Economics for Dummies: Happy Bastille Day!

Sing the choirs of cacophony:

And like the good band says: La Guillotine will claim her bloody prize…

A new survey from Insite Security and IBOPE Zogby International of those with liquid assets of $1 million or more found that 94% of respondents are concerned about the global unrest around the world today.

Fully 90% of respondents have a negative view of the current global economic climate and 41% say they have little or no faith that the U.S. will be able to right itself in this fiscal climate.

More than a third said security concerns have negatively affected business or investment plans.

“The survey found a seismic shift in the attitudes of the wealthy and how they are living their lives, the way they travel and how they are running their businesses,” said Christopher Falkenberg, President of Insite Security.

Of course, Insite has an interest in getting the paranoid rich to beef up their security. Still, the numbers are backed up by other trends seen throughout the world of wealth today: the rich keeping a lower profile, hiring $230,000 guard dogs, and arming their yachts, planes and cars with military-style security features.

Granted, America isn’t a country conducive to class wars in the streets (even a mention by the President of rolling back the private-jet tax breaks sparked denunciations of class warfare). But at a time when most of the country is mired in unemployment, weak housing prices and a stack of bills from the bailouts, the rich have reason to fear public resentment. And some fear even worse.

Be afraid, ye 1%ers…be VERY afraid. No amount of armaments and overpriced guard dogs can save you from the inevitable. And no amount of “let ‘em eat cake” is going to help either when your bad economics come home to roost:

Lessons taught but never learned
All around us anger burns
Guide the future by the past
Long ago the mould was cast
For they marched up to Bastille Day
La guillotine claimed her bloody prize
Hear the echoes of the centuries –
Power isn’t all that money buys.

You may squawk about class warfare now, but guess what? It’s already happening, and every millionaire and billionaire who spends tax moneys on private armies and the like is waging it against the peons. A stupid move, too, because it will cost you much more later if you don’t pay up and shut up. There is no guarantee that your loyal mercenaries won’t turn on you when it comes down to the crunch. And at the rate things are going, that crunch is gonna come…SOON.

And you won’t be welcome in any of your traditional tax-shelter hideaways, either. Even small, traditionally abject countries can only take so much of being pissed on by foreigners who care nothing for their languages and cultures, and who never seem to come out of their oversized compounds. And when nothing trickles down but the sewage, they won’t take it anymore. Guess what happens then?

In the meantime, enjoy all the overspending you’re doing on “security” that won’t secure a thing…SUCKERS.

Oh, and VIVE LA REVOLUTION!