FlipBoardJohn Oliver is doing something incredible. He is producing weekly, longform segments — usually around 10-15 relentless, commercial-free minutes each — about important and often under-reported issues, and he is somehow making all of them must-watch television. And it’s not just television, either. His FIFA segment has over 7 million views on YouTube. His one on net neutrality has 4.5 million. That’s insane. Want proof? Go up to the next person you see and say “Hey, want to watch a 13-minute YouTube clip? Nonono, it’s important. It’s about the government failing to properly regulate nutritional supplements.” They’ll slap you. They will literally slap you. I’ve seen it happen.
I mention this because his segment from last night might be his best and most important yet. In it, he discusses the rise in income inequality in America in sensible terms that are easy to understand, and he manages to do it all without becoming a shrieking partisan hack. That, based on everything I have learned from political coverage in my decade-plus as a registered voter, is a goddamn miracle. (He has an angle, yes, but it never even comes close to hackery.) AND IT’S FUNNY. Oh God, is it funny. That’s the best part. “F*CK YOU, CHAUNCEY,” indeed.
Find 15 minutes and watch this. It counts as news even though there’s cussing and jokes about orgies. What more could you ask for?
![[avatar]](https://profilecdn-woven.netdna-ssl.com/photo/51/profile)
I plan to immediately begin calling my collection of shit an “estate.” Anyone else?
The bit about the Roaring 20s being the “party that never ended” was nice, too.
At some point, you’d imagine more of the 1% would realize this story never ends well for them:
[www.politico.com]
I enjoyed that article, and agreed with it, very much
Mostly because it’s not some shrill anti-capitalist yelling from an undereducated 23 year old making handsignals, nor is it a right or left wing nutjob yelling about more or less government. It was a very insightful, reasonable point of view that suggests actual fixes for the problems, coming from business itself
@Staubachlvr “Undereducated” If anything the occupy protesters were over educated and jobless. They were just trying to break out of being so over-educated and conditioned which is what the college system does to you. When you get out, realize you’re under a mountain of debt and that you’ll now have to rent yourself for the rest of your life to pursue useless trinkets, life starts feeling a bit hollow. So you react, maybe not in the most productive way, but it was certainly a reaction that got a lot more done than the media would have you believe.
BTW I’d like to point out that all this talk about Income Inequality comes directly from Occupy Wall Street making it an issue. They tried as much as they could but they couldn’t be completely ignored.
Glad you liked it, Staubachlvr.
And jesus, I credit the author of that article. It not only brought the two of us to the same side of an issue, but it managed to be the rare piece from Politico (“Tiger Beat on the Potomac”) actually worth forwarding. It’s like a unicorn!
I never got into Occupy — too many hippies, too much stupid symbolism, and too idiotic with the “movement without leaders” nonsense — but as someone wiser than me said, for all their faults, at least they were yelling at the right buildings.
@Yogi lol @ the idea that the Occupy protesters did anything but moan about capitalism while sipping Starbucks coffee and posting about it on their iPhones
@Otto Man For all their faults even Chomsky went to speak to them and did talks on how they actually affected real change. And Chomsky is someone who does his homework.
@Borklund Yes Borkland you’re ignorant because you didn’t bother to do any research. You just sat there waiting for the nice media to let you know what Occupy was up to. While you were sleeping they were squatting in peoples homes. Not just anyones homes, homes of people who were taken advantage of and had their homes repossessed. They stayed there and forced the banks into negotiating instead of just ripping people away and throwing them out.
Also you might’ve noticed what this post is about, it’s about Income Inequality. Something nobody was talking about, or even had any idea about until Occupy Wallstreet made it a real issue. Now it’s actually discussed, on the mainstream news, that’s a serious coup for anyone who knows activism.
Let’s also not forget the governments role in this as well. Businesses are misbehaving greedy children, but government is the permissive, enabling parent
@Staubachlvr
Government is beyond enabling, it’s Justin Beiber’s dad.
Hey, we agree again. Obama’s relatively soft hand with Wall Street has been infuriating.
Sure, he fought hard for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the face of Republican stonewalling — and that was insane; threatening to defund the whole agency if Elizabeth Warren wasn’t fired? — but beyond that, it’s been the lightest rap on the knuckles.
Oh and then there was the rapey and vandalism of simple businesses… Occupy people are white guilt people with worse hair and less grooming.
I still amazes me the power the Public Relations Industry has over people who I’m assuming by now know their tricks. People will believe whatever those in change tell them. Occupy was worthless, don’t worry yourself with trying to change anything, only like those we say are moderate and not radicals like anyone who is against us.
Ya know if the establishment would’ve won against the Civil Rights Movement, how many of us today would be talking about those wackos and them wanting equal rights. It’s not as far fetched as you think.
“it’s never too early to start protecting your imaginary lottery winnings”
-sigh-America, fuck yeah.
The problem with the segment is he is not talking about income inequality. He is talking about inheritance inequality, not the wage gap. Way different things. Like the show, though.
I think it also count as inherit business or estates which generate income for them. But the main topic was not the income inequality but the discussion of income inequality. There was a segment about how Obama have to stop talking about income inequality because people label it as “class warfare”, which led to the segment that the poor america think they are just temporary poor millionaire who don’t want to tax their future “millionaire money”.
He was talking about income inequality.
The Estate tax thing was one thing he zeroed in on.
But he is making the point that income inequality isn’t just something that arises out of nothing. It’s multi-generational. You’re born to wealthy parents, chances are high you’ll end up wealthy. You’re born into poverty and the chances you’ll end up wealthy are slim — basically you must have an exceptional talent with the right circumstances going your way to use that talent. Otherwise, your ability to close that gap is next to zero.
The mistake we make is to consider that we’ll somehow, by some means (talent, hard work, act of God), bridge that inequality divide and end up on the rich and wealthy side. So we support policies that make it easier for the side we wish we were on as opposed to the side we’re really on.
It helps having a dozen writers AND having poached Tim Carvell as his head writer from The Daily Show where he served as head writer for many a year.
and being on only once a week helps them focus and prep each piece right.
So if the second lottery machine is broken, how are 16 of the top 25 Americans on the Forbes Billionaire list self made? Did they win a third lottery held after the show?
Well, the easy answer is that 16 out of 25 isn’t really a very strong sample. I just scanned the list, but all of those I noticed were all tech giants. Supporting your argument, Michael Dell is at #48.
But I guess, again, that still looks like a small sample.
See also the article Otto posted above:
[www.politico.com]
16 people out of the top 25 being self made doesn’t really mean that the system works like it should, and it especially doesn’t mean that things should keep going the way they are, in terms of income gaps and etc.
It’s an interesting article, but I think the pitchforks have already come. Except Americans don’t use pitchforks, they use votes. A man who said he wanted to spread the wealth and later decried all entrepreneurs by saying “you didn’t build that,” was twice elected President.
I’m also not sure his solution hits the right target. The American economy is always strongest when the middle class has both disposable income and good credit. But full time workers who make minimum wage are far from middle class, and a raise to $15/hr (assuming they work a 40 hour week) barely gets them to the fringes of middle class. And by doing so, prices will go up causing the true middle class to have even less disposable income.
What happens when those 16 in the top 25 die?
The estate tax should be abolished because it feeds the hateful envies of the unproductive and lazy fuckers in this world.
It is not “income” inequality these dumb fucks are “really” bitching about…it is “asset ownership” envy.
Fuck these fucking losers.
Oh thank dog. This discussion had been entirely too civil, articulate, and reasonable. Thank you “SuchCreativity” for bringing the derp/trolling that was so painfully required of all online communications.
Margaret Thatcher debunked this pissing and whining years ago….decades ago, actually.
I think it is telling that these three comments were made by a brony.
Did you just cite Margaret Thatcher as an expert on income inequality?
She was pretty good at worsening it, I guess.
[www.theguardian.com]
Margaret Thatcher freed up Great Britain….it was not her “job” to lessen income inequality….because who GIVES a fuck?
[www.youtube.com]
What does he propose we do with those extra taxes he wants to collect? Oh yeah, more welfare for people out of work due to global free trade. Maybe stop doing that instead?
Global free trade is inevitable……what should be focused upon is the great desire of that world to consume Amrican goods because of the status.