That is where we live. No, our politicians are not dictators, but the companies we work for are. They hold our lives in their hands and make decisions on a whim that can destroy us. And we have little recourse. In the state of Tennessee you can be fired for basicaly no reason.

I bring this up for one reason. It is a critique of the notion that if we give more money to the upper crust, it will mean that the rest of the population does better.

If we lived in a country of benevolent dictators this would be true. Unfortunately, as people get lots of wealth and power, they simply want more wealth and power and are less likely to share. They don’t spread it around, they hoard it.

How many companies or bosses have you worked for that pushed you to work more for less and tried to see how far they could go before they made you quit? They didn’t value your ability to make the company better by sharing the wealth you were making for them. They simply used you to make more for them and when you became too squeaky a wheel, they dumped you for someone they could pay less.

This is how most companies are run. The people who do the work that make the money are undervalued, while the people at the top keep getting bigger heads and thinking the only thing that matters to the company is their brilliant leadership which means they deserve more money. They can keep replacing workers. They can keep treating them poorly. They can keep taking more and giving less.

It’s a matter of the human psyche and how money and power corrupts the mind into false flattery. It leads to a nation of distinct and distant strata.

In an ideal world, it would mean that as the companies got bigger and more profitable, everyone would make more money and be better off. Instead, the top layer gets more and more and the bottom layers stay the same and slide back. And the bigger the company, the more extreme the concentration at the top, and the more large the chasm below.

The Republicans have been in control for a good 12 years. The stock market is soaring to new records. But, most of the people I know are making less money and are more worried about their future. Crime is rising, in particular, robbery and burglary, which is a sign of hard times. 12 years and this is where we are. How do you feel about your future?