The Future “Former” USA: Just Another Former Soviet Union?

I just finished reading an by a guy who had accurately predicted the fall of the former USSR two whole years before it actually happened.  However, nobody back then even believed him.  “The USSR has over-extended itself and is going to collapse!” he kept telling people.  But everyone who heard him just laughed.

Well.  At this point in time, the USA has totally over-extended itself too.  Like some addicted shopaholic set loose with questionable plastic at a shopping mall, the USA has over-charged every single one of its credit cards by at least eleven trillion dollars in order to buy its very favorite consumer product — endless war.  And, in addition, the USA has also spent another ungodly number of trillions on making its uber-rich 1% even richer, and keeping its corrupt bankers happy as clams.

And so, like the former USSR back in 1991, now the USA also has nowhere to go but down either — due to its total over-extension.  And you don’t even have to be a genius to do the math here.  Anyone with a calculator app. on their iPhone can figure this one out.  A couple hundred trillion $$$$ subtracted from zero equals what?  Total collapse.  This is pretty much a given at the rate that our “fearless leaders” on Wall Street and War Street are currently spreading their phony credit-card moolah around.

But what I really want to talk about here is what will actually happen to America (and to you and me) when our country suddenly does become referred to as “The Former USA”.   To know that, all we have to do is look at a model already set before us — what had happened to the Former USSR after it had over-extended itself.

First, you gotta remember that ten percent of all citizens of the Soviet Union actually DIED after the USSR collapsed.  Ten percent!  One in ten.  The old people went first.  And the working poor.  And the kids.  That would be like having about 30 million Americans dead as a doornail because Wall Street and War Street didn’t behave themselves.

Second, a huge number of Soviet public buildings throughout Europe and Asia suddenly became “privatized” and were happily handed over to the lowest bidders — the oligarchs.  But then that is happening here in the USA already.  Let’s take my own downtown Berkeley post office for instance.  It’s being practically given away to oligarchs even as we speak.  And American schools, national parks, mineral-rich lands, public buildings and all kinds of other property that used to be held in the common interest is now not being held in the common interest any more.  And when the USA becomes “Former,” this process will be speeded up even faster.  Say goodbye to Yellowstone, the Statue of Liberty and your local city hall.

Third, after the former Soviet Union fell, people’s teeth began to rot for lack of dental care there.  Suddenly there were no affordable doctors and dentists in Russia, a trend that has also gotten a big head-start here in the soon-to-be Former USA already.  If you don’t take care of your citizens, this is what you get.  Sick people and rotten teeth.

Fourth?  Unemployment in Russia.  Of course we already have a head-start on that one as well.  But it will be getting worse.  Much worse.

Fifth, the USSR’s status as a world super-power suddenly collapsed as its wounded warriors painfully wound their way back home from places like Afghanistan.  The same will happen in the former USA too.

Sixth:  Before its collapse, the USSR used to be a “communist” state — in the sense that only a few people at the very top made all the decisions.  And now, thanks to Citizens United, the USA has already gotten that way too.  We are no longer a democracy either.  So in that respect too we have already started to become like the Soviets right before their big fall.  And it will get even worse here after the fall of the USA as well.  Our current “deep state” shadow governments will be coming out of the shadows and cesspools for sure.  Can you say “President-for-Life Cheney,” boys and girls?

But actually, back during the 1950s, it was America that had been the true communist state — after WW II had reshuffled the cards, dealt new hands to working folks, given our middle class a leg up and redistributed our wealth more equally by taking it from the uber-rich and giving it to the middle class.  But Reagan’s tricky re-stacking of the deck in favor of Wall Street, and Bush’s ace-up-his-sleeve gifts to War Street and sleight-of-hand tax redistribution act of 2003 soon changed all that — and our wealth was then redistributed upwards to the uber-rich once again, ending “communism” in America forever.  No, they don’t call it “capitalism” without reason.  The uber-rich now own all the “capital”.  We don’t.

In order to return to America’s former “communistic” economic glory of the 1950s, three things need to happen.  We need to go back to giving America’s middle and working classes their former leg-up tax breaks — instead of only giving a huge tax leg-up to our 1% “Soviet Commissars” only.  And we need to stop stacking the deck in favor of Wall Street’s insane profit margins.  And we need to shut down War Street completely.  Otherwise, after the USA falls too, we also are gonna have oligarchs coming out our ears — even more than they are now.

Seventh, the USSR ruble collapsed back then — just like the dollar is now collapsing already.  It’s gonna be rather tough around here when the US dollar also becomes worth diddly-squat.

Eighth, consider that wise Biblical saying, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”.  And then become very afraid.  From Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Africa and Latin America to the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, etc., the first thing that the USA and/or its surrogates do when they attack a country is to bomb its civilian population, take out the water supply, power plants and hospitals, and/or install a ruthless dictator.  Let us just hope that the former USA will not fall into a position to be vulnerable to retaliation, that our former victims will show mercy and that “Do unto others…” will not apply to us like it did to the USSR.

And, ninth, the huge Soviet Union began to break up into smaller states and groups as it fell.  That will definitely happen here too.  Can’t exactly say that I will miss any of the Red States when they leave — but they will sorely miss not being part of the new American Blue States, their current life-line to prosperity.  I can tell you that right now.

All the signs of the eminent collapse of the USA are already here right now, just like they were for the USSR back before 1991.  Go ahead and laugh if you will, but hard times really are coming here too.  The Former USA is practically upon us.  We have already over-extended ourselves too deeply to rationally expect any other result.  Sigh.

Let us just hope that America somehow manages to find another chess master like Putin to lead us After the Fall, and doesn’t get stuck with another drunk like Yeltsin!

Legally Illegal

Cancerous Humanistic Law…

The confusion that comes from attempting to manage a nation (or the world) without the immutable justice that is provided by God’s Law is plainly apparent in the United States of America!

Dishonesty, fraud, and immoral self-concern are rampant throughout our society.  Politicians are elected by making promises they know they cannot keep and a conniving and unreliable press and media purposely misinform the public.

Private property is no longer safe from unscrupulous policemen and avaricious politicians. During a ten year span in the late Twentieth Century federal, state, and local governments seized the property of over 200,000 Americans.  A stub from a marijuana cigarette left or planted in an automobile can warrant seizure of the vehicle. Land occupied and owned by private citizens can be expropriated without recourse.  Children can be taken from their parents when nude pictures of a new baby are deemed pornographic.

Private homes, cars, boats, and cash are all vulnerable to the zealous hand of the state.  One legislator maintained that 80 percent of the victims of property seizure under the drug laws have never committed any crime.

The litany of government murder and mayhem is depressing to review and the complete lack of proper oversight is astounding.  Government officials and local police can invade property; destroy possessions; beat up, falsely charge, and arrest the obviously innocent; illegally invade privacy; lie; cheat; falsify evidence, and physically injure and murder American citizens without reprimand or accountability.

Serious problems begin with police demands that innocent citizens comply with their orders when no crime has been committed.  The doctrine that suspicion allows forceful action has given authorities absolute power over those they are hired to serve.  Absolute power vested in human beings is always misused.

In 1644 Samuel Rutherford published a book entitled “Rex Lex, The Law is King”.   This sentiment was echoed by the Founders of the United States.  When the law is king there is freedom, when the king is law there is tyranny.  If the government of a nation is bound by law the people can enjoy freedom; when the citizens of a nation are bound by law and the government’s decisions are arbitrary, the citizens are tyrannized.  This condition is more and more prevalent in the United States where the government ignores the law but imposes thousands of incomprehensible laws on citizens.

One wonders what kind of race relations we would have between Black and White citizens if the government has stayed out of the affairs of it subjects.  Slaves were freed by government decree and integration was accomplished by government force.  Technology would soon have made slavery untenable and freedom would have evolved at a slower and more orderly pace.  Black progress would have come by Black achievement and not by government edict.

Ostensibly to protect us the State has inserted its power into society. Hundreds of professions now require government licenses:  Barbers, dentists, teachers, plumbers, electricians, masseuses, interior decorators, tattoo artists, etc. etc.  Recently I paid a thousand dollars to a dentist who worked about an hour drilling out a molar and capping it.  I wonder what that manual procedure would have cost if the dental profession was free from licensing.

In 1988 the Rehnquist Supreme Court decided that checkpoint searches were legal since they were imposed equally on all drivers.  This decision by the High Court essentially nullified the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and showcased the practice of allowing human opinion to encroach on the letter of the law.  The United States of America, founded as a nation of laws, is now a nation where the king is the law.  When the law is no longer king power replaces law and citizens are subjected to the arbitrary decisions of the power structure.

The following famous case, seldom recounted in detail, is a prime example.

In 1989 a White Supremacist named Randy Weaver was targeted by the BATF.  He was the victim of the sting operation perpetrated by an undercover agent who urged and intentionally sold him two illegal sawed off shotguns.  The BATF then changed the date of his trial so that he did not appear resulting in a warrant for his arrest.  Weaver and his family lived in a remote mountain area where he retreated from what appeared to be a government vendetta.  His retreat was surrounded by BATF agents who began a lengthy surveillance of his home.

According to an article in the Washington Post, “The marshals called in military aerial reconnaissance and had photos studied by the Defense Mapping Agency.”  They installed long range spy cameras, they read all of his mail, and even found the exact dates of his daughter’s menstrual cycle planning an arrest using that information.

In 1992 agents trespassed on Weavers property with machine guns.  When fourteen year old son, Sammy, heard their dogs barking he grabbed his rifle and went with a friend, Kevin Harris, to see what was happening.  The marshals shot and killed one of the dogs infuriating Sammy who fired a shot in their direction.  Randy Weaver yelled at his son to come back. When Sammy turned he was shot in the back and killed.  Kevin Harris then aimed his rifle, shot and killed one of the marshals.

The death of a marshal infuriated the Government and an FBI hostage rescue team was dispatched with orders to shoot to kill any armed person seen outside the home.  Several hundred agents were dispatched to the area.  Weaver had put Sammy’s body in a shed outside the house and when he went to pay his last respects he was shot and wounded.  As he struggled back to the house his wife, Vicki, carrying a ten month old baby in her arms held the door.  A sniper shot her in the face killing her instantly.

In eleven more days Weaver surrendered.  He and Kevin Harris were charged with the murder of a U. S. Marshal.  The government tried to prove that Weaver had conspired to have an armed conflict with the government and that Harris had fired first. As the trial went on the government case fell apart and the FBI was found to have fabricated evidence.

Weaver was found not guilty but was convicted of not appearing for the 1991 trial and violating his release conditions.  He could have gotten a fifteen year sentence but the judge decided he had suffered enough and released him on time served.

In subsequent suits sizeable sums of money were paid to both Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris in out of court settlements.

Gerry  Spence, Weaver’s famous and very capable lawyer said after the trial that someone must answer for these needless deaths.  No one has.  Lon Horiuchi, the shooter went free and the government agencies circled the wagons.  FBI director Louis Freeh promoted one of the lead agents, Larry Potts, to the Bureau’s number-two position.

It is doubtful that justice would have resulted from this trial had it been held in another venue.

The power structure set up to enforce a just administration of the law is stained with a military-like elitism.  Their esprit de corps allows rampant violations of law and justice without interior oversight.

In 1993, at Waco, Texas the government did it again when the FBI and local authorities brought an overwhelming military type siege against a religious cult known as the Branch Dividians burning nearly a hundred men, women and children to death in a fire that they were responsible for setting. Read about this siege here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege

Following the genocide at Waco a high ranking official explained: “These people had thumbed their nose at law enforcement”.  It is this assumption by federal and local police that causes minor incidents to escalate into mayhem and death.  Only tyrants require innocent citizens to obey whimsical police commands.  Police personnel who expect conformance to unnecessary orders create resentment and hamper their usefulness.  When they expect obedience to commands that are not legal they become unable to get obedience to those that are.

As we have forsaken law we have embraced confusion.  While our jails are full and overflowing with more inmates per capita than any other nation, our law enforcement is busy running sting operations to incarcerate more law abiding citizens by turning them into criminals.  Policepersons sit under computer screens finding anyone who downloads child pornography – they don’t arrest the people who produce and put it on the net, only those who view it!

The BATF has undercover agents who attempt to lure unsuspecting citizens into purchasing illegal firearms.  Drug enforcers arrest peaceful users subjecting them to long mandatory prison sentences.  Local police departments dress female officers in provocative outfits and send them out on the street to tempt citizens with cheap sex, arresting them when they succumb.  With our jails overflowing it is time they stopped this madness.

Have you considered that when you vote for a Congressperson or Senate person or even a local state representative you are voting to vest another person with the right to write and pass additional law when we already have more laws than a citizen can know and understand?  Isn’t that insanity?

Yes, gentle reader, we need to stop all this humanistic legal cancer, return to God’s simple mandates and enforce them without prejudice.  Did I hear someone say that God’s Law was for ancient Israel and no longer applies to modern society?  I wonder, my friend, if you believe that the Triune God of the Bible has changed?  Do you not know that He is the same today, yesterday and always and that His immutable standard is applicable throughout the ages?

Freedom is impossible when law is the product of the capricious minds of human beings and can logically be disobeyed by those whose opinion differs.  Freedom requires the absolute standards of the One True God.

Much of the information in this article came from James Bovard’s excellent book “Lost Rights”.  Bovard’s book, published in 1994, is an outstanding rendition of the thousands of injustices perpetrated by an unjust and tyrannical government.  The travesties are so numerous and so blatant that reading about such utter depravity is shocking and depressing; it helps to put the book aside and take it up later with a fresh spirit.

Paranoia Strikes Deep: Why Wisdom & Kindness Trumps Greed, Paranoia & Fear

I used to really really hate housework but don’t hate it so much any more — ever since I developed my fabulous new housecleaning system wherein I just do 15 minutes of housework a day, but do it each day consistently, using a timer so as not to cheat.

You’d be surprised how much you can get done in just 15 minutes, but you gotta do it daily, no matter what — even if some newbee student dentist has just finished scraping all those extra bone fragments out of the socket of your recently-pulled (phantom) tooth and then practiced her rusty stitching techniques on your poor bleeding gums.

And here’s another added bonus to my housecleaning system:  After having spent approximately 5,475 minutes a year for the past six years on trying to keep this damn place clean, I have actually sort of started to bond with my home.

So.  A few days ago I was cleaning stuff out of an old filing cabinet, and came across a whole bunch of articles that I had written way back in the day — back before we had all kinds of self-publishing apps available online; and even back before there was FaceBook or blogs or Kindle or Twitter or even Instagram and YouTube.

And, way back in those old paleo days, writers such as myself had actually been forced to photocopy our articles, write up a cover letter and then send them all off to magazine editors with self-addressed stamped envelopes enclosed.  Totally old school.  Can you even imagine doing that now?

And there at the very bottom of one of those file drawers, I found over two hundred rejection letters from various editors and publishers.  Amazing.

Dontcha just love publishing over the internet instead?  (And thank goodness for net neutrality too — which is currently being threatened.  Shouldn’t we start boycotting Verizon, AT&T and Comcast over this?  C’mon, all you independent bloggers, Tweeters and self-publishers, let’s get off our butts and fight for less intervention and more high-speed!) 

And speaking of the internet, those huge and powerful corporations which now own our government are still using it to spy on all of us — and not just us writers.   Now why would corporations want to do that?  Because they are paranoid.  And greedy.  And afraid.

I used to be paranoid and greedy and afraid too — but am now here to tell you that, in the long run, paranoia and greed and fear are just too damn much hard work.  Wisdom and kindness are better.  And easier too.  Just ask Jesus.  And Gandhi.  And Martin Luther King Jr.

“But Jane,” you might say, “that kind of slacker attitude could get you killed.”  True.  It certainly got King and Gandhi and Jesus killed.  But at least I would die while feeling all proud of myself as I cross over — not huddled up in some miserable isolated Midas-like earthly fortress while watching the rest of the world end before my very eyes and with only my black, ice-cold-hearted evil soul (that nobody else would ever want to spend time with, ev-ah) to keep me company.  Yuck.

Anyway, back at the filing cabinet, I began reading through some of my old articles again — and some of them were really actually quite good.  The one about my struggles to get my aging father into an assisted-care home was particularly poignant — and how my mean sister had dragged me through probate court after he died, just when I was grieving the most.  I later published it on the internet, entitled “Probating the Family Feud” — and a lot of people actually read it there too.  

And I also found something I had written back in 2005 — back when Fallujah was a horrible war-crime-induced hot mess; about all my efforts to embed with the Army there.  And how I finally did embed with the Marines in Heet and Haditha two years later .

But apparently Fallujah is still a war-torn hot mess even today; the only difference being that Iraqis, not Americans, are now doing most of the killing in Al Anbar province.  So does that make all this current senseless slaughter of civilians less of a war crime — because civilians are now being senselessly slaughtered by local hordes instead of by American hordes?   

Ten years later, I still want to go to Fallujah.

Or as one friend in Iraq calls it, “Fallujahpaloooza”.  Laughter through tears.  

And then I discovered, hidden back at the very bottom of my filing cabinet, a rough draft of my first novel.  I loved that novel so much!  But NOBODY would publish it.  Nobody.  That novel had everything — love, death, war, peace, history, philosophy, drama, even intergalactic travel — and even one fast-moving chapter on how wisdom and kindness always trumps greed, paranoia and fear.  “Pictures of a Future World” was the title.  I may get around to publishing it yet — but this time I’ll try Kindle.

PS:  Here’s an excerpt from my old unpublished novel, “Pictures of a Future World”:

All eyes turn to the Shaman, who continues to speak from his deep trance.

The atmosphere in the sandstone kiva comes alive.  The Shaman moves his mind to a new point of consciousness.  Another one of his emanations begins to speak, this time in an intensely penetrating tone.  “There is a tree on the mesa top,” the deep voice slowly intones.  “It has watched the raider warriors kill our people one by one.  It has seen us begin to build our houses here in the dark shadows of the canyon walls instead of up on the sunny mesa tops where they belong…so that we might be safe…from the raider warriors.

“They are killers.

“We are prey.

“So has it always been.  So shall it always be.

“There is no place that we can go on the face of this earth that is safe from them…either now or in the far distant future… when even our mesa-top trees are dead.

“Raiders will always hunt peaceful men.

“They will find us, and they will kill our bodies just as the coyote kills the hare.”

Absolute silence falls like a black shroud inside the kiva.

Everyone waits for the Shaman to speak again.  Even the Shaman himself waits.  Is this all that he is going to say?  By now the ceremonial kiva is as bright as day, the elders rigid with attention.

“Of these things we must never be afraid, ever,” the Shaman continues.  “The raiders may search us out, the barbarians may chase us down and trap us and corner us like rats…from now until the end of time.

“The needy ones, the greedy ones will hunt us in order to make our wisdom and our abundance their own.  They will act out of evil caused by envy, jealousy or need.  Whatever their reasons — that is the way of it.  No place is safe.  We must be prepared to give up our bodies at any time, willingly and without fear or regret.

“Because our bodies are not us.”

The Shaman breathes slowly now, and the clan members sense that he is struggling within himself, trying to clarify what he alone is seeing, forcing himself to go on.  A moment passes.  The mask presses heavily upon him.  Finally he continues:  “We of the pueblo all know this.  We are all made brave because of this knowledge.  This we know:  That always men of peace will die bravely.  That always barbarians will try to kill us and to take our spirits.

“All of us know that the spirit of a man of peace can never belong to a barbarian and can never be harmed.  Ever. It is this knowledge that gives us the courage to continue to live without fear in a world exploding with enemies, enemies gone mad with their own anger and need and violence and lust for our blood.”

The air inside the womb-like kiva begins to take on a life of its own; humid, dense, and pulsing.

Inside the ponderous deer-head mask, the Shaman tries to refocus his energy.  He watches his body and his mind divide into a series of complex grids.  Each one of these grids contains an image of himself.  A part of him wonders which grid is his real self.  A part of him knows that his real self is all of them — or none.

More chanting fills the air.  The Shaman forgets about the raider warriors.  They are a part of life.  They will always be there…like the trees. Like the mesa.

Like Pulling Teeth: Adventures In Gardening And Dentistry

Two rather interesting things have happened to me lately.  First, I had one of my teeth pulled this week — totally not a fun experience.  And, second, while still oozing pain and eating Hydrocodone and climbing the walls, I started reading a book about plants by Michael Pollan, entitled “The Botany of Desire”.  So now I have suddenly become an expert on both pain-killers and gardens.

Having one’s tooth pulled is like, er, pulling teeth.  It really hurts.  So from now on I plan to brush and floss constantly and do whatever it takes to keep my remaining teeth healthy and clean.  Someone recommended gargling with Bombay Sapphire twice a day.  I’d try even that.

Even though the student doctor who pulled my tooth at the UCSF School of Dentistry was an angel of mercy combined with Dr. McDreamy, having one’s tooth extracted is never pretty.  I kept reciting that mantra “Challenges make me stronger” in the dental chair and  — but even that didn’t work.  I’m a wimp.  And not only that but once the tooth was out, they wouldn’t even give it back to me to give to the Tooth Fairy.  Rats.

Then, once finally back home and safely collapsed into bed, I took some of those “opioid” pain-killers they gave me — and dreamed that I was an escaped convict running a funeral parlor in my childhood hometown (Millbrae) and hiding under my daughter Ashley’s bed (probably from NSA).  Forget that.  No more weird Kubla-Khan dreams for me.  I’m sticking with aspirin.

Now I’m wishing there was something I could do to replace my poor sweet little lost tooth, but there doesn’t seem to be anything.  Getting a dental implant is expensive — $3,000 per tooth, even done by a dental student.  Who can afford that?  Not me.  So now I’ve got a big gap in my teeth.  How ugly is that!  However, I won’t be alone for long.  Two-thirds of America will soon be joining me in being gap-toothed as well unless affordable dental insurance becomes available reasonably soon.  But if not, then we’ll all be totally ugly together, not just me.  America goes third-world.  Who would have thought.

I also have a postage-stamp sized garden attached to my apartment, which grows nothing.  According to Michael Pollan, this shouldn’t be happening — unless there has been some really heavy-duty weed killer sprayed there at one time.  Yes, there was.  But not by me.  So, apparently, what I need now is all new dirt.  And at the rate that American agribusiness keeps using millions of tons of herbicides and pesticides each year, all of America will soon be needing all new dirt too.

“Actually, it’s not the heavy use of herbicides and pesticides that is causing the most problems on huge agribusiness farms,” to summarize one of Pollan’s chapters on the potato, “but rather the monoculture nature of their crops.  Organic farmers can vary and rotate what they plant and thus stave off insect and fungal infestations — but if your main customer for potatoes is McDonalds, then you have to plant Burbank russets and only Burbank russets all of the time.  So it is Americans themselves that are causing the major use of [stuff] like Roundup and Roundup-Ready GMOs.”

So if I promise to plant a huge variety of everything in my garden, from fingerling potatoes to roses to dandelions, then will at least SOMETHING finally grow?

And will I also be able to grow a new tooth?

Aside from Michael Pollan, why else have my thoughts been turning to gardening lately?  In the middle of freaking January?  Because this winter has been the sunniest one in Berkeley that I have ever seen.  It’s like freaking summer here now, like July, every day — even going beyond April or May.   even declared Berkeley a drought area the other day.  Time to bust out the seeds.

Michael Pollan also wrote about cannabis in his book on plants.  “Marijuana doesn’t make you forgetful of everything.  It just makes you forget [stuff] that’s not important.”  Interesting.  I always forget names.  So I guess names aren’t all that important or necessary for me to remember.  Whew.  I’m off the hook then.  Am not getting senile dementia after all, just sorting out my priorities.

And maybe that’s why Alzheimer sufferers forget so much mental stuff too — they might be shutting down everything that won’t immediately help them to cope with this devastating disease (yes, I know that Alzheimers also rots its victims’ brains — but isn’t that just one more good reason for them to shut said brains down?)

With regard to raising the minimum wage here in soon-to-be-toothless America, wouldn’t it make more sense to just cut the rate of inflation instead?  Starting by eliminating the Federal Reserve and its tendencies to print meaningless Monopoly money and to finance Endless War?  And, while we’re at it, let’s stop giving out billions in “food stamps” to corporate welfare queens like Bank of America, BP, WalMart, Halliburton and Monsanto.  Works for me.  And can we also please bring our millions of jobs back from overseas too?

Back in 1963, I made $1.75 an hour while working in the post office on weekends and during summers.  With this money plus some help from my parents (yes, they could also afford to help me back then), I was able to graduate from San Jose State College without requiring any student loans.  And in 1966, when I got a big salary-bump to $3.50 an hour for working the stamp window instead of sorting mail, I was able put myself through graduate school at UC Berkeley, just by working during summer vacations.  Can you even imagine staying alive and not homeless in Berkeley today on that kind of salary — let alone paying for your tuition at Cal as well.

What has happened to all of America’s jobs and wealth since the 1960s, back when we were the richest country in the world?  That’s a no-brainer.  It’s all flown away into the pockets of Wall Street mega-bankers, the numbered Cayman accounts of war profiteers and the fat wallets of all those corporate welfare queens who currently own and run our government.

While it’s always a good idea to raise America’s minimum wage a few dollars, it’s also important to stop runaway inflation — and to also start lowering a certain type of maximum wage as well:  The maximum amount that rich guys can steal from us before they get sent to jail.And we need to put some teeth into these new regulations too.