For most of my adult life, I’ve not been a Capitalism fan. For years I suffered the knee jerk retorts of friends that it’s the best system and makes sense and the free market is wonderful and barf and puke and so on. I get it…Americans love capitalism. Then someone asks the invariable mic drop question; what’s the better system? I sure as hell don’t know but as long as capitalism exists I get to bitch about it.

It’s Capitalism lore that if you work hard, you get more. More money, more stuff. Your kids get more, more money more stuff. Seems like a meritocracy and who could have issues with that? Most Americans believe that we are all scrappy mutts, starting from nothing and through determination and grit become something better. Turns out that the line from working class dog to easy street is a little hazy.  I’m pretty proud of my decent credit and totally average house but I’m not taking a deduction for my private jet, yet.

It would be great if capitalism, and the legislation that supports it, would make sure that we can all benefit from the rewards of hard work. Even better if our legislation was written to support people and not capitalism.

Because I hate myself, I have been reading a little about the GOP tax plan that was recently passed in the senate in the dead of night. Perfectly fine legislation presented 25 minutes before the vote in the middle of the night…what looked suspicious about that? Even if all of our Senators had read that bill, and attempted to explain the implications none of us dipshits would have understood anyway.

If there is one THM from this bill, and this congress, its that as a electorate we need to start doing more homework into how our economy functions. When I was about 20, my mom gave me a little book of investing that came from the Wall Street Journal  which was very easy to read and I forget almost everything in it except that a load is a fee and if you have enough money, you don’t need to pay it. Ta-Da! See, you have to make your money work for you!

The almighty American Corporation, much like the actual almighty, is more or less a myth that is hung over our heads as the savior. The vast majority of companies in this country are pass-though companies and are taxed just like regular ole people.  Huh? I mean I know that we talk about treating companies like individuals but it looks like we really treat companies like individuals. Shouldn’t you pay tax at a higher rate if you are a company? Or at least give me a gift basket for letting you use my roads and sidewalks to make money…I mean c’mon!

No one has to tell me that life isn’t fair but cynicism isn’t helping anymore. These pass-through companies are not even the American Capitalism I hated. It’s worse than I could have ever thought.