Tag Archives: capitalism run amok

Keep My Hopes Alive.

Posted on by under Economic issues, Election 2024, Global Issues, History, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

I am often amazed by the clarity with which our friends across the pond see our situation here in the U.S. I’d like to share with you our friend David’s recent post about big pharma vs peoples’ lives. I speak from personal experience when I say he is right, that sometimes people simply cut back or go without their medication because they cannot afford it. We could take lessons from David’s country, the UK, where there is a National Health Service (NHS) that puts people ahead of profit and ensures that nobody has to do without life-saving medical care. Thank you, David, for your cogent views.

The BUTHIDARS

In a World full of Hurt and Hate I have hopes and expectations that can easily be crushed. Where that happens most of course is when I feel let down by those that profess to care about Humanity but prove themselves to be looking at Profit as the bottom line.

Big Pharma who claim to spend billions on R & D in the United States in order to better the health of humanity have yet again proved they speak with either a forked tongue or at least tongue in cheek. They are suing the Biden administration over it’s policy to allow medicare to negotiate the price of drugs. They claim the law is unconstitutional. Yet it’s well known that the US pay more for drugs than anywhere else in the world and that many people actually don’t take prescribed drugs because they cannot afford them.

The situation is such that…

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Time To Move Into The 21st Century!

Posted on by under Economic issues, Environmental Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

One of the biggest disgraces of this nation is that the federal minimum wage rate has not been raised since July 2009 – fourteen years, during which time the overall cost of living has increased by more than 23% and the cost of housing by 47% in the same time frame.  Republicans in Congress have repeatedly refused to budge on raising the minimum wage.  Why?  Well, for one thing their biggest donors are wealthy corporations whose profits might be slightly reduced if they had to actually pay a living wage to the people who are doing all the work!

Senator Bernie Sanders wrote an OpEd for The Guardian that sums it all up better than I ever could …

We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage

In the richest country on earth, if you work 40 hours a week you shouldn’t have to live in poverty

Bernie Sanders

17 April 2023

Congress can no longer ignore the needs of the working class of this country. At a time of massive and growing income and wealth inequality and record-breaking corporate profits, we must stand up for working families – many of whom are struggling every day to provide a minimal standard of living for their families.

One important way to do that is to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage. In the year 2023, nobody in the US should be forced to work for starvation wages. It should be a basic truism that in the US, the richest country on earth, if you work 40 hours a week you do not live in poverty. Raising the minimum wage is not only the right thing to do morally. It is also good economics. Putting money into the hands of people who will spend it on basic needs is a strong economic stimulant.

When over 60% of American workers are now living paycheck to paycheck, when the life expectancy of low-income Americans is in decline, when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country, we can no longer tolerate a federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, a wage that has not been raised since 2009. Incredibly, the federal minimum wage has lost over 27% of its purchasing power since it was last raised 14 years ago. That is unacceptable. Millions of Americans cannot be allowed to fall further and further behind economically, unable to afford the housing, food, healthcare, childcare and education they desperately need in order to live in health and dignity.

Whether they are greeting us at Walmart, serving us hamburgers at McDonald’s, providing childcare for our kids or waiting on our table at a diner in rural America, there are too many Americans trying to survive and raise families on $9, $10 or $12 an hour. It cannot be done. This injustice must end. Low-income workers need a pay raise and the American people want them to get that raise.

Poll after poll shows overwhelming support for raising the minimum wage to a living wage. But it’s not just polls. In 2021, the Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives voted to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The bad news is that we lacked the votes to pass this legislation through the equally divided Senate. Not only did a $15-an-hour minimum wage bill fail to win the vote of a single Republican in the Senate, eight Democrats voted against it as well.

That was then. Now is now. And things are changing. As a result of years of congressional inaction, cities and states all across the country are taking the low-wage crisis into their own hands and raising their minimum wage. Some are doing it through legislative action. Others are doing it through ballot initiatives.

Since 2013, the people of 12 states – New Jersey, South Dakota, Arkansas (twice), Alaska, Washington, Maine, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, Florida, Nevada and Nebraska (twice) – have voted on ballot initiatives to raise their state’s minimum wage. Every single one of these initiatives passed, none with less than 55% of the vote. And these are not just strong “blue states” voting for economic justice. In the recent November 2022 midterm election, two states that voted in Republican governors, Nebraska and Nevada, voted to raise the minimum wage. In 2020, the citizens of Florida, with a Republican governor and two Republican senators, also voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The MIT living wage calculator estimates a living wage as a salary that is adequate enough to support a family without luxuries. For two working adults and one child, a living hourly wage for each adult would be $18.69 in West Virginia, $17.55 in South Carolina, $21.57 in Maryland, $20.01 in Utah and $19.33 in Wisconsin. Even in my own state of Vermont, the living wage is $19.58, more than $6 above the current state minimum wage.

But there are many families that do not have two working adults and rely on single moms who are raising their children on their own. In that case, the required living wage is much higher. As an example, a single mother in West Virginia would need to make $33.39 an hour to support herself and one child.

So it is not radical to suggest that raising the minimum wage to $17 an hour over a period of several years is the right thing to do. In fact, had my 2015 bill to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour that was indexed to median wages became law, the federal minimum wage this January would be at least $17.40 an hour. And while we deal with the minimum wage, we must also address the scandal of the tipped wage, which has been stuck at an abysmally low $2.13 an hour for more than 30 years thanks, in large part, to the powerful restaurant lobby which has spent millions in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses since 1991 to keep workers in poverty.

Together, these two proposals would provide an increase in pay for tens of millions of desperate Americans – disproportionately women and people of color. It would also be a huge boost to single moms. Let us not forget that these are the essential workers who kept the economy going during the worst of the COVID pandemic. At that time we called them heroes and heroines. Well, rhetorical praise is nice. A livable paycheck is better. Let’s do it.

The Choice Is Ours

Posted on by under Environmental Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

The events of the past few weeks have caused me to step back, try to look at the bigger picture, try to see what’s happening here.  A friend from the UK recently said he did not know what had brought this country to this pass, but that it needs to end.  I think we can all agree that it needs to end, but … what did bring us to this pass?  How did we become such a divided nation filled with racism and hatred, intolerance and threats of resolving our differences through violence?

I do know that the racism we thought had largely ended in the 1960s with civil rights laws and integrated schools, buses, diners, etc., had merely gone into hiding.  There came a point where it became politically incorrect to express racist views, and those who dared do so were shunned.  The feelings of superiority by some whites, though, never actually went away, they just festered under the surface.  So, did we come to this pass by electing a Black man as president, not once but twice?  I’ve often thought that was the start of where we find ourselves today.  But that is a simplistic answer, and the election of President Barack Obama, while it certainly plays a role in our current situation, cannot be the entire answer.

Part of the answer, I think, comes from the uber-capitalism that has enabled some to become multi-billionaires, while others stay awake nights trying to figure out how to pay the rent and put food on the table.  In the U.S., with as many millionaires and billionaires as we have, there is no excuse for any child to go to bed hungry at night … but they do.  Single mothers work 2-3 jobs trying to make ends meet, and it’s a daily struggle, while others live in such luxury that they never have to do anything they don’t wish to do.

But what’s really puzzling is why some of those very people who struggle to manage to pay the bills are some of the most die-hard supporters of a regime that nearly worships wealth.  Trump & Co have made no secret of the fact that they have cut taxes on the wealthy, rolled back environmental and safety regulations in order to increase the profits of those already rolling in dough.  And yet, nearly half of the people in this nation – people who work hard to feed their families – still support Trump & Co.  WHY?

Why?  Because they are convinced by his rhetoric that he is their ‘president’, that the things he does are helping them.  Why are they convinced?  Because they are taken in by his fist shaking and his gutter-snipe verbosity.  They believe him when he says he has done more for Black people than any president except Abraham Lincoln.  They believe him when he promises the tax cuts were to help them, even though there is no proof in that pudding.  He has convinced them that immigrants are harmful to our society, to our economy.  They have not yet come to understand that any benefit they have gained from his policies is but a crumb compared to the benefit to the corporate giants.

People in this country want simple solutions to complex problems.  Income disparity, healthcare, education, immigration … Trump offers off-the-cuff solutions to these issues.  Take immigration, for example.  Simple solution:  impose a travel ban on people from Muslim countries and build a wall on the southern border to keep out the “rapists and murderers”.  But this completely ignores the fact that Muslims are not terrorists and Mexicans are not rapists nor murderers.  It also ignores the fact that immigrants add much of value to our country.  They bring new ideas and add cultural diversity.  To deny immigrants entry, to vilify all immigrants, is to spread racism and prejudice throughout the nation.  Those who would wish for a homogenous white, Christian, male-dominated society seek a nation that I would never choose to live in, one that would soon stagnate for lack of innovation, lack of diversity and interest.

The people of this nation are more divided today than at any other time … I would venture to say that the ideological differences in the Civil War era were not as far apart as we are today.  How did we get here?  Perhaps by being a nation of people with too much freedom, too many ‘rights’.  We have become a nation of greed, of “me first”, as evidenced by the refusal of some to wear a mask when in a public venue, claiming that mask mandates violate their civil rights.  Never mind that they are putting not only themselves, but their families, friends and co-workers at risk by exerting their ‘rights’.

Joe Biden has promised to be the president of the people – all the people, not only democrats, not only white Christians, but every man, woman, and child in the country.  He has promised to try to heal the wounds of divisiveness that have festered for the past decade, and especially the last four years.  I fully believe he will try to do exactly that, but his success depends on us … We the People must be willing to work together, to put aside petty and irrelevant differences.  Are we willing to do that?  I wish I could answer in the affirmative, but it’s rather like a loaf of moldy bread.  If there are just a few little spots of mold, you can cut them off and the bread is still good.  But, there comes a point where there is more mold than bread and you might just as well throw it out and buy a new loaf.

Unlike the moldy bread, we cannot simply throw out all the people of this nation and start over, so we have two choices:  we either learn the art of compromise, learn to embrace rather than eschew our cultural and ethnic diversity, learn to respect our fellow humans, else we will devolve into a nation of violence where it isn’t even safe to be on the streets.  We need to stop the petty bickering, need to accept that things won’t always go our way, need to learn to adapt to adversity.

It’s our choice what direction this country takes in the coming year, my friends.  Government can only do so much … the rest is up to us.  My New Year’s wish for us all is that we can build bridges instead of walls, offer friendship instead of hate, put away the guns and offer the proverbial carrot rather than the stick.  The choice is ours …

Apologies And Thoughts …

Posted on by under Global Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

My apologies, but there can be no Saturday Surprise today.  In light of the terrible Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday, then the tragic mass shootings at two mosques in New Zealand by a white supremacist on Friday, I simply could not get into ‘fun’ mode and felt that perhaps it would be inappropriate anyway.  Saturday Surprise will, hopefully, return next Saturday.

I am deeply disturbed and saddened by both of the aforementioned events.  Each took the lives of innocent people, and each was preventable.  And, while the causes of the two may seem to be completely different, they really aren’t all that different.  They both track back to arrogance and a sense of entitlement.  Today I would like to share a few of my own thoughts about the two aforementioned events with you.

First, the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302.  I’ve already written about this at some length and won’t repeat what I’ve already said.  But this crash could easily have been prevented.  Boeing knew that the 737 Max 8 had a flaw, and one crash had already occurred, Lion Air flight 610 on October 29th, 2018.  Boeing was negotiating with the FAA for a software fix when the government shut down and talks came to a halt for 5 weeks.  And the rest is history.

This, my friends, is a tragic example of capitalism run amok.  Corporate greed.  Profit vs people’s lives.  We live in a corporate world, where governments pander to rich industrialists such as Boeing, Smith & Wesson, Exxon, General Motors and many others.  People are put on the back burner.  People’s lives take a backseat to the bottom line.  189 people lost their lives on the Lion Air flight and 157 people lost their lives on the Ethiopian Airlines flight.  346 people died because Boeing was more interested in their profits than in those 346 lives.  How many lives will be lost due to the burning of fossil fuels, because coal and oil companies care more about profit than lives?  How many will be lost due to the spraying of known toxic chemicals on the food we eat, because ‘Big Ag’ cares more for its bottom line than your life or mine?  The time has come … actually came long ago … to rein in capitalism, to impose strict safety regulations on every company doing business.  Will it happen?  Probably not, for those corporations buy our politicians about as easily as we buy a can of peas.

There is a lot of blame to go around for the killings at the Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Islamic Center, it would seem, for everyone seems to be pointing fingers.  Many blame the internet and social media, and yes, there is an element of blame there, since the killer had apparently been posting images of weapons and a “manifesto” for his actions online.  Some blame right-wing leaders, such as Trump, who have given voice to and even encouraged and emboldened the white supremacists, and certainly they must share a portion of the blame.

But, the reality is that the internet is … us.  It is people, expressing their opinions, their hopes, sharing family moments, keeping up with sports, communicating, and in some cases, promoting hate.  People.  Trump and other right-wing personas exist only because they are given a voice … by people.  Who is to blame?  The man, Brenton Tarrant, who planned and carried out the massacre, and any associates who may have helped him, certainly carries the lion’s share of blame.  Perhaps he got his ideas from radicals and white supremacists on the internet, but who put those ideas out there?

I propose that there is enough blame to go around for most all of us.  Sure, Donald Trump opened a can of really nasty worms with his hate speech, his call for a Muslim ban, his denigration of all races other than Caucasian.  But people did not have to fall in line behind him.  They did, because they chose to, not because he forced them to.

But here’s the other thing, and it is, as I think about it, the main reason I write this blog:  We have an obligation to speak out, nay … to SHOUT out … about the injustice of Islamophobia, of homophobia, of misogyny, of white supremacy.  It is not enough for those of us who know it is wrong to just shake our collective heads and roll our collective eyes when these things happen!  It is NOT enough to send “thoughts and prayers”!  Unless we wish to keep seeing bastards like Brenton Tarrant shooting up mosques, shopping malls, movie theaters and schools, then we need to use our voices.

Remember that oft-quoted quotation by Martin Niemöller?

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

We need, more than anything, to have conversations, not screaming matches, not hateful speech on social media sites.  We need to speak to and treat each other with respect.  It is okay to disagree, but we are getting absolutely nowhere by demeaning others and shouting at the tops of our lungs.  But speak we must, for to remain silent is to ensure that tragedies like those from this past week will be ever prevalent.  Freedom of speech is not only a right, but also a responsibility. Will we sit quietly by and allow bigots to rule the world in which we live? Think about it.