My point, which has been somewhat obscured, is that this country has officially posted a major recognized decline in standard of living. The very idea of something like this coming from a bottom-tier employer and a usuary bank used to be a joke or metaphor. Now, it's acceptable business practice and woe to anyone who suggests that government intervene or the workers themselves organize to try and better their situation. The Supreme Court has ensured that these same people who put out 'suggested living conditions' have a louder legislative voice as a corporation than the workers do as voters thanks "freedom of corporate speech" and suspension of federal investigations into state elections. The US Congress is basically a rubber stamp for whomever has the money to buy the votes and the legal teams to write the legislation for Congress to pretend to debate while the executive branch has busied itself expanding a separate complete shadow government accountable to no one. Meanwhile, corporate stocks and profits have never, not even in the robber baron days, been more valuable, until they stumble in business, at which point, their actions are subsidized from the treasury. Murderers are paroled in seven years or less while people busted for using pot are serving life sentences and the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment to the Constitution might as well not exist, but you can always get a job at f***ing McDonald's.
