CAPITALISM

I decided to write this entry about capitalism because the country as it is now is not the country I grew up in. I grew up in the 60's, during the Vietnam era. There was a war going on but I was  to young yet to comprehend.  Life was good for the most part.  Had lots of friends in the neighborhood, went to catholic grade school and my Dad worked in the city and was part of a union.  The small town I grew up in had lots of small stores selling shoes or dresses, sporting goods, toys and lots of diners and restaurants and even had 4 movie theaters.  These businesses were for the most part all locally owned and operated.   I watched as certain stores would close or move because the competitor offered a better item or an item at a lower cost.  This to me was what I learned to be as capitalism and it made perfect sense to me.  Seemed right.  In fact it was taught to us in school.   Mom stayed at home and we had a nice house and always had food and clothes and  I guess you could say we were the picture of middle class.  Dad had a pension and savings and no debt that I knew of.   All of my friends in the neighborhood seemed similar insofar as I didn't know of 1 family where both the mother and the father HAD to work.
  Well jumping to today most folks I know are barely getting by and are 1 illness or disaster away from the poor house. I know I am one of those folks.  Things aren't the way they were back when I was growing up.  In most households today both spouse have to work out of necessity, and that is if they are fortunate to have jobs. What happened.  What changed ?  I trace it back to the Reagan era.  I was older now 19 years of age and Reagan was now the President.  I was going to the Grumman School of Aerospace learning computer programming under what was called the cedar program.(Mike S if reading this your Dad got me into this !) After almost 2 years of school and nearing graduation the Reagan administration cut the funding for the program.(the program was for young adults who had gotten into trouble to teach them a trade).  Well I was angry but  this  was out of my control.  I ended up moving out west and found employment selling solar energy to homeowners and continued my computer schooling at my expense at night. Soon afterwards during Reagan's second term he cancelled the solar tax credits virtually eliminating the entire solar industry overnight.  Second time Reagans policies personally affected me and I began to take a dislike in politics. It was also about this time my Dad was laid off after his union was dismantled and he lost his pension.  Times were changing.  I also began to ask questions about our government and its policies.  Why we would want to be more dependant on foreign oil  ?  What was the real agenda ?  Why are we always at war ?   I being somewhat intelligent started a catering company which became somewhat profitable.   This was to be my first of several companies as I am a dreamer too and believed in capitalism and that I to would make it big.      Under the Nixon/Carter era of my youth the highest incomes were taxed at a much higher percentage of what they are today.  Reagan changed that.  He slashed taxes by 50 % to the rich , yet while the biggest businesses were already doing spectacular they now saw record profits- yet I watched as the biggest companies started laying off people amidst huge profits ! How could this be or why ?  Unions.  They were being dismantled.  My girlfriend at the time worked as a cashier and the  cashiers union was shut down and Her wages fell.  This happened all across America to some of the largest unions.  So President Reagan who the rich thanked for the tax cuts, eliminates unions so workers make less money and makes us dependent on foreign oil and cuts programs for schools and for the needy.  This is what I personally saw and experienced.   Corporate America had taken over.  We had wall street bankers on the staff of the white house.  For the next 20 years wages were pretty much frozen, jobs were lost, and thru trade agreements we saw manufacturing going oversees.  Health care costs skyrocketed, insurance costs skyrocketed, and most were in credit card debt.  The distance between the richest and the poorest had widened to the point that the middle class was almost non existent.  Some of the largest companies in America were actually taking out insurance policies on their workers so when the worker died the company collected.  You had your largest banks, insurance companies, ATT&T, GM, walmart and many many others doing this without the employees knowledge.  You yourself may right now be working for just such a company.
  Today we have 1% of the population making more than the bottom 97%.  That leaves 2%-the middle class.  The entire economics of our country is being controlled by the wealthiest 1%.   This is where capitalism has taken us.  Greed from corporate America.   But the bottom 97% still dream the American dream but in reality will not happen for them, so they dream and are distracted by American idol and other such dribble.   Capitalism today - the wealthiest 1% have no intention of sharing the wealth.  The bankers and the CEO's of wall street companies profited when they created the housing market disaster, thru deregulation, and then profited again after they got bailed out by us the taxpayers which we said no to but congress passed behing closed doors. Today our economy is destroyed and they want to blame OBAMA.   Very easy to point blame on Him when in reality our government has been hijacked by corporate globalists who have a scary agenda which was put into play long before Obama.  He is just a puppet.  I have written about the globalists in past posts.  If I were able to vote i would support Ron Paul as He is the only person in the mix not controlled by corporate America and the globalists.  I dont agree with some of his policies, but we need to take the first step and get government out of the hands of the corporate bankers. And yes I am still a dreamer and believe the dream and just started another company...