This is an inflection point in human history. I know, I know...over the top...nutty talk....conspiracy muck-a-muck...
I am serious.
This is a once in every 80 years chance to reset the economic model, to simply change the system and start in a new direction. This is not going to set off a recession, we are going straight to depression and its going to be brutal, but the end HAS TO BE an empowerment of WORK and WORKERS and SOCIETY and a sidelining or devaluing of CAPITAL, WEALTH CONCENTRATION and OWNERSHIP.
COVID-19 has exposed the lie at the heart of the global economy - namely that 'trickle down' anything is a good thing or a viable option in an interconnected world. Wealth concentration is simply going to HAVE to give way to Wealth confiscation and mandatory societal redistribution. It is going to be that, or it is going to be bloody, pointless war in an effort to prop up a dead philosophy - unregulated, unfettered capitalism.
Certain sectors are waaaay over due for a purge and re-prioritization:
Finance?
Making money off of leveraging money over other human beings? This is not going to end well for them...usury laws are going to come back in a very, very large way. People currently holding worthless IUOs of unsecured debt (credit card companies, vampire-like student loan debts) are going to be forced to take a severe haircut in both their wealth and their status within a healthy society...I'm sorry, but this has happened before - to my dad. In the 1960's, he made the choice to obtain an engineering degree and went to work for one of the top companies in the country at the time - Bethlehem Steel, a Fortune 500 juggernaut of the 1960's economy. Fast forward to the 1990s...after a lifetime dedicated to the company and the industry, domestic steel bankruptcies cut my father's retirement assets and benefits to pennies on the dollar and forced him into early retirement...he was NOT alone, as an entire industry shed "legacy costs" and cut or dropped promises to employees, retirees and those who helped build this nation...
Well bankers, guess for whom the bell tolls now?
Insurance?
Profiteering off of human misery - whether in property loss, health care denial and rationing or disasters?
Ghoulish and doomed for relegation to the ashcan of history. We need nationalized healthcare to provide a viable response for emergent disease and for an aging population and a debt-riddled youth. This is an abomination to force people into bankruptcy for health care or for simple bad luck in diseases or accidents or both. This extends to other forms of insurance too - home, auto, fire, unemployment? There is never a single instance where I have know people to tell me how much they LOVE their insurance billing process or benefit approval reviews.
Real Estate?
Placing value in land ownership over social preparation for catastrophe? That dog won't hunt any longer... Rent is astronomical and pricing many people out of downtown areas and into exurbs and 2 hour commutes - 1 way! The land is not for one person or one group or one hedgefund to "own"...it is part of the national character and a natural benefit to the people of the nation and those we invite to join us through a fair and sane immigration policy...
The F.I.Re. sector of the economy is dominant in attention, political clout and portion of the pie they consume, hoard and keep. It is not time to abandon all capitalism - small businesses need protection and government intervention to promote local employment and local distribution of food and circulation of capital. Once the unearned, non-productive "profits" of these leaches is clawed back and then reinvested into a new economic model.
This was the kind of environment that spurred FDR's New Deal - and many ideas they tried then failed miserably, but they kept at it and kept at it and kept at it and totally transformed the world in the offing. The alternatives - fascism and totalitarianism were ascendant; but they were beat back and an unprecedented boom in the economy was achieved - WITH a top marginal tax bracket of 90%!
WE have done it before, We, the people, need to do it once more to save this experiment in self-rule again.
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