Union president Shawn Fain told Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, “It’s a sign of the times…. In the last 40 years…working class people went backwards continually…. There’s this massive chasm between the billionaire class and the working class and…when those things get out of balance, we need to turn it upside down. When 26 billionaires have as much wealth as half of humanity, that’s a crisis….”
I bring this up a lot when talking politixs. People either don’t know it, or dismiss it as irrelevant. They the problem is immigrants or some nut case with a gun. To me, the billionaires create those, or just those problems be, to keep themselves rich.
We’re on the same wavelength I believe. To me our primary problem is corporate power. I recently reviewed The Big Myth by Oreskes and Conway.
Here is the review I wrote on Amazon:
When you throw out a rule book, people cheat. When you deregulate an industry or market, people cheat. In any country of over 335 million people, many are opportunistic and selfish. Greed does not want to deal with its pollution of our air or water. Greed fights against paying its fair share of taxes. Greed likes to label any social program as “socialism,” knowing that such a label is a dog whistle to other greedy types.
There is no invisible hand involved in a free market. There is only the bottom line. Those who claim that a free market is a magical thing are lying. These same people despise finance laws, the EPA, OSHA, the IRS, and any social program that might help the poor. Problem is: the greedy have the money and power to force their way. They don’t want to help the poor until they become the poor. Then it’s bailout time.
According to the Economic Policy Institute CEOs now make more than 344 times what the average worker makes. An average worker cannot make in his/her lifetime what a CEO makes in one year. Neither can his/her kid, grandkid, or great grandkid. Say you work 40 years as an average worker. If your lineage follow you as average workers (40 years each), it won’t be until your great great great great great grandkid retires that you will have collectively made (that’s five greats, or seven generations beyond you) what the CEO made in one year. That is not remotely reasonable.
I’ve seen the one star reviews. One review is a cut-and-paste of an article from Reason magazine/website. Another says that rather than thinking for yourself, just read the Reason article. This appeal to authority works for many. How can something called Reason be wrong? Simple, Reason starts from a Libertarian perspective rather than an unbiased perspective.
This book is awesome (as was Merchants of Doubt). It is not an easy read. I could have used less writing about Ingalls’s works but that wasn’t hard to skim through. The facts presented in this book are not partisan. Bill Clinton’s mistakes are as clearly presented as Ronald Reagan’s brain-washed corporate puppeteering. Of course you will see more conservative/Republican names since they are most involved in fighting necessary regulation. It’s easy to say the government is inefficient when in fact the real blame is rightfully on corporate greed. See CBS’s “Weapons contractors hitting Department of Defense with inflated prices for planes, submarines, missiles” by Bill Whitaker, May 2023.
Lausten, this is exciting two rational and solid new posters in a row. Could this be the start of something good.
I always thought our down fall started with allowing corporation to ceaselessly gobble up smaller corporations and evolving into mega monopolies bigger than governments and driven by the bottom line.
Power (money) corrupts, billions of dollars corrupts the mind beyond recognition. Lots of smarts, but not an ounce of wisdom or compassion. a positively destructive mix.
Oh and welcome Coffee, looking forward to reading more.