Gilded Age vs. NOW: Instead of Carnegie founding libraries-we have Trump yelling at people on TV

[kpete]

The New Gilded Age: A bigger con job than the first one
Inequality has reached 19th-century levels – but that era had a dynamism and optimism that ours can only fake

There are unquestionably things to prefer about our own era: Women, people of color and LGBT folk participate more or less fully in our cultural and political life, and the discourse of rights has evolved in directions few 19th-century Americans could have imagined. (Pot is almost legal now — but opium and cocaine were legal then!) But in economic terms, the first Gilded Age was a period of production and expansion (perhaps unsustainably so), whereas the New Gilded Age is its negative image, a period of contraction and consumption. Instead of Andrew Carnegie founding libraries, we have Donald Trump yelling at people on television like a low-rent parody of the Calvinist God. Instead of rising wages for almost everyone and universal free education, we offer ever cheaper goods made in countries we used to bomb, a mortgage you can’t afford on a house you don’t want in the middle of a former soybean field, and the prospect that one day you’ll get to sit on an airplane in a temporary bubble of pretend wealth – on your boss’s dime! — drinking Champagne and listening to tinny string-quartet music while the rest of us curse at our kids and cram our oddly shaped packages under the seat.

more:
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/26/the_new_gilded_age_a_bigger_con_job_than_the_first_one/

[rhett o rick]

1. Thanks for posting and I was ok with the post right up to this point,

"and cram our oddly shaped packages under the seat." I think I'd better just let that go.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. I wouldn't mind billionaires having so much influence if today's billionaires weren't so worthless.

The only "charities" they give to are political foundations which lobby to help them pay fewer taxes and protect them from the law.

[n2doc]

3. Worse than that, many are actively trying to make things worse

The Koch's, especially, seem to be on a mission to turn the US into a third world country

[Enthusiast]

7. They are well on their way to achieving their aim.

Surely they must be aware that this cannot end well for us or them. Maybe not.

[Drunken Irishman]

5. Yup. While the Gilded Age was extreme in its inequality, the rich actually did invest in cities...

They don't anymore. They horde their cash.

[Dragonfli]

4. Small point to quibble over

but pot was also legal then, the article implied that legality in a few areas is an improvement, when actually it is illegal in most places now and was not illegal here until someone wanted to fund a new agency in our relatively recent past.

[Enthusiast]

8. Excellent point.

Also keeping pot on the black market keeps the price artificially high. Someone higher up the food chain profits from that. Maybe the CIA as has been rumored.

[Brigid]

6. OK, if I buy the idea the 1% really are the "job creators" . . .

Then I could swear they open up just enough jobs to keep the rest of us from revolting. Notice how the jobs, crappy as they may be, are opening up a bit recently, after the grumbling of the rest of us is beginning to get louder? And if the wealthy don't like my conspiracy theory, too bad. If they get to take credit for "job creation," then they also get to take the blame if the jobs are not there or are of poor quality. They can't have it both ways.

[Kath1]

9. Well said.

Someone has to do their crap work and that someone is us. And a lot of US are getting damn sick of it. "Job creation" is not a great thing if those jobs "created" are stressful, low paying, dead-ends.