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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The situation we currently have — a dizzying and disgusting wealth gap, a proliferation of hubristic billionaires, a civic life that’s increasingly bent to the whims of corporations and the ultra wealthy — isn’t an inevitability, or the result of some natural law.

It was aided by a series of policy choices, most notably the decision to lower tax rates for the highest earners and corporations, again and again and again. But also decision to deregulate financial markets. To do nothing about stock buy-backs. To let our nation’s health become a mere product subject to the balance sheet machinations of rapacious PBMs and private equity ghouls.

These are policy choices, not inevitabilities. We  can make different choices. [/quote]

But can we make different choices? Back in olden times under Eisenhower, we had a 90 percent tax rate on the super rich. This is the golden era that people refer to, when a high school graduate could get a decent job, support a family, buy a home, a car, go on vacation, easily pay for college for the kids, have a pension, and on and on.

Now we have the world's richest man - a South African no less - destroying the federal government because he feels like it. We have a Supreme Court that in Citizens United equated money with free speech and opened the floodgates to special interests buying what they need from politicians. We have the longtime House Speaker - Nancy Pelosi - becoming filthy rich from insider trading. We have the dissolute offspring of presidents - Hunter Biden, Donald Trump Jr - making bank from their "art" or their crypto plays. Both parties are invested in the system as it is.

At this moment in time, there isn't a ballot box solution. The Clintons and the Bidens and the Pelosis and the Obamas have all demonstrated how alluring great wealth is. I'm not sure we have a choice when every mainstream Democrat or Republican is deeply invested in the status quo and the riches they gain from perpetuating it.

Having lived in other countries that have encountered systemic failure, I can say that when the dam breaks, it will happen very quickly. Because when people feel like they have no choice, they will move beyond the ballot box. [/quote]

Welcome to the former Yugoslavia [/quote]

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