I’ve been on kind of a run writing about my experiences doing the NATO presentations. I talked about the way I was painted as a communist for not liking the capitalist system we have. Part of the reason I was painted as such was due to the explanation of austerity. Basically, the presentation said that austerity was something that occurred due to the wrongful doings of the private sector, but regular people , a.k.a. the 99%, bore the brunt of the cuts since the services the government is supposed to provide for them are cut first. Military spending is never cut.
This article on the Huffington Post explains who benefits from austerity measures. Anyone want to take a guess? Yup, the 1%. The article goes into more detail as to how the 1% wins yet again, but I’ll briefly explain the main gist. The military is pretty much privatized. A lot of the weapons are made by private corporations. Therefore, the rich are benefiting because wars are never cut from the budget. On top of that, when the government stops funding programs that benefit the public, like transportation, health care, pensions, guess who gets to pick up the slack again and starts to provide them but at a way higher cost? The 1%.
The article wasn’t completely negative though. It offered a solution, which was to help fund nonprofits that also provide those government services. I don’t think it’s the best solution. I think it lets the government off the hook. But at least, it allows for some preparation against these looming cuts.
We still need to be out there on the streets. Since, apparently the jobs bills in Congress aren’t likely to create jobs.
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