(This was written in steam of consciousness mode.)
This is an invitation to the politicians out there to answer this question. Why are Americans expected to tolerate exploitative profit mining by the wealthy and well connected? Why are we supposed to just sit here like crops to be harvested? As soon as there is even a teensy bit of disposable income, that we are supposed to sock away for the future, some capitalist on steroids has to find a way of siphoning it off for his own use and profit.
We all know the game is rigged and yet we’re expected to put all of our precious savings in the stock market or in the hands of fund managers or pay a steep tax penalty to cover our living expenses if we have the misfortune to suffer periods of extended unemployment before we turn 59.5.
We’re all expected to get a college degree if we have even a prayer of getting a good job but then we are tied to these monstrous student loan debts or we spend years pursuing a PhD in a difficult subject only to find we have to take a series of $37K/year jobs.
We’re all expected to pony up hundreds and thousands of dollars for lousy health care policies and an ACA that has separated the country’s workers into two classes. But the minute we ask for a fairer system that imposes cost controls on medical costs and profit limits on insurers, you’d think we were being irreligious. Same with internet providers who can’t be bothered to improve their infrastructure even while they intend to reduce competition and split the proceeds from mergers amongst their shareholders. Apparently, there is no one in Congress or the executive branch who thinks it is possible to stop what consumers think of as destructive mergers and loss of net neutrality. Why are we expected to put up with that?
Every business and industry has figured out how to extract the maximum amount of pain and we rely on Congress to help us have a say in the matter and they do nothing to stop the extraction.
There’s got to be a better reason than the fact that campaign finance reform is broken. We want answers as to why we are expected to tolerate the intolerable.
It’s one damn thing after another and no one is buying the excuse that nothing can be done because of the Republicans. We’ve been watching this unfold for more than a decade and we haven’t even seen you Democrats putting up much of a fight.
Why does exploitative profit mining seem so unstoppable among the politicians that we elected to keep the playing field level so that we can all benefit from the fruits of our labors?
We want answers. Feel free to use the comment thread below to provide them. I think we have a right to expect a response of some kind.
Come on, Al Franken. We supported you from the beginning. What say you? How about you, Elizabeth Warren? And you, Hillary Clinton? Enough of the foreign policy. We want to hear about domestic issues. What are you going to do about this?
Filed under: General | Tagged: Al Franken, Elizabeth Warren, exploitative profit mining, Hillary Clinton, invitation to politicians |
The Confluence 
Hear, Hear! What’s in it for us and why should we care?
Last I heard from Hillary she asked me for money go “continue to fight” that was on June 1, 2008. Well, I gave her the money and she dropped out the next day.
If that’s her idea of fighting, I don’t need it.
I think I’ve said it here but, I’m willing to support anyone — including Hillary — who convinces me (for real this time) that they’ve got some serious plans to make things better for us.
And since pretty speeches don’t mean a thing anymore…. I think the only way to convince me of it is for the ‘folks’ you listed to get out of Washington and start stumping for people who have some serious plans of their own. They’ve got a couple of years (they’ve LOST more than a couple of years)
But, they need to prove their intent with more than speeches. I think we can judge a politician by the sort of person they stump for. And so far, no one’s stumping for the good guys. If any.
Maybe we can keep Jane Caro’s 8 rules in mind when they do start to talk.
Why does exploitative profit mining seem so unstoppable among the politicians that we elected to keep the playing field level so that we can all benefit from the fruits of our labors?
Because they’re bought and paid for – and the campaign contributions are just the down payment.
Well, politicians do this crap and they keep getting elected. Then they get more money so they can run more ads and they can get elected again. Doesn’t work every time, but it does work well over 90% of the time (what’s the proportion of incumbents re-elected? 96%? in most years, and 99% of them are worthless) which are damn good odds.
The solution, as you’ve pointed out many times, is for voters to stop thinking we MUST vote for A or B because those are our only choices. For all the separate individuals to dump the ads out of their heads and work together.
Which does happen every once in a century or so. No reason to stop pushing for it. But I have to admit that right now, right here, my personal feeling is Good Luck With That. 😦
I say we cut out the middle-women: rd for President! (She’d get my vote.)