Poverty: By America
Exporting pointless misery, one billionaire at a time
American poverty is unique in the world, in that the USA has the most wealth of any nation that has ever existed and one of the worst capital distribution disparities.
Poverty is the constant fear that it will get even worse. A third of Americans live without much economic security, working as bus drivers, farmers, teachers, cashiers, cooks, nurses, security guards, social workers. Many are not officially counted among the “poor,” but what then is the term for trying to raise two kids on $50,000 a year in Miami or Portland? What do you call it when you don’t qualify for a housing voucher but can’t get a mortgage either? When the rent takes half your paycheck, and your student loan debt takes another quarter? When you dip below the poverty line one month then rise a bit above it the next without ever feeling a sense of stability? As a lived reality, there is plenty of poverty above the poverty line.
Desmond, Matthew. Poverty, by America (p. 17). Crown. Kindle Edition.
American culture is particularly defective when it comes to a process called enculturation. Enculturation is absorbing shared stories and myths. The problem with American enculturation is that our shared stories and myths are complete bunk. White American Jesus with a beer and an AR-15. “Self-correcting” capital markets. Greed is good. American culture has a deep, possibly fatal streak of toxic bullshit running through its veins.
You probably know this if you wear a shade of skin any color other than pale. A lot of the pale people (of which I am a specimen) increasingly worry about what has gone wrong with society. The simplest answer is that everything has always been wrong with society. American values were born out of a dead god and chattel slavery based on skin color. On top of that, in America, the few have always hoarded most of the things for themselves, while the many have desperately struggled for basic necessities.
The system is rigged in favor of the people with the stuff. It has always been this way in America. Is it getting better or worse? That is a very tough question to answer, because for most people, the answer depends on where they are as they read and process the question.
The top 10% of Americans have different choices than the other 90%. That is because no matter what kind of day those 10% are having, they have $6.5 million of fallback for fuck ups. They live in a different reality from the one occupied by the bottom half of America, which has less than three percent of the total resources.1
Let’s go back to the shade of skin you are wearing - paler is better. It has been this way for 400 years. Have things improved in 400 years? Yes, of course. But not enough.
In the last four years, one percent of the humans alive have hoarded more than half of the planet’s resources.2 That is an abomination. Systems of power that allow such an imbalance are deeply flawed and create, sustain, and normalize pointless suffering and misery. In economies rife with hyper-inflation, corporations controlled by billionaires have doubled their wealth while their government lackeys continue reducing their tax obligations. That is madness.
The World Bank says we are likely seeing the biggest increase in global inequality and poverty since WW2. Entire countries are facing bankruptcy, with the poorest countries now spending four times more repaying debts to rich creditors than on healthcare. Three-quarters of the world’s governments are planning austerity-driven public sector spending cuts —including on healthcare and education— by $7.8 trillion over the next five years.
Extreme poverty is real all around the world, but it isn’t necessary. Greed and toxic systems of distribution drive a wide swath of humanity suffering, living a hardscrabble existence, and dying far earlier than they should to satisfy the gluttony of the billionaire class.
This reality is unsustainable. How and when the systems of power currently in place self-destruct, and when, remains an open question. Poverty, By America, isn’t just for Americans! We export it globally.
"This reality is unsustainable. How and when the systems of power currently in place self-destruct, and when, remains an open question. Poverty, By America, isn’t just for Americans! We export it globally." Unsustainable is the operative word and the hedonism is an abomination as well.
Is it possible that at the heart of our discontent lies a feeling that too many of us have been robbed of the opportunity to “pursue happiness”? What is happiness if we are hungry and lack shelter? How can it be that in the richest nation to have ever existed, millions of us suffer from food insecurity and are one month away from homelessness?
If we look deeply into the appeal of the MAGA movement, we see anger at the theft of the “American Dream”. The brilliance of the Oligarch’s scheme is to redirect that anger at the Democrats. The MAGA folks have a right to be pissed off. Perhaps if they realized who had stolen their livelihoods, they could join the "others" who are also disenfranchised and we could have the peaceful revolution we desperately need.
Democrat to MAGA - you have the same problems as people of color. Join together to fight your real enemies - the Oligarchs - the white collar crooks who have stolen the National Treasure.
When a major company offshores its production, it hurts every color. When social services are cut, it punishes every shade of skin. When food producers raise prices under the cover of "inflation" publicity and make record breaking profits - it starves humans, all humans who have limited income.
I am continually stunned at how much poor whites and poor people of color have been brutalized by a campaign of lies that rival that of the Third Reich. It's really right out of and Orwell or Huxley novel. I guess it's the old "divide and conquer" strategy.