Saturday, 5 April 2025

THE WEALTH PAIL ILLUSION, BILLIONAIRE CAPITALISM AND TARIFFS

 

THE WEALTH PAIL ILLUSION, BILLIONAIRE CAPITALISM AND TARIFFS

 

The last week of March, 2025, and punitive automotive tariffs are set to kick in on April 2nd.  Trump is already bragging about the nearly 100 billion in tax tariffs this will bring in for his cash-starved government.  This hailing from a man who prior to his first election bragged about how he didn’t pay taxes because he is smarter than anyone else.  He hates taxes (on his personal wealth that is, not yours) and has avoided them for most of his life.  American businesses are doing just fine, it is the government that is broke and Trump needs cash, cash for building walls and cash to make up for tax breaks to the richest people in the country.

Capitalist cronyism has invaded the White House.  Does daffy Donald care about the impact of these trade tariffs?  Tariffs that will hurt manufacturers, retailers and consumers!  Everybody will be on the hook for paying more for almost everything.  Making America great again or taking it into bankruptcy?  People will stop buying and manufacturing and tens of thousands will lose their livelihoods and homes.  Rich people like Trump live in an alternate world with their wealth shielded and protected through lucrative tax loopholes and exemptions, safely ensconced within the protective walls of their gated communities and mansions.

There is no timeline on the expected windfall of 100 billion and Trump’s logic includes the same amount of horrendous elastic as do most of his bombastic statements.  It could be a year or never.  One hundred billion dollars for a trillion dollar downturn in the economy.  Trump’s art of the deal coming through in full colors.  Big fish swallowing a lot of small fish and pretending that it’s for the benefit of the fish remaining.




Most of you must have heard of the wealth pail scenario.  It was popular a few decades ago.  The rich comparing wealth to a pail and as it fills up and spills over, all that extra wealth reaches the multitudes below.  Picture it.  The wealth pail!  Dribs and drabs reaching the outstretched hands of the multitudes below, with some catching a little and most next to nothing.  The wealthy steadfastly maintain that as more wealth is generated, the dribs and drabs will turn into a steady flow.  Reality.  The rich simply created a bigger pail.  Much more for them and the same pittance for you and me.




I have stated in previous articles that progress is killing us.  At first glance that sounds like a contradiction as we continue to create more and more wealth all across the world.  We are living in a world full of contradictions and detractions.  Not only has all that progress come at a horrendous cost and the planet has paid the worst price, increasingly our human numbers come at a cost we can no longer afford.  All that progress is keeping more and more people alive, people who less than a hundred years ago would have died like flies.  We have added more than 6 billion people in just over one hundred years.  Our planet isn’t big enough and lacks the needed resources and restorative abilities to meet our needs and demands.  Our wants, wishes and entitlements are pushing everything to a head.  We’re getting worse, not better.

Elon Musk is about as delirious as his master when it comes to brash and callous statements.  His prediction this week is that AI and robots will replace workers.  Great.  What are all of you going to do?  Will we receive a Permanently Parked People Pension as soon as we are born?  Billions of people glued to handheld media devices, turning them into braindead zombies, hoping that at least some of us will take up exercise and healthy lifestyles, rather than turning to booze and drugs?  A life of what?  Boredom?  Unemployment?  Living on the margins and faced with universal drudgery?




Of course, there will be a legion of carefully selected acolytes who will be left in charge of programming and monitoring humanity.  We will keep call them Watchers or Keepers.

We’re such gullible and stupid idiots, waiting for the gates of heaven while paving the way to hell.

 

 

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