The Stimulus Is an Insult to the Poverty Class
By: Walter Rhein
Tags: Poverty, Politics, Wealth, Justice, Class

The Stimulus Is an Insult to the Poverty Class

It represents another upward transfer of wealth

Photo by lucas Favre on Unsplash

Every time the government approves a stimulus, they rob the people who actually work for a living. Once again, almost all of the taxpayer money will go to the richest people in our nation. The only part of the package that was designed to do any good for regular citizens has been cut to $600 per person. However, when the time comes to pay off the price tag, guess whose taxes will be footing the bill?

Why is it that every time you so much as suggest giving a nickel to people living in poverty, a million talking heads let loose with a cacophonous chorus of “Socialism!” Yet when our government gives hundreds of billions of dollars to the rich, there’s no protest whatsoever?

We live in a world where the general American public is subjected to a constant barrage of anti-poverty propaganda. It’s infuriating to observe a populace that largely claims to be Christian demonstrate such a commitment to this terrible class warfare on our most vulnerable population. The $600 check is a slap in the face. If there were any justice in the world, not one dime of stimulus money would go to anyone making over $75,000 a year.

Money trickles up

The wealthiest people in our country have already constructed a mechanism that compels a significant portion of every transaction to trickle up into their coffers. Rich people don’t have to do anything but wait for the bucket to fill up with coins and then drive to the bank. Actually, they hire somebody to do that and pay them less than slave wages when possible. Also, they own the bank.

Giving money directly to rich people makes absolutely no sense and it doesn’t do anything to combat the inherent injustices of our society. Poor people have bills to pay. They would instantly use the money on rent, which would go to the landlord, which would go to a mortgage payment, and, voila, the banks get the money in the end anyway.

See how that works?

By giving money to people who live in poverty, you manage to multiply the value of every stimulus dollar. But instead of a commitment to the right course of action, our politicians invariably choose to shuffle mounds of cash onto already towering hoards, leaving the people at the bottom to scramble for table scraps as always.

The debt shell game

There is an old story that does a good job illustrating how easy it is to cancel out a huge amount of debt with just a single transaction. It’s known as the Tale of the $100 Bill. There are many versions of the story, but this is the one I found to be the oldest and the least offensive.

A travelling salesman stopped at a hotel and handed the clerk a hundred dollar bill to be put in the safe, saying he would call for it in twenty-four hours. The clerk, whose name was A, owed $100 to B and clandestinely he used this bill for the liquidation of his debt, thinking that before the expiration of 24 hours he could collect $100 from his own debtor, whose name was Z. So this 100 dollar bill went to B, who, greatly surprised, used it to pay his own 100 dollar debt to one C, who (equally surprised) . . . and so on, and so on, all the way down to Z, who, with much pleasure, returned the bill to A, the clerk, who, in the morning, restored it to the salesman. And then did A, the clerk, stand petrified with horror to see the salesman light a cigar with it. “Counterfeit,” said the salesman, “a fake gift from a crazy friend, Abner; but he didn’t put it over, did he?” — Enthusiasm.cozy.org

The simple fact about modern life is that we’re all so occupied scrambling around trying to scrape together the cash we owe to other people, that we rarely stop to recognize that money is an artificial construct printed on worthless paper and designed to control us.

The government is well aware of the true purpose of money, this is why they steadfastly refuse to conceive a stimulus that would actually do the population any good. By doling out billions and sometimes trillions of dollars to the rich, the inflation they create serves to further erode the value of anything the working class has already managed to accumulate.

The latest stimulus is just another example of a government action designed to push impoverished people further down, not help any of them rise up.

If they’re such great “job creators,” why do they need a bail out?

One of the most nonsensical arguments that comes out of right wing politics is that rich people need to be treated differently because they are the “job creators.” The propaganda machines, all of them owned by rich people, would have us believe that the wealthy class have achieved their station through their inherent superiority, intelligence, and commitment to hard work.

Yeah, that and the couple trillion dollars the government sees fit to hand them every few years.

How is it that Republicans that claim to have such a steadfast commitment to capitalism never let out a peep of protest about giving trillions to massive businesses that already provide horrible service? Consider our airlines for example. If you’ve ever traveled outside the country, you’ll realize that all United States based carriers are deplorable. However, we, the consumers, are stuck with them because no upstart business can compete when the big organizations have access to a limitless amount of free government funding.

When you are just launching a business, you either generate a profit or you fail and close up shop. In theory, this is what allows competent, capable people to get ahead. In practice, all the incompetent rich people are allowed to continue their poor practices in perpetuity, and working class citizens have to pay the bill in the form of taxes and bail-outs. It’s never going to end unless we insist on dismantling the corrupt system.

Airlines get tons of free money

Airlines have a unique designation which allows them to be considered an extension of the military in emergency situations.

A unique and significant part of the nation’s air mobility resources is the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, or CRAF. Selected aircraft from U.S. airlines, contractually committed to CRAF, augment Department of Defense airlift requirements in emergencies when the need for airlift exceeds the capability of military aircraft — U.S. Air Force

All citizens know that the government has the right to basically take your property at any time. Concepts like eminent domain claim they will provide “fair compensation,” but you don’t have to look too hard to find cases where that turned out not to be the case. Why is it that airlines are entitled to special treatment where they get to view the government as their own personal ATM?

“I am concerned to some degree about the impacts on the passenger segment of the aviation industry.” Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, head of U.S. Transportation Command, said during a Tuesday briefing. “Any opportunity we have to push workload in their direction, we’re doing that. We’re doing that largely with the repatriation efforts and other efforts of that sort.” — Marcus Weisgerber, DefenseOne.com

It’s wonderful to think that in addition to charging us exorbitant fees for luggage and for the right to be seated next to our infant children, we also have to shovel over our tax dollars to these incompetent businesses that provide a terrible service.

Take out loans using assets as collateral

It just doesn’t make any sense at all to give massive taxpayer funded bail outs to companies owned by the wealthiest people in our nation. The wealth distribution in the United States is so appallingly unfair that there is no reason to think these businesses can’t navigate tough times based on the strength of the assets they already hold.

In the second quarter of 2020, the share of net wealth in the United States held by the top 10 percent increased slightly from the previous quarter to 69 percent. At the beginning of 1990, this figure stood at 60.5 percent. During this period, the wealth share of the 90th to 99th percentile remained broadly constant at around 37 percent, while the share of the top one percent increased from 23.5 percent of net wealth to 30.5 percent — Statistica.com

The total wealth of the United States is around 100 trillion, so the top 10% hold around 69 trillion dollars. Why are taxpayers put on the hook to give those people an extra trillion dollars? That’s chump change to the rich, but it’s permanently debilitating for the rest of us.

I owned and operated a business for 7 years, when times got tough you got loans using your assets as collateral. Yeah, it makes you have to tighten your belt a few notches, but you work hard and get through it. Why don’t rich people ever have to put their assets at risk? They live by a completely different set of rules than the rest of us, and every citizen in our country should be aware of this injustice and furious about it.

These businesses also just got a massive tax break. Where did all that money go?

Constant class warfare on the poor

The latest stimulus package is just another in a long line of thefts that unfairly burden the poverty class and make life easier for the rich. The $600 payment is completely insufficient, and, for many people, doesn’t even cover the cost of inflation that comes as a result of printing up another trillion dollars in cash. The rich get so much that their net worth increases even with the inherent inflation.

Bail-outs are thefts in plain sight that irrefutably demonstrate the inherent corruption of America’s wealthy elites. These aren’t people that have “worked hard.” These aren’t people who have “demonstrated ability.” These aren’t people who are “job creators.”

These are people that have managed to corrupt our government to the point where it has become an extension of their personal business. They keep all the profits, and make the US taxpayer cover all their losses. They’ve been allowed to get away with this immoral behavior to the point where they control the vast majority of our nation’s assets. If this is allowed to continue, it represents a fundamental threat to the sustainability of our nation. You aren’t free if you can’t pay for the basic necessities of life. Why have we allowed the wealthy class to leverage the whole working class to subsidize their irresponsible lifestyle?

Why can’t we use a stimulus to help the majority of Americans rise out of poverty?