 I want to share two articles with you because these two articles published just six days apart. They tell you everything that is wrong with our late stage capitalist society, everything that's wrong. We're a morally bankrupt country. If we allow things like this to continue happening. So as CNBC reported on May 21st, American billionaires got $434 billion richer during the pandemic. US billionaires saw their fortune soar by $434 billion during the nation's lockdown between mid-March and mid-May according to a new report. Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg had the biggest gains. Bezos added $34.6 billion to his wealth and Zuckerberg picked up $25 billion. So I just want to pause for a moment and think about how ridiculous this is at a time when people are struggling to feed themselves, at a time when people are struggling to pay their rents. Individuals at the tippy top of our country's economic hierarchy are doing better than ever. I mean a system that allows something like this to persist, it is fundamentally broken. It's rotten to the core. It may be irredeemable. How do you save a system that does this? How do you fix that? You might just need to scrap it entirely. This is the latest stage of capitalism. Every single person who reads this should be outraged by it. We are morally bankrupt. Now you just heard how the richest people made lots of money during this pandemic when Americans are struggling in the midst of another depression. But the additional $2 an hour that Amazon was paying their workers is being cut off. Let me repeat that for you. At a time when this guy just got $36 billion richer within the span of two months when everyone else is struggling, he's already cutting off hazard pay to workers that got him that wealth. So as Jake Johnson of Salon reports, online retail giant Amazon has repeatedly referred to its workers as heroes as they carry out their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. But the company announced this week that it is planning to end both $2 an hour pay increases and double overtime for warehouse workers at the end of May, even as CEO Jeff Bezos sees his wealth continue to soar. Whole Foods, the Amazon-owned supermarket chain, also informed employees Tuesday that their $2 hourly raises will end on June 1st. When Amazon announced the first wage hike on March 16th, it was set to run through the end of April, recode reported Wednesday. Amazon later extended the policy through May 16th. Now the increases will end on May 31st. Asked by recode why the hazard pay won't continue beyond the end of this month, an Amazon spokesperson dodged the question. This appreciation and pay incentive enabled us to deliver essential items to communities during these unprecedented times, the spokesperson said. We are grateful to associate supporting customers during a time of increased demand and are returning to our regular pay and overtime wages at the end of the month. Amazon employee called the company's decision to end hazard pay disgraceful in an interview with Business Insider. Staff put themselves at risk every day, the employee said, also with the harsh regime and difficult targets, the workers more than deserve the pay raise permanently. It just shows how very little regard Amazon has for its overworked employees. Another Amazon worker told Business Insider that the decision is a slap in the face. As Amazon moves to end small hazard pay increases for its workers, an analysis released Thursday by the Institute for Policy Studies found that Bezos, the richest man in the world, saw his wealth increase by 30 billion between March 18th and May 14th. So I mean, I don't really have to supplement this story with much commentary. It speaks for itself. If you don't see the glaring issues inherent with this story, then you're already too far gone. Let me remind you, COVID-19 is still here. It's still a pandemic. That is ravaging communities, killing Americans every single day. So the least, the absolute bare minimum we should expect is for the workers of Amazon to have this $2 increase until the end of it. As they said, it should be permanent because they're not making enough for all of the work and value that they're creating. But the pandemic isn't even over and he's already ending hazard pay. That's how greedy this person is. I mean, I don't know what else to say. This is disgusting. This is disgusting. This is why billionaires should not exist. Because first of all, you can't get that wealthy without your workers. And as we've seen time and again, workers never benefit from the value that they produce. They contribute to the wealth of these oligarchs and they get nothing in return. They are treated like robots and, you know, they can't challenge their bosses because their employers basically hold them hostage. You speak up too much. You may get fired if you try to unionize. You could get fired and lose your livelihood, be evicted, right? And people need their jobs now more than ever. So at a time when employees are especially disadvantaged and they really don't want to go up against their employers, they're kind of leaving them with absolutely no way to challenge this because they need their jobs. Unemployment is climbing. Millions upon millions of Americans have filed for unemployment. And a lot of these jobs aren't coming back. So at a time when employment is more important than ever, they're doing this for no good reason. Do you think that Jeff Bezos can't afford this? He just made more than 30 billion. That's how much his wealth grew during a pandemic. When everyone else is hurting, small businesses are hurting. I mean, this pandemic is exposing every single flaw in our ruthlessly capitalistic system. And Jeff Bezos has so much money that in a capitalist system, he may be one of the most powerful people because think about the way that Amazon was able to flip Seattle City Council. Amazon was protesting the head tax that they were introducing to curb homelessness. And Amazon after the city council adopted this in Seattle. What did they do? They got them to reverse it. That's how powerful this company is becoming. So in a capitalist system, if you actually want a real free market and competition, you can't allow these types of companies to get this big. So, I mean, seeing this story, it should turn everyone into a socialist. It should make everyone feel the need to, you know, be against the billionaire class as a thing. It shouldn't be a thing. Billionaires should not exist because things like this happen. They don't need that wealth. It's not like them having more wealth, you know, improves the lives of their workers. It doesn't. And we're seeing that firsthand. They don't value their workers like a $2 raise per hour should be something that all Amazon employees get given how much value they're producing, how much they're contributing to the wealth of people like Jeff Bezos, right? But they're not even willing to give them that extra $2 throughout the full duration of a pandemic, like despicable. It's just despicable. And I have nothing else to say because again, the story speaks for itself.