Skewing Reality

Why do people keep believing that things in the United States are going well? Take this screenshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Based on this picture, things look like they are going pretty well in the empire, and most people would say that they would feel blessed to be here. What is missing from this image is how many people are actually earning that salary, versus the number of people who make nowhere near this, and are forced to ask for assistance. On one hand, CEO pay is through the roof, and is now more than 200 times that of a “regular worker.” On the other hand, one six-figure earner in a room of migrant crop workers will skew the portrait. I wonder if the wages of migrant labor is even included in such a calculation.

Another way elites hide how much money they take is by setting everyone up for subscriptions. Instead of having people save up and pay for a year of any service, like the gym or cloud storage, companies are constantly taking money from people at random times of the month. Such actions disrupt people’s finances, which is one of the reasons that so many people have debt and have problems managing that debt to clear it. Legislation was finally implemented after almost two decades of recklessness, but the agency is also in the process of being dismantled. The point of automatic withdrawals is that companies have control while consumers are forced to repeatedly repair their finances.

There are a lot of ways that people hide the financial picture of the empire, and those images were quite successful. After all, sinking into a fascist oligarchy happens in stages, not all at once. Yes, people are seeing a lot of changes happen very quickly, but most of the time, these images were distorted and hidden over a long period. Moving forward, this is why it will be more important for people to stop believing the propaganda and pay attention to reality.