Comments by "Michael Mappin" (@michaelmappin1830) on "Peter Schiff Argues with Marxist Richard Wolff" video.
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@trustyshellback , no, it's not wrong. It's a mathematical fact. Billionaires make thousands of dollars per second just from their Capital Holdings. Capitalism is a pyramid scheme. Since 1929 we've had the ability to produce far more than we're capable of consuming. And with every passing day we can produce more and more with less and less labour. But why do working hours not decrease while creasing everyone's prosperity? Because almost 90% of the population doesn't own the product of its labour. Everything produced by that 90% actually belongs to someone else! When you don't own the product of your labour, you're basically nothing more than human livestock.
For example, if you give bovine growth hormone to a dairy cow in order to double milk production, does the cow get twice the amount of milk? No. All of that milk belongs to the farmer. Likewise, if a labor-saving machine doubles the productivity of a worker, that extra wealth goes to the owners. That's why people remain depended upon a 40 Hour Work Week even though it's no longer necessary to work that long reduce all the goods and services produced by Society. That's why we now have fractional Reserve banking. It's the only way to keep the capitalist economy going because when workers don't get the full value of their labour, if they only get half the amount, then they can only afford half of the goods and services in circulation. If consumption slows, people get laid off and can't consume. That causes even more people to get laid off. Those people that have to compete with everyone else and that drives the value of Labor down even further while increasing production output even further!
under capitalism most of the capital is owned by the richest members of society. That leaves almost 90% of the population in a position where they have no choice but to sell their labour in order to survive.
Capitalism is a modern form of slavery.
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@Johan Liebert , dude, the capitalist class at the top of the pyramid has made record profits during the pandemic. The oil industry, the banking industry, people like Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg, Etc, yeah, some capitals get thrown under the bus. The big fish eat little fish. The function of the capitalist government is to protect the capitalist system, the capital Holdings of the capitalists, and the capitalists from one another.
▪︎ The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017. ~
Wall Street Journal
▪ During the last 20 years over 90% of newly created wealth went to the top 1%.
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%
~ Time Magazine
▪ The two richest people—Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates—possess almost the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the population.
▪ the richest 1% has almost as much wealth as the poorest 91% of the American population.
▪ The wealthiest Americans live on average 20 years longer than the poorest Americans.
▪︎ The number of homeless children in the United States is at its highest in more than a decade, according to a recent study by the National Center for Homeless Education. ~2017 stat
▪ The United States comes in at number 27 on the social Mobility index! That's even worse than Portugal and Lithuania! Never mind trying to start a business either cooperatively or individually. That number 27 a person would be lucky just to be able to retire debt free. There's a reason why most Americans can no longer afford a family on a single income. Anyone can start a business? I think not.
▪ over 40% of u.s. households are one paycheck away from poverty.
▪ Banks have foreclosed on over 7 million homes between 2004 and 2015.
▪ There are 554,000 homeless people on a given night.
▪ The United States, the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, has a larger percentage of low-income workers than any other developed nation.
▪ As of 2020, According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old - about 130 million people - lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.
▪ 30% of the low-wage workers live below 150% of the federal poverty line, or $36,000 per year for a family of four. 26% receive safety net assistance such as food stamps, welfare benefits, federal housing assistance, and other programs, which have been cut back throughout the years by successive Democratic and Republican administrations.
▪︎ more than one-third of us healthcare costs go to bankruptcy!
▪ A study conducted by researchers at Harvard University found 45,000 Americans die each year from preventable causes because they can’t afford healthcare. But, we do have a $1.5 trillion jet fighter that can’t fly in cloudy weather. Go ‘Murcia!
▪ In 2017 Over 30 million Americans had no health insurance and even more are under-insured with high deductibles and co-payments.
As of May 2018, the numbers of people in the U.S. without health insurance have risen to 15.5%, up from 12.7% two years ago, according to the latest Commonwealth Fund tracking survey. This translates to an increase of four million uninsured people nationwide. ~ forbes.
▪ "the US tops all European countries in terms of the percentage of workers and family members who avoid necessary trips to the doctor because they fear financial ruin from the inflated costs of their private health care." ~
Prof. James Petras (the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, and Journal of Peasant Studies)
▪︎ Millions of Americans – as many as 25% of the population – are delaying getting medical help because of skyrocketing costs.
▪ more and more Americans are selling their blood for extra money.
over 40 million Americans, many of them full-time workers, require food stamps in order to get enough food to eat. That's more people than the entire population of Canada! When you're desperate enough, you'll even sell your blood!
"With 58% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, corporate America is exploiting poverty through blood and plasma donations while most other countries have banned the practice on ethical and medical grounds."
▪ economic insecurity and workplace stress is destroying the mental health of Americans.
USA #1 for mental disorders. about 1 in 4 adults. about 60 million people. ~
(Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005.)
▪ Published studies report that about 25% of all U.S. adults have a mental illness and that nearly 50% of U.S. adults will develop at least one mental illness during their lifetime. ~
cdc gov - mentalhealthsurveillance-fact sheet
▪ and as people become more desperate we see crime rates increasing.
▪ 3% of American adults—6.8 million people—are either in jail or prison or on parole or probation.
▪ A third of states have a form of debtor’s prison, where the poor are locked up for failure to pay fines or debts.
▪ There are 1.2 million police officers in the US—almost equal to the population of the state of New Hampshire.
▪ The police have killed 15,000 people since 2000.
▪ There are 55,000 children presently in juvenile detention.
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@Johan Liebert , and what does that have to do with anything?
Capitalism is economic feudalism. It allows the richest members of society to own most of the capital. Those who own most of the Capital get most of the wealth produced by labour and get to make most of the decisions when it comes to what is produced, how things are produced, where things are produced, how much workers get paid, Etc. That's why most things are made in China and why the richest 1% now has almost as much wealth as the poorest 91%.
That capitalist class is the ruling class. It's their government, their economic system, their Market, Etc.
Why do you think they implemented fractional Reserve banking? Because there's a ceiling limit in regards to how much wealth you can extract from labour. The goal of capitalism is to maximize profits. Profits are maximized by keeping production costs as low as possible. What's the largest cost of production? Labor! The lower wages are, the more profit there is. As production costs approaches zero, profit approaches its maximum. But the more money you take from workers the less they have to spend. The more successful a capitalist company is the less purchasing power workers have. Any erosion of purchasing power has to be offset with increased access to credit. Fractional Reserve banking allows allows us to borrow from the future. The future wealth produced by labour. Capitalism is basically a pyramid scheme.
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