America's Race to the Bottom: triumph of the über-class

[Karmadillo]

We tend to be suckers, but we don't have to be suckers.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/12-1

I sure hope that there is a full and speedy recovery to the massive recession we are all now suffering under.
But, I'll be honest. I doubt that there will be. Most of the upticks following our latest national downturns have been dismal enough that economists have had to invent a new term for them. The phrase is "jobless recovery", and the implications are as ugly as they sound.

What it means is that GDP rises, but life remains crappy for real people with real jobs. If they're lucky enough to have one, that is.

Where does the money from rising GDP go, then? Funny you should ask. It goes exactly where it's been going for the last three decades. Not to the public, and not to raising the living standards of ordinary folks. But, rather, to the über-class.

My guess is that "The Great Recession" - as some are calling the current disaster (presumably to avoid using the "D" word) - will be followed by what history will record as the "The Tepid and Rather Jobless, Thank You Very Much, Recovery". If that.

<edit>

The ratio of executive salary to the average paycheck during the mid-twentieth century was about thirty to one. In the last decade it has ranged from three hundred to over five hundred to one.

The richest four hundred Americans were worth an average of about $13 million each in the middle of the century, using today's dollars. Now they average over $260 million each.

The top taxpayers in America now pay the same proportion of their income in taxes as those earning less than $75,000 per year. Those taxes on the wealthy went from being more than half of their income fifty years ago to about a sixth today.

In the past three decades, the income of the richest Americans quadrupled, while the income of the lowest ninety percent actually fell. Today, the median wage is lower than it was in the 1970s, even though productivity has grown by nearly fifty percent.

more...

[Trillo]

1. "One person one vote" wasn't enough.

It seems it was subverted by "one dollar one vote".

[Karmadillo]

2. It's amazing how they convince us to put up with it.

nt

[leftstreet]

3. K&R

[lonestarnot]

4. One thing about merikans, they tolerate abuse well. Nary a peep.

[Vidar]

5. K&R.

[Raine]

6. Who do they think is eventually going to buy

all that Walmart crap when so many won't have a job? Certainly the "uber-class" won't spend their mucho bucks on that kind the cheap crap that falls apart within 6 months.