The system is rigged.
Anyone with any sense knows that the so-called capitalist systems our economy is built on is one which is increasingly geared toward supporting large corporations and Wall Street banks to the detriment of the American people. The only ones you will hear denying this is the corporations themselves, and poor Americans who have been brainwashed into supporting millionaires at the expense of their own paycheck.
Robert Reich had this to say on his blog about the American market:
“Much of the national debate about widening inequality focuses on whether and how much to tax the rich and redistribute their income downward.
But this debate ignores the upward redistributions going on every day, from the rest of us to the rich. These redistributions are hidden inside the market.“
Reich goes on to point to a long list of ways in which near-monopolies and giant corporations contribute to the inflated prices of goods like pharmaceuticals, internet and cable service, mortgages and loans, and even airfare. In all of these cases, the corporations who dominate the industries own a monster share of the market and use this influence to control prices to their benefit.
“Why have food prices been rising faster than inflation, while crop prices are now at a six-year low?
Because the giant corporations that process food have the power to raise prices. Four food companies control 82 percent of beef packing, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing, and 53 percent of chicken processing.”
From a mother in a supermarket to an elderly man who cannot afford his name-brand medication, our free market is not nearly as free as we would hope. Reich suggests that the American people need to demand a breaking up of these giant corporations and level the playing field in this rigged system.
Read more about this issue on Robert Reich’s blog “The Rigging of the American Market.“
