IT'S A RICH MAN'S WORLD

The New Zealand media  froths at the mouth over Facebook.

Most of  the  New Zealand media, along with the international mainstream media, positively  drooled over the launch of Facebook as a public company. Well, it wasn't so much  about drooling over Facebook itself but the vast amounts of money heading in the direction of a small group of already wealthy people.

Hundreds of millionaires were made overnight. And singer Bono, who owns one  percent of Facebook, is now $1.5 billion richer. 'Its all about connecting people', waffled the nauseating  Bono, presenting us with yet  more evidence as to why he has consistently failed to support the Occupy movement.  He's a  limousine- riding  tax-dodging liberal hypocrite who misrepresents the left every time he appears in the media. 

The stories about the amount of money that Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg is worth  were repeated ad nauseum. He's worth over $20 billion but he wears a hoodie! So what? Does that give him more street cred? 

The  story about Zuckerbetg  devising Facebook in his bedroom while at university was just more myth-making. America is the land of opportunities and anyone can  become President or even of their  own their own social  networking site!  Perhaps that's the message that a impoverished and confused America wants to hear right now but its a long way from being the truth.

The statistics show that class migration is in the opposite direction, toward the bottom. The US middle class is being impoverished but why bother the facts when you can just blather on about the success of Mark Zuckerberg?

Let's just ignore that the real unemployment rate in the United States is estimated to be approximately  14% rather  than the 8% cited by official figures. Hundreds of thousands are homeless and many millions below the poverty line. None of them are celebrating the 'success' of Facebook.

Somewhere in all the Facebook frenzy it was lost that social networking site  doesn't actually  produce anything, has provided few new  jobs and has never made any money.  This is fantasy finance, figures on a computer screen. We saw this kind of thing before the 2008 crash and the 'final wizards' don't seem  have learnt a thing - nor have the media.