Episode 31 - On Trickle-Down Economics--Have you noticed the word "trick" starts the whole concept?

Before I get started, I want to thank my Uncle Freeman (marvelous name, isn't it?  So Scottish).  He was on duty in Hawaii on the day Pearl Harbor was struck.  Today is the anniversary of that day in infamy.  I am so grateful that Freeman lived, so grateful he was my uncle and his wife my aunt--beautiful, beautiful Ruth--so grateful he lived so he could father all three of the sons who would become my tall, handsome cousins when I entered the family.  Thank you, Freeman, and may you be round dancing and meeting all those ancestors you traced back to the 9th Century in heaven!

Now, back to the business of the day.

One of Reagan's two initiatives that have altered our world so drastically, leaving us in the midst of turmoil and fear and need (the other being the Reagan Doctrine--another episode):  Trickle-Down Economics. Have you noticed that the word "trick" starts the whole concept?

The idea was spoon fed to the American public by claiming that the method would grow jobs and make our economy stronger.

How?  It's simple!  Before TRICKle Down, everyone in the U.S. paid approximately the same rate in taxes--that is, other than the very poor who were given a break--something the gimmes resent so horribly even though that "break" doesn't even compare to the mega-rich's robbery legally sanctioned by this policy.

So, let's take the richest among us and give them a TAX BREAK!  If we do that, they will invest all that extra money into new ventures, new jobs, and new wealth for everyone!  Right?!

How dumb do you have to be to believe that?

Let's make the money earned on investments an exception from regular old income taxes for wages EARNED.  Let's tax investments at a mere 15 percent, rather than the 30-something they used to have to cough up like the working schmucks still do.  How hard is it to do that math?  Take away money from the public coffers, and not just any money, BIG MONEY, and it will miraculously re-appear when the masses have good-paying jobs.  Um.   I think the other half of that math equation has been zeroed out.  So where will the money come from?  That's right, sports fans, you and me, the working stiffs whose checks get smaller every year theirs get fatter.  Damned obese, actually.

Let's let the rich get richer on their investments--no work required to do that, just money, and they've got plenty of that, so let's just make it easier for them to make MORE money and cut their tax rates by more than half. There's a sucker born every minute, and a whole lot of them buy into this malarkey.

Because we ALL know that the rich have the best in mind for the rest of us.  They are always willing to share their wealth. (Ooooooooooooooooooh, that sounds Socialist; gives me the chills; god knows it's a far scarier thing for everyone to be entitled to a reasonable living than for all the money to be hoarded at the tippy top while the rest of us suffer.)

But wait?  With all that extra money we've given them, why are the Mega Rich sending all the jobs overseas? That's not what Ronnie promised!  Why are they closing factories and plants here in the U.S., the  place their money was supposed to trickle down to?  Why are they buying up small corporations that are barely making it, bankrupting them, and declaring bankruptcy so they don't have to pay anything back, and leaving the tab with the taxpayers?  And WHY THE HELL do half the citizens they are shoving this to keep believing their lies and buying into their crap?  Oh, wait, they can't buy into it--they don't have enough money left.  They just give their brains, hearts, and souls over to it and watch their assets dwindle.

TRICKLE DOWN?

The only things that have trickled down in this country since the Reagan era are the number of jobs in this nation,
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
the amount of money in our bank accounts,
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
the amount of money in our retirement funds, and, most of all,
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
our quality of life,
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
our hopes for the future, our hopes for our children's future . . .

What a bunch of drips we are, believing that crock of bull!

Yes, Ronnie promised us the mega-rich who got richer thanks to his wonderful economic policy would invest in this country, create jobs, and make things better for all of us.  (Wonder why that wasn't called Socialism by Ronnie and his ilk?)  So what really happened?!  Big surprise!  The rich got richer, the poor got poorer.  I remember my mom--wonderful League of Women's Voters passionate Dem that she was--wondering how anyone could be dumb enough to believe the money would EVER trickle down to them under that policy?  She had lived through the Great Depression; she knew what those kinds of policies could wreak.  And, now, I repeat  . . . .

WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

When all the money is stuck at the top, ain’t no way it’s going to trickle down to the rest of us, even in the form of jobs.  Nope, it’s going to sit off the shores of our struggling nation in fat bank accounts on tropical islands, where the “job creators” are free to stash their cash while stealing away everything—subprime lending pirates who re-directed our salaries, retirements, and investments right into their treasure chests, hoarded far away from our nation's economy, from our circulating cash, and doing absolutely no one any good except for the very ones who need money the least--and now are dead set on getting our public treasury as well!  The Anglo-Saxons in Beaowulf considered a large dragon's hoard the symbol of a dying society, and so it is!  With all the wealth socked away and doing no good for anyone but the big flat slugs lying on top of it, the rest of us suffer; and when we suffer we turn on one another, NOT the slug, but the ones like us who are a different color, or a different creed, or a different tribe, or a different family ....

Meanwhile, the big slimy slug sleeps, waiting patiently, dreaming of the day he can get out of his cave and take over every bit of land and every resource and everything good in the land he has raped.

Yes, I know it was Clinton who signed the law that made the subprime mess possible, but he was trying to be bipartisan; it’s also how we are able to take interest off our mortgages, which was enough to mollify the masses.  Do YOU want to give up your tax break on your house?  Even if it is the quintessential example of bait and switch?  That little tax break for you meant MEGA tax breaks for those Americans who least need them and the start of the Chinese torture that now

drips
drips
drips
drips

ever faster, ever closer to the moment when the dragon HAS IT ALL.  Not too far in the future at all, the way things are going.

Nowadays, the mega rich don't even care about mollifying the masses because they have them all so brainwashed by misinformation and propaganda a la Fox--brilliant, they were, starting that network and zeroing in on the fears of less educated Americans who willingly turned over their brains and hearts and souls to pundits who pandered to their egos, giving them quasi-intellectual arguments filled with lies and manipulation!  Yes, so worked up over social issues such as abortion and gay marriage that they have co-opted their ability to think for themselves. "Oh, gee, that guy hates gay people!  That must mean he won't steal me blind!"

It's called a non sequitur, the ideas don't connect, but Fox convinces those who don't know the TRICKS of manipulation they might have learned in an English Persuasive Writing class or Logic class that they do connect by even more deceptive means.   It's time for a bunch of people to learn how to use critical thinking to decide important issues--critical thinking based on a fair assessment of all sides of the argument and a full understanding of the tricks of propagandists.

Anyone with a shred of abstract reasoning ability can see that all the money is stuck all the way the hell up at the top, and it most certainly is not trickling down to anyone else.  Not the middle class, not the upper-middle class, not necessarily even the rich.  The mega rich, and the mega mega rich have figured out how to manipulate half of the U.S. population into believing their crock of manure and voting in puppets who will get handsomely paid to ensure their piracy is protected, spared any threat that might involve their having to pay a dollar more than they now have to, and to enact laws that strip away regulations and other means the mega mega rich use to get mega mega mega rich.

It’s really NOT Democrats vs. Republicans or any other political construction.

It’s simply the filthy rich having all the resources, power, and control to dictate what happens in this country.  And when they have all the resources, power, and control to dictate what happens in health care, as they do, those of us relying on their companies to defray the astronomical costs of  hospitalizations and surgeries are the tissue box on your bedside table are paying dearly for the privilege of having health care coverage.  And not only in dollars.  

I know I did. 

Why is that when you are so inhumanely rich you so joyfully accumulate even more wealth at the expense of your fellow citizens? 

Oh, maybe it's because you have all the power and means to control what happens with your money.  You aren't juggling to pay this bill or the other each month, so you have no concept of what money even is.  It's just numbers in a bank account and the means to all the pleasures and toys you can accumulate; anyone unlucky enough not to share your fate deserves to be miserable.  Most celebrities, I've read, won't even handle money because it's so darned filthy--who knows whose grimy palm held that quarter before you?  But even celebrities don't fall into the 1 percent--the 1 percent are shadows, vampires that come out only at night from their gated coffins.

Or maybe it’s because you’ve sold your soul to the Almighty Dollar and get off on the electronic ka-ching, ka-ching of  your bank accounts while, all over the world and even in your own country, human beings are suffering.  You feel pretty darned special, don'tcha?

Maybe, Mega Rich, you truly do believe you are a superior race, Masters of the Universe, and you and those of your blood are therefore entitled to more of everything to the point of insustainability in the world around you.  Why should you care?  You can lock up your gated community, keep an arsenal at the ready, and live in luxury while the rest of the world and fellow citizens go hungry, homeless, sick, and poor.  In other words, do a John Galt.  So very admirable, isn’t it?

The so-called “job creators” have more of our money in their pockets today than ever in U.S. history, and I repeat:  WHERE ARE THE JOBS?  Yes, thanks to tax cuts to the U.S. citizens who need them LEAST, starting with the Reagan Administration and continuing to this day, thanks to their pawns in Congress and, oh how they want it--the Presidency--the job creators are creating jobs overseas where labor is dirt cheap, not here in the U.S. where we used to expect a decent wage and now would be grateful for just a crumb or two. 

We need to get past the competitive stance, Dems vs. Reps, which is a zero-sum game. Meaning, one winner, one loser.  No.  Our nation does not have to be a zero sum nation.  Our birth was predicated on our not being that; the Declaration of Independence promised a society in which everyone can win.  And we can still have that, if We the People don't give it away.

We can take a little of what is ours back from the mega mega rich. When I was growing up, Robin Hood was considered a hero by most: he stole from the rich and gave to the poor.  Now, he'd be run out of Sherwood Forest as a Socialist working to destroy the fantasy that every single one of us can be mega mega rich.  Just ain't enough for that to go around, as we can see with the runaway greed of just 1 percent of our nation.  Hey, everyone else:  YOU WILL NEVER BE IN THEIR TAX BRACKET.   YOU WILL NEVER BE ALLOWED THROUGH THE GATES OF GALTLAND.  They are laughing at you and your gullibility; they are laughing all the way to the bank in Switzerland or the Caymans; they have used propaganda and misinformation so well they almost believe it themselves.

We do not have to accept that the mega rich in the United States deserve to pay a lower tax rate than we working citizens.  We don’t have to accept that the mega rich can control health care costs and insurance coverage that benefit themselves and their shareholders more than the sick persons insurance is meant to benefit--hence, the term "benefits."  We don't have to accept that insurance companies can over-ride physicians' orders or subject us to stupid rules that mean nothing except hardship on those who are already ill.  We don’t have to accept that insurance companies can rob us blind while claiming to "be there" for us in the worst times of our lives.  

Ah, and that’s why we, America, voted for Obamacare.  It may not be perfect, but at least it stands to break the monopoly the mega-rich have in deciding our health care through their insurance company search-and-destroyers.

Wake up, America!  We were born as a nation of equals, ruled by no king.  We now have kings a-plenty, turning us all into serfs or slaves, however you want to put it. Starting with Reaganomics, our quality of life has now trickled down to such a point we are fighting each other like rats in a cage instead of recognizing that the evil ones are those looking in from outside, the ones with all the power and all the wealth. Gilded Age?  That was child's play. We are now in the midst of a power grab so all-encompassing that it will take us ALL down, ironically enough, because once the policies they buy in Congress finally trim the herd that is everyone else who lives in these so-called United States they won't have anyone to do their bidding, and that's when they'll turn on one another.

A zero sum game that makes everything zero, null, nada--and anyone who supports these economic rapists, thieves, and murderers is helping take us all down to zero.