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Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice: for they shall be filled. Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord.

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AGelbert

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Letter to the editor: a breathtaking lack of empathy
« Reply #90 on: June 04, 2023, 05:09:40 pm »

Jun 2 2023 By Walter Carpenter 🕊️

Letter to the editor: a breathtaking lack of empathy 😠

I heartily thank the 23 legislators who have rebelled against the budget and its inhumanity with the motel voucher program. Who knows what the real reasons for this cruelty are, but that it is "too expensive," according to what our political leaders have been saying about it in public, has a hollow-sounding echo to it.

No matter what the motive behind it is, this sudden termination of the motel voucher program displays a breathtaking lack of empathy. Our needless housing tragedy is not a natural calamity visited upon us by an act of God (whoever he or she is), like Hurricane Irene, but is a cruelty of our own making. It is American capitalism at work, a brutal tyranny of what we call the marketplace, then blame the victims for their suffering rather than the 👿🎩 perpetrators of it.
Any one of us, from the governor down to the janitor who cleans his office, could become homeless at any time. All it takes is one disaster like a sickness. If it were not for public housing, where I live now, I might also be one of those being tossed back onto the streets by this budget.

This taxpayer and voter applauds the courage of these 23 legislators. I'm certain that other lawmakers also feel the same way, but have not joined them for whatever reason. Maybe it is finally time to follow these rebellious legislators and at last start prioritizing humanity over costs.
Walter Carpenter 🕊️

Montpelier
https://vtdigger.org/2023/06/02/letter-to-the-editor-a-breathtaking-lack-of-empathy/
« Last Edit: June 04, 2023, 05:11:52 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Bankruptcy Filings Pile Up at Fastest Rate since 2010
« Reply #91 on: June 08, 2023, 03:46:45 pm »

Jun 7, 2023 by Wolf Richter • 88 Comments

The End of Easy Money: Bankruptcy Filings Pile Up at Fastest Rate since 2010

SNIPPET:

The problem today is not a collapse in prices – such as the price of oil during the Oil Bust of 2016 when crude oil grade WTI collapsed below $20 a barrel that took dozens of frackers down; WTI is at $72 a barrel today!

And the problem today is not a collapse in demand such as it hit some industries in 2020 or during the Great Recession. This economy is marked by rising prices and resilient demand.

The problem now is that the debt got a lot more expensive, and that investors thinking of buying this debt have gotten a little more prudent. The problem is the End of Easy Money. Once companies get hooked on Easy Money by having piles of debt, it’s tough to get by without Easy Money.

In a way, the economy is normalizing with rates that were fairly typical before the era of QE. But companies that only made it this far thanks to Easy Money are now getting hung out to dry.

Bankruptcy filings will whittle down the corporate debt overhang. Many companies will emerge from bankruptcy with less debt, and they’ll be nimbler and more able to thrive. Others will be sold off in bits and pieces, making room for appropriately managed companies not encumbered by these issues.

There is a cleansing aspect to this part of the credit cycle that needs to be allowed to do its job to get rid of the excesses and the deadwood at the expense of investors. This cleansing process that has now just started is long overdue.

Hilariously, the end of Easy Money is now called credit crunch. Which should be the name of a candy bar (Credit Crunch®) offered to the crybabies on Wall Street as consolation when they start clamoring for rate cuts.

Full article with graphs:
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/06/07/the-end-of-easy-money-bankruptcy-filings-pile-up-at-fastest-rate-since-2010/

Just one of SEVERAL excellent comments:
Quote
Adam Smith Jun 8, 2023 at 2:19 am
Wolf is like having a brother who runs an equity fund and makes clear what is in fact occurring versus the spin.

In a class on persuasion and compliance, in the first chapter was a sentence that was amazing saying that in relation to the execution of persuasion “…facts don’t matter.” I already have a graduate degree in Strategic Communication which originally is a Department of Defense communication policy done to “persuade and control” in the realm of military objectives not inform and enlighten. In the world of war this is not a problem to this writer understands the basis of all power is effectively violence that those in the military do to keep order over chaos.

My point is that the readers here are so hungry to be informed and enlightened and most know almost all the info now presented is mostly sewage not worth a XXXX.

Wolf made this statement:

“There is a cleansing aspect to this part of the credit cycle that needs to be allowed to do its job to get rid of the excesses and the deadwood at the expense of investors.”

and this cuts to the heart of the matter that people like us all have been waiting to see happen but now the outcomes are not the same with ]all manner of manipulation and deception. What is most telling is how tech allows a small subset of people to know what is happening in real time every minute and can make decisions most here would love to be privy to so investing would be a breeze. To make matters worse, now business, government, and tech seems to be in control of everything be it concealed, apparent, or “an understanding” between all the big players in our entire system.

I too have wanted to see all the benefits of being able to take advantage of good deals but this seems not likely for most anymore. So, are we all here just fooling ourselves to think anything like we once knew will exist ever again? I think not….

When younger, I went to school to become a CPA/Tax Attorney. I worked in accounting firm with ex White House Alumni from the Republican Party. Then, went on to audit federal and state grants to nonprofits….stunning what things done with this money we all pay taxes for.

So 35 years later, my old boss has been my CPA. I asked him to answer a question about 401Ks because I was always hearing about people cashing in all the money in their 401K for one reason or another. The question was “What percentage of people you have seen start a 401K and stay with it to the end and collect retirement from this source?

His answer was 5%, 1 out of 20, wow. So, the IRS gets all the tax avoided plus a ten percent early withdrawal penalty, and if it is much more than they normally earn in a year they are taxed at much higher rates than normally. So the government knows this is a scam (that they make good bank with) whereas how many here actually knew that?

I can barely read the news, I haven’t watched TV for 30 years, and I think most of us will be toast due to inflation….

What Wolf does here is found in the definition of lucid: “characterized by clear perception or understanding; rational or sane: a lucid moment in his madness. shining or bright. clear; pellucid; transparent.”

Appreciate your execution to inform and enlighten.

AGelbert Jun 8, 2023 at 2:19 pm
Thank you, Adam. That was the most informative summary of how ethics based people feel, for several decades now, about the problem of institutionalized mendacity that we have been assaulted with.

Wolf is doing a lot of good by telling it like it is.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2023, 04:11:57 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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AGelbert NOTE: All graphics except the first one are by me.

July 14, 2023 by Ellen Brown


The Federal Debt Trap: Issues and Possible Solutions

First posted on ScheerPost.

“Rather than collecting taxes from the wealthy,” wrote the New York Times Editorial Board in a July 7 opinion piece, “the government is paying the wealthy to borrow their money.”

Titled “America Is Living on Borrowed Money,” the editorial observes that over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), annual federal budget deficits will average around $2 trillion per year. By 2029, just the interest on the debt is projected to exceed the national defense budget, which currently eats up over half of the federal discretionary budget. In 2029, net interest on the debt is projected to total $1.07 trillion, while defense spending is projected at $1.04 trillion. By 2033, says the CBO, interest payments will reach a sum equal to 3.6 percent of the nation’s economic output.

The debt ceiling compromise did little to alleviate that situation. Before the deal, the CBO projected the federal debt would reach roughly $46.7 trillion in 2033. After the deal, it projected the total at $45.2 trillion, only slightly less – and still equal to 115% of the nation’s annual economic output, the highest level on record.

Acknowledging that the legislation achieved little, 🐘 House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said after the vote that he intended to form a bipartisan commission “so we can find the 😉 waste and we can make the real decisions to really take 😈 care of this debt.”

The NYT Editorial Board concluded:
Quote
Any substantive deal will eventually require a combination of increased revenue and reduced spending …. Both parties will have to compromise: Republicans must accept the necessity of collecting what the government is owed and of imposing taxes on the wealthy . Democrats must recognize that changes to Social Security and Medicare, the major drivers of expected federal spending growth, should be on the table. Anything less will prove fiscally unsustainable.

The Elephant in the Room


Omitted was any mention of trimming the defense budget, which currently accounts for more than half of the federal government’s discretionary spending and nearly two-thirds of its contract spending. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who cast the sole dissenting vote on the recent $886 billion defense budget in the House Armed Services Committee, has detailed some of the Pentagon’s excesses. For decades, he writes, legacy military contractors have charged the federal government exorbitant sums for everything from fighter jets to basic hardware. Lockheed Martin, for example, has used its monopoly on F-35 fighter jets to profit from maintenance that only they can provide, with the work needed to support and upgrade existing jets projected to cost taxpayers over $1.3 trillion. TransDigm, another contractor responsible for supplying spare parts for the military, was found to be charging the Pentagon more than four times the market price for their products.

Rep. Khanna concludes, “Keeping America strong starts at home. It means ensuring access to quality, affordable healthcare and education, strengthening our economy with good-paying jobs, and giving Americans the tools they need to pursue the American Dream.… Bloated military spending is not the answer.… We can’t continue to sign a blank check to price-gouging defense contractors while Americans struggle here at home.”

In an address to the UN Security Council on Ukraine aid on June 29, 2023, Max Blumenthal added fuel to those allegations. He said:

Quote
Just June 28th, as emergency crews work to clean up yet another ☠️ toxic train derailment in the United States, this time on the Montana River, further exposing our nation’s chronically underfunded infrastructure and its threats to our health, the Pentagon announced plans to send an additional $500 million worth of military aid to Ukraine….


This 💰 policy, … which sees Washington prioritize unrestrained 💰 funding for a proxy war with a nuclear power in a foreign land … while our domestic infrastructure falls apart before our eyes, exposes a disturbing dynamic at the heart of the Ukraine conflict – an international Ponzi scheme that enables Western elites to seize hard-earned wealth from the hands of average U.S citizens and funnel it into the coffers of a foreign government that even Transparency International ranks as consistently one of the most corrupt in Europe.


The U.S. government has yet to conduct an official audit of its funding for Ukraine. The American public has no idea where their tax dollars are going. And that’s why this week we at the Grayzone published an independent audit of U.S. tax dollar allocations to Ukraine throughout the fiscal years 2022 and ’23.

Among other dubious payments they found were $4.5 million from the U.S. Social Security Administration to the Kiev government, and $4.5 billion from USAID to pay off Ukraine’s sovereign debt, “much of which is owned by the global investment firm BlackRock. That amounts to $30 taken from every U.S citizen at a time when 4 in 10 Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency.”

The Black Hole of the 🦍 Pentagon 😈🎩 Budget

The Pentagon failed its fifth budget audit in 2022 and was unable to account for more than half of its assets, or more than $3 trillion. According to a CBS News report, defense contractors overcharged the Defense Department by nearly 40-50%; and according to the Office of the Inspector General for the Defense Department, overcharging sometimes reached more than 4,000%. The $886 billion budget request for FY2024 is the highest ever sought.

Following repeated concerns about fraud, waste and abuse in the Pentagon, in June 2023 a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to ensure the Defense Department passes a clean audit next year. The Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023 would require the Defense Department to pass a full, independent audit in fiscal 2024. Any agency within the Pentagon failing to pass a clean audit would be forced to return 1% of its budget for deficit reduction.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) observed that the Pentagon “and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades.… [W]e have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has never passed an independent audit.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the Pentagon “should have to meet the same annual auditing standards as every other agency…. From buying $14,000 toilet seats to losing track of warehouses full of spare parts, the Department of Defense has been plagued by wasteful spending for decades. … Every dollar the Pentagon squanders is a dollar not used to support service members, bolster national security or strengthen military readiness.”

But defense audits have been promised before and have not been completed. In 2017, Michigan State University Prof. Mark Skidmore, working with graduate students and with Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, found $21 trillion in unauthorized spending in the departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015. As reported in MSUToday, Skidmore got involved when he heard Fitts refer to a report indicating the Army had $6.5 trillion in unsupported adjustments (or spending) in fiscal 2015. Since the Army’s budget was then only $122 billion, that meant unsupported adjustments were 54 times the spending authorized by Congress. Thinking Fitts must have made a mistake, Skidmore investigated and found that unsupported adjustments were indeed $6.5 trillion.

Four days after Skidmore discussed his team’s findings on a USAWatchdog podcast, the Department of Defense announced it would conduct its first-ever department-wide independent financial audit. But it evidently failed in that endeavor. As Bernie Sanders observes, the Pentagon has never passed an independent audit. It failed its fifth audit in 2022. Whether it will pass this sixth one, or whether the audit will lead to budget cuts, remains to be seen. The Pentagon budget seems to be untouchable.   

Tackling the Other Elephant: The Interest Monster

If the sacrosanct military budget cannot be trimmed, what about that other massive budget item, interest on the federal debt? Promising proposals for clipping both the interest and the debt itself were made in conjunction with earlier debt ceiling crises. In November 2010, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, wrote:

Quote
There is no reason that the Fed can’t just buy this debt (as it is largely doing) and hold it indefinitely. If the Fed holds the debt, there is no interest burden for future taxpayers. The Fed refunds its interest earnings to the Treasury every year. Last year the Fed refunded almost $80 billion in interest to the Treasury, nearly 40 percent of the country’s net interest burden. And the Fed has other tools to ensure that the expansion of the monetary base required to purchase the debt does not lead to inflation.

In 2011, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul proposed dealing with the debt ceiling by simply voiding out the $1.7 trillion in federal securities then held by the Fed. As Stephen Gandel explained Paul’s solution in Time Magazine, the Treasury pays interest on the securities to the Fed, which returns 90% of these payments to the Treasury. Despite this shell game of payments, the $1.7 trillion in US bonds owned by the Fed is still counted toward the debt ceiling. Paul’s plan:

Quote
Get the Fed and the Treasury to rip up that debt. It’s fake debt anyway. And the Fed is legally allowed to return the debt to the Treasury to be destroyed.

Congressman Alan Grayson, a Democrat, also endorsed this proposal.

Taxing the Bubble Economy

In a July 8, 2023 article on Naked Capitalism titled “The United States’ Financial Quandary: ZIRP’s Only Exit Path Is a 🌠 Crash,” economist Michael Hudson points to the speculative bubbles blown by the Fed’s Zero Interest Rate Policy, dating back to the Great Recession of 2008-09. The result is a Ponzi scheme, says Hudson, and there is no way out but to write down the debt or let the economy crash.

According to Fed insider Danielle DiMartino Booth, it is those speculative bubbles that Fed Chair Jerome Powell has attempted to pop with the drastic interest rate hikes of the last year, eliminating the “Fed Put,” the presumption that the Fed will always come to the rescue of the speculative market. That tack actually seems to be working; but the approach has resulted in serious collateral damage to mainstream businesses and the productive economic base. (See my earlier article here.)


Another way to trim the fat from the “financialized” economy is a small financial transactions tax   . That solution was also discussed in an earlier article (here), drawing on a 2023 book titled A Tale of Two Economies: A New Financial Operating System for the American Economy by Wall Street veteran Scott Smith. He argues that we are taxing the wrong things – income and physical sales.


We actually have two economies – the material economy in which goods and services are bought and sold, and the monetary economy involving the trading of financial assets (stocks, bonds, currencies, etc.) – basically “money making money” without producing new goods or services.

Drawing on data from the Bank for International Settlements and the Federal Reserve, Smith shows that the monetary economy is hundreds of times larger than the physical economy. The budget gap could be closed by imposing a tax of a mere 0.1% on financial transactions, while eliminating not just income taxes but every other tax we pay today . For a financial transactions tax (FTT) of 0.25%, we could fund benefits we cannot afford today that would stimulate growth in the real economy, including not just infrastructure and development but free college, a universal basic income, and free healthcare for all. Smith contends we could even pay off the national debt in ten years or less with a 0.25% FTT. 

Funding Infrastructure through a National Infrastructure Bank

Another way to fund critical infrastructure without tapping the federal budget is through a 1930s-style work-around on the model of Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation. HR 4052 🗽, a proposal for a national infrastructure bank on that model, is currently before Congress and has widespread support . The proposed bank is designed to be a true depository bank, which can leverage its funds as all banks are allowed to do: with a 10% capital requirement, it can leverage $1 in capital into $10 in loans.

For capitalization, the bill proposes to follow the lead of Alexander Hamilton’s First U.S. Bank: shares in the bank will be swapped for existing U.S. bonds. The shares will earn a 2% dividend and are non-voting. Control of the bank and its operations will remain with the public, an independent board of directors, and a panel of carefully selected non-partisan experts, precluding manipulation for political ends.

America achieved its greatest-ever infrastructure campaign in the midst of the Great Depression. We can do that again today, and we can do it with the same machinery: off-budget financing through a government-owned national financial institution.

Granted, these proposals are not likely to be implemented until we are actually facing another Great Depression, or at least a Great Recession; but Michael Hudson and other pundits are predicting that outcome in the not-too-distant future. It is good to have some viable alternatives on the table for consideration when, as in the 1930s, politicians are compelled to seek them out.
https://ellenbrown.com/2023/07/14/the-federal-debt-trap-issues-and-possible-solutions/

___________________________________

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2023, 05:31:23 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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July 14, 2023

Matthew Desmond's new book 'Poverty, by America' delves into the reality of American poverty not as a condition earned by individuals' poor choices, but a phenomenon produced by the 🎩😈 knowing and unknowing choices of the wealthy.
Quote
Matthew Desmond: If you add up all the tax breaks and all the social insurance programs, and all the means tested programs like food stamps and Medicaid, you learn that every year, the average family in the bottom 20% of the income distribution, our poorest families, they get about $26,000 from the government. But the average family in the top 20%, our richest families, they get about $35,000 every year from the government. That’s almost a 40% difference. That’s the true nature of our welfare state. We give most to families that have plenty already, and then we have the audacity to look at a program that would reduce child poverty, or make sure everyone could have a doctor, and we just ask, “How could we afford it?” which to me is a sinful question and a dishonest question because the answer staring us right in the face. We could afford it if the richest among us took less from the government.



52,522 views  Premiered Jul 14, 2023  #chrishedges #therealnewsnetwork

Some 50 million people in the United States live in poverty today—and over 108 million people survive on less than $55,000 a year. Despite having the largest economy on earth, poverty in the US is often grinding and brutal. From millions who live without running water or reliable power, to countless children who experience food insecurity and homelessness.

The data on poverty only becomes exacerbated when race is taken into account. In 2019, the median white household had a net worth of $188,200, compared with $24,100 for the median Black household 🥺.

Matthew Desmond ✨joins The Chris Hedges ✨ Report to discuss his new book, 'Poverty, by America,' which delves into the reality of American poverty not as a condition earned by individuals' poor choices, but a phenomenon produced by the knowing and unknowing choices of the wealthy.

Matthew Desmond is the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. His primary teaching and research interests include urban sociology, poverty, race and ethnicity, organizations and work, social theory, and ethnography. In 2018, Desmond’s Eviction Lab at Princeton University published the first-ever dataset of more than 80 million American eviction records. The Lab currently is pursuing nearly a dozen lines of inquiry analyzing this groundbreaking dataset that will help scholars, policymakers, and advocates better understand eviction, housing insecurity, and poverty.

Studio Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Adam Coley

Watch The Chris Hedges Report live YouTube premiere on The Real News Network every Friday at 12PM ET: https://therealnews.com/chris-hedges-report

Listen to episode podcasts and find bonus content at The Chris Hedges Report Substack: https://chrishedges.substack.com/

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« Last Edit: July 17, 2023, 03:42:22 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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COUNTERPUNCH

JULY 21, 2023 BY DEB SITARSKI

What Decades of Social Work Taught Me About Poverty

SNIPPET:

I’ve worked with many economically struggling people. I grew up in meager circumstances myself and well remember the stigma and shame of having to do without.

And this I can tell you: Not one person I’ve ever met  wants to be poor, sick, disabled, struggling, or on the receiving end of public assistance programs. These programs are vital but often inadequate and difficult to access.

Full article:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/21/what-decades-of-social-work-taught-me-about-poverty/

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Elayne Clift: The time for Bread and Roses is 🗽 now

Young workers are unionizing across various sectors now because of tech-driven jobs. They are joining farmers, factory workers, food handlers, and others as they seek safe and equitable employment.

August 7, 2023, 7:04 am

Commentaries are opinion pieces contributed by readers and newsmakers. VTDigger strives to publish a variety of views from a broad range of Vermonters. Commentaries give voice to community members and do not represent VTDigger’s views. To submit a commentary, follow the instructions here.

This commentary is by Elayne Clift, who writes from Brattleboro.

When I think about labor movements and unions, two favorite stories come to mind, and both are true.

The first one is about a group of girls and young women known as the Lowell Factory Girls. They worked in the mills and factories of Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 19th century. Little more than children who labored for long days doing dangerous and exhausting work, they revolted in 1836 when their dismal wages were cut while their factory-owner-mandated living expenses went up.

One day an 11-year-old worker named Harriet Hanson decided enough was enough. She walked out “with childish bravado,” as she wrote in her 1898 memoir, declaring that she would go alone if she had to . That wasn’t necessary. A long line of girls followed her and thus began a strike — called the Bread and Roses strike — that led to an organized labor movement launched by women, and the establishment of an early U.S. union.

The second story is less well known. It involves a labor leader and activist, Esther Peterson, who was born into a conservative family in Utah. Esther, who was much older than me, eventually came to New York where she taught wealthy girls by day and the daughters of their household maids at night. Working at home, the young girls sewed pockets onto Hoover aprons if they were old enough, alongside their mothers.

The pockets were squares until management decided heart-shaped pockets were nicer. The work was piecemeal, and hearts took longer than squares. Esther was outraged that they weren’t paid more.

“Why don’t you do something about it?” her husband asked. “Organize a strike!” Esther, who grew up thinking unions led to danger and violence, resisted. But she decided to advocate for the children, so she organized the “Heartbreaker 🗽 Strike,” inviting her wealthy day students’ mothers to go on picket lines, since the police would never brutalize them as they would the poor mothers.

It worked, and Esther was on her way to becoming a beloved labor leader.

I think of the Factory Girls and Esther now, when so many large-scale strikes loom large, and for good reason. It’s no coincidence that workers at UPS and in Teamsters unions, Amazon warehouses across the country, Starbucks, and Hollywood writers and actors are striking or contemplating striking for better wages, benefits and working conditions. American Airlines cabin crews may soon be joining them as I write this commentary.

That’s a wide, diverse swath of American workers and a huge number of jobs, goods and services at stake. The implications are alarming. A short time ago, the threat of a railroad strike was enough to make economists shudder, and that’s only one sector that could have wrought havoc throughout the country.

Leaders of unions that represent large numbers of people working in companies trying to deny them their right to unionize act as though union organizing was something new and egregiously difficult. The fact is that huge, organized strikes are nothing new in this country. We’ve had labor unions forever, inspired originally by the 18th-century Industrial Revolution in Europe. Shorter workdays, livable minimum wages and rational benefits have always been a big part of union organizing. For example, poor pay and working conditions led to strikes by the Pullman Railroad Workers and the United Mine Workers in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Over the years unions grew across many sectors and by 1979 there were 21 million union members in America. Today union membership is growing again after a slump, thanks in part to the pandemic and a rapidly changing labor market.

Young workers are unionizing across various sectors now because of tech-driven jobs. They are joining farmers, factory workers, food handlers, and others as they seek safe and equitable employment, just as factory girls and children sewing apron pockets did before them.

For UPS drivers, Amazon workers, Starbucks baristas and others, companies that refuse to bargain are enraging. Labor leaders and workers have had enough. They are tired of corporate leaders who make phenomenal amounts of money a year, own mansions and yachts, and still continue 😈 reneging on workers’ rights.


Amazon, for example, has engaged in dozens of unfair labor practices, Including terminating the entire unit of newly organized workers. Starbucks “has become the most aggressive union-busting company in America,” according to a staffer for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and more than 200 workers have been fired for taking part in organizing activities.

I’m not trying to put a Pollyanna spin on unions. I know there is a troubling history of corruption and criminal intent in some organized labor movements and unions, and that is not something to be overlooked.

But I agree with John F. Kennedy that “labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided supplemental benefits. … They have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor.”

More to the point, perhaps, in these troubling political times, labor leader Delores Huerta was right when she put the point this way: “If we don’t have workers organizing into labor unions, we’re in great danger of losing our democracy.”

My friend Esther would agree with her old boss, JFK, and with Delores Huerta, with whom she worked on labor rights for women and children.
https://vtdigger.org/2023/08/07/elayne-clift-the-time-for-bread-and-roses-is-now/

« Last Edit: August 08, 2023, 04:42:51 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Eugenicons”? 🤦‍♂️ Call Them What They Are — 👿🦍 Social Darwinists

August 22, 2023, 3:48 PM by David Klinghoffer

SNIPPETS:
“Eugenicon” is Lind’s neologism for…well, modern-day Social Darwinists. He speaks of “eugenic conservatives,” who lay emphasis on racial or genetic heredity, but to call these people “conservative” is a mistake, much as it’s a mistake to call an anti-Semitic white supremacist like Nick Fuentes a “Christian conservative,” even if he styles himself that way. ... ...

Lind notes, “Social Darwinism went underground after the ☠️ Holocaust. But its 😈 catechism — now more than a century old and consisting of both axioms and policy prescriptions derived from the axioms — is finding new and faithful devotees.” Indeed. His survey of “eugenicons” includes writers who have been around for a long time, like 🐉 Steve Sailer, and publications like VDare and Taki’s, and much younger entrants to the field like 🐍 Richard Hanania. They explain crime and other social ills in terms of race and genetics rather than, as Lind prefers, in terms of culture. He lists the axioms and political proposals of the modern-day Social Darwinists:
Quote
The axioms:

Human races are few, identifiable, discrete, and enduring through time.

The existing hierarchy of education and wealth within a race corresponds to the genetic fitness of individuals and families in that race.

Just as some individuals are genetically superior to others within a race, so some races are genetically superior to other races.

Most economic growth and scientific and cultural progress in history are the result of genetic endowments of superior individuals, families, and races.

The policy prescriptions:

Taxing the eugenic elite hurts both them and the dysgenic majority, by redistributing resources that the creative rich can put to best use for the long-term benefit of the benighted majority.

Antipoverty policy, beyond establishing a floor of basic income for the poor, a proposal of Milton Friedman and Charles Murray, is doomed to fail, because poverty has a genetic basis.

Public policy should encourage the limitation of the numbers of the genetically unfit, by voluntary or involuntary contraception, abortion, and euthanasia.

Immigration by inferior races and intermarriage between members of superior and inferior races should be discouraged to prevent the reduction of the genetic fitness of superior races.

One-person, one-vote democracy is dangerous and intolerable, because the genetically inferior majority might vote to tax and redistribute the income and wealth of the genetically superior minority.

A systematic eugenicon program, then, would combine economic (not civil) libertarianism with promotion of birth control (for the inferior masses, not the superior classes, whose propagation should be encouraged) and rule by the numerically small cognitive elite, disguised if necessary by meaningless elections.

Full article:
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/08/eugenicons-call-them-what-they-are-social-darwinists/

« Last Edit: August 31, 2023, 11:19:06 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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AGelbert NOTE: All graphics by me.

COUNTERPUNCH

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023 BY EVE OTTENBERG, a novelist and journalist. Her latest book is Lizard People. She can be reached at her website.

High Grocery and Gasoline Prices? Monopoly Gouging isn’t Going Away

Sometime since the start of the Ukraine War, prices went up and didn’t really ever go back down. At first the problem was the moronic sanctions on Russian energy, which made every trip to the gas station as expensive as purchasing a new laptop. That imbecilic fiasco lasted for months. But finally, the prices dropped. (The president wised up to the tornado of voter fury this wild expense, left unchecked, would unleash.) They didn’t fall as low as they were pre-sanctions, but were not so high that filling the tank drained the checking account. Utility bills, however, shot up and basically stayed up. Though they since sank from their insane 2022 highs, they’re still confiscatory. So is the cost of groceries. And forget shopping for household items – that puts a capital G in “gouging.”

Inflation is with us, 😖 period. It may have eased a bit from its recent 40-year high, but, the Washington Post told us August 10 “falling inflation doesn’t mean prices are returning to pre-pandemic levels.” This article then blames rent for most recently driving the inflationary mess, before listing six items whose costs gyrated wildly in recent years: used cars, rent, gas, airfare, cereal and baked goods and eggs. And when I say gyrated, I mean soared, then did not plummet. They may have dropped a bit, but they’re still in the stratosphere compared to where they were seven or eight years ago. And thekleptocrats in Washington couldn’t care less . Why should a multimillionaire congressman worry about the cost of butter? He probably only eats in swanky restaurants anyway.

Have you flown lately? Most sane people do it as little as possible, since it tears up the environment and exposes a person to covid more effectively than any other foray into the marketplace. But for those of us with far-flung family, it’s an occasional though regular necessity, and it costs a freaking fortune. Not only that, but the pandemic legacy of overbooked flights, cancelled flights and the nightmare of non-existent staff to answer telephone queries, makes the whole experience something only a masochist could enjoy. It’s hard to say what’s worse: the initial ticket sticker shock or the very real possibility that you’ll have to shell out for a hotel at some distant airport, because the airline cancelled your connecting flight.

Meanwhile the 🐍 geniuses at the 😈 Federal Reserve decided last year that the cause of these skyrocketing prices was worker compensation. Hello? Could somebody please shoot the memo to Fed chairman 🐍 Jerome Powell that wages are in the toilet? And while you’re at it, remind him that mega corporations in America discovered in a big way, at least at the start of this century, that they were monopolies and therefore could 🎩 jack up 💵 prices whenever 🦍 they felt like it. They also deduced that the government wouldn’t do anything about it, because antitrust laws are a dead letter as far as gouging consumers is concerned.

And if those giant firms were financial – well, surprise, surprise, they could do whatever they wanted, commit any idiocies or crimes and the government would bail them out. Barack “Evict the Homeowners” 🐍 Obama was the great mind who pioneered this disgusting form of corruption after the 2008 crash. As a candidate, he promised to rescue the beleaguered little guy, but once elected, did a full 180-degree pivot and stabbed denizens of Main Street in the back. Obama showered Wall Street crooks with all the 💰 money the presses could print, thus guaranteeing hyper-inflation somewhere further down the road. We seem lately to have begun approaching that somewhere more rapidly than the stupids who arranged this meeting ever predicted.

Lately it’s become trendy for politicos, economic bigwigs and the propaganda outlets that pass for a free press to crow about “inflation going back down,” or “receding.” According to Zerohedge August 25, those claims really only reference the Consumer Price Index. But “true inflation is cumulative – A 10 percent increase one year and a five percent increase the next year is not a win, it means that you are now paying 15 percent more on average for everything you buy in the span of only two years.” Without a wage increase – and for the vast majority of Americans those are as likely as cool breezes in Phoenix from June to September – that means you’re 15 percent poorer.

When CPI falls, this does not mean that prices on goods and services are going down, it only indicates that prices are rising slower than they were the month or the year before,” the article explains. So forget all the happy talk about Bidenomics, whatever that is, curing inflation. It’s just more hooey to distract you from your wallet being on a diet.

Worse, 🐍 Joe “Master of Climate Change Doubletalk” Biden “has been dumping U.S. strategic oil reserves on the market for the past year,” to conceal the disastrous effects of sanctioning Russian energy. “Biden has artificially manipulated the CPI down, using one key resource. Now that his ability to dump oil reserves has ended, the CPI will rise once again with energy prices.” Unless of course, the U.S. buys oil from Iran, something the Biden Bunch has evinced interest in. It’s difficult to gauge the zeal with which the white house will pursue energy from Iran, but never underestimate the tenacity of its fossil fuel monomania. Anything, I guess, rather than going full bore on renewables.

But even with Iranian oil, we’re in for hard times. That’s due to foreign de-dollarization and major American creditors like China and Saudi Arabia ditching U.S. Treasuries, which they know very well are a huge liability in the event of Washington’s omnicidal and suicidal sanctions. USTs have lost their luster abroad, for a variety of reasons – brainless economic policies at home and foreign policy that only appeals to sociopaths. But when Treasuries are in trouble, and the dollar is in trouble, so are ordinary Americans. The solution is NOT doubling down on the nitwit policies that caused the problem in the first place, but that’s all our mindless leaders can imagine.


Years of sanctions on Syria have done zip to dislodge its president? The great minds in the white house have a solution: do more of what doesn’t work. Make ordinary Syrians so hungry and sick that they flee en masse to places like Turkey and Lebanon, and later possibly Europe. Same with Iran and Venezuela. True, sanctions torture the population, a price, in Madeleine “Let the Kids Die” Albright’s words that the Empire considers “worth it.” What sanctions don’t do is replace a government that imperial mandarins regard as odious, but the delusion that that they will has afflicted Washington for decades.

So eventually Bidenomics will be unmasked as the bad joke it is. The only benefit is that this reveal means that publicly napping, warmonger Joe “Russia Has Lost” Biden will nosedive in the election. Let us all pray Cornel 🗽 West wins. Because if he doesn’t, the next stage direction is “Enter ☠️ Trump.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/09/08/high-grocery-and-gasoline-prices-monopoly-gouging-isnt-going-away/

« Last Edit: September 08, 2023, 12:50:23 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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INEQUALITY with a CAPITAL "I"
« Reply #98 on: September 11, 2023, 05:21:57 pm »

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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EXHAUSTED, INJURED AND ANGRY: AUTOWORKERS ARE READY TO STRIKE
« Reply #99 on: September 15, 2023, 03:26:08 pm »
The Real News Network

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023 BY SARAH LAZARE

EXHAUSTED 😖, INJURED 🥵 AND ANGRY : AUTOWORKERS ARE READY TO  STRIKE

Record profits should mean record pay—but that’s not how it’s played out at the   Big Three automakers. These Ford workers have had enough.
https://therealnews.com/exhausted-injured-and-angry-autoworkers-are-ready-to-strike
« Last Edit: September 15, 2023, 03:47:00 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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🕯️ Evidence-based Causes of 😞 Homelessness and Its 🕊️ Solutions
« Reply #100 on: September 17, 2023, 01:43:38 pm »

September 13, 2023 by Kelly Doran 👍, MD, MHS

Medical School Should Teach Students About 😞 Homelessness
— We can better prepare our future doctors to treat this population

SNIPPETS:

I aimed to help students gain a basic understanding of the prevalence, causes of, and solutions to homelessness. Importantly, we covered the fact that the primary drivers of homelessness are structuralopens in a new tab or window -- lack of affordable housing paired with low wages and an inadequateopens in a new tab or window social safety net. We discussed how structural racismopens in a new tab or window puts some groups at disproportionate risk for homelessness. It is on top of these larger structural factors that individual vulnerabilities such as substance use disorder, lack of family support, or a mental health crisis can serve as a tipping point into homelessness.

To prepare for the lecture, students were encouraged to watch A Deep Dive: Homeless Services and Housing, from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. This video's first 20 minutes give a concise, evidence-based overview of the causes of homelessness and its solutions presented by Marybeth Shinn, PhD, and Jill Khadduri, PhD, authors of In the Midst of Plenty: Homelessness and What to Do About It.

My lecture focused on realistic steps students can take in their future clinical practice to improve their care of patients experiencing homelessness.
... ...

Importantly, I also provide students with advice from people who have been homeless themselves, who shared their insight to the question, "what do you wish healthcare providers knew about homelessness?" via a Facebook support group run by Mark Horvath 🕊️, founder of the nonprofit 🥺 Invisible People. Their responses -- which I share with permission -- are eye-opening. Experiences of stigma in healthcare settings were underscored by comments like:

"I wish they wouldn't look down on us."

"We are intelligent human beings with legitimate concerns: act accordingly."

"Please don't assume that I am drunk or high or just looking for shelter. My friend died weeks after
one of you turned him away."
Full article: 🕯️
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/106317
« Last Edit: September 17, 2023, 02:02:30 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Clinging to an Absurd Fantasy
« Reply #101 on: September 19, 2023, 06:18:47 pm »
Quote
"And so all those who've benefited from the Bubble Economy look down on the decaying city center from their comfortable, smartly-appreciating homes and cling to the absurd fantasy that the rot won't reach them--indeed, the rot can't possibly reach us, it will stay safely far away and we'll be safe here in our enclave." -- Charles Hugh Smith September 19, 2022

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Demand for Existing Homes 🌠 Falters Further.
« Reply #102 on: September 21, 2023, 05:58:37 pm »

Sep 21, 2023 by Wolf Richter • 46 Comments

Demand for Existing Homes FaltersFurther. Price Cuts, Days on Market, New Listings Rise. Prices Languish below 2022 Peak

SNIPPET:

By region, year-over-year sales plunged in all regions from the already beaten-down levels last year:

Full article with several reality based graphs:
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/09/21/demand-for-existing-homes-falters-further-price-reductions-days-on-market-new-listings-rise-prices-languish-below-2022-peak/

Reality Based COMMENTS:

Hesh Sep 21, 2023 at 3:42 pm
If inflation goes stays high or goes up, mortgage rates stay high or higher, and home prices drop, or stagnate at best. I’d take the easy 5-6% for the next five years, plus the opportunity to redeploy the cash in stocks or housing if things really crash.

If there truly are not good long-term investments, then take the 5-6% short term. You know it goes in your pocket, and you can’t lose.

AGelbert > Hesh Sep 21, 2023 at 4:07 pm
Wisely said. Nobody that owns real estate should ignore the Sword of Damocles known as the expected MASSIVE (i.e. inflation “adjusted”) INCREASE in Property Taxes now being formulated by the bean counters in almost evey single state in the USA. That INCREASE will make every greedball and his dog wish he/she/it/we/they had sold when they had a chance to sell without a LOSS (i.e. breakeven), never mind a “profit”.

jon Sep 21, 2023 at 3:40 pm
In the last 3 years home prices have increased by 60% or more. This piddly 15% decline won’t do anything to affordability.

TomS Sep 21, 2023 at 2:18 pm
So from chart one it’s hilarious that there basically was little to no seasonal price decline from 2021 through mid 2022. And annual appreciation was easily 2X what it was the few year before.

Housing is completely out of whack. The only cure is a real recession. I think the Fed would like to see a 10% national price decline and possibly even up to 15%. But I just don’t see that on the near-term horizon.

The economy has a lot more rolling over to do before that even becomes a possibility.

Nick Kelly > TomS Sep 21, 2023 at 2:30 pm
‘The only cure is a real recession. I think the Fed would like to see a 10% national price decline and possibly even up to 15%.’

Agree. That’s why all this ‘soft landing’ talk doesn’t make sense. To quote JP: ‘house prices must come down so Americans can afford houses’

With housing being such a huge part of the economy, worse in Canada, asking for a big housing correction without a recession is like wanting rain on the crops but not on the parade.

AGelbert > Nick Kelly Sep 21, 2023 at 4:39 pm
“With housing being such a huge part of the economy, worse in Canada, asking for a big housing correction without a recession is like wanting rain on the crops but not on the parade.”
Exactly right.
As to the price declines in real estate the Fed would like to see, they are in for a large dose of self imposed pain. I say that because it was the Fed’s golden boy Greenspan who gamed the CPI so that HOUSE (i.e. “shelter”) sales prices skyrocketing UP would barely make it budge upwards. SO, for the last 25 years or so, the Fed has been happy as clams with their “wealth effect” BLS CPI “math” fun and games. Looky here, folks, our infaltion target of 2% is “well in hand”. “Nothing to see here, move along and enjoy the wealth effect”.

In total contrast to the Fed’s quarter century long reality based math challenged CPI party, the present plate of CROW the Fed has been SERVED is that, as prices of “shelter” TANK, the CPI will ALSO BARELY BUDGE down.
 

Oh, the irony of JP wanting the opposite of Greenspan’s “wealth effect”.

« Last Edit: September 21, 2023, 06:14:58 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Cost-of-Living Adjustment for 2024 plunges to 3.2%
« Reply #103 on: October 12, 2023, 04:01:06 pm »

October 12, 2023 by Wolf Richter • 69 Comments

Social Security COLA for 2024 Will Be Meager 3.2%, Likely to Be Outrun by Inflation

Cost-of-Living Adjustment for 2024 plunges from 2023 mega-COLA, which outran inflation by a wide margin. This one will fall behind inflation.

SNIPPET:

For 2024, we’ll have to see if the 3.2% COLA will keep up with CPI inflation in 2024. But it’s likely in this inflationary world that this COLA will be left behind once again.


Full article:
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/10/12/social-security-cola-for-2024-will-be-meager-3-2-percent-likely-be-outrun-by-inflation/

AGelbert:
I worked at a Burger King in Miami in 1965. A whopper cost 39 CENTS then. There was no 'plain' whopper. You could order a "whopper plain", but the price didn't go down because we didn't put the veggie stuff in it. We had a double whopper then, but I won't discuss that price difference from then to now because it is even more outrageous than that of the generic whopper price change I wish to bring to your attention. We included one slice of tomato, two pickle slices, mayo and some lettuce in a whopper. Unlike today, we kept a condiments bar stocked with free, unlimited amounts of onions, sweet relish, ketchup and mustard. Keep that in mind when you look at a 2023 Burger King Whopper selection on their menu.
 
Some CPI "math" for objective readers:
SOURCE: US Inflation Calculator

An item that cost $0.39 in 1965 would cost $3.81 in 2023.
Cumulative rate of inflation: 877.1%.

The CHEAPEST Whopper you can buy in the USA in 2023 costs at least $7.00 (if you aren't in Los Angeles or San Francisco, California, where it costs about DOUBLE that!).

So, $7.00 - $3.81 = $3.19 the CPI DOES NOT account for. The actual inflation from 1965 to 2023 in regard to the cheapest whopper, including the FACT that there are no free extra onions, is SIX DOLLARS and Sixty One cents.

No, I don't eat out, and haven't eaten out for many years, so don't tell me to stay home. Wolf has already castigated me for saying people should brown bag instead of wasting money buying their lunches at restaurants or fast food places, so eat out to your wallet's "content".

The 2023 Cumulative rate of inflation for the 1965 whopper is NOT 877%. The 2023 Cumulative rate of inflation for the 1965 whopper is a WHOPPING 1,694%.

For those who say I am "cherry picking", please note that I focused on a low priced item. Anyone with a passing knowledge of economics knows that corporations that cater to the poor and middle class have VERY thin profit margins. They push volume sales HARD because they cannot afford to price the low income folks out of their products. Thus, these corporations raise prices ONLY when INFLATION FORCES THEM TO DO SO, PERIOD. So, the whopper price change over the years is a reality based way of getting a ball park estimate of inflation.

I recommend the person reading this who thinks the CPI is "reality based" to go to that CPI based US Inflation Calculator and enter the prices you paid several years ago for products that are basically unchanged in the way they are made since then. That front door, the lock, the door knob and the windows in your home are all still made exactly the same way, from exactly the same materials. A step ladder is still a step ladder. House siding, wall insulation, asphalt shingles, sheet rock, the kitchen sink, etc. don't need a cell phone attached to "explain" the "disconnect" between their price JUMPS and the CPI imaginative math.

Pointing at the price "drop" of computers and TVs due to advances in technology IS cherry picking, considering the LOW FREQUENCY of the purchase of these items versus everyday items. Washing machines, ovens, ranges and dryers HAVE gotten a lot of high tech computer stuff added to them. The prices have "outraced inflation" on ALL those appliances.

Have you checked the price JUMP of a shovel, rake or push mower from say, the year 2000 to the present? What about that Appliance Dolly you need to move a large fridge, or any other large, heavy household object by hand? Check the price of the cheapest, simplest one without straps or extra doo-dads.

Or, just keep believing the CPI math is "reality based". It isn't. In fact it is AT LEAST 200% LOWER than it should be from 1983 to the present, never mind the HUGE CUMULATIVE ERROR from 1965 to the present.

AGelbert:
The Government will provide Seniors with a pup tent and a collapsible aluminum cooking kit, with Far Eastern recipes for dog, cat and rat.


Ben Hunt @EpsilonTheory
Yes, if it weren’t for our consumption of food, housing and energy we would be experiencing ‘manageable’ inflation.

And the WH is mystified that Americans are dissatisfied with the economy and think inflation is a problem.

AGelbert:
Arnold, a Good man, asked, Why are the 🎩 rich so opposed to helping the elderly?

I know why. The 🎩 Rich have an ideology that is so entrenched in their worldview that it is indistinguishable from a religion. This ideology/religion completely dominates their decison making thought processes. It’s called 🦍 Social Darwinism.

Whether the Rich openly admit it it or not, the vast majority of them are totally under the thrall of of Social Darwinism (SEE: If it looks like and walks like a duck, etc.).

Social Darwinists believe that ethics based principles are ‘limitations pretending to be virtues’. To them, ethics are ‘feel good illusions’ that humans invented to pretend our species has empathy. To Social Darwinists, empathy is irrefutable evidence of inexcusable weakness. To them, all who are guided by ethics are deluded fools that should be eliminated from the human ‘apex predator’ gene pool for the “good” of our species.

Social Darwinists believe that the dictum, “survival of the fittest” (a term coined not by Charles Darwin but by sociologist Herbert Spencer), means that only the “fittest” should survive. Darwin’s book published later (“Descent of Man”) made it clear that Darwin completely supported the morally bankrupt views of Spencer.

Enthusiastic converts to Social Darwinism have, to this day, used the language of evolution to frame an understanding of the growing gulf between the rich and the poor, as well as the many differences between cultures all over the world. The explanation they arrived at, and continue to use to justify biosphere trashing profit over people and planet, regardless of any alligator tear filled mendacious claims to the contrary, is that businessmen and others who are economically and socially successful are so because they are biologically and socially “naturally” the fittest.

Conversely, they reason that the poor are “naturally” weak and unfit and it would be an error to allow the weak of the species to continue to breed.

The ideology of the Social Darwinist is indistinguishable from the despicable ideology of NAZI Germany, clearly exemplified in their brutally enforced morally bankrupt concentration camp law: “Eat your own bread, and if you can, that of your neighbor.”

So, it is little wonder that these rich “worthies” frown on giving pecuniary aid and comfort to the elderly poor, or any other kind of poor, for that matter.

As an addendum to the above, a reality based view of Social Security is quite difffcult for these “worthies”.


For example, the claim that Social Security pensions have “kept up with inflaton” is .
WHY? There are a number of economics statistics based reasons, but the most glaring one is the fact that the max income you can make on Social Security without being taxed (for married filing jointly) has NOT been adjusted for inflation since 1983 (Yes, I, know the CPI does not DO “taxes”, but the last time I checked, TAXES are a non-optional part of EVERYONE’S COST OF LIVING).

So, if you made, according to the CPI (I use the BLS computed CPI math for the sake of non-argument, though a look at what a whopper, a house, or just about any other commonly purchased item in the USA, costs today versus, for example, 1965, makes the CPI look woefully low balled), $32,000 in 1983, you need to make $98,888 to have the same purchasing power in 2023. Very few people on Social Security make that much now. Yet, every penny of that $66,888 ($98,888 – $32,000) they MUST make to have the SAME purchasing power they had with $32,000 in 1983, is TAXED when THAT amount of purchasing power by Social Security pensioners was previously NOT TAXED!

So, a reality based person must admit that Social Security Pensions HAVE NOT kept up with inflation. Social Security HAS NOT been “protected”. Just like Medicare, it covers less and less of the percentage of sine qua non products and services the elderly require to live with dignity.

I am elderly and lower middle class. My BCBS “Health” Insurance just went up 9.5% (and mine is “cheap” at $517 a month self plus one, plus $117 a month for dental self plus one). Total “Health” Insurance, including Medicare Part B, represents 17.5% of my total income 🤦‍♂️. I’m not at the poverty line but at the current rate of wishful thinking CPI numbers, the rich will soon be celebrating my poverty, along with that of millions of other elderly on “CPI inflation adjusted” pensions.

I say that God is not mocked, and Greed is BAD, especially for the rich, but too many people in the USA, in these dark times, could care less what the Bible says. The rich will not avoid reaping what they have collectively sown, even if it will be after they die.

May God have mercy on all humans, including the rich, and guide them to Keep their tongue from evil, and their lips from speaking guile; Depart from evil, Do Good, Seek Peace, and Pursue it.

It's the Social Darwinism, Stupid!
« Last Edit: October 14, 2023, 02:56:25 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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How corporate profits are driving inflation, not workers' wages
« Reply #104 on: October 14, 2023, 04:06:06 pm »

How corporate profits are driving inflation, not workers' wages


So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12