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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 9/16/12

Developing A Flea Market Economic Philosophy: The No-Trust System and Getting People in The Streets

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I went to a huge outdoor flea market in Tacony Palmyra NJ today. I usually go once or twice a year to find some bargains. This time, I was also hoping to sell some stuff that's been sitting in my storage unit for way too long. And since a friend was already renting a space, and getting there bright and early, it was a sink-dunk plan. 


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Tacony Palmyra Flea Market Photo by Rob Kall

We got to talking about how amazing it was that people were coming all the way from New York to set up stands to sell stuff. There are, I would estimate, at least 1000 sellers there, offering cell phone accessories, knock-off copies of brand name sneakers, blue jeans, hats,  produce, perfume, office supplies, kitchen accessories, cleaning supplies, incense, bongs and glass pipes, tee shirts, lots of headphones and ear-buds, tons of costume jewelry"

Google Maps view of Tacony Palmyra Flea Market


This is a mostly cash business. My friend and I got to talking about how most of the vendors here were not paying taxes. They were selling here, not getting rich, just trying to survive. 

another Google Maps Aerial view of Tacony Palmyra Flea Market


I told him that I'd just done an interview with the authors of the book, Betrayal of The American Dream. Applying Investigative Journalism to Betrayal of the American Dream Donald Barlett and James Steele

While we were talking, I got a call from one of our editors, who'd written an article that suggested that a lot of people from the Occupy Wall Street Movement, who oppose government, were doing the same kind of thing that Grover Norquist was. I disagreed. I said that government that's been serving the wealthy is the problem, not all government. I said that the OWS movement opposes government that serves and protects the one percent. 

I finished my phone call and went on to tell my friend how the book, Betrayal of the American Dream, describes how the congress, the White House and a lot of government agencies no longer serve the middle class or the poor-- how they have sold out, screwed and betrayed the middle class. I went on to talk about the bullshit argument that wealthy people built their businesses themselves, arguing that anyone who's become wealthy uses the resources provided by government-- courts to enforce contracts, roads, the internet, educated workers. 

But as I was talking, I looked around at all the vendors selling cheap, crappy knock-off shoes and trinkets made in China" out of the backs of their 10+ year old vans and trucks. These people were not benefitting from the government. They were scraping by. 

I brought up taxes, how it is not fair that Mitt Romney pays the same or less than the hard working vendors at the flea market. I pointed out that under Eisenhower the top tax rate was 92%, and that it was over 50% even under Nixon. I said we should bring back progressive tax rates, where people at higher incomes paid more for the highest income levels. 

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Rob Kall Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

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Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
 

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