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Teamster Jeff

(1,598 posts)
Sat Feb 7, 2015, 10:31 AM Feb 2015

Reality Check


It all began in the 1970s, that’s when everything started going down the plughole. Once wages detached from productivity, the rich progressively got richer. They used their wealth to reduce taxes on capital, role back critical regulations, break up the unions, install their own lapdog politicians, push through trade agreements that pitted US workers against low-paid labor in the developing world, and induce their shady Central Bank buddies to keep interest rates locked below the rate of inflation so they could cream hefty profits off gigantic asset bubbles. Now, 40 years later, they own the whole f*cking shooting match, lock, stock and barrel. And it’s all because management decided to take the lion’s share of productivity gains which threw the whole system off-kilter undermining the basic pillars of democratic government.


Yup, under Bush, the 1% captured a disproportionate share of the income gains from the Bush boom of 2002-2007. They got 65 cents of every dollar created in that boom, up 20 cents from when Clinton was President. Under Obama, the 1% got 93 cents of every dollar created in that boom. That’s not only more than under Bush, up 28 cents. In the transition from Bush to Obama, inequality got worse, faster, than under the transition from Clinton to Bush. Obama accelerated the growth of inequality.”


The blue line across the bottom of the graph represents the wealth of the bottom 90% of U.S. households.


Graph: Compensation of Employees, Received: Wage and Salary Disbursements/Gross Domestic Product




So, is America in the throes of a class war or not?

Indeed, it is. But only one side is fighting.


http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/15/40-years-of-economic-policy-in-one-chart/
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MisterP

(23,730 posts)
5. "Dems lose because we don't defend what the government can do"--funny how they always mention
Reply to KG (Reply #1)
Sat Feb 7, 2015, 03:00 PM
Feb 2015

free trade agreements and tax cuts more than SS or Medicare ...

Fred Sanders

(23,946 posts)
3. They do not own Obama or his House or an actual good idea, and never will again, so the pendulum can be swung back.
Sat Feb 7, 2015, 10:42 AM
Feb 2015

marym625

(17,997 posts)
4. I want to live in their reality
Sat Feb 7, 2015, 10:44 AM
Feb 2015

Not ours. No one said life was fair but jesus christ on a cheese sandwich! This reality bites

K&R!

woo me with science

(32,139 posts)
7. Kick. This needs to stay on top
Sun Feb 8, 2015, 04:54 AM
Feb 2015

to counter the drumbeat propaganda narrative.

Some other very important threads on DU right now:

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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026192620

Why did Obama's Justice Department recently argue AGAINST Don Siegelman's release from prison?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026194492

New York legislators consider making resisting arrest a felony.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026193731

In latest vindication of Snowden, UK court rules mass surveillance illegal
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026190290

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