Sincerity vs. Complexity: from Visible to Invisible Problems
Americans and Europeans are realizing their propagandists include teachers, lawyers, and judges, while real estate tycoons are prioritized over individual citizens. Battles between conservatives and liberals used to be race-based and therefore subject to law and media; now, property ownership is the deciding factor, and the need for stable insurance favors conservatism. Ironically, the larger the property owner, the fewer taxes it pays, because real estate tycoons and religious organizations know how to game politics through tax credits, bankruptcies, and other legal loopholes.
“I understand it, the tax code, better than anybody that’s run for president.” -- Donald Trump (2016)
Meanwhile, the average homeowner doesn’t realize his or her house is dependent on the Federal Reserve, a massive international bond market, and the mortgage interest tax deduction; the average teacher doesn't understand the link between pension ROIs and Wall Street; and the average churchgoer doesn't understand the church’s work and tax exemption would be unnecessary if local government was more competent.
“I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” -- James Carville
What we have here is a failure to educate, and a system so complex, it requires a law degree and litigation experience to understand. Simply put, most wealth in America comes from tax credits, tax avoidance, or tax deductions, which insurance companies, banks, and real estate developers--and more recently, technology companies--are experts at manipulating. In our current economic state, the honest individual taxpayer doesn't matter, and President Trump's goal to onshore investments means more U.S.-based jobs but also more targeted tax credits (carrot), sanctions (sticks), and complexity. Any would-be reformer in 20281 will require an army of forensic accountants, and at best, will propose another AMT or other anti-loophole mechanism that won’t touch the underlying tax benefit.
Why should you care, particularly if you don’t own a home or earn less than the median annual salary? Because your entire life as an American is determined by rules designed by lawyers working with insurance companies. You don't have freedom--you have clearly defined lines you live in, and most of those lines protect real property and debt within a closed loop of aligned countries. Don't believe me? Go to your local grocery store. Try to find Iranian Medjool dates, Javanese tamarind, Farm Fresh Cafe Latte, Brownes Dairy yogurt, Cuban cola, or Russian Baikal.
Own a car? Try driving it without wearing a seatbelt.2 Want the truth about JFK? It depends on what the president decides to declassify. Need a life-saving antibiotic without a doctor's prescription? Too bad you’re not in SE Asia, where you can walk into any small pharmacy and get anything you’d like as long as you have cash, including India-manufactured drugs deemed unsafe in the EU. And don’t even think about exercising your freedom of assembly and speech by joining a pro-Palestinian student protest or speaking out in favor of Palestinians. Even if you're a member of Congress, you can be censured and denied committee appointments and influence.
“We have been brought up to believe that the American political system works beautifully, it is democratic, Congress represents us, the president is elected, he represents us, [but it] doesn't work that way. Democracy depends on people speaking out and in times of great crisis, on people creating a commotion.” -- Howard Zinn