We need an economy for all
By Thom Hartmann A...
According to the Economic Policy Institute, we need an economy that works for everyone – not just the top one percent. The EPI recently issued a new report on how those at the top have fared - compared to the rest of us - over the last few decades. What they found proves that the system is rigged. The EPI report states that, “between 1979 and 2007, the top one percent of taxpayers in all states captured an increasing share of the income.” And, in the years since the Great Recession, the “top one percent of incomes in most states once again grew faster than the incomes of the bottom 99 percent.”
The report shows that in all 50 states, income inequality has gotten worse, and the average worker has been shut out of our nation's prosperity. EPI noted that unionization rates are lower than they've been since before 1928, which means that most workers don't have the power to demand higher wages. In fact, the EPI report states “The federal minimum wage purchases fewer goods and services than it did in 1968.”
There is just no denying it – those at the top are getting richer, and the rest of us aren't even keeping up. In their conclusion, EPI states, “In the next decade, something must give. Either America must accept that the American Dream of widespread economic mobility is dead, or new policies must emerge that will begin to restore broadly shared prosperity.” Income inequality is finally getting some long-overdue attention from our lawmakers, but we need less talk and more action to make our economy work for the 99 percent.
-Thom
Comments
#2
The EPI said in part,"Either America must accept that the American Dream of widespread economic mobility is dead, or new policies must emerge that will begin to restore broadly shared prosperity.”
It's not too hard to pick which way lawmakers will turn. Just ask yourself, Which would be easiest for them; to accept that economic mobility is dead, but for them to keep feeding from the milk teat of the rich and corporations OR do something about economic inequality and suffer the wroth of their financial benefactors? This is a decision that will take politicians about 3 microseconds to decide and the outcome doesn't bode well for those of us who work for our living.
we DO have the power to move politics, but only if we operate cohesively. The masses of propaganda peddaled by corporations and the wealthy are designed and intended to convince us to "stay in our rightful place" and that the fruits of our labors Rightfully belong to them, to be doled out to us as THEY choose. It troubles me to hear so many working people parrot the lies of the rich because those working people cannot trouble themselves to think critcally about what they're told.
#3
The usual higher minimum wage, stronger unions, restricting international exchange, etc, have their place. Yet in the past when we had those policies and more, we still had widespread poverty. Shouldn’t we be trying something else?
How about if we try what works? Any place that has used any aspect of geonomimcs has benefitted: de-tax wages, de-fund corporate welfare, enforce environmental standards, recover the socially-generated value of sites and resources, and pay people a dividend from the resultant surplus public revenue, a la the dividend of Alaska or Singapore, for example.
Of those, the most potent and maybe the hardest to implement is the public recovery of publicly-generated land values. It works because it spurs owners to use prime locations most efficiently, which creates jobs and attracts investments. It’s fair because we didn’t create land, we all need land, and paying land dues is a way of compensating our neighbors, those whom we exclude (as long as the government pays a dividend or provides universally desired social services). Land dues run up against land speculation but they are what make geonomics tick, and have a home at progress.org.
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Moses said it.
"Let my people go."
I don't know why the public continues to accept lies, cover-ups, half-baked explanations, fairy tales, and excuses, from one caper to the next. We are so burdened with surviving and trying to be happy in a decaying world spinning out of our control, who has time to think?
We are just a bunch of pack animals, too tired to kick up mud in the faces of our oppressors. They know who they are.