A Grim American Fairy Tale

Once upon a time in a land called America, a company would produce a tangible product or provide a needed service and sell it in order to make a profit. In the process, many well-paying jobs were created for the population.

That is no longer the case.

Today, America's companies are bought and run by investment firms, which are not interested in what the companies produce or provide. Investment firms only care about what their newly purchased companies are projected to deliver to their stockholders either in the form of investment income when sold at a profit or in the form of tax write-offs when after they have been run into the ground and their assets liquidated.

Click here or on the title below to learn about the poster boy for the job creators who changed the American dream into a nightmare and America into to a land where good, middle class jobs have largely vanished.

Matt Taibbi Reveals How Romney Made His Fortune -- It Ain't Pretty, and He Shouldn't Be Proud of It

"Earned" is a very generous way to put it.

But wait! There's more.

America has been brainwashed into re-adopting Calvin Coolidge's disastrous "The business of America is business" mentality (AKA unfettered capitalism), and the consecration of Ronald Reagan's failed supply-side (AKA trickle-down) economic policy. As a result, the gap between the nations rich and poor has widened during what has been the biggest economic recovery since the Great Depression.

This cartoon illustrates just how wide that gap has become.

Link to Source

Yes, once upon a time in America, a high school diploma was an entrance pass to a well-paid, factory or service job or to a technical school or a four-year college, graduation from which offered even more employment options. But those days and those job opportunities are now gone.

Thanks to the oligarchs, who like to call themselves the job creators, life is much simpler for an increasing number of high school and even college graduates. Their job opportunities now consist of (a) joining the military to fight and die in perpetual wars designed to protect the accumulated wealth of those who bought and sold their future, or (b) entering the work force to earn a minimum wage without benefits or any hope of achieving what was possible for their parents.

The beauty, simplicity, and fairness of the new economic order in America is this. With the exception of the offspring of the wealthiest families, graduates of all backgrounds wishing to enter the work force need only master a simple phrase: Do You Want Fries With That?

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Note: Although this is a grim tale, readers should not confuse it with the fairy tales collected and published by the Brothers Grimm save in one respect. The Brothers Grimm published stories full of violence and mayhem in order to teach civility to German children. Because so many Americans act like uncivilized children when it comes to electoral politics, I believe  they are in need of similar instruction.