When I got home, I watched Robert Reich's new documentary, Inequality For All, which is also one of the best movies I have seen this year. Part biography of Reich's life but mostly about how rich people are screwing us, proved to be fascinating and echoed every thing I have written about these past few years.
Both films were mirrors of what is really going on: Wall Street fucking us in the ass while the rest of us grin and take it. People like Belfort never pay for their crimes. He stole hundreds of millions of dollars, went to jail at a country club, got out, wrote a book and now a movie, all about him. Last year he made almost two million dollars. Unfortunately, as he is still in the hole for $100 million owed to the people he stole from, how long he'll get to keep any of that is anyone's guess. As he's rich though, it will be much harder than just grabbing it from you or me, who would not have the legal ability to defend against it. We'd get run over, he flies above. What this shows is that again, there are two America's. One is for the rich, the rest is for anyone else. Laws are different and money can even get you away from a murder rap like many, such as OJ or Robert Blake. The rest of us would rot in prison before we ever would have a chance.
The truly funny part about Belfort's downfall is that an incredibly unlucky string of events brought him down more than anything else. When you see the movie, you'll think there is no way that could happen in real life but research done shows the movie is true, even the most ridiculous parts. Truth is stranger than fiction here. It was as if God said to Belfort that his time in the sun was over. It really is an unfortunate litany of almost unbelievable problems he is forced to face all at once which I won't ruin here. It is the very definition of poetic justice or as Blackadder once famously quipped, "My God is quick these days."
And then there is Inequality for All in which Robert Reich eviscerates right wing propaganda as just that and that the only way to fix the economy is by rebuilding the middle class. He interviews everyone like the lowly Costco worker, making a decent living (Costco pays their workers quite well) and still struggling to survive on a single salary with a family after her husband got laid off when Circuit City went under, shown in the film as to why it was obvious that company would go under and echoed in columns here several years ago when I said they were dead men walking. Sears and JC Penny are headed down that same path by the way. Or the opposite end, CEOs are watching their business stagnate because people are not buying as much as they used, which is the very engine that drives the economy.
Rich people are NOT job creators. Anyone who says that is a moron who knows nothing about basic economics. That isn't even the complicated part which stuns me that some can be this intentionally stupid. Jobs are created by a vibrant middle class that has disposable money that they freely spend, creating supply and demand, which in turn creates jobs. That's it. Rich people can only go out to eat so many times, buy so many pillows or cars or whatnot. Because of this we have entered a vicious circle in which people are getting laid off as consumer demand is lessening, causing fewer tax dollars to be collected, causing programs to the poor to be cut, causing poverty to spike higher and it never ends.
Take this graph below:
We see the same level of inequality seen in 1929 and we all remember what happened next. The odd part is that no one seem to remember that the Great Depression didn't end right away either as monumental mistakes made by FDR and the Republicans at the time made things worse when the second crash hit four years later. We are headed for the second crash here as well as nothing has been done to fix anything since 2008 and that will bite us in the ass.
After the second crash, FDR got his head out of ass and became a great leader, realizing that getting people back to work and paying them a livable wage was the best way to fix things. Many say it was only WW2 that saved us, but we were making serious economic gains even before that so that point is debatable.
The film goes on to demonize the "free market," because that would lead to a world without any rules and at that point, we would be nothing more than slaves to corporate gods. It also slams Republicans for trying to get rid of all the programs to aid the poor and give it all to rich people as one in which will never work and could lead mass violence if implemented.
The graph above shows that the rich have made all the money since 1978 and the average worker has watched his disappear. The death of unions, a fact that some out there are fighting against their best interests, is shown to have a direct correlation with falling wages. As employees have less and less power, something some of you yokels out there are fighting for in "right to work" states, salaries and benefits have dropped while CEO pay has exploded.
The current situation is making even the current news media scoff at today's unemployment rate that fell to 6.7% while also showing that a record 92 million working age adults don't have a job. As even a small child can see, 92 million does not equal 6.7%. It's closer to 33%. Subtract those in prison, on disability, stay at home moms and the such and you get a number closer to 24% where it has remained since 2007, regardless of what the government is telling you. That is the real unemployment number and even the news media is having a hard time telling you that with a straight face.
The bottom line is until we give the middle class a huge raise, reign in corporate lobbying, and make them pay taxes, this country is headed for a dirt nap. Watch the two movies above and see my point.
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