Skip to main content

OxFam's Warning

The two things which will destroy our world as we know it, are inequality and climate change. The Freedom of Enterprise Act (FEA) being proposed by the Republicans will be against anything that alleviates climate change and inequality. In fact, EEA exempts anyone worth a billion dollars from paying taxes and from having to obey all laws, exempts for now homicide and assault. OxFam, an international charitable organization focused on eliminating global poverty, says there are now 2,043 billionaires in the world and their fortunes grew by $762 billion in 2017 while the poorest of humanity saw no increase in their wealth. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett have $250 billion more than 160 million Americans. If this trend continues driving up the bargaining power of those at the top while driving down the bargaining power of those at the bottom, this will trap people in poverty and further fracture our society. OxFam said the massive inequalities are being driven by factors that include excessive financial returns to company owners and shareholders at the expense of ordinary workers and the rest of the economy. The ability of rich people to use tax havens to evade or shield trillions of dollars from tax authorities, public policy that permits market conditions that push down wages and infringe on labor rights while extreme wealth is inherited and not earned. Read the book “Capital” by Thomas Piketty to understand how this is coming about. The Have Nots will not stay at peace with this much longer. Just look at Greece, which has a new austerity bill the will limit the right to strike and speed-up property foreclosures. You won’t find this being reported in the news because the corporate media does not want you to know about any of this occurring, preferring to participate in the blindside of the working people. It is time for a universal basic income and a $15 to $22 minimum wage.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fight or Perish

In 2012 more than a quarter of all political contributions came from just 30,000 people who represented the 1 percent of the 1 percent, 90 percent who spent the most won. Today, we are an experiment in either a democracy, which started in 1787 or an oligarchy, which is winning. The nonunion people, like Trump and Musk, have most all the tools in their pockets to destroy our unions. They have money, they have the courts, they have law enforcement, they have the media, and 50 percent of workers that don’t know this don’t know the history of the working class people. This is the perfect storm to lose all the gains workers have made whether they’re union or not, even our Social Security and Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. So, now we will have to go way back to the late 1920s and ‘30s and dig up the old labor party books. One book, written in 1964, has the information, The Rebel Voices, an IWW Anthology by Joyce L. Kornbluh, educator, activist, and advocate. The history of our labor...

Project 2025 will be the Death of Unions

Each blog I write from here on out could be my last. I don’t know if or when they will shut me down, but I will keep the blog going for as long as I can. I’m not engaging in hyperbole, not with what is coming at us in January. We need to protect and defend the National Labor Relations Board. When Trump was last in office, he systematically eliminated workers’ rights to join unions and negotiate collective bargaining with employers—this not only hurt employees, but their communities and the economy overall. Trump weakened worker protections and actively worked at eliminating rules that protected workers. We need to keep the NLRB for all workers, for organizing workers and nonunion workers and build a workers’ union that is much stronger than the MAGA or the old Tea Party. Our unions will fight and win. The benefits unions fight for eventually work their way down to nonunion workers. If MAGAs weren’t so hellbent on owning the Libs, they, too, would enjoy a four-day work-week with full p...

Support Those Unionizing

Workers are still unionizing their workplaces so here is a shoutout to the nurses at the University Medical Center, a private hospital in New Orleans and the only level-one trauma center. The nurses held a one-day strike, but had been bargaining with the hospital for eight months regarding workplace concerns, such as safety and more money. There are about 600 nurses, considered the backbone of all hospitals, working at UMC. All of our unions should be giving them our support in any way that helps them succeed. If the election doesn’t go blue, this type of worker protests could very well end if the election goes red. This year with our president’s and vice president’s support of unions, there have been some big wins for labor. If we lose, the National Labor Relations Board will be eliminated and all states will become right to work states, which is the kiss of death to unions. Today, twenty-seven states have right to work laws, which prohibits union contracts. Right to work is a new t...