You've all missed the "brass ring" here...

We'll call our friend "ANON"... I am a big Tolstoy fan, and don't want the name besmerched.

Anyway, ANON rants on (and on and on... get it?) about how evil the 1% Club is, and that our best effort is to deny them their "life's blood" by not clicking on Internet ads, shopping for new clothes, or watching anything in a movie theater or from Blockbuster. I'm as much a fan of "voting with my dollar" as anyone, but this is NOT the answer to ANON's problems.

All we would do (if we followed his advice) is to deny ourselves that which everyone else is taking advantage of. We would probably save a few dollars by years end, but even if 20% of all of America chose to follow his advice... the money isn't in the "retail" aspect of the sale, it is in the "manufacturing" end. Retail has seen it's future in "point-and-click" shopping, and I am convinced that there is NOTHING you can't buy online, which means that "direct buying" will eventually dominate the sales of our economy.

So, given those facts, where is the solution? Grin and bear it? Suck it up, and continue to piss and moan about our lot in life? Take great satisfaction in the fact that WE will work to stay OUT of the 1% Club by never striving to reach a position that might pay as much as $400k a year?

Follow ANON's logic, and the end of the path takes to that wonderful, tireless, "gem" of a chestnut... the class-less Utopia of Marxism.

If ANON is right (and I'm not saying he is) and the 1% Club controls 50% of all the wealth in the nation, then surely it must also control the vast majority of the means of production. To deny the 1% Club their control, then the means of production must be taken from them and placed in the hands of the "proletariat" (Marx's word, not ANON's).

Thus, the greatest lie ever propogated on the world is perpetuated. "From each according to his ability... To each according to his needs." With the means of production placed solely in the hands of the PEOPLE, there is no incentive to make anything for the private individual. The individual's needs INCREASE while his incentive to produce DECREASES.

ANON failed to give an example of a nation, state or society that has lasted LONGER than the USA yet didn't offer an individual the opportunity to increase his wealth (his "value")... because there IS NONE.

Where are the examples of Marxism? Strewn across the globe, cluttering up the gutters of history with the debris and rubble of their ruined and failed societies.

I'm off to the pub to drink another "baker's dozen" pints and solve all the world's problems AGAIN... Liz is driving! I'll tell Mick you guys all say HI!