The Biden Administration is very optimistic about the economy. After positive economic numbers for March, President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris have been gushing about the bright future that’s ahead and how our troubles will soon be over.
The reality, of course, is far different.
A new Oscar-nominated film called Nomadland directed by Chloé Zhao takes a look at that reality, especially seniors who are living with the consequences of this economy.
When big multinational globalist banks get in trouble they simply turn to some puppet in the latest government for a bailout and erase all their mistakes or make taxpayers bail them out for their mistakes.
When normal people run out of options and have nowhere left to turn they don’t get bailouts: they have to work, even if the choices of where to work are not good and their living options are reduced to living in old RVs.
Traveling Working-Class
In addition to Nomadland, the documentary CamperForce also takes a fascinating and disturbing look at those who lives in their RVs and travel around working in Amazon sorting centers and other low-end jobs that will pay the bills.
Nomadland was originally a book by Jessica Bruder about a woman called Fern who starts living in an RV after her husband dies and finds jobs along the way as she goes including at an Amazon warehouse.
This book was used as the basis of Zhao’s film, and the film takes a look at real life Ferns who go to work for the $1.7 trillion Amazon empire which even has a special CamperForce work program aimed at those who live in their RVs part of the year.
According to Amazon’s official site, there are 24 “CamperForce” locations nationwide which help pay you $120 per week extra to help offset campground costs and also give medical coverage after 90 days.
In other words, Amazon is specifically targeting poor older people to live in their vehicles and come drain themselves stuffing boxes at its glorified slave camps.
An Amazon rep said that these CamperForce jobs give “at least $15 per hour, partial campsite accommodations and hook-ups for their vehicles,” and said those who take part have a very “positive experience.”
for those interested, Jessica Bruder and I collaborated on an actual documentary, based on her reporting in Nomadland, about Amazon's CamperForce, the 2008 financial crisis, and the end of retirement… https://t.co/okv5k1mxK7
— Brett Story (@brettpstory) February 21, 2021
CamperForce
CamperForce the documentary directed by Brett Story and written by Bruder takes a look at various people who go town to town finding work including Barb and Chuck Stout who lost their savings in the 2008 financial meltdown.
“The warehouse is two football fields, or three football fields. So I would end up on a 10-hour shift walking 15 to 17 miles a day,” 73-year-old Chuck explains.
Employees regularly lift 25 pounds without help and 49 pounds with help. Chuck recalled one time a box hit him in the head and the only concern from other bosses was whether he could get back to work immediately.
“I fell down, hit my head on the cement floor. The gentleman that was taking care of me stood me up and he said, ‘Follow my fingers, follow my finger, you’re doing fine — so you can go back to work.'”
Jeff Bezos is worth about $200 billion, but his company likes to pay old folks $15 an hour to live in their RVs and sort boxes all day. In his letter stepping down as CEO, Bezos said “we have always wanted to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company. We won’t change that. It’s what got us here. But I am committing us to an addition. We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work.”
Amazon has around 1.3 million workers around the world. How many of them are right on the brink of poverty and should be enjoying time with their grandkids instead of slaving away in a massive warehouse?
