8/2/2013 11:02 AM
Writing’s been sparse. My nose hates me right now. But I’m
still reading the news, and here’s what I see:
America has given up on the old American Dream. The new
American Dream is “I got mine, and will now pay lobbyists to eliminate that path
to success.” Granted, it’s not catchy, (I’m working on it) but it’s the frame
that reality seems to fit.
Specifically, people who aren’t already successful, and don’t
already own homes, are being actively screwed by the current system, whether
they’re poor, or immigrants, or students, or “lower middle class” or some
combination thereof. Most of the screwing is coming from the right, but, sad to
say, the left has often participated, as in the removal of credit card debt
from debts that can be discharged through bankruptcy.
Here are the high (low?) points:
Good paying manufacturing jobs are gone, and the Republicans
are doing their best to make the few public service jobs that are left, like
police and fire and teachers, more insecure and less valuable every day.
To get a good job in the private sector, you need, at minimum, a college degree, maybe
even an MBA. By the time that’s over, even at a public university, most
students are more in debt than their parents ever were when they bought a house.
So students’ll take whatever job, at whatever wage, to try to pay off
that loan. Which suppresses wages in the private market, continuing to increase
the profit margins for the companies they go to work for.
Meanwhile, because of these loans, and these crap wages, a
lot of these students can’t afford to move out of their parents homes. 36% of
folks ages 18 – 31 are living with their parents, an all-time high.
By the way, did I call them student loans? They’re actually
indenture contracts: they cannot be forgiven, they cannot be discharged in
bankruptcy, they do not count towards your credit rating (although failing to
pay them counts against,) and they cannot be renegotiated to different, more
favorable terms.
Meanwhile, as I mentioned before, a lot of low-income people can’t get bank accounts. I didn’t say “don't”, I said “can't”. On the up-side, the New York state Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman,
has opened an inquiry into this (mostly as a result of the story in the
NY Times),
but who knows when any of these folks will be able to join the land of the
financially-recognized?
And regardless of whether it’s a job or a credit card,
your rights as a worker or a consumer are pretty much gone. You are required to
sign a contract to get the job, the credit card or the cell phone, and that
contract includes signing away your right to sue. Arbitration, rather than court,
is the only place where most disputes can be brought these days. And since the
corporations pay for the arbitrators, guess who always wins.
PS: The Supreme (Republican) Court recently ruled that these agreements prevent
class-action suits, so even if 50,000 people figure out a company is
overcharging, they each have to go to arbitration alone. Because no lawyer will
take a case over a couple hundred dollars. Meanwhile, having cheated 50,000
people out of $200, the company reaps $10 million in illegal gains. Who says
the game’s not rigged?
While actual Consumer Prices have remained almost flat for
the last few years, (look it up,) the asset investments needed to get ahead in
America have gone through the roof: Education and Health Care, which are
investments in self, and Housing, which is a ‘real’, leverageable investment.
These have rapidly moved beyond the reach of the entire middle class, resulting
in devastating inequalities, to the extent that America no longer
leads in upward mobility, but actually has almost no upward mobility anymore, only marginally more than Mexico and Turkey.
And what little that can be done to turn this around is
fought tooth-and-nail by the Republicans and their corporate masters. While
several states (including California and New York, two of the biggest) have announced
lower group rates for individuals and small employers, as a result of ObamaCare’s health insurance reform , the House
Republicans yesterday voted for the 40th time to defund ObamaCare. And GOP party leadership announced that they would refuse to fund the federal government at all, to prevent a single dollar of health care support to be spent on
ObamaCare.
Republicans have no plan to help Americans with health care
costs, the number one cause for personal bankruptcy. They’re more than happy to
see you bankrupt, still owing for your student loans and the credit card debts
you ran up to pay for your child’s illness or injury. That way, you’ll be willing to work for slave
wages. Haven’t you heard, the fast-food workers are walking out ? The companies will need these indentured college grads to be scabs and
cross those picket lines.
8/2/2013 12:25 PM Gotta go pick up my niece at LAX
8/2/2013 3:16 PM
So what to do about all this? Well, get politically active, get engaged,
get out there and vote for better representatives in government.
Which is why the same people are working so hard to make the lower middle class, the poor, the students and all non-white citizens unable to vote. Especially since they got the Voting Rights Act overturned.
“Voting Rights? You don’t need no sticking Voting Rights.”
Depressing enough. Need a palette cleanser? Something to
remind you of the goodness in people (current GOP leadership excepted)? Here’s a sports figure obituary. No, really. Read this.
8/2/2013 3:30 PM
8/2/2013 3:40 PM
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