February 04, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE TRUE BUSH ECONOMY
Early in the Bush administration I got downsized from a job where I was actually, finally, starting to make a semi-decent salary. I had to take a job that paid $2.00 an hour less than what I was making. I haven't made it back to where I was five years ago. My situation is fairly typical for working class people in this country. The trickle down policies of George W. Bush have taken a vastly unequal economic system and made it worse. In right-wing country the only people who count are the very rich. The rest of us are there to be squeezed like an orange until all the juice is gone and we can be tossed into the trash. This commentary by Bernie Sanders talks about an economy for the working and middle class of this country. The article is at www.motherjones.com:
The president still believes that the economy is booming as a result of his tax breaks. But the president fails to note that since he has been in office, 5.4 million middle class Americans have slipped into poverty, 6.8 million Americans have lost their health insurance, median income for working-age families has declined for five consecutive years, and 3 million manufacturing workers have lost their jobs. At the same time, the costs of education, prescription drugs, energy, and housing have risen dramatically.
Meanwhile, the wealthy have never had it so good. The richest 13,000 households earn nearly as much income as the bottom 20 million and the top one percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.
In terms of our federal budget priorities there is one key question which must be asked. Which side are we on: the rich and the powerful or the middle class and working families?
Showing posts with label U. S. inequality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U. S. inequality. Show all posts
Sunday, December 17, 2006
December 17, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE INEQUALITY TRAP
Not so long ago it was easy to talk of banana republics elsewhere in the world. You would associate banana republics with Latin America in particular. In the past few years the United States has been taking on characteristics of a banana republic. We had the stolen presidential election in 2000, and undoubtedly a stolen election in 2004. The gap between the rich and poor in the United States is also characteristic of a banana republic. In this column Paul Krugman talks about the inequality trap Latin America found itself it, and points out that we're in danger of the same thing. The column is linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:
The economic pie is getting bigger — how can it be true that most Americans are getting smaller slices? The answer, of course, is that a few people are getting much, much bigger slices. Although wages have stagnated since Bush took office, corporate profits have doubled. The gap between the nation’s CEOs and average workers is now ten times greater than it was a generation ago. And while Bush’s tax cuts shaved only a few hundred dollars off the tax bills of most Americans, they saved the richest one percent more than $44,000 on average. In fact, once all of Bush’s tax cuts take effect, it is estimated that those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year — the richest five percent of the population — will pocket almost half of the money. Those who make less than $75,000 a year — eighty percent of America — will receive barely a quarter of the cuts. In the Bush era, economic inequality is on the rise…
The social and economic failure of Latin America is one of history’s great tragedies. Our southern neighbors started out with natural and human resources at least as favorable for economic development as those in the United States. Yet over the course of the past two centuries, they fell steadily behind. Economic historians such as Kenneth Sokoloff of UCLA think they know why: Latin America got caught in an inequality trap. For historical reasons — the kind of crops they grew, the elitist policies of colonial Spain — Latin American societies started out with much more inequality than the societies of North America. But this inequality persisted, Sokoloff writes, because elites were able to “institutionalize an unequal distribution of political power” and to “use that greater influence to establish rules, laws and other government policies that advantaged members of the elite relative to non-members.” Rather than making land available to small farmers, as the United States did with the Homestead Act, Latin American governments tended to give large blocks of public lands to people with the right connections. They also shortchanged basic education — condemning millions to illiteracy. The result, Sokoloff notes, was “persistence over time of the high degree of inequality.” This sharp inequality, in turn, doomed the economies of Latin America: Many talented people never got a chance to rise to their full potential, simply because they were born into the wrong class.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE INEQUALITY TRAP
Not so long ago it was easy to talk of banana republics elsewhere in the world. You would associate banana republics with Latin America in particular. In the past few years the United States has been taking on characteristics of a banana republic. We had the stolen presidential election in 2000, and undoubtedly a stolen election in 2004. The gap between the rich and poor in the United States is also characteristic of a banana republic. In this column Paul Krugman talks about the inequality trap Latin America found itself it, and points out that we're in danger of the same thing. The column is linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:
The economic pie is getting bigger — how can it be true that most Americans are getting smaller slices? The answer, of course, is that a few people are getting much, much bigger slices. Although wages have stagnated since Bush took office, corporate profits have doubled. The gap between the nation’s CEOs and average workers is now ten times greater than it was a generation ago. And while Bush’s tax cuts shaved only a few hundred dollars off the tax bills of most Americans, they saved the richest one percent more than $44,000 on average. In fact, once all of Bush’s tax cuts take effect, it is estimated that those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year — the richest five percent of the population — will pocket almost half of the money. Those who make less than $75,000 a year — eighty percent of America — will receive barely a quarter of the cuts. In the Bush era, economic inequality is on the rise…
The social and economic failure of Latin America is one of history’s great tragedies. Our southern neighbors started out with natural and human resources at least as favorable for economic development as those in the United States. Yet over the course of the past two centuries, they fell steadily behind. Economic historians such as Kenneth Sokoloff of UCLA think they know why: Latin America got caught in an inequality trap. For historical reasons — the kind of crops they grew, the elitist policies of colonial Spain — Latin American societies started out with much more inequality than the societies of North America. But this inequality persisted, Sokoloff writes, because elites were able to “institutionalize an unequal distribution of political power” and to “use that greater influence to establish rules, laws and other government policies that advantaged members of the elite relative to non-members.” Rather than making land available to small farmers, as the United States did with the Homestead Act, Latin American governments tended to give large blocks of public lands to people with the right connections. They also shortchanged basic education — condemning millions to illiteracy. The result, Sokoloff notes, was “persistence over time of the high degree of inequality.” This sharp inequality, in turn, doomed the economies of Latin America: Many talented people never got a chance to rise to their full potential, simply because they were born into the wrong class.
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