Something that I finally learned in 2022 is that we absolutely know how to end poverty in the United States of America, and we could easily do so in a surprisingly short period of time, for less money than we are currently spending now to ameliorate the effects of poverty. We explicitly do not end poverty because capitalism depends on the existence of a large immiserated group of workers
The thing that finally made it clear to me was this, from the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, talking about why they were continuing to hike interest rates despite inflation slowing down: because too many families have SAVINGS. The things that you were always told you were supposed to have, that in fact if you didn't have you were FAILING as an ADULT. The problem was always with you.
Except that it turns out that normal every day people actually having savings is such an existential threat to the economy that the fed will raise interest rates up to the point of actually triggering a recession just to make sure you're living hand to mouth your entire life

@mark
Can we install a limiter on the economy knob-turning machine, that prevents the knob fiddlers from fucking with families making less than, say, $100,000?

If we need to move piles of money from point A to point B to keep the economy going, surely we can find some point A fat stacks that aren't under Joe School Teacher's bed.