American Pie

This cartoon is stupid.

The thing with money is, the more you have, the easier it gets to make more. The "look at all the wealth concentrated in this small group" tirade is pointless. It means nothing. The real problem is that wealth gives these people great power, and they abuse that power. This cartoon doesn't bring any of that into the discussion; it's an artless "joke" that does nothing and goes nowhere.

People see a CEO's salary and start frothing at the mouth. I'm not against CEOs making lots of money. I don't believe in capping salaries; it's anti-American and anti-freedom. I think it's crazy dumb to pay one dude a million dollars to play golf four days a week, but whatevs, that's the company's choice.

Nobody cares that a guy that throws a football makes millions of dollars, though. They respect and envy that guy, but it's the same kind of thing; rock-star CEOs. Why? Because the average person hates an educated business person but envies the athlete because reasons? That's not what we should be focusing on, it's an irrelevant distraction. We shouldn't lump "the 1%" together and assume they're all trying to eat the poor just like we shouldn't lump the poor together and assume they're all uneducated criminals.

What I do resent is things like:

  • Corporations having "people" rights
  • Tax loopholes, offshoring
  • Wages not keeping up with the cost of living
  • Market collusion: price fixing, non-compete agreements
  • Billions of dollars in no-bid defense contracts with no accountability (fucking $1.5 TRILLION F-35 program, over ten times what it would cost to give everyone a free college education, for ONE FUCKING PLANE THAT SUCKS)
  • Political corruption that benefits corporations; lobbying and back room agreements that result in legislation very much not in the public's best interest

These are the kinds of things that make it harder for middle and lower income people to improve their lot because it prevents money from flowing naturally through the economy. These are also the kinds of things that take money out of our public works, education, health care, and sink our economy.

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