https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/03/four-numbers-scream-vote-bernie
The richest 10% are very interested in keeping things
just the way they are.
By: Paul Buchheit
By the numbers, Bernie Sanders is the 'centrist' candidate.
The families all the way up to the very center of America have actually lost
wealth since the recession. The families from the center to the 90th percentile
have seen their share of national wealth drop dramatically. This 90% of America
needs a President who will focus on a living wage and affordable health care
and the reduction of inequality. That's Bernie.
$40 TRILLLION: Wealth Taken by the Richest
10% Over Last Ten Years. The Poorest 50% Got NOTHING.
Since 2010 wealth has
doubled for the richest 10% while dropping for the poorest 50%. Average net
worth per adult has gone from $1.6 million to $3.2 million for the richest 10%.
Average net worth for the poorest 50% has dropped from about $11,000 to about
$10,000. The wealth data comes from the 2019 Credit Suisse Global Wealth
Databook.
"The money-minded media keeps talking about the surging
economy. It's only surging for already-rich Americans."The true middle
class (median to 90th percentile, according to Piketty, Saez, and Zucman) saw a
sizable wealth increase, but their share of total wealth dropped by over 10
percent.
The money-minded
media keeps talking about the surging economy. It's only surging for
already-rich Americans. Even with the recent downturn, the stock market has
more than tripled in value since the recession. America's richest 10% own 84
percent of the stocks.
ZERO:
Wage Increase for Working-Class Over 50 Years
Stagnant wages go back over 50 years, as
documented by Piketty, Saez, and Zucman: "For working-age men, median
pretax labor income...is the same in 2014 as in 1964, about $35,000." Pew
Research concurs: "what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to
the highest-paid tier of workers." The trend continues. Real wages have
decreased since just before the recession.
$1 in expenses twenty years ago is now $1.25.
$1 in earnings twenty years ago is now still $1 (all figures adjusted for
inflation).
The media gushes over
the low unemployment rate. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics bases the
official unemployment rate on employees "who did any work for pay or
profit" during the week being surveyed. That includes part-time workers
who are employed for just ONE HOUR A WEEK.
$10,739: Health Care Costs per American per
Year
Economists Anne Case
and Angus Deaton provide a disturbing overview of the American health care
system.
The U.S. has much
higher per capita health care expenses than other wealthy countries—but a lower
life expectancy. If U.S. health care as a share of GDP were the same as
Switzerland’s, $8,300 could be returned to every American household.
Where does our health
care money go? To "the owners and executives of pharmaceutical companies,
to medical-device manufacturers, to insurers and to large, ever more
monopolistic hospitals." This all adds up to a huge administrative
expense, which would be greatly diminished by a single-payer system.
Case and Deaton tell
us: "Americans like to believe that their system is a free-market one, in
spite of the fact that the government is paying half of the cost, is paying the
prices demanded by pharmaceutical companies without negotiation, is permitting
professional associations to restrict supply, and is subsidizing
employer-provided health care through the tax system...the health care industry
is protected in Washington by its lobbyists -- five for every member of Congress."
6,872: Civilians Killed by American Bombs
in Yemen
That's over two
9/11's, caused in great part by our military policies. But most Americans know
little about it.
Drone warfare is a
very personal ongoing tragedy for helpless and vulnerable people. Near a
village in Yemen a man named Rabee'a was examining well sites when jagged
pieces of a bomb, flying thousands of miles per hour, blew off the top half of
his face. Next to him, his cousin Al-Qadi was burning alive. Another man, Fahd,
felt a piece of shrapnel tear through his back and exit through his chest...
now he was killing himself with every breath.
So most Yemenis have
stopped digging wells. It's too dangerous. As a result cholera has become an
epidemic, with nearly one million suspected cases. According to the
organization Save the Children, 85,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 may
have already died of starvation and disease. Nearly 7,000 civilians have been
killed, the majority by Saudi Arabian airstrikes, with the great majority of bombs
and drones coming from American weapons manufacturers. Airstrikes have hit
homes, markets, hospitals, schools, mosques, weddings, and funerals.
For a conservative base in America that
professes shock at abortion, hypocrisy abounds about the value of life in
Yemen. Congress failed to override Trump's veto of the attempt to end the
killing of innocents by curtailing arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Trump even
revoked an Obama-era requirement to report the number of drone deaths.
Perversely, part of the mission of the U.S.
Foreign Military Sales program is to "promote world peace."
Reality
It will be extremely
difficult to change a mindset that is driven by the media-controlling richest
10% of our country. One of their strategies is to use the word 'social' in a
way that scares people. But Bernie's fight is for social justice, and for
social responsibility. The beaten-down center of America will take the first
step in the battle against inequality if it listens to him.
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