octafish]

10. Survival.

They'll pay cash, up front, price is no object.

Sounds un-democratic, acutally

[ThomWV]

12. Why would you think that all very very wealthy people have the same goal, or any goal?

It might be that other than that their wealth be self-sustaining that, in aggregate, they only care about their own personal comfort and it is their minions who actually rule the earth.

[digonswine]

14. I don't know-

maybe I was thinking of the minions and not the ultra-wealthy. I guess it boils down to the idea that we have to live ourselves and what we do. This does not, for some, even enter into it, I guess.

[ThomWV]

15. Sometimes I think that the real evil is just below the surface

Its not that old man Walton was such a horse's ass, its that the Regional Managers and Store Managers and all that hierarchy of management all trying to outdo one another to get to the top, but of course the top is never really there for them. That sort of thing lets Warren Buffett be the nicest guy in the world, but his Chief of Staff might be the most heartless SOB on earth and if so that's how the entire empire will act.

[txlibdem]

21. But old man Walton set the conditions to be like that.

And you are exactly right... the top is never there for them, for you, nor for me. The rich WANT you to believe that it is, or it could be if you work hard enough. But you will never be able to rise to the top unless you are a psychopath. A person with a conscience is limited in what he or she will do to get ahead... a psychopath is not limited at all.

[rhett o rick]

17. It isnt "their" endgame. They are caught-up in the capitalism beast.

But the beast controls them not the other way round. The capitalism beast is fueled by human greed. Uncontrolled it will eventually implode.

The goal of capitalist greed is power. Money is just a tool.

IMO you have to be a sociopath to be a successful capitalist.

[Fire Walk With Me]

18. Control and domination. As much as they can have.

[elleng]

19. I really don't think 'moneyed individuals' are our primary problem;

They've gotten money, so to a significant extent probably have experience and some smarts. They would NOT want to undermine public education, for example. Its the repugs who are the problem, and THEY seek POWER, imo.

[Capitalocracy]

20. There are certain things money can't buy.

They can't stand that and they want to change it.

[txlibdem]

22. Do you mean like in the movie "Soylent Green" with Charlton Heston?

People were being scooped up by construction vehicles and dumped into dump trucks. And the wealthy could have any beautiful girl they wanted. That was a caste society... no rising to the top, only becoming part of the food.

[Capitalocracy]

23. Pretty much.

They want to be able to buy humans, and not just as furniture like in Soylent Green, they want to be able to buy love. How many of these guys have trophy wives they trade in every few years for a newer model? For them to be able to keep doing that, not only do they have to be rich, but everyone else has to be poor and have no other choice.

[txlibdem]

25. I wholeheartedly agree

It isn't about being rich. It's about everyone else being in abject poverty.

[Cogito ergo doleo]

24. No civil rights

If everything is privatized, no worries about civil rights, therefore, no regulations, although I think the country has been running like this all along on a state level. The federal government is the only thing protecting the people, as states tend to give away the farm to corporations-- something I've recently learned while house-hunting.

If Japan's future is in question as a viable plot of land capable of sustaining healthy life, try to find an area that has not been horribly and unthinkably contaminated (soil, air, water), especially in some of the more beautiful areas of our own country, with uranium tailings from mining, arsenic from copper smelting, etc, etc, etc. It's been pretty ravaged, and it's the saddest thing to me that politicians have no sense of allegiance to their country or fellow countrymen.

[txlibdem]

31. The despoiling of America

Couldn't agree more! Politicians want to be re-elected, corporations give enough cash to do it, so corporations get to do whatever evil they want.

Sic transit gloria mundi

[tblue37]

28. In _Superman III_ the villain, a superwealthy guy played by Robert Vaughan,

tells the Richie Pryor character, who doesn't udnerstand the motivation for his villainy, since he already is richer and more powerful than anyone else in the world, "It's not enough that I win. Everyone else must lose!"

[no_hypocrisy]

29. Primarily it's permanent wealth redistribution to the wealthy and powerful

with no chance of the wealth ever leaving their control again.

[proud patriot]

30. they want it all....

[dionysus]

32. i don'tthink they have the foresight to realize what they're doing. when they end up with total

control over a smoking pile of rubble, what will they have really won?

they will have killed the goose that laid the golden egg...

[TheKentuckian]

33. What is a black hole's endgame?