UN: US inequality reaching a dangerous level due to Trump's 'cruel' measures
Source: The Guardian
Donald Trump is deliberately forcing millions of Americans into financial ruin, cruelly depriving them of food and other basic protections while lavishing vast riches on the super-wealthy, the United Nations monitor on poverty has warned.
Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur who acts as a watchdog on extreme poverty around the world, has issued a withering critique of the state of America today. Trump is steering the country towards a dramatic change of direction that is rewarding the rich and punishing the poor by blocking access even to the most meager necessities.
This is a systematic attack on Americas welfare program that is undermining the social safety net for those who cant cope on their own. Once you start removing any sense of government commitment, you quickly move into cruelty, Alston told the Guardian.
Millions of Americans already struggling to make ends meet faced ruination, he warned. If food stamps and access to Medicaid are removed, and housing subsidies cut, then the effect on people living on the margins will be drastic.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/01/us-inequality-donald-trump-cruel-measures-un
Eliot Rosewater
(31,159 posts)UpInArms
(51,299 posts)Repiglicans
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,114 posts)If it is not properly fixed amicably it will be fixed by some kind of revolution, possibly violent. There are so many ways to fix it properly and amicably.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)erronis
(15,524 posts)For a while, that might be the case. However the tactics they are pursuing are going to render the planet very inhospitable to them and their spawn.
Think about the air and water quality. Yes, they can decide to put huge bubbles over their homes, golf courses, agriculture/animal harvesting fields and massive filtration units - perhaps powered by fossil fuels spewing their exhausts into the outside atmosphere.
I can't see this artificial environment lasting more than a few decades and less than 2-3 generations of "perfect" children. The mercenaries will need to have places to live within the bubble also. They may be of "lower class" than the self-appointed lords. Resentments and other realistic entanglements will make that bubble become an interesting experiment in survival, disease, death, and decay. I hope someone outside can record the process for future generations.
TeamPooka
(24,342 posts)erronis
(15,524 posts)Control/exclusion intersect. The guards at the gates of the communities that I know of are paid contractors. Hopefully very competent and non-judgmental.
Actually, I would not trust most of the inhabitants of the communities I'm thinking about to have a life-and-death decision with someone trying to enter the facility (one is 90 with opinion and firearm experience.)
NBachers
(17,209 posts)Quemado
(1,262 posts)Instead of despise, I think its a case of the wealthy believe taxation is theft. But if they take from the poor, that is OK.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)take from the poor, they don't have anything.
NewJeffCT
(56,829 posts)It looks like to me
Quemado
(1,262 posts)nt
harun
(11,348 posts)RobinA
(9,928 posts)I hate Trump with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns, about this inequality started waaaayyy before he came along.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)erronis
(15,524 posts)I'm not sure whether this is just to cut the US budget as repuglicans have frequently cited (except DoD, Intel, pork-barrel), or if it is to punish those that aren't part of the dumpian world.
More likely it is on direction from external influences. No need to cite the putines, kochs, mercers, etc. here. Plutocrats, oligarchs, thieves, liars, crooks, ...
demmiblue
(36,948 posts)cstanleytech
(26,390 posts)IronLionZion
(45,704 posts)you know, when America was great 100 years ago.
paleotn
(18,041 posts)We all know how that one ended. Not terribly good for the rich and those in power.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,651 posts)Thanks for the thread FiveGoodMen
TeamPooka
(24,342 posts)appalachiablue
(41,262 posts)Bayard
(22,292 posts)OMG! How does she live with that man?
Oneironaut
(5,555 posts)Corporations make a product. They buy them sometimes, but the vast majority of products are bought by the public. Less purchasing power for the public means less inventory moving off the shelves. This cuts into corporations revenue, meaning they cant hire as many workers. This leads to more dependency on the government.
More jobs and job security are a symptom of a healthy economy. You cant have a healthy economy with job scarcity - thats utter nonsense. Thats like removing all the product from the shelves of your store and saying, this will increase our profit exponentially!
Small businesses run American society. Without them, we would look like Somalia. The fuck the working class, weve got ours! attitude is utter nonsense that reeks of entitlement and cluelessness. Anyone with common sense knows that. I bet the person who said this knows too - they just wanted to be an asshole to show off to the raving temporarily embarrassed millionaires that eat this garbage up.
appalachiablue
(41,262 posts)about Greenspan's remarks in a long winded, 1997 speech to Congress referencing 'greater worker insecurity' (paragraphs 4,5,6). Chomsky's take was circulated and efforts were then made to explain the comments by the Fed, an Ayn Rand, free market champion as being solely in terms of increasing 'information technology.' The point of the meme is worthwhile regardless.
1997 Fed Speech
https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/hh/1997/february/testimony.htm
Agree with you that workers who are well compensated benefit all, companies, the economy, society and people. Libertarian ideology is absurd, unfeasible and selfish, and has grown to dangerous levels in the US and elsewhere in the last 20-30 years IMO.
ck4829
(35,101 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)B. Sanders 5/31/18
Bayard
(22,292 posts)Glad to see the UN is blaming tRump, and not America.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,445 posts)IronLionZion
(45,704 posts)and desperately want a return to the era of robber barons and a servant class of desperately poor Americans.
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