ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

When it’s hot like this, it’s hard to focus or think.

The planet is overheating and so are we. While the ultra-wealthy find refuge on islands and boats far away from here or rocket into outer space for fun, the rest of us are told to recycle more, turn to slow fashion and hustle harder.

While I’m picking up groceries or grabbing the kids from camp, I’ve noticed more and more people living outside, in the heat. They’re pushing their shopping carts with all their belongings and camping out behind the Wendy’s or the local shopping plaza. They’re by the traffic lights asking for change. The suburbs are no less protected from rising prices, addiction problems, mental health challenges and all the things we see in downtown ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½.

Different locale, same situation.

We’re told that these problems are of our own making. That if we just worked a little harder, budgeted a little better, or didn’t order that coffee from Starbucks, we’d be fine. But as I’ve written before, individual effort can’t fix a system designed to extract and exploit.

This is capitalism.

It teaches that if you’re poor, you didn’t work hard enough. If you can’t afford rent or groceries, that’s on you. It’s not a policy failure or that the system is broken or unfair, you are to blame. Meanwhile, we are seeing more people lining up to supplement their groceries with food from food banks. Housing is less of a human right and more about investment properties.

Capitalism says that you must pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And, for some of us, that’s a possibility. Capitalism has benefited them and allowed them to be more successful than their parents.  For others there are no bootstraps, they’re grabbing at straws.

I have an issue with people hoarding wealth, especially when others are just struggling to get by. In the 1987 film, “Wall Street,” “The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works.â€�

We reward the greedy and punish needy — even for regular folks.

Just go on TikTok and watch the videos of people restocking their fridges, wasting food or doing , or sharing massive makeup and clothing hauls. We are greedily consuming without a thought of how it is affecting our neighbours and our planet.

I’m not judging because I’m just as guilty as the next person. I have yet to meet a notebook that I didn’t like. They’re stacked beside my computer desk, collecting dust, waiting for their turn.

We all have a vice, I guess.

It’s all connected — the greed of capitalism, our consumerism, and the algorithms that trick us into believing we need more.

The system, capitalism and the free market, works for some people, but not for everyone. This same system that lauds greed and consumerism is killing our planet and averting our attention from hungry people, telling us that their situation is of their own making.

Maybe, it’s time to admit that the capitalism — while it may the best of the bad options — is flawed and collapsing under the weight of its own greed.

If we don’t start truth-telling, we’re all going to get crushed.

So no, this isn’t just a heat wave. It’s a reckoning.