The Middle Class Blames every one but themselves

Think about it, though. The Bronx has one of the poorest districts and the Upper East Side is one of the richest & they're just a couple of miles away. What's the big diff between Biloxi or Jackson?

 

More or less the same applies to big swaths of S. Florida, specially where rich winter birds, like certain orange criminal spend their vacation, while relying on poor people to serve their narcissistic whims

 

That was my point. So much of a gap. Now, what can be done without triggering capitalism fetishists is not something I can answer. I'm just calling it like it currently is.

 

The obvious things are living wages, subsidized rents and universal healthcare insurance. All of them evil evil commie things.

 

Wages were supposed to rise after Trump's tax cuts. Instead, they’ve fallen https://t.co/LactYzTE7a via @bopinion pic.twitter.com/qUdfYQK1En

— Bloomberg (@business) July 21, 2018

 

The more that Republicans enact policies to increase income inequality, the more that white workers become disgruntled and believe that they need to elect Republicans to catch up. It's a beautiful circle for the GOP.

 

My only hope (and currently a dim one) is that, after this massive kickback from entitled white people, enough non-racist white people and POC will vote extremely liberal for a generation or so, and revert most of these regressive policies that we have seen imposed on us since St. Ronnie.

 

That might happen. U.S. politics tends to be a pendulum, because the voters on the outside are more motivated than those who have succeeded and reached the inside.

 

Yeah, but the swing back after the 1960s revolution has been extremely long lived (1970s or 80s till today). Boomers are dying in droves but it seems like they passed their "best traits" to the next generation. I'm surprised at how many people in their 20s, 30s and 40s behave like their counterparts from 60 years ago.

 

I blame it on the lame, non-confrontational music of today. Now get offa my lawn!

 

Music stopped being a rebel's domain and became another breeding ground for capitalism. After all, you are only a good product if you get millions of like in the youtubes, don't ya?

 

Capitalism will always win!

 

I read one of the dumbest op-eds in history the other day when someone wrote in Forbes that Amazon stores should replace Libraries. (Forbes has taken it down)

In which the author concludes that the move would reduce taxes while increasing shareholder value for Amazon.

 

I have a theory on why the advancement of pro-worker policies has stalled/regressed specially in the US: From 1918 till 1989, the big red scare was real, and the US and its capitalist partners had a rival of equal power, not only in the geopolitical agenda, but from an ideological perspective.

IOW, capital owners in the US and Europe feared their states falling to the influence of the USSR from within (irony acknowledged) and fearing that a large section of their workers adhered to a socialist party and their countries became part of the red block, they were more willing to give the workers concessions, like living wages, unions, healthcare, etc, etc.

Once Capitalism defeated Socialism at the global level and most former communist countries adopted "free market" approaches, there was no longer a fear factor preventing the top 1% from pushing their agenda to the limit, hence all those "socialistic policies" have been relentlessly under attack for the last 30 years or so, to the point that we're basically back to 1925 regarding wealth/income distribution.

 

Well with the raise of India and China, maybe wealth redistribution will go back to what it used to be before colonialism/Industrial revolution (so back to the 1700's).

Africa still get no love.




https://www.vox.com/2014/4/10/5561608/9-charts-that-explain-the-history-of-global-wealth


The fight should be for higher taxes on Capital (Dividends, capital gains).

Fighting for higher taxes on income (I am ok with going back to B. Clinton levels of taxation) is an old fight that gets you relatively little.

Higher Inheritance taxes and higher Capital Gains taxes is where the money is at.

 

1. That's output, not Wealth.


2. I was talking Wealth/Income distribution in the US.




3. We could discuss global inequality, roughly...

 

That chart under 3. looks like Trump's wig. Coincidence?

 

Yes the 1% want to distribute the wealth of the .001% to ourselves and not to the real poor.

But yes politically, we can only pass laws that distribute wealth nationally, but we can also pass laws that protect the wealth in the USA from being more equally distributed around the world (Trump tariffs and other forms of protectionism).

https://www.economist.com/finance-a...r-up-the-global-wealth-pyramid-than-you-think

 

Won't happen.

 

The bigger problem is that for most people of wealth, it has become much easier to move the money around much like corporations. A global minimum tax rate would do more for the US than tax cuts/tariffs/etc.

It would be funny if someone was to go to a tax haven and nationalize the banks. The terror would be awful for the stock market, but we would know who the "real Americans" are.

 

Well if you love long enough, it'll be the majority browns openly mocking Whitelandia for its addiction problems and penchant for welfare. Right now opioiders are still given compassion & treatment.

Obama will still be blamed in Whitelandia of course. Some things won't change in 2118.

 

"Live".

That's a looooooong time to live... opioidheads will be given preferential treatment for generations, so long as they're mostly White.

 

Well maybe. But this doesn't address why the working class American knew two generations ago that dead-obvious things like a higher minimum wage would help him, while today's working class American is utterly lost. The white ones consistently vote against their economic interests, and not in subtle ways. Workers' benefits out, high marginal tax cuts in. Basic items.

I mean, the top 1% might be less afraid to push its agenda. But it still needs willing accomplices, and for some reason it can find them now more easily than it could in 1970.

 

Well, the 1% learned something from their communist foes: propaganda. Vilify unions, glorify job creators and do it relentlessly for 4 decades; first with the help of MSM, later with your own dedicated channel and platforms.

 

That is certainly part of it. But I feel that there is something more that we are missing.