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Capitalism gone awry

Editor, Index-Tribune:

 

We don't have high unemployment. We just have too many people looking for jobs.

Go back to when one wage earner supported a family. Single mothers were rare, as were illegal immigrants. Not many women had college educations qualifying them for upper income jobs. Efficiencies attained by computers did not exist. Robots didn't weld, screw, grab, machine, scan or talk. We actually could talk to a human on the phone. Most things were made in the USA.

We shot ourselves in the brain buying the cheapest. Foreigners don't pay U.S. taxes.

Americans bought into bigger is better. Bigger cars, bigger houses with more and bigger bathrooms, sumptuous kitchens with granite counters and stainless appliances.

Credit cards - not cash - sent savings rates to zero. Tomorrow, the house will be worth 10 or even 20 percent more than today and we can refinance, take the proceeds and buy more.

The bubble burst. Blame capitalism in its finest form for our predicament. Its formula is based on consumption, greed and profit. Nothing else.

This is the wreckage of a system gone awry. One percent are richer than ever, 80 percent with reduced purchasing power, 10 percent underwater on their mortgage and 9 percent unemployed.

What to do? Make the 35-hour-work-week standard. Pass a single-payer health law, thus eliminating the cost on businesses and the reason they would rather pay overtime than hire another employee and enforce immigration laws. Stop building big houses - 1,200 to 1,500 square feet is plenty.

Fred Burger

Sonoma