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In reply to the discussion: ROBERT REICH: The American Dream Has Fallen Apart [View all]HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)60. Everybody thought the lower prices on tchotchkes would make a difference.
However, parallel to the lowering or flat-lining of prices on appliances/gadgets, two not-so-silent killers (which the purchased media never seems to bring up) also happened:
1) our inflation-adjusted wages decoupled with all of the productivity gains and technological advances around 1981,
2) the price of necessities (education, health care, repair, transportation, housing, etc) skyrocketed out of the reach of everyone except the very stable upper middle and financially independent classes (i.e. the top 5-10%).
An entire generation is now indebted because of this and no one with any kind of power seems to see that unraveling, this multi-pronged stabbing of progress as a problem. They'd better start caring quickly.
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America - An Empire Built On Illusion - That Empire And Illusion Is Crumbling
cantbeserious
Mar 2014
#5
"Mobs in the street, calling for someone's head? I've never seen anything like that."
bemildred
Mar 2014
#37
+1. Plutocrats, really, it's the money, it drives them nuts when they have too much.
bemildred
Mar 2014
#15
It is our economic system that sucks, but it's our political system that sets the rules.
reformist2
Mar 2014
#17
All these years shilling for NAFTA, "free trade"...Reich is a hypocrite or an idiot. Which is it?
Romulox
Mar 2014
#14
One major theme should be that we don't need more jobs, we need better paying ones.
reformist2
Mar 2014
#19
"It can also be understood as the greatest propaganda victory radical conservatism ever won"
n2doc
Mar 2014
#22
You mean the present day treadmill goal of trying to achieve the unachievable goal?
Javaman
Mar 2014
#23
He should know. He was economic advisor to the Prez during repeal of Glass Steagall,
merrily
Mar 2014
#31
I call Oscar Mayer. This thread refers to things like NAFTA, repeal of Glass Steagall
merrily
Mar 2014
#53
"Why didn’t we share the gains from globalization and technological advances more broadly?"
gulliver
Mar 2014
#45