"It’s because American consumers, whose spending is 70 percent of economic activity, [font size="3"]don’t have the dough to buy enough to boost the economy[/font] – and they can no longer borrow like they could before the crash of 2008.
If you have any doubt, just take a look at the Survey of Consumer Finances, released Monday by the Federal Reserve. Median family income was $49,600 in 2007. By 2010 it was $45,800 – a drop of 7.7%.
All of the gains from economic growth have been going to the richest 1 percent – who, because they’re so rich, spend no more than half what they take in."
If anybody cares to argue against Reich's assertion that the largest part of the gains in income since the onset of the Trickle Down disaster (2008) have gone to the top income groups and that the average person's income has come down and that is why the recovery is moving so slowly... I would love to hear it.
Whether NAFTA played a part or how big of a part in the Trickle Down Disaster is NOT what this thread is about...(anyone can start such a thread if they like)
Nevertheless I will give you some data to ponder.
IF you look at data on real U.S. incomes over the last decade or so (to go back before NAFTA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
If you go to the table identified as: "The following table shows US household income in 2009 constant (CPI-U-RS adjusted) dollars"
the table shows the median income for 1991 was: $46,269
the table shows the median income for 2006 was: $51,278 .... notice that $51,278 is larger than the median income for 1991 ($46,269)
the table shows the median income for 2009 was: $49,777 ..... note that this figure is larger than the median income figure for 1991 but LOWER than the median (household income) for 2006.
NOw, since these are median household income figures this leaves the question of how many households were two income housholds in 1991 vs 2009, or for 2006.
... NAFTA was a dumb-fucking idea. It cost us many higher paid industrial jobs. But it did not play much of a part in the Trickle Down Disaster. If NAFTA had NOT gone into effect we STILL WOULD HAVE HAD THE TRICKLE DOWN DISASTER. And the converse is true - if we did have NAFTA and we did NOT have the 2 wars financed with debt, easy money policy to prop up a weakening economy which helped fuel the Housing bubble, and (very important) we also did not get Deregulation of the banking industry - (making gambling in Credit Default Swaps legal AND UNREGULATED) ... we would not have had the TRICKLE DOWN DEREGULATON DISASTER.
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