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Our country is rapidly evolving into two Americas.
One America is made up of fewer than 1,000 billionaires, who have unprecedented wealth and power, and are better off than ever before.
President-elect Trump and Elon Musk (Getty Images)
In the other America, where the majority live, there are tens of millions of people who struggle to put food on the table, pay their bills, and worry that their children's standard of living is lower than theirs. It is made up of family members.
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First in America, the super-rich owned $500 million yachts with helicopter pads, $270 million mansions with 30 bedrooms, private islands, fleets of jets to take them around the world, and the outer fringes. I bought a rocket ship that can fly up to. space. They can expect to receive the best medical care money can buy, send their children to the best schools, and live very long lives.
Here in America, the three richest people (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg) own more wealth than the bottom half of society, 165 million people. And their wealth is skyrocketing. Musk alone is currently worth more than $450 billion, and the three men combined are worth $955 billion.
And it's not just these three people. Today, the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is widening every day.
In the alternate America, the working class struggles to afford the basic necessities of life. In America, more than 60% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck, millions of people work on starvation wages, 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured, and more than 20 million people live paycheck to paycheck. More than 60,000 people died each as households spent more than half of their limited income on rent and mortgages. Because I can't afford to go to the doctor on time.
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Here in America, where 25% of seniors strive to live on less than $15,000 a year, parents are struggling to raise their children in a country with the highest child poverty rate of nearly every major nation on earth. I am. And due to stress and inadequate health care, working people live much shorter lives than the wealthy.
Here in America, workers are scared to death if their car breaks down, if their child gets sick, if their landlord raises the rent, if they get divorced, if they get pregnant, or if they lose their job for any reason. You find yourself in the middle of a financial disaster.
But let's be clear. Our country is not only experiencing unprecedented levels of income and wealth inequality; Today, we have more concentrated ownership than ever before.
In one sector after another, from healthcare to agriculture to financial services to energy to transportation, a handful of giant corporations control what is produced and how much we, as consumers, pay for it. There is. Incredibly, only three Wall Street companies (black rockVanguard, and State Street) manage more than $22 trillion in assets. These three Wall Street firms are major shareholders in approximately 95% of the S&P 500 companies, giving them tremendous control over the world's largest companies.
That's not all.
Never before in American history have so few media conglomerates, all owned by the billionaire class, had so much influence over the nation. It is estimated that six giant media companies currently own 90% of what Americans see, hear, and read. This handful of companies determine what is “important” and what is discussed, what is “not important” and what is ignored.
If you use a social media account to get your news, chances are it's owned by billionaire Musk, Zuckerberg, or Trump. If you read the Washington Post, Fox, or the Los Angeles Times, your news is owned by billionaires Bezos, Murdoch, or Patrick Soon-Shiong.
But it's not just billionaire ownership and control over the economy and media that we should be concerned about. The super-rich are also buying the government and undermining American democracy.
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Never in American history have we seen a ruling class with so much political power. As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires and their super PACs can now spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns.
And that's exactly what they're doing. Just 150 billionaires will spend nearly $2 billion during the 2024 election cycle to buy politicians who support their policies and defeat candidates who oppose their special interests. I spent it. Billionaires, who make up just 0.0005% of the population, accounted for 18% of total election spending.
That's not democracy. It's not one person, one vote. That is not what this country should represent. In the 1863 Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln spoke of “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Well, today we have a government by the billionaire class, for the billionaire class. ”
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We are at an unprecedented and pivotal moment in American history. We can either fight to create a government and economy that works for everyone, or we can continue rapidly down the path to oligarchy and control of the super-rich.
The choice is clear. We must unite for democracy and justice.
Click here to read more from Sen. Bernie Sanders
