Over the last two weeks I've been documenting the abuses endured by workers and residents within the Atria assisted living chain, while Bruce Wasserstein, CEO of the Lazard investment house (and controller of Atria through an affiliated real estate fund) makes millions in bonuses even as the investment itself tanks. You can read my collected posts here.
What's happening at Atria--the gouging of seniors' meager disposable income to ensure profit margins are met, even while services and benefits are cut and rents are increased dramatically--is an extreme, but all-too-real example of what's happening all over the globe...the systematic transfer of wealth and the power to create wealth from the larger mass of the human community to a select class of uber-wealthy players at the top of the social scale. It's worth looking at the issue in a larger context, if only to reiterate what I think most of us already know...that we're being robbed, cheated, gouged, and nickel-and-dimed to death to make others rich.
Yesterday, a Huffington Post reader commented on my previous article about the campaign against Bruce Wasserstein's gouging of seniors to fatten his own pockets. "Sadly," they said, "nobody cares."
I will admit, it's tough to raise interest in an issue like this. Everything from high gas prices to the crumbling economy to the Iraq war is demanding people's attention--and that's before you have to deal with the filtering effects of the media that reduces complex issues to trivial "gotcha" games. But a small group of committed citizens got out on the streets yesterday to say "Yes, we do care about the health and well-being of our elders, and the workers who take care of them. Do you?"
Over the last week, I've been documenting the struggle between workers and residents of the Atria assisted living facilities chain, and Bruce Wasserstein, CEO of the Lazard investment firm, who has reaped enormous profits from an affiliated fund's holdings in Atria, while the workers endure low pay and terrible conditions, the residents suffer neglect, and the shareholders continually lose value in their investment. If you've been reading thus far, you're probably asking yourself, "Okay, this is a terrible situation. What can I do about it?"
