4 ways greedy capitalists rig the system to profit off our misery

Paul Buchheit
Tuesday, Sep 9, 2014 07:00 AM EST
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Each of us is a source of profit, as long as we rent or own a home, save a little money and drink water

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The profit motive fogs the thinking of free-market advocates. The Economist gushes, "Take a bow, capitalism…the biggest poverty-reduction measure of all is liberalising markets to let poor people get richer." Forbes proclaims its belief in "the unmatched power of capitalism to improve human life."
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Self-indulgent capitalists have turned much of America against its own best interests by promoting a winner-take-all philosophy that reaps great rewards for a few people at the expense of everyone else. To the neoliberal, vital human needs like health and education are products to be bought and sold.
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Here are some other examples of greed and the pain it causes.
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Water

The city of Detroit, which is positioned next to the greatest supply of fresh water between the polar ice caps, has lost its access to water because of bad financial deals that have left unsuspecting citizens with over a half-billion dollars in interest payments. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr responded by putting the whole water system up for sale.
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Housing
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Blackstone is a corporate model for making money at the expense of desperate former homeowners. Since the recession, it has become the nation's leading landlord, buying up tens of thousands of homes at rock-bottom prices, and then renting them back, often to the very people who lost them.
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Savings
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The financial industry indiscriminately targets all struggling Americans, from the impoverished class to the low-income class to the middle class. At the lowest level loom the payday lenders, with about as many locations in the U.S. as all the McDonalds and Starbucks combined, and with annualized interest rates that can reach 1,000 percent or more.
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Justice Itself

With the highest incarceration rate in the world, and with imprisonment skewed toward minorities, our business-oriented society has effectively turned our poorest citizens into products, with an emphasis on product volume.
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A staunch capitalist might point out that America's growing poverty has created markets for anyone able to capitalize on destitution. Each of us, after all, is a source of profit, as long as we rent or own, save a little money, and drink water.

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