Reply #12: Warning: Rant [View All]

[BirminghamExaminer]

I can actually remember the shift in corporate/employee thinking that took place oh, around 1980 or so (hmmm who was president then?) where suddenly corporations quit giving retirement pensions to their employees and overnight everyone was supposed to start saving for their own retirements with 401Ks.

Soon after that, employees were supposed to pay part of their health insurance premiums and the insurance coverage began to shrink. Soon after that, big corporations started laying off employees and opting to hire contract workers who were considered part time and didn't have to be paid any benefits.

Meanwhile, the CEO fat cats got fatter and meaner. Meaner in the archaic sense.

And here we are today where it's okay to give $750 billion to Wall Street bankers who used the money to buy jets and vacations and give bonuses to the people who ripped off the poor schmucks who thought they were buying into the American dream. But it's not okay to help out the auto industry because that would be tantamount to helping the actual workers and for some reason that would be awful. When did our nation's masses get bamboozled into believing that the workers are the problem and the wealthy should be given more money in the form of taxes, etc, while the rest of us battle to put food on the table.

I guess you can tell I'm a bit angry. And that's the irony. We should be angry about this but half the comments I get from people about these issues (on my articles/editorials) are the stupid schmucks who vote for Republicans and have fallen for their line about big government when they are the ones who suffer most from the Republicans' legislation and deregulation and tax cuts. Until the mid 1970s the top 1% of wealth owners in the country took in about 9% of all income. Now they take in 20%. All you have to do is look back at the Depression, or just before it, in 1928 when the top 1% of wealth owners were taking in over 20% to see where we're headed if we don't quit giving tax cuts to the wealthy.