It is time for the 1 percent oligarchies to start paying back for the use of “our” commons. They are getting a free ride. They exploit our national resources, our clean air and water, they use our roads, airspace, radios, television, and our armed forces protect their interests abroad. Our commons belong to all 100 percent of us, but the 1 percent uses it the most and the 99 percent have to pay for the upkeep through our taxes, which the 1 percent has loop holes to avoid paying their fair share.
There needs to be a tax on the use of our commons that is fair. At this time the oligarchies get a free ride. We give them young, healthy, educated workers, who are the 99 percent have paid to educate and healthcare to keep them healthy and they try to pay them the lowest wages with no benefits possible. A recent job advertisement listed a master’s degree was required, but the starting pay was only $34,000 a year, not enough to live on and pay back student loans. This means we are subsidizing the 1 percent again. This can be evened up by better wages or higher taxes on the 1 percent.
The other impact on our commons is the elected officials, from the U.S. government down to local governments, who now want to privatize our commons, such as schools, libraries, fire departments, water departments, electric and I’m sure the police departments won’t be far behind. These greedy morons haven’t learned from history that privatizing opens the door to abuse by the corporations in control. This must be stopped. The 99 percent will not only be wage slaves, but really slaves in every aspect of the word and all aspects of our lives.
The Tea Party faction of the GOP is on the move around the world undermining unions and stirring up shit. Soon you will see a difference in the USA and so-called third world countries with regard to all of this. One way to slow the anti-99 percent agenda led by the 1 percent is in getting the $15 an hour wage increase. Hopefully, workers will wake up to what is happening and join a union or at least support their fellow workers in joining a union. Support can be as simple as voting for people whose main purpose will be to help the 99 percent, instead of themselves. Is it no wonder that since the Tea Party came into existence Congress has the highest number of millionaires ever? They didn’t start out as millionaires when they got elected.
President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty 50 years ago. How is that working out? All factions of the GOP declared war on the poverty stricken to show its support of the 1 percent. With the cuts in food stamps, unemployment, attacks on our unions, we are behind many countries in income inequality, but, at this time the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement being negotiated. It will probably have the most detrimental effect on jobs and wages. We must stop the fast tracking of this trade agreement known as TPP before it becomes a nail in the coffin of American workers.
To change the abundance of labor in the world is to put more money in the pockets of the laborer to buy the products their fellow workers are making. Otherwise, when there are more products than money, there is slump in the economy. Austerity policies, low wages and automation (robots) were also of concern in the 1950s when Henry Ford II, CEO of Ford, took Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers Union, on a tour of a new engine plant.
Ford gestured to a fleet of new machines and said, “Walter, how are you going to get these robots to pay union dues?” The union leader turned to Ford and said, “Henry, how are you going to get robots to buy your cars?”
This type of change in the labor has created a new type of working class that swings from task to task in order to make ends meet while enduring the loss of labor rights and bargaining rights. They are called “precariat” workers, a group of workers who live on the verge of collapse due to the instability of the nature of their job…