Dear editor:
I ask, who has never had it better in the world today? Hint: corporate profits are at an all-time high and banks have more money than they know what to do with. Yet, why is it when we look around we see workers of our middle and lower classes struggling to survive? Families and mothers and fathers both are having to work more hours than ever just to stay afloat. How is it we have a debt crisis, yet we can afford wars of choice, learn it is OK to torture prisoners, and now must deal with solid evidence our environment may not sustain life in the not so distant future? Something's askew!
"They who have put out the people's eyes reproach them of their blindness" -- John Milton, 1642.
Get it? The people are blamed for a travesty put upon them. And in today's world our corporate masters are doubling down to create a world that serves them even better. They keep demanding more from the people while continuing to plunder Mother Earth.
Why are social programs like Social Security and Medicare being attacked? Why are public services being defunded? The corporate world claims these services are unaffordable. But in truth, it is because the taxes which used to fund these services no longer exist. And while the corporate world enjoys their extra found money, they also can now stipulate that you pay for these services if you can afford them.
Investment, control and monopolization is the corporate world's life blood. Instead of Social Security, they want your retirement to be an investment in Wall Street. Wall Street, the investment world they manipulate and ravage. We have seen them profit from unconscionable home loans and from putting peoples' retirement pensions in stocks they know will fail. These speculative, profit-at-all-cost manipulators make a quick buck and don't care about the lives they destroy.
Open your eyes. The worst of the business world has taken over. It started back in the 1970s and 1980s. Reagan's laissez-faire administration gave big tax breaks to the corporate world and began to deregulate how they operate. Money that used to afford people cost-of-living raises is now being deposited with the rest of the concentrated wealth, monopolized to the top. Clinton got on board with NAFTA and allowed manufacturers to leave America and seek fortunes through the cheap labor and unregulated world outside our borders. We see money overflowing and having to be hidden in secret bank accounts and tax shelters in the Cayman Islands. It's profit over people.
Both the Democrats and Republicans are now on call and joined at the hip to these narcissistic corporate behemoths. A Princeton study has confirmed that we now live in an oligarchy. The public's misfortune is a misfortune naively allowed. It is time to demand a change back to a sane, regulated economy with taxes and services that "provide for the general welfare."
Bill Wiedmann
Hot Springs
Editorial on 12/16/2014