The economy won’t really bounce back until America’s surge toward inequality is reversed.

[kpete]

OPINION
The Limping Middle Class
By ROBERT B. REICH


Sources: Robert B. Reich, University of California, Berkeley; "The State of Working America" by the Economic Policy Institute; Thomas Piketty, Paris School of Economics, and Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley; Census Bureau; Bureau of Labor Statistics; Federal Reserve
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/jobs-will-follow-a-strengthening-of-the-middle-class.html?_r=2&hpw

[CarmanK]

1. Americans have to accept the real FREELOADERS are Corps.

The american people have to come to realize that they are elevating corporations to a level of entitlement never heard of in this country. Since when did it become a right for corporations to make super profits and not pay fair wages to their employees to support the economy and taxes to the govt to support services. AMERICAN CORPORATIONS have become the privileged while the workforce is denigrated to serfdom. There is not a single drop of corporate blood in the American soil where battle for our freedom were fought and won. That blood shed came from real human beings who offered the ultimate sacrifice to cement the future of the US of AMERICA. CORPORATIONS and business are supposed to serve the needs of the community, not the other way around. THE TPARTY NATION has it backwards. A nations wealth and value is in its people, not in its business enterprises.

[Trajan]

2. Fascinating .... This is exactly what we all have seen ...

Wage development stalling in the 80's under Reagan and through Bush I to Clinton, and then slowly ... ever so slowly .... arcing slightly upward during Clinton, until Bush II ....

And then the storied shiat hit the inevitably doomed fan ....

I think about how; in the period where unions were vilified and wage increases frowned upon, home values more or less skyrocketed, and homeowners were taking out refi's to cash out the equity increases .... During that time, overall prices still escalated, while our own wages stagnated ..... Easy credit was used to fill the void created by low wages, and allowed many to pull cash out of their equity to pay their other bills and buy neat things .... Now that credit has essentially frozen up, citizens are left to figure out how to stretch their now underpowered compensation packages to cover all the ever-increasing expenses and other outstanding obligations ..... Without decent wage increases, whose loss was masked by 'cashing in' on the temporary credit bubble, incomes have sputtered into subsistence levels and worse for many families ....

Until wages are restored to a larger percentage of the money pie when compared to living costs, families will continue to resist purchasing goods .... The economic engines, fueled by consumer spending based on worker wages, has run out of gas, thanks to the stinginess of the corporate culture towards workers and families ... Until wages increase (or prices decrease I.E. deflate), then the economy as a whole will only sputter at subsistence levels ...

I am amazed how many small business owners have fought so hard against measures that would increase family incomes, only to cut their own throats by reducing the number of buyers in the marketplace. ....

Every time a small business owner votes GOP (and wins), they lose more customers .... Buyers are just staying home .....

[tama]

3. It is not just a coincidence

that when the purchasing power freezed, global energy consumption per capita freezed. Because it's a finite planet.