Game of Groans: How focus on Trump Taunts hides GOP war on Middle Class, Workers

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http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/groans-middle-workers.html

Game of Groans: How focus on Trump Taunts hides GOP war on Middle Class, Workers
By Juan Cole | Aug. 10, 2015

The condition of late capitalism produces a press discourse strangely devoid of any mention of class. Last Thursday we had 10 rich white males on a debate stage seeking to represent the billionaire class (some 536 individuals in US, who have more wealth than the bottom half of the US population).

~snip~

So what did the would-be representatives of the super-wealthy want? They wanted to take away health care from tens of millions of Americans. Why would you want to do that? Having to contribute to health care for the US public is an inconvenience to the business classes, many of whom don’t want Obamacare.

They want to take away your medicaid and social security. Again, this step is in the interest of the super-wealthy who don’t want the government to run such large entitlement programs for fear that Washington will end up taxing them for the operation. (In fact, social security would be healthier if the wealthy had to pay into it according to full income; at the moment, there is a cut-off for payments, which saves the billionaires a lot of money.)

So folks this is an amazing tableau. We had 10 persons up there who openly announce that they want to ruin the lives of the majority of Americans. Before social security, the aged were the poorest segment of the population and a lot of old people just died of poverty. Now, the elderly are a well-off demographic on the whole. The 10 dwarves want to take that away from us. (By the way, private pension plans are next to useless for a lot of people, because the companies go bankrupt before they ever have to pay out, and the workers get screwed).

[starroute]

1. It's about power, not money

The billionaires want people to be poor, sick, and not knowing where their next meal is coming from because that makes them easy to control. It's a population that's had its basic survival needs meet that's more likely to start wondering why anything beyond basic survival gets skimmed off by the rich.

Young people who hemmed in by student loans and a bad job market are more likely to take any job that's offered to them and never complain about the hours or working conditions. People with options start getting picky and asking for more.

The billionaires barely notice the cost of social security and medicare, for which they pay only an infinitesimal portion of their income. But they do notice when the hired help starts getting uppity because they're no longer living in fear.