Popular wisdom, at least in the alternative media, has the plutocrats destroying the livelihoods and the lives of regular folks in the hundreds of millions.
What a shamefully unbalanced world view.
The uber-rich aren't wrecking the world, they're saving it!
Join me aboard the way-back machine as we go way back in time to the 60's and 70's.
That was the high-water mark for workers' living standards.
Your pinko commentators want you to believe that it's been all down-hill since then.
Well, if you're a worker, that's probably right.
Whereas once you could afford a car, now you can afford a cell-phone.
Whereas once you could afford a bungalow in the burbs, now you can afford a basement apartment.
But stop being so selfish. Step back a few paces and have a look at the big picture.
Let's have a look at the lifestyle of the typical worker circa 1968.
That's when regular factory workers used to own their own homes. Like, what the fuck is wrong with that picture? Where did the masses ever get the idea that workers needed to own homes? You're a worker, for fucks sakes! It was just an unfortunate accident of geography that prevented the cardboard box your new fridge came in from becoming an addition to your home. A nice spare room for the kids.
That cardboard room may not work out well in Detroit or Kenosha, but it works pretty well in Mexico!
That mid-century burst of prosperity gave lots of undeserving folks the idea, largely propagated by unions, that they needed something other than a cardboard box to live in.
And then there is the matter of cars. By the 60's the idea that they had to own a car, or even two, was a virtual entitlement among the laboring classes, especially the unionized ones. And look at the cars they gravitated to; hemi-Chargers, 427 Camaros, Mach 1 Mustangs... the working classes were utterly fixated on cars that got 8 miles to a gallon of fuel!
Fast forward to the modern era. Factory hands no longer drive 427 Camaros; they take the bus! Multiply that by 75 million Americans no longer able to afford a car, and just imagine the savings in greenhouse gasses!
Sure, where thousands of Cat employees were once able to own cars, even nice ones, we're now down to a couple dozen guys at head office with Bentleys and Porsches, but greenhouse gas is WAY down. The cars may still get 8 mpg, but at least the folks driving them deserve them.
And relatively speaking there's hardly any of them on the road.
Here's another market that is thankfully gone; recreational boating. Back in the 60s the Detroit River all the way down to Lake Erie and all the up to St. Clair was just plugged with Ford workers piloting their very own 30 foot Chris-Crafts. Like what the fuck was that all about? Factory dudes with yachts?
Does anybody really think that was sustainable?
Here's what's sustainable; a few hundred billionaires with environmentally friendly mega-yachts, instead of a few million factory yobs with 30 foot Chrissies.
How can anyone argue this is bad for the planet?
The Detroit River is much safer and much quieter today, with the few factory types who still find their way there sticking close to shore in their 14 foot canoes.
So next time you step outside for a breath of fresh air, remember that the air is only fresh because of the efforts of the few, the rich, the plutocrats. When they're turning those $25/hr union jobs into $10/hr jobs in a "right to work" state, they're doing all of us a favor.
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