Look to Maine for Some Good News!
Even in a barrelful of rotten apples, you might think there'd still be a few good ones.
But don't get your hopes up looking into barrels labeled "private equity investors." These esoteric, multibillion-dollar Wall Street schemes rig the marketplace so "high-net-worth individuals" can grab fat profits and special tax breaks to buy up doctors' offices, hometown newspapers, child care centers, etc.
Consider America's humble but beneficial mobile home parks. Homeownership has become so pricey that these affordable manufactured units now make up 10% of all single-family home sales. But while the buyers own the houses, they must rent lots from mobile park owners. This has generally been a square deal, when park owners live among the renters, providing decent services at reasonable rates. One such is Linnhaven Mobile Home Center, with some 300 mobile home residents in Brunswick, Maine.
But what is home to millions of people has become a quick-buck target for Wall Street's equity profiteers. Waving cash at longtime trailer park owners, they've been snatching up thousands of these lots. Without warning, people's home places are literally being bought out from under them. The absentee predators then raise rents to drive out residents, clearing the spaces for high-dollar renters or buyers.
But wait, good news for a change! A new law in Maine gives mobile home residents a chance to buy their park, and community cooperatives exist to help arrange financing. That's what the modest-income people of Linnhaven have now done. Such a big leap is not easy, but give people a fair chance and they can make it work. As one Linnhaven woman put it, the community effort was much more than a property deal: "[It felt like] a chance to control your own destiny."
THE MODERATE, MILQUETOAST DEMOCRATIC PARTY LOSES ANOTHER BIG ONE
The morning after the election, a social media pundit expressed amazement that Democrat Kamala Harris had lost, noting that America is enjoying "an objectively strong economy."
Indeed, the data shows impressive job growth, rising wages, slowing inflation, etc. -- all indicators of a solid economy. Nearly every pundit hailed this as meaning Harris' campaign could glide on rising prosperity, while focusing her main message on what a dangerous bumbling buffoon Trump is.
The problem is that "objective economic data" often deceives. For example, consider economist John Kenneth Galbraith's sad tale of the 6-foot-tall statistician who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of 2 feet.
Millions of Americans are drowning in today's economy -- even workaday people with college degrees are struggling to make ends meet and feeling pessimistic about their future. Happy talk by economists, pundits and politicians doesn't pay the rising bills for rent, child care, groceries, insurance, medicines, etc. Everything is moving out of reach ... except a protest vote. About half of Trump voters say high prices were "the largest factor" in their vote.
Democratic Party officials were dazzled by the soaring Dow Jones Industrial Average, ignoring the Doug Jones Average, which showed that Doug and Donna are struggling, anxious, angry ... and even open to a bull goose demagogue blustering that he'll "fix" the rigged system on Day One.
Few of these hard-hit men and women actually believe in, agree with, trust or like Trump -- nor are they stuck on supporting him. But they will be, unless and until some progressive party decides to side with grassroots people in an unabashed fight for economic fairness and social justice. To help push in that direction, go to WorkingFamilies.org.
To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
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