Alternet: The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement

http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/152811/the_shocking%2C_graphic_data_that_shows_exactly_what_motivates_the_occupy_movement_

Alternet
By Les Leopold

The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement

The corporate media may obsess about what Occupy Wall Street is all about, but these images should make it clear.

October 23, 2011 |

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Now is not the time for wonky policy solutions, as the media meatheads are calling for. Rather, it’s time to air our grievances as loudly as possible, which is precisely what Wall Street and its minions fear the most. Here’s a brief list of why we should be angry and the charts to back it up.

1. The American Dream is imploding...



The productivity/wage chart says it all. From 1947 until the mid-1970s real wages and productivity (economic output per worker hour) danced together. Both climbed year after year as did our real standard of living. If you’re old enough, you will remember seeing your parents doing just a bit better each year, year after year. Then, our nation embarked on a grand economic experiment. Taxes were cut especially on the super-rich. Finance was deregulated and unions were crushed. Lo and behold, the two lines broke apart. Productivity continued to climb, but wages stalled and declined. So where did all that productivity money go? To the rich and to the super-rich, especially to those in finance.

2. Our wealth is gushing to the top 1 percent...



Actually the top tenth of one percent. Because of financial deregulation and tax cuts for the rich, the income gap is soaring. Here’s one of my favorite indicators that we compiled for The Looting of America. In 1970 the top 100 CEOs earned $45 for every $1 earned by the average worker. By 2006, the ratio climbed to an obscene 1,723 to one. (Not a misprint!)

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4. The super-rich are paying lower and lower tax rates...



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5. Too much money in the hands of the few combined with financial deregulation crashed our economy...

MORE

In the first chart.

It was 1980, when that monster Reagan took over. I am stunned at the long-lasting damage that this one-man wrecking crew was able to do to our nation and the world. We are STILL paying the price for his dismal failure. And the right-wing extremists worship him, even though his actions hurt them along with everyone else.

It was deliberate. When Bush came along the Neo Cons made a huge effort to finish the destruction.

But as much as they've succeeded they also created the void that Occupy Wall Street is filling as we speak.

break the filibuster. The minority even bragged this is how they would block Obama and the dems no matter what. All bills that would have made it better were all blocked by the abused filibuster so that "our guys" NEVER had control in the senate so your comment is wrong and irrelevant based on this information so please encompass this information when stating your premise in the future. It explains alot for those who don't know or who have forgotten. The heavily abused filibuster by the republican minority in the senate has allowed the minority (which represents only about 22% of the population) to kneecap the Obama/dem agenda.

Reagan didn't take over until 1981. Carter was President for the entire year of 1980.

.......to describe the same eras and dynamics. Here's a graph from Prof. Krugman's first blog post:



Note the references to:

• The Long Gilded Age,
  
• The Great Compression,
  
• Middle Class America, and
  
• The Great Divergence.

Note that Krugman also makes reference to "Movement Conservatism:"

They fry me.

of increase and of decrease.

No more middle class by then end of this decade, just the few obscenely wealthy and the rest in extreme poverty.

Ceo's will make close to THREE THOUSAND times more than their average employee.

Unsustainable.

for exposure

:mad: :grr:

money is given to political campaigns by BUSINESS as compared to LABOR. It is a common RW meme that unions and labor influence elections at least as much as big business. Not even close.

Whatever they say the other person is doing, they're doing it.

Unequal influence by money? Check

Death Panels? Check

Suppressing religious freedom? Check

Big Gov't? Check

Gov't waste? Check!

Some people call it projection, but I think it's an aggressive defense/attack. They cover what they're doing by accusing someone else of it, and they push the other person off guard.

It's a preemptive strike.

going up against a decorated Vietnam vet in Kerry....so here comes the swiftboaters to brand Kerry a coward. Many other examples.

This needs to be on billboards across the country.

:kick:

but the greedy CEOs decided that they alone deserved all the rewards for that increased profit even though labor did ALL THE WORK.

That's an entitlement program for CEOs - taking from the workers' pockets to line their own.


It's no less than a Corporate Welfare Program, benefitting the very few, financed by the blood, sweat and tears of the very many.



Now, the Very Many have said, "Enough!"




:grr:

We need a slowdown by labor --

how else could that productivity be increasing so much

While workers' wages remained stagnant -- !!

COLA's for government workers kept their wages higher --

In an ideal world increased productivity would increase wages so much that people would not have to work as much, but capitalism does not work that way, it causes unemployment, instead.

.. convince voters that there was even a problem? Oh, that's right - the oil embargo. But that would've just been a blip on the chart, probably, in the long run.

Ah, hindsight is 20-20.

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Yay!

My FDR? :D

It's on products at Zazzle, too (you can click the pic below)!

======================

I actually started an OP about it because I wanted to print it out and wear it at OWS a couple of weeks ago.

I got some good FDR quotes out of the thread, but nobody seemed to recall seeing the FDR pic, which I thought was a little odd.

And they're too few and too far apart. :)

I made the "No Fear FDR" for my online store while all those "Obamacare" town halls were going on last year, at a time I felt the Democrats really needed to stand their ground and push for at least a public option. I didn't add it to my sig til this past spring.

I'm glad you like it and found it memorable! But I'm sorry you didn't find it again before going to OWS, and that I didn't see your OP!

===========================

That should do it.

:hide:

It's depressing, really. But thank you. That first chart is the clearest representation of the problem I've seen to date.

illustrates point #2 in images:

Can never get anybody to see the connection. The attitude with the reactionaries is that it doesn't matter how hard you work, you don't deserve the wages.

"copy image location" and paste it into your status. It will come right up.

Great charts.

The big thing to take away from this?

They aren't close to being done yet.

They want to completely dismantle social security and medicare.

They want you working for third world wages.

And they don't want you to have one speck of political representation.

They are getting their way.