Remember the old song, “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
I think it should be updated for our world today. Instead of flowers, it should be dollars, as in:
Where have all our dollars gone, long time passing.
Where have all our dollars gone, long time ago.
Where have all our dollars gone, gone offshore, nearly every one,
Oh, when will we ever learn, oh, when will we, ever learn.
Yup, all those rich folks, the ones who don’t even want to pay what the rest of us pay, have found ways to stash their money away in the most amazing ways. They’ve shoved them through tiny loopholes in the tax code that the average person can’t use. And they’ve salted away enough money to pay off our national debt… twice!!!
That’s right. They could pay off our national debt, which is about $15 trillion, and still have another $17 trillion left over as pocket change. Experts estimate that all this wealth is hidden in offshore bank accounts in exotic places like Switzerland and the Caymans.
All this money has been taken out of the world economy. It’s not doing anything as it’s not in circulation. It’s just sitting there, luring other money to join it through dividends and interest.
Can you hear that sucking sound?
Now, I’m not against people making a bunch of money. I don’t even care if they pay proportionally what the rest of us do and bathe themselves in luxurious goodies. Good for them.
But to hide the money from all of us, that isn’t capitalism at its finest. It’s greed. And we should all be pretty angry about greed because it eventually rules us.
I think that’s what’s really wrong with the upcoming elections. Everyone is filthy rich. They don’t have any idea what it’s like to be us. They tell us they want to reduce the debt. In their mind, that means cutting all those costly programs… you know the ones – Welfare, Social Security, Head Start, Medicare and Medicaid. They are supposedly sucking our economy dry.
Well, no. The rich are. Not all the rich. Warren Buffet would be happy to pay more. I mean the ones who are hiding money overseas so they don’t have to pay taxes on it. Some names come to mind, but I don’t need to mention them here. Others are already sounding the alarm, even other rich guys are ratting on their rich friends who are sheltering their money in a place other than the good old United States of America.
I think it’s time that we ask presidential candidates to do what the monks of old did – take a vow of poverty. They don’t have to do it forever. Just for a year. All they have to do is take a year of their life, put all their assets into a blind trust, and live off what an average American does.
I think I’m being pretty reasonable here. I’m not asking for the candidate to live in total poverty. Well, maybe that would be even better. Make them live off unemployment, or welfare. Let them see how it’s impossible to feed your family on food stamps, or what it feels like when you tell have to tell your child that they have to go hungry tonight because you need to pay the overdue electric bill.
I know that the rich, fat cats will come back and tell you that this is the land of opportunity, that everyone can be just like them. Well, sadly, we all can’t. Some of us chose not to break the law, skirt SEC rulings, come up with financial schemes that robbed the old and trusting, or belong to clubs that only allow high-fiving white guys. Some of us can’t drop a cool mil on a vacation home. Hell, we can’t even afford to keep the house we have.
Every presidential candidate loves to tell us that they know how we feel. Well, they don’t. They can’t. Even if you’ve worked with the homeless or cared for the poor, at the end of the day, you go home to your heated house, the one with the loaded refrigerator, three cars in the drive and a jacuzzi tub in the master. You can call it a day and leave the world of the downtrodden and return to a relatively comfortable life, certainly far better than the poor know.
Don’t ever tell me you know how we feel. I’m lucky. Right now, I have a job, a nice house and food in the fridge. But there was a time when rice and Campbell’s mushroom soup was dinner, where my furniture was propped up on one corner with a book and I drove a smashed car with no springs and a leaking gas tank. I’ve been there Mr. Candidate. Don’t you dare lecture me about how you’re going to make it all better with you and your out of touch friends.
If I sound angry, I am. I guess right now I’m in the middle class. But it certainly doesn’t feel like the middle class I grew up in. I know my friends are struggling, too. And yet, there are those out there who are harboring billions, nay, trillions of dollars in their bank accounts overseas, who have far more money then they and their families could spend in 20 lifetimes.
Still they want more. And now they want your vote. They have not only taken our money, but they want to control our futures. They want to take away every last vissage of support and cut all the lifelines for those of us who have fallen through the cracks.
For what? To balance the budget? Sorry, Mr. Candidate, if you were really serious about that you’d change the tax code. You know the one. The one you and your other rich friends passed to protect your wealth and line your pockets with money sheltered overseas.
Out of sight and out of mind, Mr. Candidate? Just wait!
In the Emerald City, waiting for some heads to roll in a revolutionary way,
– Robb