"Blue Collar Blues"
by Bill Bonner
"Raise your glass to the hard working people,
Let's drink to the uncounted heads,
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who needs leading, but get gamblers instead.
Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter,
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows,
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio..."
~ The Rolling Stones*
Youghal, Ireland - "Today, we continue our salute to the common man. We give thanks to truck drivers who deliver the goods… roughnecks who work on drill rigs… bar keeps who serve a glass of whiskey when we need it… and all the other drawers of water and hewers of wood who make life tolerable.
But wait, first we should raise a glass to our leaders… to the people who rule us. We thought they were corrupt and incompetent. But it’s thanks to them that we now have a Baby Food Airlift. Bless their hearts; here’s The Daily Beast: "The first shipment of baby formula under President Joe Biden’s “Operation Fly Formula” initiative landed in the U.S. on Sunday; the airlift totals 78,000 pounds and will provide enough food to fill more than half a million baby bottles. The delivery of Nestlé formula - which was trucked from Switzerland to Germany and then flown to Indianapolis - is the first of multiple flights expected this weekend, which will import three different types of formula from Europe."
Operation Fly Formula! Thank God! It makes us all tingly with patriotic pride. We see the Stars and Stripes flapping in the breeze. And our soldiers snap to attention as the first liters (this is from Switzerland… it’s the metric system...) come down the ramp. In a real crisis, we can still count on our government to come through for us. But let’s not get distracted…
The Biggest Rip-off of All: We introduced Mr. Charles Stallworth last week; he’s a ‘blue collar’ worker with a chip on his shoulder. He thinks the suits show him no respect. He complains, for example, about the Biden Team’s plan to forgive college loans. He and his fellow laborers didn’t get any college loans. And now they will be expected to pay for the college educations of those who despise them – including 30 members of the Biden administration.
And what about all those working class kids who played the game fair and square… who worked nights and weekends in order to pay their college expenses? And what about those who skipped college but learned a valuable trade, on the job? They contributed to the wealth and happiness of others – parking their cars, serving their hamburgers, stocking their shelves; why should they have to pay for college for those who earn more than they do?
But Mr. Stallworth seems unaware of the biggest rip-off of all. Today, he and other ordinary citizens are paying nearly 10% of their incomes - the ‘inflation tax.’ It’s just the beginning of the huge bill they will have to pay for the expensive shenanigans… and wealth transfer programs… of the last 20 years.
The ‘system,’ put in place by suited up, college educated politicians and policymakers – and largely administered by an unelected group of bankers and economists at the Fed – has been catnip for the upper 10%. In the stock market alone, they gained some $30 trillion from the Fed’s rate rigging. But now working class incomes are being tapped to pay for it.
“What is the end game of this contempt?” asks Mr. Stallworth. “How much longer can you continue to rely on the labor of skilled tradesfolk while looking down your nose at them, explicitly or implicitly?” The poor man just doesn’t ‘get it.’ Disrespecting the deplorables is an essential part of the program.
Sliding College Doors: Had he gone to college, and been properly indoctrinated, he would see things differently. He would know, for example, that ‘climate change’ is not just a hypothesis; The Science is ‘settled,’ whatever that means. Had he the benefit of higher education, he would know too that babies are not born either male or female; gender is a ‘social construct’… or something like that. Had he sat through the coursework in politics and government, he could take more of an interest in the affairs of The Ukraine… he would know that a 2% inflation rate is idea… and of course, it would have been revealed to him that the problems of the Black community are all his fault.
And now… without the four years of heavy drinking, and occasional drugs – a real ‘college experience!’ – his head might be clear enough to notice that his ‘betters’ start wars that can never be won. They ‘stimulate’ the economy… and it runs more slowly. They promote ‘equality’… and the rich get richer than ever.
He may have had a hunch too, that the incompetence of the elite is of a very special sort; it comes as a punishment to the working man, but it has always been a boon to the policymakers themselves.
Working class kids came back from the Middle East missing arms or legs. But the suits in Northern Virginia’s ‘defense’ industries built bigger and bigger houses. Four million ordinary households lost their homes in the mortgage finance crisis of ’08-’09. But Wall Street honchos, who brought their companies to the edge of bankruptcy, still got million-dollar bonuses.
And who struck it rich in the Covid Panic? The millions of people who were locked in their homes, counting on handouts from the feds? Or the big pharma companies—Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna? Or how about Novavax, whose shares rose more than 1,000% in the 12 months following March 2020?
What to make of it? What we make of it is that Charles Stallworth is almost right. The government is no longer run “for the people” or “by the people.” It’s run by an elite… who scorn them. But not everybody with a white collar is a ‘gray-suited grafter.’ More to come…"
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Full screen recommended.
*The Rolling Stones, "Salt Of The Earth"
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