The Words of the Profits

 It wasn't until 1974 when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed that women could apply for- and receive- a credit card without a man co-signing. The man could be a husband, father or even a brother. I think they preferred a husband though. Anecdotally, I have heard that up through the 50's and 60's it was harder for women to get into the workforce because male employers often saw them as taking a job away from a man who would be supporting a family. I don't know- maybe? I just kind of find it hard to believe that men have ever really been that *practical* or that much into solidarity amongst their fellow man. Business is pretty cutthroat, ya know. It always has been. In the 1860's this nation fought a war over slavery. Half of the country wanted it, and the other half did not. I am pretty sure that war continues today, as it never really ended. 

\You may think we are corporate owned now- and we are- but we always have been. It's just more obvious now as it is completely legal. They aren't hiding it anymore. You might think it was the women's liberation movement beginning in the 60's that freed women from the binds of apron strings tying them to the kitchen, but I think it was corporate America realizing that two incomes meant that consumers could spend more than one. The math was always there, but the opportunity didn't arrive until the US had reached a social point where consumers could think that the change was something that they thought of. 

I'm old now and this means that I've been around old people longer than you may have been. I've heard their stories. In the old days you would have to save up to buy durable goods like refrigerators and cars. You could buy on time back then, but not everyone- male or female- qualified for that. As life progressed in the 60's via TV, movies and advertising, EZ credit became more in vogue. I think that business figured out that the entrance of women into the workforce and into the credit world meant that things like appliances, cars and *stuff* were desires that could be more immediate than before. Two incomes and credit meant biglier sales and profits for them. This consumer society came about after WWII, a fortunate coincidence of our having won. The timing was right. Pre-war, we were in The Great Depression because rich people had fucked up the economy for fun and profit. The war made us more industrialized out of necessity. The powers that be wanted to keep that going. Women had been heavily employed during the war because men were off fighting it. When the surviving men returned, they needed jobs. Women largely went back into the kitchen. But they had that taste of the freedom of a paycheck and it stayed with them. This was not necessarily a bad thing. 

In the 50's-60's, a man could support a wife, and half a dozen kids (pretty common at the time) with a regular ol' job. For the most part that is. It seems easy now, looking back, but in my own family, dad was a civil engineer and made good money. There were 7 of us kids. We were far from rich, but we really wanted for little. Us boys had paper routes, my sisters baby sat and worked after school jobs at grocery stores, fast food and the like. We bought a lot of our own frills. This was the middle class. Everything seemed more affordable back then, but it was relative to what you made at the time. You can marvel that a Corvette was maybe $2200 in 1968 (a guesstimate here) but that vette was out of the reach of myself and others making the actually solid $2-some dollars an hour that was the minimum wage. When I first started painting in 1980, I was making $7.50 an hour, and we lived quite well. The federal minimum wage the last 20 years has been stagnated at $7.25 and is nowhere near the buying power I had 45 years ago. That's insane,

Before I get too far off the rails, tripping down memory lane, I need to get back on track here. We have been played by corporate America. ALL of us, men and women. Manipulated and played for fun and profit. What do we hear now? We see layoffs while CEO's get ridiculous bonuses in the 20 millions and up range. Yet they still complain about the burden of payroll. If you can afford to pay one man $25 million for showing up to lay people off, I don't think payroll is really your problem. Greed is your problem. 

Now AI is the threat to employment. If you know why, or even know what AI is, please tell me. I don't fucking know! I hear it's going to take over the workforce. I also hear it's a bubble that is going to burst and plunge us into another depression greater than The Great one. Neither is an acceptable outcome. A Universal Basic Income has been touted as a practical outcome of the takeover by AI, and that may well make sense. But it's not going to happen. That solution would still cut into profits and in the business world, that is unacceptable. 

Why are they getting rid of the immigrant workforce now? Suddenly cheap labor is no longer cost effective? Where do you go from there? Oh shit! Slavery? Well... a Universal Basic income (money for nothing) will most certainly be seen as a handout, and we all know how republicans see handouts. That ride is only for the millionaires and above and the vast majority of us do not measure up to that sign. RFK Jr- who is nowhere even near the smartest ex-junkie I've ever seen- thinks that we the people can work the farms, fields and factories. He thinks it will be good for us as physical labor is good for our bodies. It will keep us from getting fat and vaccinated. But you can't trade one workforce for another without also cutting costs and increasing profits. What would be the point of such a lateral move? Steven Miller wants to get the US population down to a more manageable 150 million people or so. We are at 340 or more now. That's a lot of deportations. And a lot of worse than that. Taking away healthcare that we barely had will expedite the thinning of the herd. People are going to die, officially of natural causes. There may be famine and death camps. It has happened before. 

Surprisingly, I don't blame Trump. He is being used by the powers that be just as we all are. He is just the comical face of all this obscene greed and malevolence. He's the fall guy that they can say, "Well, you voted for this..." He'll get the blame but, if you heard him speak even once, you would know he's no mastermind. The powers that really be are behind the scenes, pulling the levers. They are in thinktanks and boardrooms and have been, at least since Ronald Reagan came to be. He was the first Trump, by the way. A kinder, gentler one that started the beginning of the end. It will end because they don't know how to handle success or how to keep it going. They only know that they want more and more, and that sharing is not caring. 'Trickle-down' was a hard sell from the get-go but it's long since worn thin. They are tired of selling it. Brute force is in vogue again and we are beginning to see that in the streets. The Martin Niemoller poem is born again: "First they came for the communists.." They will not let this end well. Somehow, they can't afford to. Not cost-effective, I guess.