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Showing Original Post only (View all)The Trillion Dollare Money Pump for the 1% [View all]
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/24I saw the movie Inequality for All, where Robert Reich explains the depth and meaning of inequality in America. He paints a compelling picture.
Reich sets up the movie with a teaser: "Something happened in the mid-'70s."
Indeed "something did happen in the mid-'70s." For one thing, since then workers' wages as a fraction of the total economy have lagged by over a trillion dollars per year. If workers' wages had kept up with gains in productivity since the mid-70's, wages would be double what they are now. Most new income goes to the top 1 Percent.
The movie translates my blue squiggly line in the graphic into human terms, seen in the faces of families, students, workers, co-workers and neighbors. Their struggle, disappointment, and diminished prospects answer another key question in the movie: Does inequality matter?
It matters. A lot.
Our current downward spiral leads us to a Lesser America -- less social cohesion, less political stability, less prosperity, less ability to compete globally.
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It is being put in practice. If everyone VOTED, it would be implemented nationwide.
SunSeeker
Oct 2013
#18
Bullshit. The parties are not the same. The graph went up sharply under Clinton. nt
SunSeeker
Oct 2013
#7
There's folks who like to push the "both parties are same" meme to depress the Dem vote.
SunSeeker
Oct 2013
#40
Excellent observation. Low tax rates cause the rich to pull money out, not reinvest.
SunSeeker
Oct 2013
#20
Yes - It's taking this long to recover from Bush crashing the economy (DUH).
groundloop
Oct 2013
#14
The 1% are the one problem from which our others spring, always have been. n/t
Egalitarian Thug
Oct 2013
#21
the early 70s saw 1) the oil slump turn into stagflation; on top of that 2) the ecologists and women
MisterP
Oct 2013
#34