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In reply to the discussion: One company bought all the retail outlets for glasses, used that to force sales... [View all]PatrickforO
(14,514 posts)companies work hard to gobble up competition and become monopolies so that prices can be jacked up to maximize profits at our expense.
I've been telling you this until doubtless I sound like a broken record, but if we were to overturn that primacy of the shareholder with Elizabeth Warren's 'Accountable Capitalism Act,' CEOs would be forced to consider the needs of their workers, consumers and the environment equally with shareholder earnings. So, keep profits up, but if you sell insulin, for instance, make sure the price is low enough or there are subsidies so that people can actually afford it. Same, as here, with eyeglasses.
We're getting nickel and dimed to death, and we are witnessing the biggest heist in the history of humankind over the last couple of decades as more and more wealth is transferred to fewer and fewer people.
And then in 2017 we had the giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations - they are trying to complete the job.
THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO BE TALKING ABOUT during the campaign. For God's sake don't call it 'socialism' if you think the Republican strategy of calling everything they don't like 'SO-shal-izm' is going to work against us.
But call it what it is - a giant ripoff where money we pay in as taxes is getting systematically transferred every single day in a thousand ways to fewer and fewer people. So we have massive inflation in health care, pharmaceuticals, eyeglasses, housing and so on. Just so some billionaire parasite can get a little richer.
I know it might surprise you to hear me say this, but I'm pretty fucking sick of it. I want healthcare now. I want the Green New Deal now (for my grandkids more than for me). I want Social Security to be safe and expanded. I want the giant tax cut of 2017 REPEALED and taxes raised so OUR government that WE pay taxes into can provide services that WE need and actually make OUR lives better.