Originally posted by MitchMan
Economically speaking, a look at the big picture is truly warranted here.
The problem, as I see it is that the working class (at least the bottom 95% in the USA) has seen their income and wealth shrink since the beginning of
the 80's. For the last 20 years, GDP has grown by an average of 1/2 trillion each year, but the wealth of the working class has shrunk. Where did the
wealth go? Answer: to the top only. In the final analysis, the problem is that there is a lopsided inequitable concentration of wealth and income at
the top. Our economy has been skewed and biased in particular over the last 30 years to favor the few at the top while the working class gets poorer
and poorer. This is not healthy for people and it is not healthy for the country's economy and is a factor that is leading to the erosion of our
world wide standing.
Just before the depression in the 30's, the top 1% owned 40% of the nation's wealth, then there was a bubble, then the crash. After the New Deal
fixes and WWII, our country went into a golden period of prosperity. That prosperity and economic benefit was more evenly spread to the working class
which lead to a very healthy country. This is reflected in the lowering of the % of wealth at the top. For instance, at about the 1950's, the top 1%
had closer to 20% of the nation's wealth. Then came the beginning of the real decline in the 80's and the income and wealth started retracing back to
more disparity between the rich and the poor and the fleecing of the middle class and the poor. It culminated in the latest economical debaucle in
2007/8, where the top 1% again had reached the ownership of nearly 40% of the nation's wealth, a bubble, then a crash.
The economic problem currently is that there isn't enough money in the hands of the middle class and poor to provide enough economic demand for goods
and services that they need. People can't afford health healthcare, can't afford gasoline, can't afford education for themselves or their children,
and the large majority of the middle class and certainly the poor can't afford necessities, yet the top 1% and the top 10% are awash in excess wealth
and the country and the world is in a massive recession... go figure. It's the lopsidedness that is killing the country. Businesses are not
investing because there isn't enough demand for creation of more product and services. Have you noticed the empty retail spaces in strip centers and
shopping malls and businesses in main streets? These businesses went out of business because their sales went down.
The top 1% owns 37% of the nation's wealth, the top 10% own 71% of the nation's wealth, the top 15% owns 85% of the nation's wealth. The bottom 85%
owns 15% of the wealth, the bottom 60% only has 4% of the nation's wealth, the bottom 40% own less than 1/4 of 1% of the nation's wealth. That is not
healthy for this country. From one perspective, this is not a conservative/liberal problem as there are plenty of conservatives and Republicans in
the bottom 85%, in the bottom 60% as well. The USA ranks the second worst in the world with regard to the disparity of income and wealth. Second!
We used to be 3rd, but we recently beat out Mexico!
This is not an indictment of the rich. I am not saying that rich people are bad. Most rich people are very good, most all are very good citizens,
they're intelligent, compassionate, disciplined, have a strong good old American work ethic, decent Americans. This is an indictment of the bias in
our current economic and policitical and legal system that has skewed our market economy to inequitably favor the top. And, it only takes a few
people to do that biasing: certain politicians, certain leaders of industry, certain pundits, certain economists and academics that have been used by
the powerful few (not all of whom are necessarily rich) and a gullible society and drinks the cool aid as this nation has done and has politically and
legally allowed the corruption of the market to cause this detrimental and unhealthy lopsided inequitable concentration of wealth and income at the
top. The stats prove this.
Our market economy has been overtaken by those that persist in inequity. We need to fix it, poilitically, eonomically and legally so that our brand
of capitalism and market economy works much better for everyone. That is not case today.
[Edited on 6-17-2011 by MitchMan] |
I'll just stay in my little hell hole here in San Jose del Cabo thank you. 
