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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Trillion Dollare Money Pump for the 1%
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.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)that is merely window dressing, a dog and pony show, bread and circuses, political theater.
our problem is the oligarchy that pays both parties and keeps them in willing submission.
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)datasuspect
(26,591 posts)and would like to see it put into practice.
LuvNewcastle
(16,856 posts)I would even take that further. I believe in the idea of America, and I want us to live up to what we are supposed to stand for.
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)It does not help to lie about the Dems. Sure there are some bad Dems, but as a party we are for protecting the middle class, and when we are in power, we do. As the chart shows. CA is also a good example. We need to get out the vote and switch out the Tea Baggers in the House. Your maligning of the Dems impedes that.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)In addition to voting out the Tea Baggers, we need to vote out the "go-along-to-get-along-with-Tea-Bagger" Democrats, both in the House AND the Senate.
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)But no, unless it is a Presidential election year, Dems sit it out. Not so with the baggers. They have their candidates back and come out rain or shine. Vulnerable Dem candidates know this. They don't want to go the way of those two CO Dem state legislators that just got recalled by the baggers. So they try for the vote of folks in the middle and avoid pissing off the baggers. If they knew they had a reliable and sizable vote on the left, they would aggressively push for a progressive agenda.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)As effed up as our election process is though, I don't really know if we can blame ourselves. The last midterm, the left was reeling from the slap in the face. Hey, I didn't like the slap in the face, but I voted and everyone I know voted, and we all voted the Democratic ticket. Shame on Democrats who sit out the midterms. The midterm is nothing but an extension of the General Election, as it is the process by which we give the President the help he needs to uphold real Democratic values. Democracy is a VERB. Get up and get to the polls & vote every single time the polls are open, local/state/Congress/General. Every one of them have a direct affect on our lives and the life of everyone in this country.
2014! 2014! 2014! 2014! 2014! 2014! 2014! 2014! Get the lead out, Democrats! No excuses. GOTV!
daleanime
(17,796 posts)"willing".
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)absolutely correct.
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)daleanime
(17,796 posts)that doesn't mean that they don't share some similar goals. Why do you think it comes up all the time?
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)You see it so often in the MSM that it even gets picked up by some on the left. Some know that kind of bullshit will get hidden here, so they try to say it different ways.
Dems and the GOP do not share "similar goals." The GOP wants to do away with taxes on corporations and kill government (shrink it so they can "drown it in a bathtub" . Dems want a government that provides a safety net and represents the will of the majority (a democracy). These goals are not even close, let alone similar. If you think otherwise, you are on the wrong site.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)'grand deals' while calling themselves democratic? It wouldn't matter what site I was at, if I kept my eyes closed.
Yes, vote for the best choice you can get, but don't think that's the end all.
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)...but it is a whole 'nother thing to claim the two sides negotiating the deal have "similar goals." You are just way off base on that and are simply parroting an MSM false equivalence talking point.
And, as I suspect you know, Reid said there will be no deficit-reduction "grand bargain," instead making clear that his priority in upcoming negotiations will be to get rid of sequestration.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014630801
Voting IS the end all. As I said up the thread, if we voted with the regularity of the baggers and had our candidates' back like the baggers do their candidates, our Dem office holders would get a spine and we'd get the progressive legislation we wanted. But no, unless it is a Presidential election year, Dems sit it out. Not so with the baggers. They have their candidates back and come out rain or shine. Vulnerable Dem candidates know this. They don't want to go the way of those two CO Dem state legislators that just got recalled by the baggers. So they try for the vote of folks in the middle and avoid pissing off the baggers. If they knew they had a reliable and sizable vote on the left, they would aggressively push for a progressive agenda.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)and even the lube party is getting stingy with the lube.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)Blanks
(4,835 posts)When the top rate goes up, wages go up. When they drop, so do wages.
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)Higher tax rates encourage reinvestment in the business so the money is not taxed. Pretty simple, really. Thom Hartmann makes that point all the time.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)seveneyes
(4,631 posts)I'm sure there is a good excuse for it.
groundloop
(11,522 posts)AND the GOPers in Congress are doing a bang up job at obstructing and holding back economic recovery.
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)Then Dems stays home in 2010. With that little help, I am amazed Obama was able to bend the line back up at all, but he did.
I did vote in the 2010 midterm, voted for Democrats, as well as everyone I know who is physically near me, family and friends. Also, I too am amazed that PO has been able to accomplish as much as he has with a recalcitrant unbending opposition in the House. and filibustered Senate.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Orsino
(37,428 posts)We seem to be our own worst enemies, in part because we allow ourselves to be dominated by a handful of people.
BethMomDem
(70 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)And it will stay that way until we tax the shit out of them again.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
Thanks xchrom. I look forward to seeing this documentary.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)MindMover
(5,016 posts)"My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. Its time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."
Theres class warfare, all right, Mr. Buffett said, but its my class, the rich class, thats making war, and were winning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)The article points to a lot of things but not very many policies.
I usually point to Reaganomics. The top tax rate got cut from 70% to just 28%.
That takes away a big dis-incentive to steal.
Stealing may be a bad word becuase the "theft" is typically "perfectly legal." It's more a matter of power than it is of law. Those at the top have the power to reward themselves with extra money.
When the top tax rate is 70%, they have LESS incentive to do so. Why use your power to get another $5 million if the government is just gonna take $3.5 milliion of it away from you? (and the state government will also take away another $300,000 (at least)).
But now that I think of it more, I think I know what happened in the mid 1970s - healthcare privatization.
Back in the pre-Nixon days most hospitals were non-profits. That changed in the mid-1970s, didn't it? Put another line on that graph and look at what health-care costs did in those years.
Because in many jobs, people are not JUST paid wages. They are paid wages PLUS benefits. As the benefits become more and more expensive (because of health insurance costs) that puts a squeeze on wages.
But another thing that happened in the mid 1970s was inflation. Remember Ford with his "WIN" button - for Whip Inflation Now. In 1970 the minimum wage was $1.6 which was $9.12 in 2011 dollars. It did not get raised again until 1974, by 1973 it had fallen to $7.97 an hour. It got raised to $2 in 1974, then $2.10 in 1975 and $2.30 in 1976, $2.65 in 1978, $2.90 in 1979, $3.10 in 1980 and $3.35 in 1981 (at which point Reagan and Senate Republicans pretty much nailed it to the ground).
But even by 1981, with a 100% increase from 1970, the 2011 value of the minimum wage in 1981 had FALLEN to just $8.15 an hour from the $9.12 an hour it was in 1970.
By the time it got to 1990, before George HW Bush could be prevailed upon to allow it to be raised again, the minimum wage had fallen to just $5.98 in 2011 dollars in 1989. A lot of other wages are tied to the minimum wage.
Even after it was raised to $7.25 in 2009, it has not kept up with inflation. It should be $7.90 today if it had almost 109% of what it is now.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)and Counterculture were questioning the whole "everyone will be happy with perpetually increasing production and chemical suburbs" thing
Reaganomics was invented to take advantage of the first aspect, by proclaiming that any intervention or high wage share for workers "had failed conclusively" and was thus slashed
the second aspect had a complex response: one wing was a revindication of expertise: the whitecoats know what they're doing, and if you don't believe that you're a tarot-snappin' creationist; the second wing was the Hayekites/Sowellites saying "only intervention can cause monopoly and all this other bad stuff": RW-libertarians are a blatant astroturf designed to hit all the right Countercultural buzzwords in service to the Kochs and Mellons while pretending to be all heretical
there's also ethnic tensions thrown in the mix
MindMover
(5,016 posts)We the working class, blue collar, union men/women were screwed and have been ever since ....
indepat
(20,899 posts)the income and wealth of the uber-wealthy and the income of large, profitable corporations to equitable taxation: the higher the income generally, the lower its taxation. This is a virulently right-wing ideology and Democrats have almost fully gotten on board. The meme that America is the best place in the world to live is wholly false imo, as America, having fallen to or near the bottom in all quality-of-life ranking factors among industrialized nations of the world, testifies: it is perhaps the best place in the world for the oligarchs to operate and for the uber-wealthy, who can live in gated/walled-in fortresses if they choose, to live. Of course most Republicans have pledged their allegiance to Grover Norquist not the raise taxes and are demanding social security and Medicare benefits be cut to reduce the national debt, almost all of it at their making, to a level they insist: Speaker Boehner has already gotten 98% of what he had wanted, so look for him to now go for the jugular.
BKH70041
(961 posts)I remember some sportscaster tried to explain the infield fly rule. The country hasn't been the same since.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)to name a couple. Absolute obliteration of unions is another.