I just watched "Inequality for All" with Robert Reich.

Last edited Tue May 26, 2015, 05:34 AM - Edit history (2)

It's a very good documentary, and you can see some of the economic ideas Bernie has reflected in the film. I know that many of you are Robert Reich fans and have been for a long time, and I've seen his videos posted in the multimedia group. I highly recommend the film to anyone, and especially to those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Reich. You can find it on Netflix.

The film explained to me why I am working my ass off and still not getting ahead in life. I suppose I am considered middle class here in Indiana. My wife and I made about $65,000 combined last year. I am a truck driver, and I have been doing that for over 18 years. Not long after I got married in November of 2011, I began to look into making a career change. As a local trucker, my income just wasn't cutting it and I didn't see any way to make significantly more money aside from taking a long haul job. I love my wife and I love my life with her. So if you give me that option, money or time with my wife, I'm going to choose my wife every time.

But that is beside the matter, really. The point is that with me working 55 hours a week on my local job and my wife working in retail, we should be able to make it on that and have a nice life. We have a two bedroom house and two older cars. We don't have any expensive habits. We do not live extravagantly. For the amount of work that we do and the way we live, it seems like we should actually be well ahead of the game financially.

In May of 2012, I returned to college part time to finish my degree thinking that my income potential would have greater upside if I had a college education. I stayed on at my truck driving gig. I graduated in December of 2014, but guess what? I'm still driving a truck for a living. I can't advance at my current employer to a better paying office type of job, and I would actually have to take a pay cut to work elsewhere in my field of study. At least, that's all I've been able to find so far. The irony in this is that I was a business major. I graduated with a 3.952 GPA from a Big 10 school. I know how these motherfuckers work from the inside. Apparently, my soul isn't worth but about 35k a year to them.

So even though I am doing everything right (higher education, working hard, playing by the rules, living modestly) I'm still not getting anywhere. Right now we are just staying afloat. We are not in trouble financially currently, but at the time I am not able to put anything back for retirement and neither is my wife. My fear is that I will never be able to retire. My body is starting to be negatively impacted from my job as it is and I'm only 42. I can't imagine trying to do it when I'm in my 70s...if I make it that far.

Payments on my school loans will be coming due soon. I've already restructured the payments so that I have the smallest payment available to me for the first few years. However, in the next couple of years I'm going to have to find a way to bring in more money. Right now, I don't know how I'm going to do it.

Robert Reich and Bernie Sanders say that all of that isn't my fault, unlike many very cruel conservatives. My problem is the result of stagnant wages and eroding buying power due to massive income inequality in our society. Reich has shown that the farther apart wealthy and middle class incomes are, the more our society as a whole suffers financially. There is currently a quote in this group by Sanders saying that the average CEO in the country makes almost 300 times the average worker. The current economic structure in our society mainly benefits a very small minority. The more pressure you put on the middle class, the worse the economy gets for the overwhelming majority of people in this country and more people end up falling out of the middle class. Our quality of life as a country deteriorates.

This is one of the main reasons why I'm supporting Bernie. The other is in my sig line.