COVID should have taught us many lessons. Andrew Nikiforuk has enumerated 10 of them. Robert Reich has added another 8. Here are three of the most important:
1. Workers are always essential.
We couldn't have survived without millions of warehouse, delivery, grocery, and hospital workers literally risking their lives. Yet most of these workers are paid squat. Amazon touts its $15 minimum wage but it totals only about $30,000 a year. Most essential workers still don't have health insurance or paid leave. Many of their employers (including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, to take but two examples) didn't give them the personal protective equipment they needed.
2. Healthcare is a basic right.
You know how you got your vaccine without paying a dime? That's how all health care could be. Yet too many Americans who contracted COVID-19 got walloped with humongous hospital bills. By mid-2020, about 3.3 million people had lost employer-sponsored coverage, and the number of uninsured increased by 1.9 million. Research by the Urban Institute found that people with chronic disease, Black Americans, and low-income children were most likely to have delayed or forgone care during the pandemic.
3. Billionaires aren't the answer.
The combined wealth of America's 657 billionaires grew by $1.3 trillion—or 44.6 percent—during the pandemic. Jeff Bezos, with $183.9 billion, became the richest man in the U.S. and the world. Larry Page, cofounder of Google, added $11.8 billion to his $94.3 billion fortune, and Sergey Brin, Google's other cofounder, added $11.4 billion. Yet billionaire's taxes are lower than ever. Wealthy Americans today pay one-sixth the rate of taxes their counterparts paid in 1953.
These are the kind of lessons that should come as a slap across the face. We'll see if that's what happens.
Image: Alamy
8 comments:
Biden says he wants to increase taxes on the richest Americans, but the increase he's proposing doesn't even cancel out Trump's cut. If Biden were serious, he'd go back to Clinton's tax rates and beef up enforcement.
The trouble is that his party relies heavily on "donations" from the super rich and he can't afford to be too aggressive. Campaign finance reform to reverse the Citizens United decision is an essential first step in addressing inequality.
Cap
I agree, Cap. The place to start would be to cancel the notion that corporations are people.
There are two words that should not be used when talking about wages. They are, “ minimum wage”. Bloggers and journalists ought to be using “a living wage”. If that were to happen, Government could not ignore those words if they are in their face at every turn. In order to learn a new word, it must be heard 20 times to remember it. Governments walk around with mindful forgetfulness all the time. The other thing that is disgusting, is this thought that if people are provided with a living wage they will not work. Are you listening PM Trudeau, Elon Musk, and all those other billionaires? Anyong
An excellent point, Anyong. To survive, we all need at least a "living wage."
When they started talking about a $15/h minimum wage as if it were a pie-in-the-sky solution to economic inequality, you didn't have to wait for a truckload sale to get a can of green beans for 69¢. Now, you might have to wait until Thanksgiving Day to get it for a dollar. Never mind the cornflakes.
Is there still anybody out there who has to shake his side-hustling head to figure out where the extra billions in the oligarchs' portfolios are coming from?
The machine must have its grain too, but the one they made has already had more than its fair share of it.
They'll still tax labour more than they'll tax wealth, John.
As usual Mom's line is correct: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Its an attitude that some how those with less money are responsible for this. No they are not. Its their employer or the government. People work hard. all the jobs are required to make society run.
The person putting the tires on your car is as important as the politician or corporate C.E.O. The C.E.Os secretary probably knows enough to keep the corp going for a few days. You don't have some one putting tires on your vehicle properly, you have a problem. There needs to be a nation wide discussion on wages because it just doesn't effect adults. One in five children live below the poverty line in Canada. Why? Because their parents aren't paid enough. Then at Christmas society gets all weepy and raises money for "deserving children" so they can have a "nice christmas' Where the hell are the corporations and others the rest of the year, when the kid needs dental work or new boots and $10 to go on the school field trip?
We need higher corporate taxes. Bezos is an asshole as far as I'm concerned. Why people buy from Amazon is beyond me. Well its cheaper, but you're making your neighbours and people in other parts of the world poorer and some day you will be also. You see it when people complain about government worker high pensions. Well they paid for them. What they ought to be asking is why every one in this country doesn't have a decent pension,
Yesterday's American news announced that a number of GOP govenors were not going to extend additional pandemic funding to their citizens even though the federal government was paying for it. Now that is just plain mean. It also plays into the hands of the corporations because in some cases many of these workers were getting more from the government than from employers.
The Big Money calls the shots, e.a.f.
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