The New Gilded Age - Graphic. Annals of Wealth Distribution | Discourse.net. Fighting 99%, winning big-time. By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, “there is class warfare, all right,” declared Warren Buffett. “But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Yes, the Rich Class is at war with you, with the 99%, a war against America.
Nabors Industries's $100 million man Mark Maremont details Nabor Industries's $100 million payout to its CEO, Eugene Isenberg. I am going to keep reminding you over and over of this Rich Class declaration of war and how they’re defeating America. Why more reminders? Yes, Rich Class has been fighting a 30-year war to rule America They’re fighting you, winning big-time, and you’re the loser.
Yes, they are at war with you, fighting to gain absolute power over America … and they will never stop their brutal attacks. Buffett didn’t admit to this Declaration of Class War on America till five years ago. ”Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. ”It turned out that Mr. John Kenneth Galbraith on the Moral Justifications for Wealth and Inequality. The 'Old News' on Inequality and Growth. Aljazeera on Income Disparity in the US.
Rise in risk inequality helps explain polarized US voters. Public release date: 13-Jul-2011 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Philipp RehmRehm.16@osu.edu 614-292-8196Ohio State University COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study of political polarization in the United States suggests that changes in the labor market since the 1970s has helped create more Republican and Democratic partisans and fewer independents.
The growth in partisanship has to do with people's current income and – importantly – their expectations of job security, said Philipp Rehm, author of the study and assistant professor of political science at Ohio State University. At one time, many voters were "cross-pressured" – when looking at what they earned now and their risks of losing that income, they felt torn between Republican and Democratic policies. In a study published recently in the British Journal of Political Science, Rehm estimated that slightly more than half of Americans could be counted as natural partisans in 1968, based on their income and job security.
Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness. Martin Gilens Address correspondence to the author; e-mail: mgilens{at}princeton.edu. Abstract By allowing voters to choose among candidates with competing policy orientations and by providing incentives for incumbents to shape policy in the direction the public desires, elections are thought to provide the foundation that links government policy to the preferences of the governed.
In this article I examine the extent to which the preference/policy link is biased toward the preferences of high-income Americans. Using an original data set of almost two thousand survey questions on proposed policy changes between 1981 and 2002, I find a moderately strong relationship between what the public wants and what the government does, albeit with a strong bias toward the status quo. A key characteristic of democracy is the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals. Previous Research Data Findings consistency versus influence.
Why Inequality Matters: The Housing Crisis, The Justice System & Capitalism | It Could Happen Here, Bruce Judson's Blog. Extreme economic inequality is among the most destructive forces in a society. As inequality grows, it undermines the effective functioning of the economy, the basic tenets of capitalism, and the foundations of democracy. Unfortunately, the housing crisis and now the housing settlement increasingly look like an example of how this mechanism works. One of the central characteristics of highly unequal societies is that two sets of laws develop: One set for the rich and powerful and one set for everyone else. The more unequal societies become, the more easily they accept the unacceptable, and with each unrebuked violation, the powerful actors at the top of the society gain an ever greater sense of entitlement and an ever greater sense that the laws that govern everyone else don’t apply to them.
I would suggest that the robo-mortgage scandal is a strong indicator that this type of unequal justice is now becoming ever more commonplace in America. The stakes here are enormous. The Great Decoupling of Income Growth for Middle-Class Households. The downward mobility of the US middle class. Berkeley, CA - January's increase in hiring is good news, but it masks a bigger and more disturbing story - the continuing downward mobility of the middle class in the US.
Most of the new jobs being created are in the lower-wage sectors of the economy - hospital orderlies and nursing aides, secretaries and temporary workers, retail and restaurant. Meanwhile, millions of US workers remain in jobs only because they've agreed to cuts in wages and benefits. Others are settling for jobs that pay less than the jobs they've lost. Entry-level manufacturing jobs are paying half what entry-level manufacturing jobs paid just six years ago. Other people are falling out of the middle class because they've lost their jobs, and many have also lost their homes. The percentage of those in poverty in the US is its highest in two decades, and more of us are impoverished than at any time in the past 50 years. Experts say the bad economy is the main factor driving the increase. Oh, I almost forgot. Opinion: The vicious cycle of economic inequality - Joseph E. Stiglitz.
America’s growing inequality is likely to play an important role in this election — and rightly so. Americans see that something is happening to our society: We have become increasingly divided. We may all be in the same boat — but some are traveling steerage and others first class. Inequality is now far higher than just 30 years ago.
The top 1 percent today gets around 20 percent of the nation’s income — twice what it did two decades ago. The top 0.1 percent’s share has almost tripled. Disparities in wealth are even greater. Continue Reading Some on the right argue that this is the politics of envy. By comparison, growth since 1980 has been slower, as the share of the bottom and middle has diminished. Some on the right also assert that those at the top deserve their higher incomes. I wish that were true — but it’s not. Much of the top-most wealth instead comes because of successful “rent seeking.” How Inequality Hurts the Economy. The public discussion about the widening gap between rich and poor hasn’t been this loud since the Great Depression.
Warren Buffett has condemned the disparity, Occupy Wall Street has inveighed against it, President Barack Obama cites it to justify higher taxes on the wealthy. Much of the debate, though, has focused on inequality’s moral dimension. Somehow it just doesn’t seem right that so many Americans struggle while a handful prospers. What many are missing is the actual impact rising inequality is having on the U.S. economy. Hint: It isn’t good. Since 1980 about 5 percent of annual national income has shifted from the middle class to the nation’s richest households. The typical U.S. household, meanwhile, has yet to regain the ground it lost during the recession. In the 1960s economists such as the late Arthur M. Thus the growing chasm in the U.S. between the haves and the have-nots has serious consequences. Inequality is not just a problem for the have-nots. The Societal Dangers of Income Inequality"