During the height of COVID, rental assistance, job assistance, food assistance and more were given to those in need. Student loan payments were paused. The US did not collapse due to these policies. In fact, consumer spending went up.

So, given that these things are possible and even economically favorable, one can only conclude that ending them benefits some small but powerful portion of the populace who wants to keep the rest of us under control and in relative, if not full-on, poverty.

@ubiquity75 The end of these programs—and who was so eager to see them end—made it very clear to me how capital sees its place in capitalism:

Capital’s goal isn’t prosperity. Capital sees our prosperity, to the extent we enjoy any, as a byproduct, as waste. And it will come for that waste as soon as it can.