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An economy that takes from its people and gives nothing back by Chris D., Unknown News       March 30, 2008 Sad, isn't it? Sad to see a society where people are simply cut loose when they are no longer profitable to someone else as an employee or as a consumer. I hate to admit it, but it seems society is shifting in that direction for Canada too. Every drop of sweat from our brow and ache in our muscles goes to profit another more than ourselves, and for it we are thanked by being treated as a burden on our society. After putting so much in over the years we see few returns in our retirement, and it seems that soon Americans will see nothing at all. In either case it tends to fall to the children to whom we have given everything to provide for us, if we want a scrap of dignity before we lay in our graves. The best years of our lives will be spent toiling to secure futures for our children or simple survival for ourselves, after that we wait for the end. When our best years have gone the fruits of our labors are invariably passed on to others. Ideally our hard work will benefit our children, but realistically it ends up in the hands of the ones signing our paychecks. The actions of any given employee typically generate five times more income for the company than they will ever see on payday. It's only the self-employed that can conceivably benefit from their own hard work, but in today's market they most often find their efforts cut off before they can begin. All the All the ideals behind Capitalism were centered around the self-employed and small time businesses. Competition, diversity, and the so- called free market are all much more effective on smaller scales. ideals behind Capitalism were centered around the self-employed and small time businesses. Competition, diversity, and the so-called free market are all much more effective on smaller scales. Instead we have megacorporations and supermarkets, dealing in anything and everything like enormous hydras, consuming the small shops and family operations and effectively preventing more from springing up. They become incredibly powerful, and rather than providing a service for the public suddenly the public exists to feed its existence through their purchases and labor. Such monstrosities poison a capitalist economy rather than embody its ideals. They can strangle their competition and deny them the opportunity to start up by denying resources or by manipulating the law to have it labeled as unfair. Variation is rare to see, especially in the cases of retail giants. Such stores tend to push their competition out of the way and become the only possible buyers for manufacturers. As a result the manufacturers must gear their products to their singular buyers' goals, which is typically lowest possible unit cost. Only one or two manufacturers will be able to make the bid and survive. The free market has become an almost evil entity with the increasing power of massive corporations. Whereas the market and what is acceptable in it would be determined by the public and local law for a smaller business, a corporate giant has the power to shape the law as it sees fit to do whatever business it pleases. There are corporations that encompass every aspect of business from retail to manufacturing to fast food chains. There are even a disturbing number of companies that on the surface appear to be two entities in competition with each other but are owned by the same parent company. Consumers wind up putting all their money in the same place and it's not coming back out. All this activity centralizes the wealth in our nations and prevents it from circulating throughout the general populace as is required for a Capitalist society to survive -- or a society that works on any other system for that matter. And with Annie's contribution I'd just like to say, case in fucking point: Starbucks says it'll ignore court order to return pilfered tips to employees. It's precisely because Starbucks has a corner in the coffee industry that it gets away with this shit. It's hard to justify calling an overpriced coffee shop powerful, but what else do you call something that's above the law due to its sheer wealth? This is just a tiny piece of a much larger puzzle: The reason American citizens are bankrupt in what is supposed to be the world's strongest economy. An economy that takes from its people and gives nothing back. A government that takes from its people and gives nothing back. These are the problems that America has to solve for itself, if it wishes to survive long enough for its citizens to complain about the next President. © by the author.   We're usually unable to forward readers' emails, but both readers and authors are invited to visit our 'dialogue' page for two-way communication: unknownnews.org/dialogue.html   This is an archived Unknown News page. For newest material, visit our main page.

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