Comments by "Ficus-lovin\x27 Capybara N\x27 pals • 🌟 • 25 yrs ago" (@YourCapybaraAmigo_17yrsago) on "The American Dream Isn't Dead... You Just Can't Afford It" video.

The majority of people have been cheated in this country. Not all, but most. By paying shit wages employers have gotten away with stealing the vast majority of the fruits that workers produce. And then they have the gall to say they earned it. The majority of business in this country has always been a swindle. It's nothing but a softer form of feudalism. I appreciate that some founders do work hard and do risk some money to start up a new business venture, but that doesn't entitle them to all of the profits in perpetuity, just some. We need a huge value shift in this country. It starts with declaring that everyone matters not just elites, and LABOR deserves empowerment and reward. We need a labor movement NOW more than ever. The large majority of people in this country are either barely getting by, slightly comfortable, or very poor and why? Well there's a combination but chief among them are terrible wages, no labor laws that matter, a devaluation and soft enslavement of Labor in general and refusal of these scum who hold political office to pass national healthcare. Everyday I become redder and redder (ie communist) and I couldn't be more proud of myself. There's MORE than enough to go around- but if we let the elites take all of it what does that say about us? Should a given economy work for everyone or just the top 10% who are fortunate enough to win the birth lottery or to get really lucky??? There's room for everyone to have their own little bit of wealth and for some groups to have a bit more than others, but nowhere should there be an elite class that is hoarding obscene amounts. Nowhere. I know my values, principles, laws and policies would fix everything but will I ever get a chance to push my agenda? I don't know - I'll try but I doubt the forces united against me will allow me to get very far. My vision is simple - an excellent quality of life for everyone. It could be done easily. You control the elites, and you control big business. You provide enough support through government programs and you control the private sector so that everyone gets what they need. If they want more they can work for it but they'll always have enough to keep a roof over their head, decent food in their fridge, and a modest amount of creature comforts to ensure enjoyment. It's actually extremely easy but when government is owned and operated by and caters to the infinitely rapacious 2% elite, everything gets thrown out of balance and the bottom 2/3 are thrown on the sacrificial altar for that top 2%. It doesn't have to be this way. No one deserves to be sacrificed for the greed of anyone else, that is my first human rights and economic principle!! NO ONE! My second is that anyone who would seek public office has a moral duty to put the general welfare of the general public first and foremost over their own selfish petty concerns and over anything that a special interest or an elite person would demand. My third is that giving a shit about others is a virtue and a privilege. If we all have a little bit of regard for others in our community and they do the same for us, that is a lot healthier and more enlightened of a society then that where the opposite is true. Neoliberalism tells us that we all should be happy to sacrifice ourselves for a dollar. That's not my value system. Money makes a good servant but a rotten master.
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@junkequation you were correct until the end... the majority of wages are not very livable right now when you take into account the inflexible cost of living, ie not lifestyle spending that can be curtailed at will. We do live in a Land of huge abundance and plenty and that's why it's a crime against humanity that we have any poverty at all! It's being hoarded buy those at the top or wasted through poor policies throughout the supply chain. We don't have a production issue, we have a distribution issue. Unfortunately you can't see the big picture the way I can. It takes massive change in laws and public policy to do the redistribution necessary and put the labor laws in place and the rent control in place and the cost of living limitations in place to stop the runaway extraction that at the moment is only making the very rich richer and the poor and precarious, poorer. Because right now the top 2% has run away with near everything, and the laws have allowed them to do so because frankly they have bought the laws, it's that simple. Of course there's still the middle class with its varying degrees, that hasn't gone anywhere yet, but the problem is a good 2/3 in this country are not making it; barely making it, or very precarious where just one setback that isn't immediately resolved could start them on a negative self-reinforcing downward spiral. If we lived in a civilized country that wouldn't happen. You're falling for the personal responsibility mantra- it's a con. Sure sure sure we can all do better , we can all make smarter choices that goes without saying, but it really comes down to public policy. Without hardcore changes in laws to at least move us in a strong socially Democratic direction, more and more people's lives will be seen as not worthy, expendable, easy sacrifices to be thrown on the altar of greed of those at the top. I can post a follow-up reply where I try to summarize all my points in brief bullet format of what needs to be done by LAW to ensure prosperity for all for the foreseeable future. I wish you were correct I wish all it took was changes in our individual atomized personal habits, but while there's a place for those, it's not going to solve the systemic issues that start at the very top. I'll post more- just stay tuned.
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This is exactly what an ignorant Boomer would say. I completely disagree and all those parties you mentioned ARE the reason that the bottom 70% in this country are just one wrong move or one act completely outside of their control from possible ruin. There is a massive systemic issue and I don't know why you have blinders on. Do you have an inability to see the truth? Is it more palatable to you to see those who aren't swimming in money as an individual responsibility issue and not a systemic governmental policy issue? And if so, why??
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@edhcb9359 he's better than you I'd wager. So only business owners deserve wealth and prosperity? Wow you've bought the BS too I see. Madness.
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If you are capable of thinking rationally then I think a short 20-minute presentation on all the reasons why you're wrong might convince you otherwise. I'll have to try to find one that I think might do the trick for you. The facts are in most cases it is a systemic issue and not a personal responsibility or personal failure issue. We all make mistakes at some point or another, and if we're lucky they don't ruin our lives, but there is a big problem with the way that mass poverty has been institutionalized in this country over the past 50 years but really in a broader sense going back to the beginning. I'm not under any illusions that everyone can be super rich at the same time but we do have enough for everyone. And the fact that there is significant poverty homelessness at all should be a huge clue that something isn't right. In short, this country was set up to enrich and protect the elites at everyone else's expense and we see this today in various ways. While on a small scale perhaps some people make less than wise decisions, that is not the driving factor why we have 50 to 60% effective poverty and financial insecurity in this country.
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Do you see these replies? If not I'm being shadowbanned
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Everything here is a Ponzi scheme. It's how the 2% scam all of us into ending up poor and broke after a lifetime of hard work. Even people who have a very comfortable lifestyle and quality income are only a few missed paychecks or one serious health crisis away from potential ruin. What most people don't realize is that both mainstream political parties are 100% responsible for this because they serve the same masters, the financial elites who don't care if the rest of us drop dead. Unless enough voting people reject this model and demand a whole new form of government that places material security for everyone as its cornerstone value - in short unless voters go hard left, this isn't going to change in our lifetime. We're just going to have to hope we're in that lucky group the don't end up losing everything either to local government tyrants and overlords, or some actual Ponzi schemer or our bank or some corporate manipulator, because if we do there's not going to be a single politician that's going to lose a wink of sleep over and they certainly won't be there to catch us (now if we were Wall Street criminal that would be a whole different story). I'm not a tumor but I do recognize our reality, and right now unfortunately the prognosis is pretty bad for a lot of us. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is right now for all the usual reasons. People keep voting for the same uber-criminals and wondering why nothing ever changes. Everyone says Communism and socialism is bad well then okay if you're not wealthy and you die poor or destitute because you can't get health care for your cancer don't come crying to me. People cut their own throats in this country. I rejected the current iteration of the political system in this country a while back. Under the current system you have to be either exceptionally hard working or relatively lucky not to have a major crisis in your lifetime. Here in the US there's very little government help for the average person - because politicians in this country are blood drink and vampires who could care less if we live or die and that's the simple unvarnished truth. If people want better they have to demand an overthrow of these two current political parties and choose Left political parties that care about human well-being. So far half of the country has said they don't want that even though they may continue to suffer and lose under the current political paradigm. And so with that being said for the most part we're kind of stuck with the shit system that we have. Under the current system we're all just slaves, pseudo slaves and serfs for Wall Street, all the while often getting stuck with aggressive and unfair local city council policy. People aren't smart enough in this country to want better for themselves and so we keep getting the abusive system that we have. Not saying that we can't still find a way to make it- even though the current system is hugely exploitative, through sheer grit or extra hard work or out of the box thinking a lot of us do, but I'd like to think that our economic rules should be much different than they are, to where people shouldn't have to rely on luck or positive genetics or family just to be able to access the barest of life's most basic survival needs.
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This has nothing to do with the video.
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@kenseitakesi4521 bingo. That's the core of the problem, isn't it?
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@Nostradevus1 I fail to see how government backed student loans are contributing to the student loan problem; it's the private loan companies that are the industrial level loan sharks out here. What they do is organized crime except it's legal. People should just be able to get very low interest rates student loans from the government... With a flexible and understanding payback time scales. But once again Wall Street is swooping in like a gangster and using this as an excuse to get philthy rich and everyone else's expense and it's being allowed because big-name white collar crime and shadiness is totally legal in the US.
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@edhcb9359 that's good. Glad to hear it.
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The top 2% are using their influence and control over public policy to ensure that they seize more and more of our money and wealth. In short, via various pathways, the majority of all money and resources is going to the top and has been for a while. Through continually ridiculous tax breaks for the very wealthiest, through the cost of everything going through the roof, and through frozen or decreasing wages, those at the top are taking more and more and have no intention of stopping. Their greed is infinite, and they want it ALL. I don't know where this is going to end- they own both mainstream political parties in this country, they effectively control government policy so I really don't know. This is certainly unsustainable. A relatively small elite CANNOT continue to seize all of the functional wealth and money in a given economy and expect that country or region to stay stable for long. It breeds instability, resentments, flare-ups of ethnic hatreds, family instability, social instability and more. It leads to more and more third world-like outcomes. During the Great depression, shanty towns and tent cities were common. We're not too far away from that right now in most major metro areas. How long does the political class think they can keep allowing their super elite amoral patrons to suck up all the wealth without dealing with any possible consequences? Shanty towns will become Tmthe new normal if this is allowed to continue, and then what will be local and state governments' response? I'm honestly curious because I wonder if they've even thought further out than the nose on their face. Death squads? They don't seem to have any empathy or compassion for the current population of homeless even though the vast majority of them are not there by choice and or due to their own fault, so I'm honestly curious. The cops already act inhumanely and viciously towards homeless in many areas, how long before they elevate this to the simple cold-blooded efficiency of death squads? I think it's a fair question. I believe we have never had a greater amount of income inequality and financial exploitation then now. Many are calling this the new gilded age, and I believe the moniker is apt.
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