Response and Responsibility

Good cents.

Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

Good day, some of you may remember me. I used to write around these parts some time ago before being smashed over the head by capitalism repeatedly. To those of you new here, have a seat, I’ll piss you off eventually.

That said - why are only the poor expected to be fiscally responsible? Think about it; billionaires no longer need to acknowledge any kind of responsibility, much less fiscal. Banks, lenders, CEOs, and others have been bailed out after screwing the pooch. All sorts of loans exist that get forgiven for businesses, but to get a loan as an individual you have to not actually need it.

Think bigger though. Governments sure aren’t fiscally responsible. I’m pretty sure our national debt exceeds the amount of money that has ever been legitimately earned in the entire country’s history. When everyone above the poor can spend as poorly and flagrantly as they like with no consequences, why should we be expected to shoulder the responsibility? We don’t get paid enough to live let alone cover everyone else’s bills.

If you miss a bill, you get a fee. Because obviously you were sitting on scads of gold and should be punished for choosing not to pay. Your bank account overdrafts, you get a fee. Cancel an appointment on short notice? Fee. Not if they do it to you though, not even if you took the day off! Your lower quality goods break, you replace them. You get taxed on what you earned, and replacing the goods. Plus your transportation. Everything is rigged to keep is down. Meanwhile corporations do ballet routines through all the loopholes until they pay nothing.

Businesses give each other deals. Discounts for buying in bulk, waiving fees for each other - we’re just out here trying to make money, why should we have expenses? One of my chief peeves being getting extra fees for paying with a card. That’s a cost of doing business, it should be illegal to pass that on to the customer - of course if they did that, they’d just raise their prices 3.5% and screw us anyhow.

We get the fees, the bills, the credit cards, the taxes, juggling due dates and monthly benefit cards, food stamps, while making everyone but ourselves rich. We are shamed for drowning in debt in a society that charges for everything and pays very little legally. They make all the quick ways of making cash illegal like selling drugs and insider trading, but then enforce the laws very selectively. Never on their inner circles, of course.

We have to stop playing by their rules or we never get ahead in the game.