What's in a name?

WHY wrongcapitalism.blogspot.com?

Truth be told, "compassionate capitalism" was already in use. And we've been practicing "wrong capitalism" since the foundation of this republic, I'm afraid.

As I stated in my very first blog post, WHY?, I want this blog to stand for something. It's stated purpose is to take the "I" out of capitalism. Yes, there are two I's, but my point being that self-centered capitalism has another name: GREED.

You'll notice the color of the header on this post is green. We've been singularly focused on the Almighty Dollar for far too long. And where has it gotten us? We are the richest nation in the world and poverty still affects millions of us. According to UCDavis, and I just Googled this today, "The official poverty rate is 13.5 percent, based on the U.S. Census Bureau's 2015 estimates. That year, an estimated 43.1 million Americans lived in poverty." Can you wrap your head around that number? Just to give you some perspective, the population in our ten largest cities COMBINED is a fraction of that number. That's right, from New York to L.A., in the cities comprised of ONE MILLION or more people--there are right at 10--the combined population is 24.5 million (that's a rough estimate which equals less than 60% of those 43.1 mil. living below the poverty level).

Richest nation in the world can't take care of nearly 15% of it's citizens. FORTY-THREE MILLION people is a ridiculously large number. It makes the 2.7 million residents of Chicago, the largest city near to where I was raised, look like a small ant hill by comparison. If we gathered the nation's poor, we could fill nearly 16 Chicagos! Can you imagine 16 cities the size of Chicago filled with blight, homelessness and poverty?

But that's where our idea of capitalism has gotten us.

We have CEOs who live in ivory towers. We have a conservative base who still believes some of that wealth is going to trickle down out of the ivory tower and magically make a difference at ground level. Has it made a difference in your life?

The only people who really benefit in this political-economic system are those wealthy enough to invest on Wall Street. The only trickling down is into the 401(k)'s and bank accounts of corporate investors. I'm not one of them. But I work to support this fragile system. And so do you, whether you're of the working class or the bourgeois.

This is wrong. Dead wrong!

And that is why I chose to name this blog "Capitalism Gone Wrong."

But we CAN get it right! We CAN right this ship and head on a different course. WE THE PEOPLE have that power. We can still choose capitalism without leaving 15% of our population in our wake. We can speak up and pressure Wall Street and the nation's richest CEO's to pony up and embrace a more compassionate approach to capitalistic ideals. We can do this!