Class Warfare: 99% vs. 1%

Since the day I moved out of my parents’ house, I’ve felt like I’ve been under the thumb of a giant. I’ve been extorted, dominated, lied to, and had horrible things done to people I’ve never met in my name. I don’t really know what it’s like to feel safe and free anymore, and it’s getting harder and harder to feign ignorance.

Economic Pressure

My Personal Experience

Anyone can argue that my lifestyle isn’t all that un-American. I’m overweight because I love to eat quality food. I live paycheck to paycheck because it makes me happier to go out, buy a new game every couple months, and travel than it does to drop money into a savings account. That is all my own decision, and I don’t see anything wrong with that line of thinking.

But why do I have to choose between a savings account and living well? I’m a college graduate. I have a great job that pays an above average salary for my age group. I don’t have any addictions beyond my $12 per month Rift and Netflix subscriptions. I don’t shop often, considering I went clothing shopping for the first time in several months when I got my tax refund. I have zero credit card debt.

Why do I have to rent a room from a guy* I met on Craigslist instead of having my own apartment? A decent single bedroom apartment near Columbia, MD (where I work) costs between $1200-$1600 per month. Why? I have no fucking clue. The area is boring. The apartments aren’t especially nice. Most are old buildings with poor maintenance. Even the house I live in now is constantly having things break down and causing us to go through hoops to get them fixed. Our heat would break every night for 4 months this winter and they just last week fixed the damaged gas line we had. Why yes, that is extremely dangerous; thanks for asking.

I love organic natural food as many of you know. This is the area I choose to treat myself. My groceries are usually about $100 every two weeks for just myself, (this includes laundry detergent and such) so this may be one of my main “indulgences”. I’m not sure why I should consider local produce and no corn syrup an indulgence, but that’s what the price tells me. This takes the place of eating out, of course, so I think I end up saving money in that respect. The 22oz. Ribeye I cooked for myself at home the other night was almost — would be equal if I was a better cook — as delicious as the ones I get at my favorite local steakhouse for $35 + tip.

I’m not trying to complain about how hard my life is, because it’s definitely not that bad. I’m concerned for the people who didn’t go to college and get good jobs. I’m concerned for the people less fortunate than myself. If I’m just barely breaking even with all of my resources, I can’t imagine how most average-earning Americans are handling this.

The American Dream

Now imagine if I had a mortgage. Imagine if I was paying my student loan. Imagine if I had a kid. I’ve always heard of these things constituting the American dream. Go to college, get your degree, get a great high-paying job that you love, get married, buy a house, have kids, send them to college, retire, leave your kids a nest egg when you die. At least that has been my impression of the ideal economic timeline. I can’t afford to pay my student loan. If I had a mortgage, I’d be homeless and bankrupt now. If I had got married and had a kid, I’d be living in a trailer somewhere working for a job that makes me want to kill myself just because it pays enough to feed my family and pay my student loans that don’t go away with bankruptcy. I wouldn’t even be able to kill myself if I wanted to because I’d leave nothing behind for my family that I irresponsibly made to achieve my American dream.

So is my spending out of control? I don’t think so. I spend far less than my friends do. I don’t use my one credit card for anything except emergencies. By all rights, I should be upper-middle class as an unmarried man. So why do I feel like I’m scraping the bottom of the bowl the couple days leading to each paycheck? Many will be quick to blame the crappy economy, but that’s a scapegoat. The truth is inflation has risen at a much higher rate than salaries in our country. In layman’s terms: Everything is getting more expensive, but we aren’t making more.

To put it in even more direct terms, if I bought something for $20 at my high school graduation in 2001, that same item would cost me over $25 today. That’s a 25% increase in just under 10 years. Who do you think suffers the worst from inflation? Poor people. Who benefits from inflation? People who can afford to invest in foreign currencies or gold. Who controls inflation? An infinite number of factors, but for the most part, the Federal Reserve. Who runs the Federal Reserve? A man that has ties to fraud in favor of Bank of America and AIG. Guess who the Federal Reserve cares most about? It certainly isn’t me.

What freedoms are left for me, now? Life is still there, which I’m grateful for at least. Liberty isn’t where I want it to be, but I have some good ones. The pursuit of happiness is an excellent way to put it, since I definitely am in pursuit of it. Attaining happiness isn’t so much offered by our country I guess. By this characteristic, I suppose the carrot that they dangle in front of me and keep pulling away actually is part of my divine right.

Related Links:

• New York Times Article: In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning
• PBS: Frontline: College, Inc. (Netflix Link) investigates for-profit colleges like the one (I regret) I went to.

Corporate Oppression

Many people have experience in corporate America. Some of it is very positive. Having a corporate job is exactly what some people want in employment and they fit in very well. The benefits and comradery that rise from some corporate work environments can be very fulfilling. What about you? If you’ve ever had a “normal” corporate office job, how did it make you feel?

Do you feel stifled? Do the constant team-building exercises and motivational scrums feel more like organized peer pressure? Perhaps even intimidation and brainwashing? Think about the sexual harassment video/course you probably had to see at your last corporate gig. Did you and others sit there quietly while they displayed these unrealistic and silly dramatizations?

Of course you did. You were a new hire and you didn’t want to stand up and be insubordinate before receiving your first paycheck. You sat there and pretended it made sense. You may have even pretended to learn from it. What about the meetings your boss would call to motivate everyone? Or the sensitivity training class your coworker had to take because someone overheard him say the word “tits” by the water cooler? None of these things exist outside of corporate walls.

What happens at my corporate jobs**? Generally, I’ll sit at my desk quietly typing away, working on designs or coding. Occasionally, I’ll have a suggestion for the project I’m working on or another general area of the business. I write down my suggestions, flesh them out a bit with research and then submit them to my direct supervisor. I usually get no response, or perhaps a “this wouldn’t work because…” thing. Lo and behold, a month later, our CMO will announce this great new thing the company is doing. My name is never mentioned. My supervisor gets a bonus. I know this is how “the game” works so I just sit there and take it. Getting my boss recognition and bonuses is what gives me job security.

But what happens when I get laid off? The only jobs I’ve ever been terminated from were ones where they had to cut multiple people to lower costs. It is always the workers at the lowest rung of the corporate ladder. My supervisors never go to bat for us (they always say they do) despite farming some great ideas from us for their own benefit. They always blame it on cutting costs and say that their boss (the executive that just bought a new Ferrari) handed down the edict that we needed to cut costs. Managers never get laid off.

Some people have goals of working in management. They pay their dues in jobs like mine until they can get pulled up above the water line into that second rung. If they behave themselves and take the beatings for long enough, they might get ahead. Not me. I think that managing people in a corporate environment has a disqualification for what I choose to possess an abundance of: ethics.

The only time I would ever want a leadership position would be in an environment where I could give my employees credit for their work and had the power to reward them with bonuses and such without fear that they’ll get laid off the second my bosses decide they want a bigger cut of the profits.

I choose not to work in tyrannical environments. I choose not to compromise my integrity by approving a flawed design or closing a bug report that isn’t fixed. I choose not to pander to my coworkers, as I believe it shows more respect if I am honest and forthcoming with them. It is also much more productive in any work environment to foster open communication. I don’t feel that large corporations have the same outlook as I do of course.

I’m not telling anyone to quit their corporate job… unless they hate it. Then, by all means, quit. I’d rather wait tables than have a well-paying job that I hate. I wonder if I can afford my “indulgent” lifestyle on tips. Are you stuck in a job you hate, kissing the toes of an asshole boss because you wouldn’t be able to pay your bills without it? Do you deserve that kind of economic slavery?

Related Links:

• Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Season 6: Episode 7: Sensitivity Training (Netflix Link) is a very funny episode that discusses corporate bullshit.

Banks & Insurance Companies

Quick Note on my Inclusion of Insurance Companies: The difference between an Insurance Company and a Bank is just one thing. Insurance means that you pay them today, repeatedly, and endlessly for a hypothetical loan that they MAY give you in the future. It is in fact a loan, because after making a claim, your premiums go up to help them recoup their costs. Insurance companies are actually worse, since the government actually forces you to take their loans.

Preying on Anyone Without a Degree in Finance Law

Several banks have openly admitted to targeting people that are high risk of incurring fees and exploiting them (see Frontline: Breaking the Bank below). It has only gotten worse since the “harsher” credit card laws passed and came into effect last year. Banks used that as an excuse to make excessive, misleading, hidden fees their entire business plan. Overdraft fees, skyrocketing interest rates, and random unexpected fees for things like transferring money from your Savings to your Checking or paying a bill online are commonplace now. They nickel and dime you coming and going. If you call them to dispute a charge, they do nothing anymore. At least my bank doesn’t. They know that any other bank will be just as evil and that they probably own most of the others anyway.

Every 13 seconds, a home in America gets foreclosed. The blame was entirely placed on the normal people that just wanted a house of their own and followed the bad advice of people that got rich selling them these loans. Irresponsible borrowing was entirely left to blame for the housing crisis, with no attention paid to irresponsible lending. What happened at the end? Not only did the banks get to steal these houses from their customers, but they got to keep all of the payments those customers made on those mortgages before they defaulted. On top of that, the banks were bailed out of the debt they were left with afterward. What did the those newly homeless families get?

What would you do if a bank preyed upon you and your family and tried to steal your home? Would you do what most people that this happened to did and just let them do it? Those people walked away, broken and destroyed the way people do after they get duped by a ponzi or pyramid scheme. This entire thing was just as greedy, deceptive, and predatory as any white collar crime. If a con-man tried to steal my children’s home from me, I’d be tempted to sit on my front porch with a sawed-off shotgun waiting for the bastard to try to throw us out. Too bad these con-men come in the form of Police and government officials. Too bad the people that are supposed to protect us are feeding us to the loan sharks.

Collection

Anyone can charge you anything they want to these days.

I spent hundreds of dollars cleaning up an apartment I was leaving in Phoenix because I was hoping to get my deposit back. I shampooed the carpets, replaced every bent window shade, cleaned the entire place from top to bottom. I left the place looking almost exactly the way it did when I arrived. After I moved out, handed in my keys, signed all my papers, etc. everything seemed fine. They said I’d get my deposit check in the mail in around 30 days. 30 days later, I got a bill. Apparently they decided to completely replace the carpet, resurface the kitchen counters, and re-clean the place in various ways that all seemed way overpriced.

They not only negated my deposit, but were asking me for almost $300 more on top of that. I called them to complain and asked if I could see the room. They said they had already fixed everything and put new tenants inside. I asked for photos of the damage they claimed, and they had none. I asked to see an invoice for the contractors they used that proved they did all that work and what it cost them. They obviously refused. I refused to pay them barring proof that they did what they said they did. They sent my information to collections. In reality, I should have been able to send their information to collections to get my deposit back, but that’s not how the system works apparently. The Better Business Bureau is worthless as well. I’ve contacted them 3 times and I have never seen them take any action.

So now my credit is shit. They attempted to extort me with no proof that I owed them anything and now I look like the scumbag. My credit report is no covered in things like this. Even if I could afford to pay these people — which isn’t even close to possible –, I wouldn’t. The only way I can possibly stand up for myself and for what is right is to not pay them. The only way I can make them stop trying to collect from me is to make every effort the collectors make fruitless. Every time they pay that collection company and get nothing for it, they can feel the sting of their dishonest business practices.

Related Links:

• PBS: Frontline: Breaking the Bank (Netflix Link) details the circumstances surrounding the Bank of America merger with Merril Lynch.
• PBS: Frontline: The Card Game (Netflix Link) investigates insidious banking practices regarding credit and debit cards.

The Government

It’s hard to talk about the tyranny of banks and corporations without mentioning their guardian angel, the U.S. Government. They so often work in concert that it was difficult for me to compose this article with them in separate headings.

Their Hands Are In Every Cookie Jar

When I got my first allowance, it was $1.25 per week from my mom. I could take out the trash for an extra quarter per bag if I wanted to. My brother and I were paid under the table, since I assume my mom wanted to avoid child labor laws and Nick and I didn’t want to pay 50 cents of it to the government every week. It wasn’t much, but we loved allowance day.

We would walk down the street to the local comic book store and find the comic book we wanted for that week. I got Spider Man or Beavis and Butthead while Nick usually got X-Men or Ren & Stimpy. Sometimes we bought those Marvel collector cards with all the superheroes on them that you could put together in a binder to make one big picture from 9 of them. All of these things cost $1.25 on their labels. I was pretty good at math as a kid, so I always thought that I could get 4 comics a month, but I was wrong. It turns out, we had to lug at least one trash bag each week if we wanted to cover the extra 7 cents that were added on for tax to our comics. I’ve hated taxes ever since.

The only thing I can think of that I could do in this country without paying taxes is live on the street and eat food from the garbage. I couldn’t live in a shack near the water that I built myself and fish for a living without paying property taxes and buying a fishing license. I couldn’t even go to prison without being put to work for the corporation that owned the facility, and thereby paying into the system. Everywhere you can go, the government is there with its hand out.

Taking Advantage of an Ignorant Public They Built

The government uses the press as its propaganda machine. The two parties that run our lives each work separately and together to line their collective pockets with gold. Fox News feeds MSNBC headlines and vice-versa. The fighting between the two nearly identical parties provides a distraction while the legislators steal money from the poor and give it to the huge corporations that also happen to advertise on these same news networks. All roads lead to paying off the rich with money they con average honest working people out of.

The government is made up of Lawyers, whom are professional liars and deceivers. I haven’t heard of anyone disputing this fact since I’ve been politically active. When we try to get away from these types of people, and try to elect Independent representatives. Until Fox News pollutes the entire attempt with Tea Party coverage that allows the American public to only elect the most insane examples of Independent candidates they can find. This is what sours the public on voting outside of the blue and red lines.

It is an exhausting task today to get honest news from reputable sources. If I want to learn about what a bill in the U.S. Congress means, I have to go to The Guardian/BBC (for semi-impartial reporting) or InfoWars (to find out the worst things they could possibly do with said bill). If I want to know what a candidate stands for, I have to go to an organization that opposes him/her. If I want to know what’s happening in Afghanistan, I have to look at Wikileaks. I can understand why most people just don’t have the energy to investigate everything themselves in a country where the national press no longer does.

All of the most relevant information is hidden from sight. Only the distractions are allowed to make headlines. Whistleblowers are silenced and prosecuted. The complicit are quietly rewarded and pardoned. At least 99% of all government authorities are corrupt. I am absolutely convinced of this. Think of how many of them get caught 10 years later (see Conspiracy of Silence below). Think of how many get caught in the act but nothing happens to them. It can only mean that everyone has dirt on everyone. And they’re all hiding it from us to keep their positions.

Protecting The Rich

Things that are impossible for normal people are commonplace for the rich. Professional athletes and wonky-eyed minor celebrities get slapped on the wrist for crimes that would land me in tent city wearing pink underwear for 5 years. And then you have the super-rich elite class of politicians and businessmen, to whom laws don’t even apply at all.

Congressmen sit in front of cameras and wag their fingers at their good buddies in big business. They pitch buzz-worthy sound clips for the 24-hour news channels to repeat the rest of the day so they look like they’re good guys. Then, after they finish their little puppet show, the people who defrauded Americans and workers in their companies out of billions of dollars walk away, never to see a single consequence beyond a settlement check. Remorse? I certainly don’t see any.

We had millions of people lose their homes in the U.S. in the past couple years. I’d love to hear anyone tell me on here that they think the non-transparent unconditional $700,000,000,000 bailout to the financial sector was justified. The healthcare bill that Obama and several Democrats watered down and pushed through was waved around with the greatest of intentions (supposedly), but the end result was effectively a mandate for every American to pay insurance companies for their product. That’s how you solve the problem that most people can’t afford healthcare? You force them to buy it from the same people that inflate its cost? Bravo. Way to fight for the people.

Whenever I’m watching Obama talk about a measure to regulate the financial or insurance industries, if I hear him say anything like “we’ve come to a consensus” it means that he’s made yet another back room deal with the bad guys. General rules of thumb: If UnitedHealth Group likes the healthcare reform bill, it’s a bad idea. If Bank of America likes the economic reform bill, it’s a bad idea. If Kellogg’s or Pfizer like the new FDA reform bill, it’s a bad idea. If Fox News isn’t talking about the latest bill affecting the balance of power, it’s a bad idea. If No major news outlet is talking about a bill that you and your friends are concerned about, it’s probably a bad idea.

Is it Against the Law to Be Poor?

So the government goes out of their way to protect the profits of their buddies. But how far will they go? Will they risk public health? You better believe it.

Millions of Americans are using anti-depressants every day. Many of them are using it to combat the side effects of other treatments like pain medication or chemotherapy. Some people take it for all the wrong reasons. These anti-depressants themselves are extremely dangerous. Many of them list heightened “suicidal risk” in their advertisements! What would the government do if we discovered a cheap plant that we could grow in our basements or backyards that would treat depression, pain, and several other diseases with zero negative side effects? Make it illegal.

What happens to someone carrying this harmless plant if they get caught? They go to prison, where the privatized prison industry (another buddy of big government) can profit from them as slave labor. What happens to someone who the IRS decides owes them more than they paid? They go to prison for tax evasion. What happens to anyone that speaks out about government corruption? They go to prison… if they’re lucky.

Related Links:

• If every American knew… is a list of 5 facts every American should know, but doesn’t.
• Plunder: The Crime of Our Time (Netflix Link) is a documentary about the kleptocracy.
• Conspiracy of Silence is a documentary that Congress banned and attempted to destroy (hence the poor quality). It covers a huge pedophile prostitution ring in Washington D.C that several high-level politicians participated in.
• American Drug War: The Last White Hope

Final Thoughts

It was very difficult to write this article without making it into a rant. I like to think that I’ve grown past that method since I stopped blogging on MySpace years ago. The fact is, I’m frustrated, and I think most hard-working Americans that are paying attention feel the same way. Everything just seems irrevocably broken, and we all feel so powerless over the fate of our own country. If I wrote code as exploitable and corrupt as our system today, I’d never be able to find work and my identity would have been stolen a thousand times over.

How much longer will working Americans put up with this? The scales are tipped in favor of the super-rich in every aspect of our capitalist society. They make the rules. They enforce them. Piss them off, and you’re gone. The greatest evils facing American citizens today aren’t wearing turbans and long beards. They are wearing expensive suits and flag pins.

In nearly every aspect of my life, someone is pushing me around. Do any of you feel this way? Leave comments below with your experiences in today’s economic climate.

Footnotes

* The “guy I met on Craigslist” is a good guy and my rent there is very fair. I blame the housing company for the maintenance issues, as he has always been on the ball with contacting them and keeping on them for fixing things.

** My job is not corporate like this. They treat me very well and I love it. The reason I chose this position was because of that fact and you’ll find no regrets here. I just wanted to make it clear that the workplaces I mention in this section are not indicative of my current employment.