[Bernie Sanders...] The US has a ruling class - and Americans must stand up to it

Bernie is mad because he couldn't compete with Nancy's insider trading.

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Let’s be clear. The most important economic and political issues facing 
this country are the extraordinary levels of income and wealth inequality, 
the rapidly growing concentration of ownership, the long-term decline of 
the American middle class and the evolution of this country into 
oligarchy.

We know how important these issues are because our ruling class works 
overtime to prevent them from being seriously discussed. They are barely 
mentioned in the halls of Congress, where most members are dependent on 
the campaign contributions of the wealthy and their Super Pacs. They are 
not much discussed in the corporate media, in which a handful of 
conglomerates determine what we see, hear and discuss.

So what’s going on?

We now have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last 
hundred years. In the year 2022, three multibillionaires own more wealth 
than the bottom half of American society – 160 million Americans. Today, 
45% of all new income goes to the top 1%, and CEOs of large corporations 
make a record-breaking 350 times what their workers earn.

Meanwhile, as the very rich become much richer, working families continue 
to struggle. Unbelievably, despite huge increases in worker productivity, 
wages (accounting for real inflation) are lower today than they were 
almost 50 years ago. When I was a kid growing up, most families were able 
to be supported by one breadwinner. Now an overwhelming majority of 
households need two paychecks to survive.

Today, half of our people live paycheck to paycheck and millions struggle 
on starvation wages. Despite a lifetime of work, half of older Americans 
have no savings and no idea how they will ever be able to retire with 
dignity, while 55% of seniors are trying to survive on an income of less 
than $25,000 a year.

Since 1975, there has been a massive redistribution of wealth in America 
that has gone in exactly the wrong direction. Over the past 47 years, 
according to the Rand Corporation, $50tn in wealth has been redistributed 
from the bottom 90% of American society to the top 1%, primarily because a 
growing percentage of corporate profits has been flowing into the stock 
portfolios of the wealthy and the powerful.

During this terrible pandemic, when thousands of essential workers died 
doing their jobs, some 700 billionaires in America became nearly $2tn 
richer. Today, while the working class falls further behind, 
multibillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are off 
taking joyrides on rocket ships to outer space, buying $500m super-yachts 
and living in mansions with 25 bathrooms.

Disgracefully, we now have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost 
any developed nation on Earth and millions of kids, disproportionately 
Black and brown, face food insecurity. While psychologists tell us that 
the first four years are the most important for human development, our 
childcare system is largely dysfunctional – with an inadequate number of 
slots, outrageously high costs and pathetically low wages for staff. We 
remain the only major country without paid family and medical leave.

In terms of higher education, we should remember that 50 years ago tuition 
was free or virtually free in major public universities throughout the 
country. Today, higher education is unaffordable for millions of young 
people. There are now some 45 million Americans struggling with student 
debt.

Today over 70 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and millions 
more are finding it hard to pay for the rising cost of healthcare and 
prescription drugs, which are more expensive here than anywhere else in 
the world. The cost of housing is also soaring. Not only are some 600,000 
Americans homeless, but nearly 18m households are spending 50% or more of 
their limited incomes on housing.

It’s not just income and wealth inequality that is plaguing our nation. It 
is the maldistribution of economic and political power.

Today we have more concentration of ownership than at any time in the 
modern history of this country. In sector after sector a handful of giant 
corporations control what is produced and how much we pay for it. 
Unbelievably, just three Wall Street firms (Blackrock, Vanguard and State 
Street) control assets of over $20tn and are the major stockholders in 96% 
of S&P 500 companies. In terms of media, some eight multinational media 
conglomerates control what we see, hear and read.

In terms of political power, the situation is the same. A small number of 
billionaires and CEOs, through their Super Pacs, dark money and campaign 
contributions, play a huge role in determining who gets elected and who 
gets defeated. There are now an increasing number of campaigns in which 
Super Pacs actually spend more money on campaigns than the candidates, who 
become the puppets to their big money puppeteers. In the 2022 Democratic 
primaries, billionaires spent tens of millions trying to defeat 
progressive candidates who were standing up for working families.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr was right when he said: “We must recognize that 
we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of 
economic and political power” in America. That statement is even more true 
today.

Let us have the courage to stand together and fight back against corporate 
greed. Let us fight back against massive income and wealth inequality. Let 
us fight back against a corrupt political system.

Let us stand together and finally create an economy and a government that 
works for all, not just the 1%.

Bernie Sanders is a US senator from Vermont and the chairman of the Senate 
budget committee


-- 
"LOCKDOWN", left-wing COVID fearmongering.  95% of COVID infections 
recover with no after effects.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.  
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Donald J. Trump, cheated out of a second term by fraudulent "mail-in" 
ballots.  Report voter fraud: [email protected]

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden 
fiasco, President Trump.  

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed 
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.