[bluekachina]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s for inequality, I discovered years ago that Americans aren't much bothered by it. A piece I wrote in Washington in the '80s about the "new" growth in income disparity was greeted with shrugs and the general belief that people achieve the economic success they deserve. It's part of the American Dream mythology that people easily and often migrate upward to a higher income status. Inequality, it's believed, is a necessary motivator. Or, as it's often put, Americans believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

It sounds nice, but Hacker and Pierson found that mobility has come nowhere close to matching the rise of inequality over the last 30 years. Over a decade's time four in five Americans tend to stay in their same quintile, or nearly so. As for generational mobility, people in Australia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Spain, France and Canada have a better chance of moving up.

Another popular argument is that inequality is the price Americans pay for a growing economy. But Hacker and Pierson have their doubts. During the 1979-2006 period, if all new income had been shared as broadly as it was in the 1950s and '60s, the average household in the poorest quintile would have earned $6,000 a year more every year; the average household in the middle quintile would have earned more than $12,000 more every year; and the average household in the top 1 percent would have earned $700,000 less every year — about $500,000 per year in 2006 dollars rather than $1.2 million. While it's true that the U.S. experienced phenomenal growth during the last three decades, other Western nations matched our growth and in some cases exceeded it without hyperconcentrations of wealth at the top.

Technology, globalization and educational deficiency fail to explain how the wealthy were able to reshape the U.S. economy into a winner-take-all system that, in a distributive sense, resembles more closely the oligarchic systems of Mexico, Brazil and Russia than the economies of other Western democracies.

Even in the depths of the worst economic meltdown since the 1930s, there have been no hints of insurrection, no clouds of teargas rolling through the streets, no pitchforks pointed at the Wall Street elite who, along with their lax government regulators, perpetrated the current hardship.

Looking back over 30 years it's clear that the organized efforts of big business and its allies to influence public policy have overwhelmed the disorganized middle class.

[Sixstrings]

Well at least in the South.. poor whites have been poor for a long time now, we're talking centuries. Same with poor blacks. The writer Joe Bageant has examined the situation pretty well.. for various reasons, the South has no tradition of worker solidarity and is suspicious of government and intellectualism in general. It's just a different culture altogether, to the point of being resistant to any kind of change (even positive).

[Cog]

The loser class harps on all day long about social inequality hoping to have the tax man make everyone as miserable as they are. The successful man has little time to worry that someone else is richer then he is. He is too busy enjoying life.

[Pops]

My guess is because as the rich got richer with implementation of Trickle Down economics (aka Piss On 'Em) they needed somewhere to invest their windfall so they paid to have the markets deregulated (which included eliminating interest rate caps) then they lent that money to us stupid schmucks at interest, allowing us to imagine we were getting richer too.

And really, at the same time Ronnie cut tax rates he was borrowing money to run up military spending, so the economy really was humming there for 20 years or so (not to mention the cheap oil). I've an average intelligence and no schoolin' (they were experimenting with secondary education in the '70 so I didn't even go to high school more than 4 hours a day) and I've done OK even though "making money" was never really a goal.

If you are old enough, consider how cheap things are today compared to the '60s or '70s. Heck, consider how many Things there are today compared to then! Lots of stuff to make people think they have it pretty good – as long as their paycheck keeps coming, that is. Cars are nicer, homes are bigger and fancier and of course electronics... Sure we need an income and a half to do it, but the ladies wanted to dump the aprons and have a chance to get out in the world anyway and all those cool appliances and TV dinners helped things along - and don't forget TV itself, the great babysitter.

Speaking of electronics, tech in general really kicked in in the '80s and was a big deal, replacing to an extent the accelerating offshoring - at least for a while. But what tech did for all businesses was allow companies to become way more productive, and even though the owners kept much of the profit, many workers were kept on in useless jobs for quite a while longer than needed. When, shock of shocks, Greenspan's opinion was wrong and the markets turned out to not be as efficient as he thought and the layoffs began (even back in '87?) I believe there was an abundance of dead wood pruned that had been masked by that productivity increase. Those people were not rehired, not in 2000 and they won't be now either.

And I'll whack on Reagan one more time, busting the Air Traffic Controllers union was a big deal, making union busting and all-american sport. And it wasn't such a big deal that using "wedge issues" didn't work to keep unions members voting for republicans, after all, everyone had good jobs in the '90 so what the heck.

So; loose credit, computers, 2-income families and ingrained deficit spending has masked the inequality and good politicking has convinced people to vote against their economic best interest.

I'm kind of on the fence about unions, especially public unions. Regardless, I think WI may turn out to be Waterloo for 'pubs plans for '12. They overstepped like I said they would. Here is a good article from Forbes and polls support collective bargaining 60-30.

Another interesting article on overreach.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'S')o; loose credit, computers, 2-income families and ingrained deficit spending has masked the inequality and good politicking has convinced people to vote against their economic best interest.

I'm kind of on the fence about unions, especially public unions. Regardless, I think WI may turn out to be Waterloo for 'pubs plans for '12. They overstepped like I said they would. Here is a good article from Forbes and polls support collective bargaining 60-30.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'S')o; loose credit, computers, 2-income families and ingrained deficit spending has masked the inequality and good politicking has convinced people to vote against their economic best interest.

I'm kind of on the fence about unions, especially public unions. Regardless, I think WI may turn out to be Waterloo for 'pubs plans for '12. They overstepped like I said they would. Here is a good article from Forbes and polls support collective bargaining 60-30.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'T')he loser class harps on all day long about social inequality hoping to have the tax man make everyone as miserable as they are. The successful man has little time to worry that someone else is richer then he is. He is too busy enjoying life.

[Cid_Yama]

What's being overlooked is not only the wealth inequality within the United States, but the rising inequality between the general population of the US and the populations of other western nations.

I read someone on here from the US refering to those in Australia as rich. Perhaps in comparison now.

It used to be the people of the US that were considered the rich ones. Not any longer.

In comparison to every other developed nation in the western world, our general population are now little more than peasants. But of course, our media does it's best not to allow the peasantry to see that.

Instead they are shown US TV families exhibiting developed world lifestyles, and told that if they would just work harder this could be theirs, that EVERYONE ELSE has it, and there must be something wrong with them if they don't. That they are lazy, or unpatriotic, or somehow flawed or unamerican.

And they listen to that crap, and spout it at each other, while borrowing every penny they can for that vehicle they can't afford, just to hide their supposed failings from everyone else.

Yes the indoctrination in America is that, to be poor is the fault of the indivdual and their inadaquacies. A deep personal shame to be embarrassed about and hid from others.

What need of chains, when they can induce the population to enslave themselves in their deepest core.

They are not unbothered. They are deeply embarrassed, and doing their best to pretend they are not on the short end of the stick.

[AdTheNad]

America is still undoubtedly the best in the world at advertising and PR. It's not just your own people who fall for it, it's quite easy to believe the American dream is alive and well from the outside if you only watch the TV shows produced over there without reading the shadow stats on food stamp usage and unemployment.

It's genius really. Convince people if they would only work a little bit harder they too could be rich. Oh and make sure you take out some student loans to give yourself the opportunity putting you in debt to even have the chance. Then pit the middle class against the poor for being scroungers, ignoring the fact that money given in handouts to the poor only stays in their hand long enough to send it off in rent and food prices to the rich, land and capital owners. The people who try their hardest to lobby Gov and cut their own taxes, ensuring more has to come from the dwindling middle class.

Everyone knows that from a strictly mathematical point of view playing the lottery is stupid. Yet the whole system in America is exactly the same - you can only win through luck and it won't be you that makes it. Just keep working hard though and keep consuming. Good luck.

[Homesteader]

Perhaps there is a meme that America is/has the best of everything. Therefore, no matter how bad it gets it is still better than anywhere else. Questioning that this is not "the truth" is not acceptable.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m kind of on the fence about unions, especially public unions. Regardless, I think WI may turn out to be Waterloo for 'pubs plans for '12. They overstepped like I said they would. Here is a good article from Forbes and polls support collective bargaining 60-30.

[Lore]

Public workers are actually paid less then their equally educated counterparts in the private sector. Once you remove the benchmark for the average workers wages and benefits you can expect inequity to grow even farther and faster.

[vision-master]

Yup, the Gov is going to find the only ppl working for them will be losers. Being a skilled blue collar worker, gov work wuz the best job in my field. Now without collective bargining and a switch to 401k's I'd be looking at the prvate sector where knowledge and skills can actualy get you somewhere. Gov is all about quotas and ass-kissing. I guess when they start getting into a jam they can contract out services for double the cost of paying employees and lose control besides.

Another thing, once these current pension plans are removed, the tax payers will be bailing out current ppl under the plan and retirees bc no new investments will be made in the system. This Wis gov is such a dope, you know TPTB are just using him and will discard him soon enough.

[Quinny]

+100

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdTheNad', 'A')merica is still undoubtedly the best in the world at advertising and PR. It's not just your own people who fall for it, it's quite easy to believe the American dream is alive and well from the outside if you only watch the TV shows produced over there without reading the shadow stats on food stamp usage and unemployment.

It's genius really. Convince people if they would only work a little bit harder they too could be rich. Oh and make sure you take out some student loans to give yourself the opportunity putting you in debt to even have the chance. Then pit the middle class against the poor for being scroungers, ignoring the fact that money given in handouts to the poor only stays in their hand long enough to send it off in rent and food prices to the rich, land and capital owners. The people who try their hardest to lobby Gov and cut their own taxes, ensuring more has to come from the dwindling middle class.

Everyone knows that from a strictly mathematical point of view playing the lottery is stupid. Yet the whole system in America is exactly the same - you can only win through luck and it won't be you that makes it. Just keep working hard though and keep consuming. Good luck.

[Lore]

This discrepancy is not sustainable and these figures go back a few years, the gap is even wider now.

[Oakley]

The economic pie has been expanding since the beginning of the industrial age, albeit with a few temporary setbacks. Special interests and government have increasingly teemed up to direct a greater portion of the expanding pie to themselves, yet there was enough left over to allow for an improvement in the standard of living of the masses. The average person had little incentive to revolt or even to consider the inequalities in wealth distribution that developed, even if the average person might have had the capacity to understand how the system was rigged against him.

Now that we have passed the peak in per capita energy production and have entered long term economic contraction those in power are using that power to see that they do not suffer a decline in their standard of living, so the brunt of the contraction is being disproportionately shifted onto the shoulders of the average man. This is and will continue to make life intolerable for the majority, and as can be seen in the current spate of rebellions.

We are just at the beginning of long term economic contraction. As energy production goes into decline there will be a halving period, just like during expansion there was a doubling period. Imagine a world where we have only half the oil to fuel what is left of the industrial age; this is where we will be in just 20 years if the rate of decline is a mere 3.5%. Life and death will become a major issue for most of the world population, and the current political arrangements will fall. We likely will see repeated revolutions, civil wars, and international wars as any form of government will be impotent to forestall the command of mother nature to reduce population levels to what can be supported without fossil fuels.

Developed countries will not be exempt; perhaps because they are most dependent on energy, and have the farthest to fall, they will see the worst of the upheaval. I fully expect civil war to visit the US sometime in the next 20 years as the struggle to survive intensifies. After all, war along with famine and plague, are some of mother nature's tools to prune excess population.

[Oneaboveall]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'T')he loser class harps on all day long about social inequality hoping to have the tax man make everyone as miserable as they are. The successful man has little time to worry that someone else is richer then he is. He is too busy enjoying life.

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'P')ublic workers are actually paid less then their equally educated counterparts in the private sector.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'P')ublic workers are actually paid less then their equally educated counterparts in the private sector.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oneaboveall', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'T')he loser class harps on all day long about social inequality hoping to have the tax man make everyone as miserable as they are. The successful man has little time to worry that someone else is richer then he is. He is too busy enjoying life.