The Oakland Press

Real capitalism is socialism

- Ravi Yalamanchi Ravi Yalamanchi is a Rochester Hills resident.

A new $900 billion stimulus is approved under the context of helping individual­s who are struggling in the current economy. A payment of $600 per adult and for children under 17 is being released. Real beneficiar­ies will be the ones that are financiall­y doing well. There is lot of pork for businesses. Everyone including airlines and movie theaters will get money.

In 2020 alone over $9 trillion has been passed between fiscal and monetary. Equivalent to two years of annual federal budget.

All of this is helping to push wealth to the top with working families continuing to struggle while real commerce the service delivery of products is dependent on them. The NASDAQ is higher 44% for the year. The S & P was up 17%. Dow crossed 30,000. Since passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (filled with lots of goodies for businesses and the wealthy) every year the federal government experience­d a deficit of $1 trillion.

When the pandemic hit, instead of focusing and garnering resources to address it rapidly, the focus was to give away money, not just to the ones affected but billions to corporatio­ns and many that did not need. The Payroll Protection Program became a boon. The billionair­es, millionair­es and everyone went after it including the mega churches. Churches that never pay taxes. There was no shame in pilfering. The stock market with an unimaginab­ly high performanc­e is inverse to the effect of the pandemic causing more than 10 million losing jobs, an unknown number of small businesses closing, widening of income gaps and increasing economic inequaliti­es, over 20 million infected, over 350,000 died with number to go over 400,000.

There is real hypocrisy. Investing in education, expanding Medicaid, investing in infrastruc­ture, increasing the minimum wage, expanding transporta­tion infrastruc­ture, creating and sustaining affordable housing are all considered as socialism for Republican­s. Always called any taxpayer giveaways as socialism, not if it is for the wealthy and big corporatio­ns. They are first in line to receive them. As new administra­tion is coming in Republican­s have now begun to talk the old game. Their concern for deficits.

When the rich and wealthy get it the term is stimulus and when working families and struggling families get it is welfare.

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