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Mike Steely's avatar

Trump is just continuing a longstanding Republican tradition of redistributing wealth from lower- and middle-class Americans to the upper 1%. Elon Musk alone owns more than the total combined wealth held by the bottom 50% of American households.

As Louis D. Brandeis said: “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.”

Joe Yetter's avatar

Jim, you write, "Most Americans earn their dollars through labor, and want them to be worth as much as possible."

While it's true that most Americans earn their dollars through labor, I'm not certain that most wealth that moves into American pockets is earned through labor. It seems that for many decades, 60-70% of income nationally is for labor; however, these numbers do not include inheritances, growth of value in private companies or publicly traded securities, issued cryptocurrency and NFTs, or a whole lot of grift.

"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed".

---Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot

Joe Yetter's avatar

The dollar has lost value, and American optimism is at a record low.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/702125/american-optimism-slumps-record-low.aspx

But the rich are ever richer. And more apparently corrupt.

Scott Bruslind's avatar

The corrosive, accumulative effect of uncertainty won't be felt for awhile yet. But, the goodwill of a US economy respected for discipline, fairness and consistent predictability is demolished like the White House East Wing.

Lauran McDaib's avatar

Great article! I wonder if Soros shorted the dollar? I'm pretty certain he saw this coming. The recent fall of the dollar could make the $1 Billion he realized shorting the Pound look like chump change. I also wonder if trump and his friends and family are sitting on dollar shorts. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if they are.

Erich Almasy's avatar

Tell me about it. In the past six years I’ve seen the exchange rate vary between 22 pesos per dollar to 17. Ouch

Mike's avatar

Another thing to be thankful for on Trumpsgiving Day in November..