When the protest for affordable housing began, some dismissed the campaign as a "Woodstock" of college kids on vacation. By the time Saturday night rolled around, tens of thousands demonstrated in Tel-Aviv and what started as a students' summer protest became a nationwide push for change and a political headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A few months back, citizens' protests targeted the pricing of specific commodities like gasoline, water and cottage cheese. Now, protest is everywhere. Students are camping out in the streets in tents. Dairy farmers are blocking roads with cows. Doctors are striking, the head of Israel's medical association is on a hunger strike. The latest is a Facebook call not to show up for work on Aug. 1.
Israel's economy is strong, the public is constantly told; the country has money, the economy is growing.
Then why is everyone angry? First of all, because they can be. A quick look around the neighborhood has reminded people they have power and can use it to rework priorities and redistribute resources.
Beyond that, some numbers (from a story by Sever Plocker, a financial journalist): Over the last five years, the average income in Israel has increased by 17% and food prices by 25%. Water rates have gone up 40% and gasoline by 23%. The average apartment price has gone up 55% and rent by 27%.
That last item, housing, sparked the protest sweeping the country. But it's not only the last five years, Plocker writes. Real wages haven't increased since 2000, while companies traded on the stock exchange have grown by 300%. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is treading water and "this unusual prosperity has passed it by," Plocker noted.
The story is the same everywhere, THE RICH GET RICHER, THE REST GET POOR. The only logical way to evaluate this rapidly increasing disparity in net worth of the ultra-wealthy and the rest is that the wealth of the Middle Class is being funneled up to the Rich. In my last video report I included Max Keiser Report # 134 that proves statistically that the ultra-wealthy are becoming wealthier by about the same percentage as the Middle Class are being impoverished, and it is all being done by design. The real cause of social unrest, whether in Mexico or Israel or Egypt or the US or UK is economic problems. The more the Fed indulges in Quantitative Easing the greater the INFLATION problems that will afflict the whole world, and it is only a matter of time before cries of Revolution are heard from Alaska to Australia, from Siberia to Argentina and all points in between. Blood is going to flow in the streets worldwide, there is no other possible outcome!
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