Where Did The Money Go?!
Do you ever wonder why, here in the richest country on Earth, so many people are having so much financial difficulty? Take a look at this graph and think of what it really represents.
The line for Productivity rises steadily upward from 1947 to 2009 (and continues to the present), and the lines for people’s wages rose along with it until the late 1970s. But beginning around 1980 you can see that the lines representing workers’ wages suddenly stopped rising along with the productivity. They go flat for the next 40 years, and they’re continuing flat today. That’s not just a stagnation of wages. That is effectively a steady decline, relative to the rise of the cost of living, and relative to the power of the wealthy. So the buying power for the vast majority of Americans has declined every single day, day after day, for 40 years while the corporate owners of this country have become insanely wealthy from our labor. They are stealing the wealth and the future prosperity of the whole population. How long do you think that can continue? Maybe you’ve noticed — things keep getting worse for more and more people.
Ever since Reagan’s presidency and the infamous “tinkle down” theory of economics, the Republican Party has been firmly in the pocket of the corporate owners, doing anything and everything to promote corporate interests. It’s not your father’s Republican party anymore. What’s the solution to the problem? Don’t vote for Republicans!
Is that not enough reason to stop voting Republican? How about this — The majority of Republican politicians are working diligently every day to:
• Destroy Environmental Protections (they reduce corporate profit) — Do you like clean water? How about clean air? Safe food? Is it a good idea to put the brakes on global warming?
• Destroy Public Education (privatizing for corporate profit) — Where did you go to school? Where did your parents go to school?
• Destroy Women’s Rights (because most corporate owners are men?)
• Destroy Affordable Health Care (privatizing for corporate profit)
• Destroy Public Mail Service (privatizing for corporate profit) — The Post Office!? No joke!
• Destroy Workers’ Protections (they reduce corporate profit)
• Destroy Reporting of Facts and Science (it’s easier to cheat Americans when the people are kept confused about issues)
• Trump even fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command in 2018, because of the Republican opinion that “Any government is bad government,” because they have a deep ignorance of science, and because it was put together by President Obama. Was that a good idea?
What’s the solution to these problems? DON’T VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS!
I know a lot of you are screaming right now, “But the SOCIALISM monster will come and get me! And the SOCIALISM monster will eat my children! Oh look out for the SOCIALISM MONSTER!” The reason you are screaming that is because that fear has been drilled into you for decades by corporate and conservative media propaganda producers, like Fox media and Limbaugh. Please don’t allow the propaganda makers to misrepresent reality and cause irrational fear of the word “socialism.” Yes, they may be exciting to listen to, but they’re exciting for all the wrong reasons. They want you to be afraid, because they know fear can be used to manipulate people.
The fact is that successful countries make use of a combination of both capitalist influences and socialist style influences. Many large-scale ventures are much more efficient if they are paid for by our taxes and everybody benefits from them. Do you like our interstate highways? Yes of course you do. That’s an example of a very efficient use of taxes — a “socialist style” organization. Other things that benefit from the same kind of organization are national health care, police and fire departments, national parks, public schools, etc. Even the US military is a socialist style organization. Capitalism is great for some things, but it’s not great for everything. When capitalism is allowed free rein to do anything it can, like it has for the last forty years, that’s when things really go bad for workers.
What’s the solution to the problems? DON’T VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS!
I won’t say much here about the insane treasonous con-artist Trump. That’s another unbelievably huge disaster.
