It turned out that we needed our own guide because the experience was not pleasant. As we soon discovered, Quito is a dangerous place. Even in downtown Quito, we were advised that it was unsafe to cross the street at night. I mean that literally. One night, just as the sun had set, we stepped through the front door of our luxury hotel.
“Where are you going?” the doorman asked.
We pointed to another luxury hotel just across the street, where there was a restaurant we had been told was pretty good.
“I’ll call a taxi for you,” said the doorman.
“But it’s only across the street!”
“It is not safe,” insisted the doorman. He blew his whistle. A taxi pulled up. The doorman held the door open for us.
I thought this was a scam to earn a tip for the doorman and a fare for the taxi. Little by little I became convinced it was something else.
Once we exited the taxi across the street I noticed that the driver waited watchfully until we entered the hotel restaurant on that side. Just as we walked in, he pulled away.
It was the same story on the return trip. Another doorman pleaded with us not to cross the street back to our own hotel, except within the safety of a taxi. And again, the taxi waited until we were inside before driving off.
The super rich get to pay for two armed killers at the door
Then, during a ride through one of Quito’s“nicest” neighborhood, we found ourselves getting driven among the hills above town, past nice-looking but not extraordinary suburban-style houses. Most of the houses had a uniformed armed guard with an automatic rifle standing at the front door. A few houses had two armed guards with automatic weapons.
I asked why a smattering of the houses had two armed guards instead of one,
“Oh,” said are guide, “those are the homes of the super rich.”
And that’s when I saw the future of America’s top ten percent of the population that owns and controls seventy-one percent of the wealth.
No, there will be no revolution against them in this country. No chance of the masses rising up and taking control as they did in Egypt and Tunisia.
We eliminated that possibility ourselves when we eliminated the draft. That insured us that instead of having a citizen-soldier army, like the one that refused to fire on their fellow citizens in Egypt, we would have an army loyal to the people who rule – like in Libya. If you mass to protest in a way that will seriously threaten the power structure, you will die in a hail of bullets. Kent State was just a precursor.
Suddenly to be super rich will be to put your life on the line
Instead, what will destroy the quality of life of the super rich will be the cost of attempting to defend themselves from gangs of ambitious thugs who form little fiefdoms led by ruthless and ambitious criminals who kidnap, torture, rob, and kill in order to survive and amass wealth outside of the power structure.
In short, the thugs who are robbing America of our Social Security and Medicare and product safety and education today will live in fear of even bigger thugs tomorrow.
This is how it is these days in most of Mexico, most of Nicaragua, much of El Salvador – in fact in every one of the impoverished Latin American nations where the top few have all the money and power while the people at the bottom struggle desperately to survive. Here’s travel authority Rick Steves talking about it:
The saddest thing about visiting Managua and San Salvador is experiencing the fear caused by the violence that comes with extreme poverty in a big city. Every major hotel and nearly every business has an armed guard. It's unwise to walk around after dark, especially with a big camera. While you're unlikely to be hurt, the risk is that groups of young thugs might just rob you at knifepoint. I found that, rather than whole safe neighborhoods, there were mostly small islands of safety around malls and fancy hotels. A wealthy tourist (and nearly all tourists here are wealthy, in relative terms) happily pays triple for a taxi that works with the hotels so you know you're safe. You generally hop from one safe zone to another by cab.
The future of super wealth in this country will be a future filled with fear of kidnapping. Fear that gangsters will surround your car and shoot your driver, drag you into a truck, chop off your thumb and send it to your family to show that they are truly sincere about wanting all the cash your relatives can put their hands on.
If it's not you who gets kidnapped, then it will be your son. Or your daughter. Or your wife.
Believe me, the “kidnapping tax” rate will be higher than any income tax that any Democrat has ever called for.
Decapitated heads at your font door
Expect to see decapitated private policemen among those who you hired to protect you. Dead guards lying in pools of blood in front of your bullet-riddled front door. Expect to take your daily drive to the office by a different route each day, preferably in a different automobile each day, to confuse those hoping to kidnap you and torture you.
It boils down to often-repeated history: those who sow unreasonably acquisitive greed will reap a whirlpool of blood.
And all when it would be so easy if you simply accepted a marginal tax rate a few points higher than you pay now, rather than demanding a tax cut while you milk the middle class and the poor for their social and medical security, driving them into penury.
1 comment:
My friend and I wandered around Quito in 1997. We did not experience the perception of danger you did. The presence of wrought iron bars sharpened and tipped with glass over every window was really striking.
My cousins in Guatemala worry about kidnapping all the time. Everything you say about this is true.
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