Capitalist hypocrisy at all time high
Capitalist Hypocrisy is at an all time high. Among the tenets of Capitalism is competition and incentive. Operating at maximum efficiency and offering the best prices and highest quality and service is said to produce the ideal results of customer satisfaction and return business. Competition between businesses ideally provides the best product or service. Incentivizing it all is the end result, the almighty dollar. It's a win-win, or so we were told.
Wait! Hold the phones! There's a war, a drought, a flood, a pestilence, a plague, a new political party in power. We're sorry but supplies are limited and Capitalism is king so we need to raise prices. We couldn't possibly cut into our profits. What would our shareholders say? The owner needs an eleventh yacht, a new Winter home. What about our Board members? They need to supplement their golden parachute retirement packages from the nepotism network of sister corporations.
Did someone say Golden parachute retirement package? How will we remain competitive if we don't pay our executives 400 times the average employee's salary and a guaranteed retirement package when/if they run the company into the ground? That retirement package was in their contract. We are legally obliged to honor it even is he sank our stocks. Employee pensions? No. No. No. The company is in bankruptcy. We can't pay pensions. Doesn't the government pay those pensions we won't legally honor? Now let us see who we can sell our brand, our land, our factories to. Oh, goody, our nepotistic sister company is here to offer our execs places on their board.
On to the surviving corporations cannibalized or merged into another conglomerate.
Higher taxes? New taxes? Any taxes? Do they think corporations are made of money? Have some sympathy; we are people after all. Why should we pay taxes? We're not the little people. We give the little people jobs. Yes, some of them do get food stamps. But looky, looky: Whataboutism! Members of the military and their families get food stamps! If Uncle Sam can pay their people so little they need food stamps, then why can't we? Insurance? Isn't that what Obamacare is for? Paid Time Off? Paid Sick Leave? If Congress can ignore the plight of rail workers needing paid sick leave, what's wrong with us doing the same? After all, we're all acting in service to the almighty dollar. Must get the economy chugging along. Choo! Choo! Choose Capitalism!
Global Recession in the offing....
Workers wages have less buying power.
Conglomerates buying up key industries: food, petroleum, building supplies, housing markets, insurance groups, more politicians.
Rent on the rise. Evictions on the rise.
More war. More drought. More floods. More strain on the food stocks.
More uninsured. More illness. More unpaid sick leave. More employees showing up ill. More pandemics.
At some point...VERY soon
Rent UP AGAIN. Food prices UP AGAIN. Gas prices UP AGAIN. Heating fuel UP AGAIN.
Wages Stagnant. Wages insufficient.
When the rent gets paid, something has to give.
When the gas or heat is on, the frig is emptier.
At some point...VERY, VERY soon
There will be no money to spend. Won't anyone think of the poor corporations!
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I am not a Capitalist nor do I live in a capitalist society. As a matter of fact, the US isn't purely Capitalist; it is a mixed economy. However, the myth of Capitalist dogma so imbues the American psyche, that Capitalism is elevated to a religious status and viewed as infallible as Capitalist Jesus (AKA Republican Jesus).
I believe in mixed economies and support heavy taxation on the wealthiest persons, including those persons known as corporations. No man, or family trust, or corporation is an island. We all coexist and some make a shit ton of money off the labors of others, others who are overwhelmingly underpaid and under-rewarded for their labors. And I firmly believe in the idea of risk and reward. When one claims Capitalism as its guiding tenet, then one really should play by the rules of their own game and that includes risk. Right now corporations in all sectors are reaping record rewards in the form of millions and billions of dollars in earnings. Meanwhile, the majority of the world is struggling in one or more facets of everyday life. Yet, the risks associated with business are not playing out in the board rooms and with the shareholders. Businesses are cutting quality, quantity, and more so that their profits override everything else. Consumers are suffering. Employees are suffering. To borrow their terminology, none of the wealth is trickling down the economic ladder.
Right now, it is time for shareholders, CEOs, and their ilk to stop being so damned greedy at the expense of everyone else. People are not commodities according to you. You don't value them. You don't invest in them. You don't pay them what they are worth. Corporate America is using up its own natural resources, people, at a rate similar to the way the very health and safety of this planet is being used. Corporations are mining all the resources at the maximum rate for the maximum profit and to hell with decency, fairness, consumer and environmental and humane concerns.
In short, the rich get richer and the poor get trod upon. Enough is enough. And soon, very soon, there won't be any more money for people to keep spending more and more. More evictions will come. More people will be cold in the days ahead. More people will have less to eat. Soon people just won't have the ability to pay one damned cent more. AND if you SOBs don't realize that your profits are costing people their lives, then you will have even fewer employees to abuse in the very near future.
This attitude has got to change and the only way it will change is for people to speak up and act out. There needs to be massive job walk outs. There needs to be massive demonstrations and shut downs. People need to stop buying and living with debt. We can no longer be silent. Greed is killing all of us, ALL OF US.
