This unfortunate term was used by Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, as part of the conservative class/culture warfare. Images and stories were woven about people living like royalty off the government checks and cheese given to them. With that a whole segment of the American population, mostly single black women, were labeled as lazy thieving sneaks living off the hard work of regular Americans.
The term "welfare queen" conjures up a totally different image for me. I take a look at what goes on in corporate America and I see the real "welfare queen." The wall street players love to talk about their ideal of laissez faire capitalism. Corporations live happily off the the backs of the American workers and consumers while they evade taxes. They bust unions and exploit workers here and oversees; their profits kept offshore and they only give back the community to get a write-off.
Corporations and traders alike complain about taxes. These are the same taxes that built the roads, waterways, schools, etc. that they exploit every day. Without the rights extended to them arbitrated by judges and secured by the police their businesses would not exist. These fat cats sit in their boardrooms or private jets finding ways to screw ordinary Americans and fill their coffers.
What happens when something goes wrong?
It's happened several times in the American economy: first in the 30s then the 80s and now. The conservative policy of under-regulated, unfettered capitalism has brought us to where we are today. Companies who have been making money hand over fist for many years are now looking for handouts. In short they are privatizing the profits and socializing the losses.
The taxes that companies evade are now being used to save them. The American people are going into deeper debt to save businesses that are "too large to fail." So much like the welfare queens of old, these guys are collecting welfare (bailouts) through fraud and manipulation while living large off their golden parachutes.
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6 comments:
hmmm, i like the thrust of the argument. but the line about nothing going wrong with capitalism until the 30's hit me like a sucker punch. Some of us think there never was a time when capitalism was good..but i guess that depends on your perspective. How about going back a bit further. How about the "capital" needed for capitalism came drenched in the blood of our ancestors in the form of free labor for hundreds of years. How about the fact that capitalism's rise is due to the fact that it turned out to be a more profitable form of exploitation than slavery.
this koolredd guys sounds pretty angry.
what does hand over fist mean? is it masturbating with money?
did you know when railroads came up, and when trolleys were around, the companies who wanted to run the service paid to lay the track? whereas the automobile companies managed to lobby our government to pay for and maintain our roads with our tax dollars. not saying i mind, but these companies are all about getting handouts and being subsidized but cry like little girls with skinned knees when people who really need the money are given it.
also, i think as ceo of human dynamo @ blogspot dot com, you should be given a ridiculous bonus, like 12 million, for doing your job adequately or better. make sure to get the money in euros!
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