June 26, 2017
1) Wealth will “trickle down”
It’s hard to believe an
economic policy that conjures images of urination could be wrong, but the idea
is as bankrupt as the lower classes who have been subjected to the trickling.
Less than ten people now have
the financial wealth equivalent to half the planet, and the trickling seems a
lot more like a mad cash-grab by the (morally bankrupt) elites.
Rather than trickle down, the
1% and their lackeys have hoovered up the majority of new wealth created since
the 2008 crash.
After 40 years of stagnant
wages in the US the people feel more shit on than trickled upon.
It’s not a mistake that the
elite reap most of the profits: the capitalist system is designed this way, it
always has been, and will be, until we the people find the courage to tear it
down and replace it with something better.
2) I took all the risks
It can be argued the average
employee takes far more risks in any job than the average person who starts a
business with employees. The reason being is that the person starting a
business usually has far more wealth, where most Americans
can’t afford a 500 dollar emergency. Meaning if they lose a job or go
without work for any stretch it means some tough decisions have to be made. A
person with even a failing business cannot be fired, but the employee can be
fired for almost any reason imaginable, they are operating without a net at all
times.
The capitalist uses all sorts
of public infrastructure to get his/her company off the ground. From everything
to the roads to get you to your job, colleges, public utilities, tax breaks,
electricity, etc. Even the internet itself was created from public research.
Yet still, elite business owners still have the audacity, and are so full of
hubris, that they believe in the hyper-individualist, macho,
rugged-cowboy/pioneer façade they affect.
3) I could pay you more if
there were less government regulations
Many capitalists argue that
layers of government bureaucracy prevent them from paying their employees a
fairer, living wage. This is a huge whopper, as our regulations (like no child
labor, a minimum wage, disability and worker’s compensation, basic
environmental impact studies, etc) actually provide safety against the worst
type of exploitation of workers and destruction of the land by corporations.
Without these minimum regulations, an age of even more outright neo-feudalism
would occur, where employees could be layed-off and rehired ad-infinitum, based
on downward market wage forces, at the wishes of ever-more capricious owners,
management, and CEOs.
4) If you work hard, one day
you can be rich like us (We live in a meritocracy)
America is not a meritocracy,
and no one should think it is. There exists no tie to the intelligence of work
done or the amount of it that guarantees success. Rather to be rich depends
more on either being born into it, or being exceptionally good at exploiting
others so one may take the bulk of the proceeds for themselves. This is the
magic formula for wealth in this ever so “exceptional” land – exploit, exploit,
exploit.
Inheritance &
exploitation is how the rich get rich. To understand the exploitation aspect
takes some understanding of how the rich function. Next to none of the super
rich become that way solely by meritocracy. Their income is created through
complex webs of utilizing leverage usually to extract some form of passive
income. They are the rentier class or con artists, or both.
You only have to look at what
the rich are dabbling in. Like Robert Mercer for instance, who made his money
via “a
hedge fund that makes its money by using algorithms to model and trade on the
financial markets.” . Skimming money off corrupt financial markets
hardly seems like a worthwhile activity that contributes anything to humanity,
it’s a hustle.
Or take Bill Gates, who did
some programming for a few years, poorly, and became rich by landing a series
of deals with IBM initially, and then by passively making money off the share
values of Microsoft. The late Steve Jobs may have been one of the more hands-on
billionaires, but even he required
thousands of enslaved asian hands to extract the kind profits Apple
was able to make.
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson
almost certainly has organized
crime links, as if owning a casino wasn’t enough of a con to begin with.
Rich DeVos became a
billionaire by running a pyramid scheme most are familiar with called Amway.
The Walton family, owners of
Wal-Mart, pays a median wage of 10 bucks an hour (far below a living wage),
they strong arm vendors, and also rely on products made with working conditions
that resemble old world slavery, while having more wealth than the bottom 40%
of Americans.
There’s just no way to make
that kind of money without having a major market advantage and then
profiteering off it. Lie, cajole, coerce, manipulate, bribe, rig, and hustle.
These are the tools of the rich.
No one is worth this kind of
money and everyone needs each other’s help to function, but in the minds of the
rich they consider themselves the primary cogs in the machine worthy of their
money for doing not much else than holding leverage over others and exploiting
it.
5) This is as good as it gets
(there is no alternative)
Through a process of
gaslighting and double bind coercion the choices we are fed are propagandized
via controlled media outlets owned and operated by elites. We are told our
choices must be between the democrats or republicans, attacking the Middle East
or face constant terrorism, unfettered capitalism or state-run communism. We
are given binary choices that lack all nuance, and nuance is the enemy of all
those who seek to control and exploit. They feed us a tautology of simpleton
narratives which unfortunately do exactly what they hoped, keep people dumb and
biting on their red herrings.
Capitalists make it seems as
if there is no alternative because they hoard all the money, have all the hired
guns, and pay off teams of servile lawyers, judges, and lobbyists to write and
enforce their anti-life laws. Capitalists demand “law and order” whenever their
servant classes get too restless. In general, the most hardened, dogmatic
capitalists exhibit bewilderment and/or disgust at genuine human emotions like
joy, creativity, spontaneity, and love. Many capitalists have an unconscious
death wish, and want to drag the rest of us with them.
Capitalists have stolen all
the farmlands, hold all the patents to technology, and don’t pay enough to mass
amounts of citizens to get out of the rat race and get back to the land, to
live off of. The screws are turned a little tighter every year. If we are not
done in by massive natural disasters or an economic collapse, expect a
revolution to occur, hopefully a non-violent one.
6) We give back to the
community
Corporations set out to create
non-profits as a public relations move. They cause the problems and then put
small band-aids on the gaping wounds they have directly contributed to and use
the charity as a source of plausible deniability to obscure the fact that they
are exactly what we think they are: greedy.
Handing out bread-crumbs after
you’ve despoiled, desecrated, and bulldozed millions of hectares of valuable
habitat is not fooling anyone. The elite one-percenters are the enemies of
humankind and the biosphere itself.
7) The system (and economic
theory) is rational and takes into account social and environmental costs
People tend to think someone
somewhere is regulating things to keep us safe. They look around and see
sophisticated technology, gleaming towers in the sky, and what they believe to
be is a complex intelligent world. But in truth no one is running the show. The
world functions as a mad cash grab driven by neo-liberal ideology. Our
leaders are driven by power, fame, and money, and exhibit strong psychopathic,
sociopathic, and narcissistic traits.
The problems of modern
industrial capitalism and its impact on the world is clear – our exploitation
of the resources, people, and other species are a direct result of our consumer
based infinite growth model. Just a few of the problems we face are species
extinction, climate change, ocean acidification, and a toxic carcinogen filled
trash dump of a planet that reached population overshoot decades ago.
If the system was rational, we
would begin planning to lower birth rates to decrease the world’s population,
and voluntarily provide education, decent, dignified jobs, as well as birth
control and contraception to women worldwide.
We live by money values, and
think in money terminology. When we discuss healthcare the topic arises about
how to pay for it before nearly anything else. The priority isn’t on saving
lives but how to pay for things. Yes, how will we pay for healthcare when banks
can create money on a computer through the magic of fractional reserve banking,
which they often use to bail
out their crony friends. The money isn’t real but the implications of
restricting it from the populace are. Money is created out of thin air by
the magic of the Federal Reserve, yet we have all heard our bosses, and the
pricks in Washington complaining that “we don’t have enough money for that”
when it comes to healthcare, improving schools, and humanitarian relief for the
poorest parts of the world.
Again, if the system was
rational, world poverty would be solved within a few short years. Money
destined for weapons and “defense” could be used domestically as well as abroad
to Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, and there is more than enough money
(75 trillion is the annual world GDP, approximately 15 trillion in the US
alone) to pay for a good home, clothing, and food for every family worldwide,
with an all-renewable powered energy grid.
8) The future will be better
When Trump’s slogan make
America great again was on the lips of every alt-right fascist, most of us
stopped to ask, when was it great? The truth is that politicians have been
promising something better since the inception of this country and better has
never arrived.
There is always another
expensive war to fight and another financial meltdown occurring on average
every eight years. Wait, you might say, what about those sweet post-WWII growth
years brought about by the New Deal? The sad truth is those years were only
materially beneficial to white, middle-class men, who were highly sexist,
racist, and complicit in incubating today’s consumer-driven Empty
Society.
The post-WWII era was an
aberration in our history and the result of having more jobs available than
people, but as the country rapidly exploited its natural resources and reached
the limits of linear growth while the population exploded the leverage that
allowed people to have higher wages receded. Even though efficiency increased
enormously, the people lost leverage to demand higher wages.
Without leverage held by the
people capitalism will return to its status quo goal – exploit, and that’s just
what it did. In the US, corporations grew richer and the people grew poorer
starting from the mid 1970s to the present.
9) It’s Just Business
Employees devote years of
their lives to companies and when they are let go they are told it’s nothing
personal, it’s just business. This is how all bad news is delivered even when
personal, it’s says we are cold-hearted organizations that adhere to a bottom
line first and human needs second. So know when they say “it’s just business” what
they are saying is understand we are sharks, and acting like a shark is just
what we do.
This is also the logic behind
defending war crimes and similar atrocities. Nations like the US claim they
have a “responsibility to protect” civilians from terrorists. Then, when
American bombs kill civilians (or their proxies use US-made weapons), they are
referred to as “collateral damage”.
10) Financial markets &
debt are necessary
The health of the entire
economy is too often gauged by the stock markets. But the reality about
financial markets is they are extraneous gambling machines designed to place
downward pressure on companies to post good numbers to elevate share prices.
These financial markets funnel capital to a smaller and smaller number of
multinational corporations every year, and perpetuate non-linear economic
growth (and therefore more pollutants, CO2, pesticides, strip mining, razing of
forests) that is killing the planet.
Debt is the most fundamental
lie in our economy. Money is only supposed to be a tool to move goods
efficiently around a market, but for money itself to be a wealth engine is a
Ponzi scheme. And we all know how that ends.
No comments:
Post a Comment