Economic Realities

Our entire economy is actually based on concentrating the wealth onto a group that can afford to buy the best government money will offer. There is a problem with being that uber-wealthy: once you have enough money to take care of ALL the basic needs, many of the desired “wants”, then you have run out of “normal” purchases. So in order to justify your addiction to more money, you begin to spend egregiously — and never in a way that will actually help the common economy. You buy airplanes and 4 or 5 houses; you collect rare (expensive) “things” — cars, art, mistresses. You can’t tell the true celebrations from a regular party because the Dom Perignon (or Cristal) champagne flows at every occasion. You can boast about serving a drink that costs $100 per glass, or that the pasta a la formaggio y latte was made by the world’s best (most expensive) chef, who you own. (By the way, “pasta a la…etc”? Is mac’n’cheese by anyone’s translation.) And on and on.
You are whoring yourself — and everyone around you — for the god named Greed.

In the meantime, the rest of the country’s population lives poor or actually “in poverty”; they are sicker, less secure about their lives, and worn out and down by the constant crush to make even the barest amount of money necessary for living. From a psychological viewpoint, based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they never get beyond the first step, which are the most basic of all needs: food, water, shelter. They have zero opportunity to go beyond that level because they have not met those needs. Those other levels include such things as safety, relationships, and self-actualization. (Self-actualization can be loosely described as reaching a point where you have time to consider yourself and the world around you — because there is no need stress preventing you from doing so. I would suggest that it is at that point where the concepts of social justice, charity and improving the world in general *should* be action-able. The 1% have missed that part of it and just stand around, congratulating themselves at how gods-damned rich they are.) I would also note at this point that the poor actually do more charity as they can because they KNOW what it means to be without.

My husband describes capitalism (upon which our economy is based) is “eating its own tail” at this point. Instead of paying the workers a LIVING wage, and some extra for fun, the system keeps the competition to a live or die level. “Aren’t you glad that you have a job in this difficult economy?” (My husband was actually told that at his workplace.) The ONLY reason the economy is difficult…would be those people who are amassing great personal wealth to the detriment of the rest of us.

Welcome to America, land of the starving peasants and home of the oligarchy.