"Follow the money" is my go-to strategy for figuring out why people, companies, governments, and entire nations behave the way they do.
Sometimes this can be a good thing, BTW. For instance, I have been on several nonprofit boards of directors and you can't go wrong if you try to match an organization's budget document with its goals and vision. When we find out that a charity, for instance, is spending a significant portion of its income on administrative costs, we suspect that things could be better.
For profit-making businesses, following the money usually reveals that a very few people/investors are making a lot of money, while the vast majority of people (customers, the general public) get taken.
That is a major truth about gas prices, for instance. Prices skyrocket at the pump when there are even faint hints at something bad in the world. And when the rumors turn out to be untrue or the crisis eases, prices do not immediately revert to where they were. It's not that prices can never come down, but it usually takes a recession or depression to significantly move prices.
Gas prices shot up last week mostly due to worries about Russia and less oil on the market, but a lot of the angst over oil has mellowed out and the raw costs of barrels of oil has dropped nearly 25 percent from its high, at least temporarily.
We should anticipate gasoline prices falling about 25 percent soon, right? Ha! Ha! Not a chance.
Those who own the products and the production facilities will rake in as much profit as they can, as long as they can. It's the essence of capitalism, after all.
Our local school board majority got slapped down a bit by a judge who essentially "gave them a talking to" and simply said that our four radicals who broke the state open meeting laws should stop breaking the law. No real sanctions. No fines. No reversed decisions.
When those four radicals were told that district insurance will not cover their legal fees if they would choose to appeal the ruling, they (of course) said the district should pay those fees out of money designed to support student learning. Others on the board urged the four to not appeal, reasoning that the judge simply told the majority to follow state law. That does not seem that onerous but you can bet this debate will drag on for some time.
Politicians from both major parties often receive donations from people who don't live anywhere near them -- certainly not in their legislative districts or even the state -- based on extreme statements and showboating. In Colorado, we have Boebert, who as far I can tell from a bit of online research, has introduced zero bills that are focused on her congressional district in Colorado. All the bills she co-sponsors (she sponsors very few herself) are on national issues, like border security, impeachment of the president and vice president, and declaring Antifa a terrorist group.
And every time she hollers inanely during the State of the Union or spews lies and insults at Republican fundraisers she garners more dollars in donations.
The governor of Colorado is a Democrat, mostly, who is a multi-millionaire and who has funded his own campaigns by himself, without donations... because he can. I assume many people respect that and maybe even voted for him because he is so independent and so, well, American.
In 2021, statistics showed that 51 percent of U.S. representatives and senators were millionaires, while only 4 percent of Americans overall are millionaires. I'm not sure exactly how those calculations are made, since owning a decent home in many areas means you have nearly a million in equity, which doesn't seem all that much these days, but the overall effect is clear. Rich people run America.
When we find ourselves asking why things seem so divided and why so many Americans are struggling to pay for basic necessities -- including gas, which is a much higher percentage of total expenses for the poor as for the rich -- we know the answer, don't we?
Follow the money.
No comments:
Post a Comment