Eat the Rich...

Generalizations give someone exactly what they're looking for, and nothing more than that. Human beings are hard-wired to look for things that fit our narrative, and we're very uncomfortable when we can't find it. We'll make up things to make it look more like what we believe (I'm looking at you, Fox news), and when we can't do that, we complain that we can't make up lies because there's too much truth out there.

I have radical ideas about crime, and homelessness, and why our current American society is the way it is, and why right now, we have the last opportunity to really change things for the better, if the majority of us actually stand up and act on it.

The capitalization of our own work, to the point of slavery, has come to a head at this point. The majority of workers in America end up working long hours, barely making even, and placing themselves further into debt because the cost of living has increased to an astronomical high. We do not have a work-life balance, because there is no life. There is only work. 

If our society actually wanted to end homelessness, end the majority of poverty, and honestly lower crime rates, we would start looking at why our lives currently revolve around the 40+ hour workweek that can't make ends meet.

We would start recognizing that those who make over $450K per year aren't paying their fair share of taxes. We would start recognizing that corporations aren't paying their fair share of taxes, and their shareholders are held at a higher level of esteem than their consumers. 

We would start by acknowledging that Enron set a precedent - that corporations are people. Therefore, corporations need to be taxed the same as any other citizen, and if you make more than $450K per year, you need to pay a flat 40%. Period. 

Here's an example: 

Dale makes $26/hour. By the end of the year, prior to taxes, he'll have made $54,000. After 27% taxes, He'll have made a total of $38,900.

Jeff Bezos' salary at Amazon was $80,000 in 2024 (this doesn't include his ridiculous billions in stocks), so after taxes he'll have made a total of $57,600.

On the other hand, Amazon's profits in 2024 were $59.2B - that's $59,200,000,000. Multiply that by 40%, and they'd still have roughly $24,000,000,000.  

So - If we actually looked at the capital gains of billionaires like Bezos, and we started taxing THAT, and we started holding corporations responsible for their taxes without write-offs, loopholes, and corporate blah-blahs, we'd have enough money to pay for everything we needed in America to set every single person up with their own home, have money to cover education throughout the country, and have decent infrastructure costs covered for things like highways, fire and police departments, and national parks, and probably have quite a bit left over. 

This idea of the rich "earning" their place in today's society is so laughable I might break a rib, if I wasn't sobbing when I look out my window driving to and from work. My own county has struggled with homelessness for some time now, and in the last 10 years, homelessness has risen by upward of 50% here - many of them are working families, who simply can't afford to live in a small apartment, and they've struggled enough financially that they won't qualify with a credit check any longer. 

The rich got to where they are now by exploiting their own connections, inter-marrying, and trading stock secrets to make more money. So why not completely topple the system and make them share.