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Forum Post: A bit of Irony: Service Sector and Public Service Role Reversal.

Posted 3 years ago on April 10, 2020, 5:23 p.m. EST by elf3 (4203)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

As the common people are called on to serve and protect in the private sector - the public servants all went to remote locations to keep themselves and their families safe (as per their voice mails).

Politicians have done little to aid families during this crisis even as they call on us to sacrifice and risk our lives in "service of our nation" they went off and enjoyed a month long vacation and their staffs are working from the safety of home . How ironic that those who volunteered for public service seem quick to relieve themselves of any service while throwing those in the private sector onto the flame. All the risk in this economy has been shifted to the backs of the private sector working class employees even as politicians partner with big business execs and lobbyists to drive down our wages. While CEO's and bosses and corporations who pay zero tax profit from laws politicians make at their behest and benefit more than those actually receiving subsidies in a stripped down service sector economy where all the risk of running a company has been shifted onto the workers. Trump has himself stated he forgoes his salary because he doesn't need it. I want my public servant to need his salary. When we reach a place where politicians don't really need their jobs - and they enjoy the luxury of ignoring our concerns and demands - we are in great trouble. Politicians should be forced to give up their stocks, holdings, and private businesses to serve in public office so they are beholden to their salaries and the people who pay them. Politicians should be worried if the tax payers aren't making enough money to run government and pay their salaries. They shouldn't have so much fall back that it has no effect on them one way or the other if our pockets are stripped bare.

The President cleared the way for lax OSHA and labor union rules to allow corporations to treat private workers as disposable during this pandemic; skirting around safety measures and social distancing. Companies like Amazon pay zero tax and thus do not contribute to government functions or public sector salaries; nor do they help contribute to the massive amount of funds this pandemic is going to cost the taxpayers (employees); so I guess they don't care if they inadvertently and irresponsibly spread the virus because they don't want to slow down production. Companies like Amazon are touted as job creators forgetting the fact that they are also business destroyers - and when they finish crushing the markets with their unregulated size and well regulations - workers have no where else to turn as the jobs dry up around them. This is not creation - it is disguised destruction. Workers do not benefit when they are forced into these jobs of last resort. These companies are not heros but extortionists destroying the market and pulling away worker choice. Politicians have become so blinded by their campaign funding - they seem to have forgotten this not so small caveat...and don't even get me started on the hospital industrial health insurance complexes.

Trump continues to tout these private sector employee roles as an essential duty to this nation, while pissing about how much being president has cost him in the way of his business endeavors and becoming enraged at reporters - failing to provide essential workers with any of the protections or securities public service workers enjoy - even as stimulus money and policy is being made to benefit his own private personal gains, while stripping down benefits to the unemployed, and allowing Blackstone to influence policy on NOT freezing rents or mortgages during this crisis.

He behaves as though questions from reporters are shockingly out of line and checks on his service to the public are uncalled for and outrageous. He behaves like a callous CEO boss - instead of a public servant. Treating workers like numbers and subjects who owe this country a great debt which he is owed for "providing us with our (albeit shitty, stripped down) jobs". I think he forgets it is we who are providing him with a job. It is we who pay his salary, his insurance, his pension. While he may mistakenly believe he works in service of his campaign donors - the American worker /public pays a far greater amount to employ our government. Corporations are also given the ability to profit in this country - but this was not given as a right by the founding fathers. Corporations were given charters to operate which the public could disband at their choosing. It was an amendment which changed this - and it should be reversed - it is clear that corporations have long been violating and abusing the social contract. Unlimited campaign donations and lobbying , while offshoring their tax head quarters, and merging into ever larger holdings, subsidiaries and dividends which has made them too large and too monopolistic. Blackstone - has been buying up American properties in droves since the crash of 2008 driving up prices and forcing up rents. Making it much harder for average Americans to compete to buy housing. These lax housing regulations are destroying American sovereignty and our independence. Rent is a form of tax, while the landiers enjoy loopholes, capital gains breaks, and zero interest loans. Fannie Mae was even permitted to bulk bundle forclosed homes to investors for renting rather than sell them to the American public - despite that the American public funds Fannie Mae with our tax dollars; most of these investing companies are not even headquartered in America. We now have a situation where a vast number of Americans are renting from overseas entities - Saudi, Chinese, and Russian businessmen. We have a situation where young Americans have to compete with cash bids and zero interest loans, and corporations to buy homes which directly impacts our independence and sovereignty. We have reached a point were an outside nation could crash out entire housing market simply by pulling out at the same time, which is an issue of national security. We have a situation where American households are paying thirty percent and more to live in their own country and they are paying it - to multinational businessmen. What does that do to the American economy when Americans have so little extra that they can't afford savings for emergencies (like we are currently seeing) and during normal times they have no extra to spend and circulate back into the economy?

When did it get so backward that this president believes it is we who are obligated to serve and protect government - instead of the other way around? When a president stands in interest of his own campaign funds from monopolistic entities who compete with AMERICAN businesses and AMERICAN homebuyers - who are often not even AMERICAN, and don't pay tax to this country while they lobby for greater and greater restrictions and red-tape for the people of this nation. Many are run buy Saudi businessmen, Russians, Chinese international muti-national conglomerates.

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[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 3 years ago

Trump wouldn't last one day in most of the "fantastic" jobs he claims he has created (conveniently forgetting all the ones that megalopolies destroyed) not to mention the devastatingly STAGFLATED WAGES. He not only couldn't physically meet the demands (since it's obvious he has difficulty standing at the podium for any length of time) but he wouldn't put up with the stress management and degrading abuse most fortune 500 workers put up with today. I'd give him five minutes (maybe) before he lost his temper and told a middle manager toady where to stick it. Love to see him don a brown uniform and run around lifting heavy boxes all day while 70 hours a week and now trying to wear a mask and being followed with a clipboard and given demerits for failing to do it the right way - do that for 40 years into your old age and then they stuff you on your hard earned pension. Or stand on his feet all day as a nurse running from patient to patient making life or death decisions as staff gets cut to smaller and smaller numbers per patient each year and wages stagnate and you pay back expensive student loans. Or work in retail where your hours are never the same from week to week and you work through holidays on your feet all day missing family and can barely pay your bills wondering if you will get laid off or fired or most likely pushed into quitting as they stress manage you to the point of heart attack when they don't need you next quarter, and the training also involves handing out how you can supplement your meager salary with food stamps because it isn't already degrading enough in our society to tell people you cashier and bag groceries for a living.

Maybe America - we don't need another CEO president who is out of touch with the real demands of living in the real world without the silver spoon Trump has enjoyed from the time he began "working". His promises to drain the swamp (which I must admit even perked up my hopeful ears) - were bold faced lies - as he has done nothing but invite the billionaire club lobbyists and multinational overseas conglomerates into the White House as privileged guests of honor. He had his chance - he blew it. Saying you've done a good job, is very far from actually doing it.