I read this on the road home for Thanksgiving. It’s a story about a guy who has given up on commercial society and lives only on the stuff we foolishly waste. I’m not saying I am capable of doing this, but I do give this guy credit for the effort he’s made.

Here are some real sensible things that you can either do – or have your elected officials push for – that would really make a hell of a difference in this country.

I mean, the least you can do it try, right? That is, if you care enough to even attempt some change for the better.

We cannot continue transferring the nation’s wealth to those at the apex of the economic pyramid — which is what we have been doing for the past three decades or so — while hoping that someday, maybe, the benefits of that transfer will trickle down in the form of steady employment and improved living standards for the many millions of families struggling to make it from day to day.

That money is never going to trickle down. It’s a fairy tale. We’re crazy to continue believing it.

In short, Bob Herbert notes that we really, really, really need to stop bailing out rich people. They never learn, they never share, and they can never – ever – have enough money.

More truth from Reddit:

“Capital must protect itself in every possible manner by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages must be foreclosed as rapidly as possible.

When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes they will become more docile and more easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers.

This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world. By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance.

Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.”