The US is the only industrialized country without a national health care system. We are told that private is best. So we pay middlemen upwards of 30% of our healthcare dollars to deny us healthcare. It's great to be free!
In the 80s and 90s, corporations shed their pension plans to save them money. Workers now had to provide for their own retirement. It was sold as, yes, again, freedom. You were free to put money into the mutual fund set up by your corporation in lieu of them taking responsiblity.
Then they tried to go after Social Security. There was some pushback on this. I think it failed because Congress needed those billions of dollars in our trust fund to balance the budget, so they refused to turn it over to Wall Street. So they still owe us that money.
But now they're bailing out Wall Street, and they're doing it in the name of we, the people. Yes, we must save Wall Street because our private pension funds were being gambled, along with the exorbitant profits they had been making.
So, now we must finance our retirement, like our health care, by paying outrageous sums to middlemen to give us back that which we have invested.
Thanks a lot, Uncle Sam.
1 comment:
I read Metafilter (a group blog) and whenever they have topics about economics, a couple blowhards try to explain things using all the jargon of that bunch. Most things outside the sciences are pretty simple and whenever someone intentionally makes things extra complicated (so regular people agree just so they appear intelligent enough to understand) you can bet that some fraud is going on. All anyone needs to know about big corporations can be learned by watching the movie Enron, the Smartest Guys in the Room.
All the lawn order folks want protection from poor people doing petty crimes or no crimes (drugs) and protection FOR suits doing big crimes.
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