As our mainstream media continues to abuse us with nonsensical blow-by-blow accounts by blowhard headline-grabbing louts, this story received scant attention:
As millions of Americans lost jobs, homes, and life savings in the Great Recession of 2009, the highest-paid earners saw their average incomes rise more than five-fold in a single year. According to new data, the 74 highest income earners – the uppermost income bracket as measured by the Social Security Administration -- saw their average incomes skyrocket from $91.8 million in 2008 to a staggering $518.8 million in 2009:
These 74 people earned an average of $10 million -- per week. Meanwhile, half of all American wage earners, or about 75 million people, earned less than $505 per week.
An abrupt change in tax and economic policies started under the Reagan administration, conflated by Bush era tax cuts, made this possible. Three decades of Reaganomics have crippled the base of the income ladder while adding a burdensome weight at the top. The result is an unstable and unsustainable structure awaiting collapse.
Meanwhile the Republican Party and their tea party rabble are clamoring for more tax cuts and an indiscriminate dismantling of the social safety net for middle class Americans. If our mainstream media had done a better job of informing the public, perhaps voters would be making more intelligent choices this November. Fat chance!
I'm beginning to hear opinions from economists that income disparity itself is a significant cause of economic depressions. It was the condition preceding the 1929 collapse, for instance. Of late, it's either been ignored or given to use as evidence of prosperity.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it a bit difficult to call those highest paid folk "earners" by the way?
Oh yes, and that's some pig.
ReplyDeleteCaptain - I'm beginning to hear opinions from economists that income disparity itself is a significant cause of economic depressions.
ReplyDeleteIncome inequality was the theme behind this discussion at the Swash Zone, A GHOST OF DEPRESSION PAST (February 10, 2009).
Notice the comments from our conservative visitors under the above post. Such is life among the terminally learning-impaired.
However, my harshest words are reserved for the mainstream media. Their 24/7 barrage of talking heads gives me a headache.
Octo and all,
ReplyDeleteAs this simple lizard never tires of snouting forth, if there's one thing certain, it's that Republicans in general are as clueless as a newborn about how a capitalist economy works and what keeps it going. In so far as they have a plan, it's simply to run the country into the ground with defense spending and ridiculously regressive tax cuts until there's nothing left for the social programs they don't support anyway (I mean ALL of them, of course). So long as the system works for the top one half of one percent of citizens, they seem deliriously happy.
It appears that Americans don't have a clue as to the real inequities in wealth distribution and that the majority likes the current distribution model. Fascinating new report on the subject, very readable, at http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely%20in%20press.pdf
ReplyDeleteSheria,
ReplyDeleteIf I understand your referenced citation, study subjects (N = 5,522):
1 – underestimated the level of wealth inequality (unaware of the gap);
2 - held overly optimistic beliefs regarding social mobility;
3 - disagreed over causes of inequality (thus failed to reach a consensus);
4 – were unlikely to agree on policies to narrow the gap.
My problem with such studies is that they yield shallow and less than useful data. This would have been a very different survey if study subjects were tested before and after a standardized form of indoctrination (i.e. a documentary, a guided narrative, a discussion group) to measure changes in perceptions and attitudes.
Wishful thinking? An overly complex and difficult to control methodology? Not necessarily! We understand intuitively the impact of media on public opinion and the paucity of in-depth, investigative reporting. Today’s style of he said/she said journalism deprives us of a stable and reliable set of facts and … or more to the point … the ability to form a consensus.
There are studies that measure viewer knowledge of current events by cable news channel. It should come as no surprise that viewers of NPR/PBS (controlled for party affiliation) scored significantly better than viewers of Fox News. Has this study made a difference in public awareness? It has not … only because the public is unaware of this study ... and because CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC have nothing to crow about.
Returning to the subject of income inequality, here is another article with a powerful moral message.
This could be the game plan:
ReplyDelete“Crisis is an Opportunity”: Engineering a Global Depression to Create a Global Government
Economics is actually a very simple field of study and capitalism is a very simple method of production.
ReplyDeleteTo understand the effect of wealth concentration its kind of like playing monopoly where one person owns the majority of the money and a majority of the property.....it ends up being a game where most of the players get angry and quit....in other words it ends up being a game that no one wants to play.
When all of the players of a game find themsleves in situations where they are competitive then the game is exciting and dynamic (notice I did not say equal but rather competitive) but once one person owns it all then the game is over.
As long as Americans believed they were just one good dice throw away from the American Dream this country grew and prospered.
The game is over and the ones that are protecting this inequality, the ones that profess to love capitalism and quote Ayn Rand are the very ones that will end up destroying it.
Remember, there are only so many stocks available to sell, thus when you have more and more money in the hands of fewer and fewer people then these people with the money will quit investing and begin speculating....they can very easily create their own return....
"these people with the money will quit investing and begin speculating."
ReplyDeleteThus creating bubbles which lead to loud noises. Isn't that what just happened and what happened in the 1920's?
The idea that more money in their hands will created businesses and jobs simply can't be shown to be true yet they keep saying it over and over again in the hopes that a miracle will occur.
This would have been a very different survey if study subjects were tested before and after a standardized form of indoctrination (i.e. a documentary, a guided narrative, a discussion group) to measure changes in perceptions and attitudes.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Octo; however, the purpose of this study was to measure people as they are, not after they have been informed on the issues. The intent was not to determine how to measure changes in perceptions and attitudes; it was to measure current perceptions and attitudes.
The study didn't address the causes of economic inequities and the participants actually showed a high level of consensus as to what the ideal wealth distribution should be. The problem was that they believe that the wealth distribution is far more equitable than it is; therefore they don't perceive any sense of urgency in changing the status quo. As you point out, they also tended to have a distorted belief in the upward mobility potential in American society. The authors theorize that this perhaps explains why even people who are not in the upper quintiles when it comes to wealth tend to support the current system--(1) they don't recognize the severe wealth inequities, and (2) they believe that they too can climb the ladder to wealth.
This report is new,it hasn't been released yet but I read about it in my local newspaper and found that it was available online. The media may ignore it, but there have been some headlines on the Net about it. The study will be released in Perspectives in Psychological Science.
I think that this study does just what it sets out to do. It evaluates current attitudes towards the distribution of wealth and the beliefs and behavior patterns that result from those attitudes. To address a problem, one has to first understand the nature of the problem.
Whenever I hear someone lament how we need the Bush tax cuts back my question is simple; "Did you know those tax cuts added more than a trillion dollars to the country's deficit? So how will we pay for all the continued lost revenue?" Shuts them up every time.
ReplyDeleteThe usual reaction I get is a glazed over look, or sometimes anger and the repetition of the "tax cuts pay for themselves" formula as though repetition and amplitude and name-calling could make it true.
ReplyDeleteBut how do you discuss the idea that tax cuts, unregulated markets, the tremendous imbalance in wealth and the austerity of Hoover caused the Depression when History now insists that it was caused by FDR in 1933?
Tom Paine said that time causes more converts than teaching, but do we have that kind of time?
Sheria, my idea of a good study is one that shatters the status quo, makes the Earth tremble, causes Philistines to jump off cliffs, and mashes Jim Demint into chicken powder.
ReplyDeleteOcto, you have pretty high standards. You've got me humming an old Carole King song, "I Feel the Earth Move."
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
ReplyDeleteCertainly shows what can happen when folks work hard and apply themselves.
The rewards follow.
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