Thomas Piketty's 2013 unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) *Capital in the 21st Century*, offers a very convincing explanation of our political decay, and it continues to serve this purpose as the decay undergoes alarming acceleration:

memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24

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A Gilded Age editorial cartoon of a frowning Uncle Sam giving a blood transfusion to a gargantuan business-man whose waistcoat is labeled 'protected monopolies.' The businessman's head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background has been replaced with a halftoned EU flag whose blue field is covered in circuit-board traceries. The floor beneath the figures is an abstract, pinkish pattern.

Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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EFF
https://www.eff.org/files/issues/eu-flag-11_1.png

CC BY 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
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