The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Did you know the world’s richest 8 people had more wealth than the poorest 50%? You think maybe this is an April Fool joke? Faux facts? No, eight people had amassed as much riches as 3.7 billion people at the bottom of the heap. Stop and think about that for more than a nano second. Stop in your tracks. Let your jaw drop down to your knees. 8 people – 8! — with more money than 3.7 billion people combined!! 3.7 billion people in poverty, some starving of famine, some refugees from wars, some just us South Enders who maybe didn’t want to work very hard and never started up a Tech Company.

I guess I knew we had some income inequality, growing wider every year, but c’mon, this seems slightly skewed. I don’t begrudge Gates and Bezos and Buffet and Zuck a few billion, but show me the trickle down. Better yet, show the 3.7 billion people at the bottom whose only trickle is maybe a golden shower. Oh, I know I got a lot of neighbors who think whatever we do, don’t tax the rich! Because they think they might be rich one day…. You know, get an inheritance from Uncle Bezos or finally get around to that start-up tech company or reap the gains from those bitcoin investments or … more likely, win the Powerball Lottery. That, or just bottle lightning and sell it to the poor.

God forbid that we redistribute wealth!! Wouldn’t want to be accused of communism or social engineering or even basic Christian values. Those eight fellows made their money the old fashioned way, with lobbyists and sweetheart deals, with ruthless monopolies and cut-throat capitalism. Why on earth would we tax them exorbitantly when we can take the money from regressive taxation, user fees, sales taxes and other old fashioned usury? Sure, we could use those trillions to feed the poor, cure diseases, fund scientific advances, stuff like that, but you know and I do too we’d probably just build a bigger military. Kill the poor, let them die of disease and starvation, pay them as little as possible. After all, they’ll get to inherit the earth, right? Not that I’m blaming those 8 fat cat rich guys, no sir, they’re probably nice fellows, the way we’ll be when we win the Sweepstakes. I’m just saying there’s billions of folks who maybe deserve a slightly bigger piece of the pie. And I don’t mean Humble Pie.

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I heard a guy on the radio, some Hot Talk jock, who said he was against not only minimum wage increases, he was against minimum wage completely. He argued that the largest growth spurt in U.S. history was when the corporations took off with little tax and with no regulations to prevent them from setting wages as low as the market would bear. Capitalism at its cut-throat best, unfettered, unregulated and unapologetic. The Roaring 20’s. I guess he didn’t read the next chapter in his 8th grade history book, the one titled The Great Depression.

Down here in the laissez faire South End, a lot of us don’t have minimum wage jobs cause we don’t even have jobs. The ones who do have minimum wage jobs don’t make enough to afford health insurance or to make the monthly nut on that double-wide they’ll never own outright. To make ends meet they’ll apply for food stamps or other supplemental programs. These are the folks my Hot Talk jock calls ‘Takers’. Or sometimes ‘Whiners’. And occasionally, when he’s feeling frisky, ‘Leeches’. And when he hears some candidate advocating for tax reform or health care or income equity, he screams ‘Class Warfare’.

The South end Food Bank barely keeps up these days. Moms with kids, fathers without jobs, folks who are disabled, people down on their luck. The Little Church in the Ravine helps the poor, I’ll give em that. Pastor Bob preaches the parable of the loaves and the fish, feeding the masses. I saw a bumper sticker on a BMW going into town: WINNING DOESN’T MEAN SOMEONE HAS TO LOSE. Or so he’d like to think….

Charity begins in the home, I’ll grant you, but sometimes we need to think of America as our home. Maybe you never needed a helping hand, but I suspect most of us got one except maybe that BMW driver. You maybe can’t legislate compassion, but you can sure legislate for fair play. You think folks living on the street or applying for food stamps or welfare are all Takers, turn off your radio and stand by the Food Bank half a day. It might just soften your heart.

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