Rentier capitalism sucks for everyone except those few at the top. And those few at the top know it.

Rollin’ into the 2020s…aw yeah.

As we roll, I wish Americans would quit saying that the nation’s top earners work harder than any other group of Americans. 

Twelve years ago, Wall Street speculators crashed the economy by turning middle-class people’s mortgages into bullshit commodities. In the time since, what a strange place we have become. Broke-ass folks live in shame at the end of the 2010s.

“Never had a poor man give me a job.” 

“You should learn from the billionaires’ work habits…not criticize their success.” 

“The rich pay most of the taxes.” 

These days, unnecessarily-stressed Americans state falsities like these with an odd combination of head-down subservience and cock-sure righteousness. People—especially white people—can generate temporary feelings of power and control by adopting authoritative tones of voice to lecture others about the greatness of trickle-down economics. And some straight white dudes? Whoa…they seem to believe they sound way more masculine than they actually sound as they rationalize income inequality.

Those fellas are a billionaire’s wet dream. Only…the fat-cats don’t love them so much that they care about their welfare.

Working-class whites are dying in higher numbers and at least a few Wall Streeters continue to devise ways to capitalize off of it all. Whether it’s advocating for wars that others will fight, or investing in technologies that turn America into a surveillance state, or increasing prices on life-saving medications, the group that I named “Bros: America’s new Jews” appear to enjoy profiteering off of America’s downhill trajectory.

Our nation’s low safety ranking compared to other industrialized countries? I will wager that this news makes rich folks living in gated communities giddy. Ordinary citizens worried about their own safety seem less likely to focus on the 1%’s greed. 

Somewhere along the way, finance developed a fascism fetish…

Or did fascism develop a finance fetish? 

It’s all so confusing. Which I think is the idea.

The founders of National Socialism put the word “Socialism” in their name because it kept people guessing about the group’s true intentions.

And look how that all turned out.

Check out my #sci-fi series, The Revolutionizers.