Recent reports have shown that nearly half the country is at or near the poverty level. Over half of Americans make less than $30,000 per year. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour! My stepdad, and this is true, made $7.50 per hour in 1970 as a brickmason.
Other reports have shown how much wealth is flowing to the top of the oligarchy. It’s become obscene from all angles and the serfs display incredible cognitive dissonance about it by complaining about it while also supporting the systems, organizations and instititions that perpetuate the inequality.
I lived in West Germany for five years and visited a number of famous castles including the one Disneyland is modeled after, Neuschwanstein, and was amazed at the size and extravagance of King Ludwig’s digs.
Today I saw a link for the top 15 houses of famous athletes. The one “owned” by Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, looked like a castle. That’s what it is, a fucking castle. Then there’s the hedge fund managers and the Wall Street bankers and corporate CEO’s castles. Throughout history, the Kings and Queens and Dictators had the castles. Now it’s an expected part of the top one percent. Thou shalt have castles.
We stayed at seven bucks and hour while they went from mansions to castles.
But the Serfs get to look, they can click on a link like I did and see for themselves. Take a little tour of the high life, then go back to their minimum wage job and minimum wage lives.
How can it be stopped? Can it even be slowed down? I saw an article recently that posed the question, “have we reached peak inequality”?
Hell no it hasn’t peaked. I don’t care about data and statistics when it comes to this. It can’t stop, there’s nothing to stop it. The people can’t seem to stop it. The people don’t seem to really care. Most people seem to accept class divisions as a normal way of life, just the way it is and always has been. Maybe that’s it. Maybe it was meant to be.
Update: I saw where Tom Brady says “Trump is my man”. He’s a Trump supporter. Kind of reminds me of when I found out about Ted Nugent’s politics. “Stranglehold” has never sounded the same since, although I avoid it all cost. Which I will now do with the New England Patriots and Tom Brady.
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
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café babylon 
I was going to write an article about this but I’ll comment for now. I just saw an article stating that “Trump is our last hope”. Real wild, but what’s really wild is that is the same meme floating thru the Bernie supporters, i.e., “Bernie is our last hope”.
WTF? How can people be so fucking stupid to say something like that. Hey, we might be down to our last hopes, but to tie them to politicians, either Bernie or Trump, especially Trump, is so asinine it’s hard to believe.
Have we learned nothing?
I guess that’s what I would title the article if I were to write it, “Have we learned nothing”? That seems to be a big problem doesn’t it. The learning curve regarding humanity seems to have plateaued sometime near the end of the Enlightenment Period.
Perhaps the Brady “bunch” deserve a Christmas caroleers’ visit:
If not, then; The Rest OF US at their gates (beginning perhaps again at this apropos venue):
h/t to Pete & Lee
Darn, I never live close enough to where the fun is. But I’m sure there’s some castles around here somewhere. I think they have a whole ton of them up at Lake Oswego, Portland, where the rich people live.
How can it be stopped? Stop buying sports tickets and movie tickets. Stop watching television. If you haven’t already, drop your TV cable subscription. Their incomes depend on those lower on the ladder paying for their “services”. Hedge funds are a different matter. Another financial meltdown and the hedge funds take care of themselves unless they shake down the public again. And cash out your 401(k) funds and put them in credit union accounts to preserve the value from management fees, that then get swooshed into hedge funds. (We’re talking control here, not financial return.) And never ever go to WalMart.
Dirty little secret. Without the serfs paying the freight, they face hard times. They can’t make that extravagant lifestyle by taking in each other’s financial transactions. Even the credit default swap fraud was based on subprime loans in poor neighborhoods, bundled and sliced and diced.
“Parasite’ did not become an economic term for no reason.