The time needed to get $1 in international dollars is 63 minutes in the US. This is about twice the average in Germany, France and the UK according to an Oxford University researcher. This suggests that average poverty is significantly higher in the US.
Amen brother. This nation’s gone full metal imbecile. It’s going to take decades to come close to even sorting it out, if ever.
My hope is the damn country is going to wake up to the fact 75-90% of people are slaves to the wage and topple the status quo, however unlikely for that to happen. A French revolution of sorts.
If one looks at it coldly, the US is where the elites of the west and the gulf park their assets to exploit the world population without fear of repercussions, even when they commit the most unspeakable acts, like sexually abusing children. Someone somewhere should be able to start a revolutionary movement in there. Just cut the head of the snake, Thiels, Kochs, Musks, etc. Get rid of 'em and the country can start to heal.
I honestly think it’s going to have to be a consumer revolt. I spent 15 years in the Nielsen Homescan Consumer Panel - rebranded in the mid 2000’s as National Consumer Panel - it’s basically the flipside of the Nielsen TV survey and it measures the effectiveness of advertising.
As a long time Adbusters reader (from the mid-90’s) I was keenly aware of advertising setting a mindset of consumerism…
So imagine my delight when I got in on the ground floor of the industry that sold data to the advertisers regarding what worked and what did not.
It HAS to be a consumer strike, that is the leverage point.
Advertisers spend billions a year to get people to buy shit they don’t need, with money they don’t have. And it works, and maintains the entire capitalist mechanism with almost perfect results.
Thing is, as I have pointedly remarked at the occasional focus group I’ve been invited to, (then usually dis-invited out the door quite quickly) the question I ask - which is never answered, is “How many Americans get pushed into abject poverty before the entire economy collapses on itself? How much wage stagnation do we have across the board before the people who hired this focus group start to lose business because fewer and fewer consumers can buy what they’re selling?”
I think we’re coming close to finding that out and it’s why the billionaires are so voraciously hoarding their wealth. I did catch the news item that stated the US has hit insolvency.
Fun times ahead, and at the least we all have to take care of, and watch out for, each other. God knows the government isn’t capable of offering any legitimate help anymore.