Buy or don't buy one of our t-shirts, but do something to convince the rest of the 99% to make politicians represent us too. Let's Make a Middle Class Again.
What is Wrong
Have you realized that your parents and grandparents had so much more by the time they were your age. People in the U.S. could afford homeownership and three kids on a single paycheck!
Over 40-odd years, tax cuts for the wealthy and the necessity of campaign contributions for an American politician to hold office have done two things.
First, led to pay for you and me much lower than what America's economic growth says it should be.
Second, raised the cost for housing beyond what it should be.
Tax cuts for the wealthiest of us is far more money on hand for them that gets invested. That investment means more jobs for the rest of us in the form of new businesses and company expansion, right? Only an increase in demand in the market at large leads to that investment. Where that isn't present, that extra cash is used to buy up existing housing and politicians.
One result is they outbid you and regular Americans while reducing the supply of housing. This has driven up prices beyond what even two paychecks can afford.
They also reinvest extra cash in politicians to make sure they will have that cash year after year after year. If a politician is beholden to campaign contributions from those who can spare the most, the wealthy, to even get elected, whose side do you think they land on when the wealthy want a policy that hurts their average constituent. Do you think that politician will ever make their wealthy donors pay their fair share in taxes? Good thing those wealthy interests own the media to either dupe you into believing a policy or tax cuts for the wealthy is actually good for you or distract you with culture
war nonsense.
Wages have stagnated, while economic growth over time has been solid. Many of us have been propagandized to mistrust experts and institutions of higher learning. I'll link to a few studies anyhow. Whether or not you trust them as factual, it sure
feels like opportunities to increase our pay don't increase when the economy booms, does it? We only get laid off and have to accept a job with lower pay to make ends meet when it busts. As an aside, legitimate economic experts compete for the same jobs, so each is incentivized to be truthful and factual lest the competition prove them liars (and get that next job instead).
Wages are what companies owned by the wealthy pay us. They pocket the extra earnings as the economy grows, but pay us the same. They wisely invest those extra earnings in propaganda telling us to just accept it and in politician lackeys supporting that propaganda.
- They convinced us unions are corrupt and didn't matter, even though they are a fundamental reason why we have a standard 40-hour workweek (100 hours or more back when) and kids don't work in mines for cheap (like they used to).
- In the 80s, they convinced us no pension needed, a 401K lets YOU control your destiny. Or so you can get fleeced by institutional investors, just like most small-time investors.
The taxes we and others like us have paid have delivered the rule of law and the infrastructure the wealthy and the companies they own rely on to make their money. We have all made this possible. Isn't it time the rest of us have a fair return on our investment?
If one of us wins the lottery at a payout the 1% get each and every year, we lose 37% or more of it in taxes. Jeff Bezos gets taxed less than 5%. A good read from ProPublica, a not-for profit news organization, can be found at link.
