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Obama’s ‘Change’ Was Just Hot Air
http://watchingamerica.com/News/228895/obamas-change-was-just-hot-air/Never before in U.S. history have everyday Americans been so totally fleeced by corporations and the politicians the corporations have bought and paid for as in recent years.
Obama’s ‘Change’ Was Just Hot Air
Junge Welt, Germany
By Rainer Rupp
Translated By Ron Argentati
27 December 2013
Edited by Gillian Palmer
The core of the “American dream” had always been the permeability of American society. Anyone — regardless of social status — could eventually become wealthy and successful through hard work. Ten years ago, American film director Michael Moore suggested that Americans tolerated corrupt politicians and corporations because their credo was, “I don't criticize the rich because I might be rich someday, too.”
That's no longer the case. Never before in U.S. history have everyday Americans been so totally fleeced by corporations and the politicians the corporations have bought and paid for as in recent years. And never before has the outlook for so many Americans looked more bleak than today. According to numerous studies, the structures that make up U.S. society are becoming virtually impervious. A good college education isn't a guarantee of higher pay; it can't even guarantee a modestly comfortable existence. On the contrary, in most cases, education requires students from the lower socioeconomic strata to become so heavily indebted that they may spend decades repaying creditors; some may even drag their debt around with them for their entire lives.
Simultaneously, census results released this year show a horrifying imbalance in U.S. earnings and income distribution in the “land of unlimited opportunity.” The bottom 50 percent of Americans — that is, more than 180 million people — control just 1.1 percent of U.S. assets. The next group — 50 to 90 percent of the population — is made up of 144 million middle-class people who are becoming increasingly less wealthy and who currently control just 24.3 percent of the nation's assets. The third group — those in the upper tenth percentile — is comprised of 32 million higher earners who claim 40 percent of all assets and includes the super-rich upper 1 percent, who are sitting on 34.5 percent of the nation's wealth.
Income distribution in the United States today is more unjust than it is in Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen. Small wonder that 64 percent of Americans declared the “American dream” already dead and buried in a survey carried out at the beginning of December. But when two-thirds of Americans have no hope of a better life, does that also mean they will be more likely to rebel against their corrupt politicians and corporations in the future? The emergence of two anti-establishment grassroots movements opposing the current trend and the large banks — one, the so-called tea party movement, on the conservative side and the other, the socially democratic, liberal Occupy Wall Street movement (or the 99 percent against the 1 percent) — seem to indicate that rumblings at the base have already begun.
11 replies
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Except when it happened "before" (and before and before) including in the last 100 years as an example -
(from update data from here - http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/saez/#income)
http://inequality.org/income-inequality/
But the income distribution was particularly egregious when millions upon millions were dragged here (and/or were born here) and forced to work without any pay at all for over a century and a half in what was to become the U.S. and its founding aftermath. But naturally, Americans of African descent aren't considered "humans" here so their contributions and complete lack of income don't count in the income inequality tabulations pre-2009 for those spewing their own "hot air".
