Thread by @kishineff

Most of you know that wages in the United States have remained stagnant since 1980, when adjusted for inflation. Do you realize, however, that the US is a global #empire and that we are likely witnessing the fall of that empire?

That's right, the US has political or... 1/16

#military control of much of the world. That comes from military support of dictatorships and right wing leaders throughout Central and South America, throughout #Africa and in parts of #Asia, such as India and the Philippines. But that also includes economic control, and... 2/16

economically, we also have a huge amount of control (although not total) over most of #Europe and some of the countries in Asia where we don't have political/military control.

Our "capitalist" system has been corrupted and subverted by the forces of greed. Our once... 3/16

capitalist system is out of whack. Where once a CEO would make 200 times their lowest paid employee, but it was possible, through hard work, to buy a house and support a family through 1 family member working full time; we now have CEOs making several thousand times what... 4/16

their lowest paid employees earn, and now 2 family members working full time still struggle just to pay the bills.

Capitalism eats itself. Our #economic crashes have come more frequently. The current crash was predicted, by economists, for about two years before the... 5/16

#coronavirus hit. 40 million people were put out of work. Some of those jobs returned, but a lot of those jobs will never return. Many of the small business loans were given out to large corporations like the Los Angeles Lakers or to the private businesses of Senators who... 6/16

earn $174,000 per year, many of whom have been in Congress for decades. Many people didn't get a #stimuluscheck at all, and those that did only got $1200. No #rentfreeze, no mortgage freeze.

When the economy opens up again, we are going to see a massive number of... 7/16

#evictions, as something like a third of #Americans haven't paid rent or mortgage for 3 months. But we're also going to see some unemployment numbers that are going to actually drive wages DOWN, as employers realize they have so many choices, they have economic problems of...8/16

their own and hard choices to make. More and more #employers will say to prospective #employees "I'd like to pay you what you deserve, but I just can't afford to pay more than #MInimumWage ."

You're thinking, aren't you, of a job interview at a fast food restaurant or a... 9/16

retail store? But what happens when it's dental hygienists or the receptionist at a law firm or a pharmacy technician at Costco (Costco is non-union) or even your mechanic? These workers have skills that they went to school and trained for, and deserve to be compensated... 10/16

for.

So what happens when these jobs become minimum wage jobs? People stop going to school and learning to do them. Not only that, but how can you expect a student or low wage worker to be responsible for certifications and licensing fees? Some of that will go away, too. 11/16

After all, why pay hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket so you can have a job that pays the same as 7-11?

Now we're having people with far less training working on our cars or our teeth or maybe our civil law suits. And to make matters even worse, when people, on a large... 12/16

scale, have less money to spend INTO the economy, the #economy shrinks even more. And as the economy shrinks, who do government officials usually turn to, when they need to come up with money? The rich? Not likely! They turn to the #MiddleClass for tax increases or they... 13/16

cut #SocialSecurity or #foodstamps. And the cycle continues.

Now, if the powers that be had the wisdom and the foresight, and the motivation (they don't want to do anything that will be seen as taking money from the wealthy) they COULD do something about this right now.
14/16

The government will continue to #crash until it takes on some more aspects of #socialism.

Don't forget that we already have aspects of socialism in our system, such as social security, fire departments and #publiclibraries. We NEED to ensure, however we do that, that... 15/16

everyone has what they need to #survive. When we do THAT, we ensure that millions of people are able to pay into the #economy. When tens of millions of people, or a hundred million people, suddenly become unable to pay into the economy, CRASH! 16/16

@profwolff I hope I've done you proud, sir.