"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
George Orwell
I think we can stipulate that these charts do not compare US minimum wages to some of the worst sweatshops of Asia and the Southern hemisphere with whom US workers are expected to compete thanks to undiscriminating 'free trade' treaties.
And so human rights and the public good are invariably and consciously driven towards the lowest common denominator of cruel and abusive government corruption.
These charts are from Tim Taylor at the Conversable Economist.
I am sure people will draw from them whatever they wish to support their own policy biases and pre-conclusions.
But the one thing we need to internalize is that the US has become all about setting policies and enforcing laws to create and maintain a working underclass as a vulnerable food source for the predator class, a condition that is inimical to a thriving democracy.
And people are becoming more aware of this now that a good portion of the former middle class is falling into that underclass category that lives from hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck.
It is becoming undeniable that the political class is no longer listening to 'the people,' but to the richest and most powerful individuals and the organizations that support them and give them that power.
This is not 'capitalism.' This is crony capitalism, and the deadly corruption of oligarchy.
