Insatiable avarice alone wouldn't account for this as the article continues "At the same time, there has been a concerted attack on the institutions that have helped moderate inequality - in particular, unions."
Reagan aided and abetted the anti-union campaign as well as failing to raise the
minimum wage.
But it took an emotionally corrupt thug to shaft 99% of the population and in to fill that role was big bro 43 as the article continues "But then came Bush the Second - and the balance of power shifted against workers and the
middle class to a degree not seen since the Gilded Age. During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush joked that his base consisted of the "haves and the have mores." But it wasn't much of a joke. Not only has the Bush administration favored the interests of the wealthiest few Americans over those of the middle class, it has consistently shown a preference for people who get their income from dividends and capital gains, rather than those who work for a living."
How did big bro 43 do it? He stood firmly against any increase in the minimum wage, he made it harder for workers to organize, he created diversions so that the drive for reform was squelched and that allowed CEOs to again reward themselves at impressive - and unprecedented - levels and finally by tax cuts.
The article continues "Finally, there's the government's most direct method of affecting incomes: taxes. In this arena, Bush has made sure that the rich pay lower taxes than they have in decades. According to the latest estimates, once the Bush tax cuts have taken full effect, more than a third of the cash will go to people making more than $500,000 a year - a mere 0.8 percent of the population."
My 99% was wrong. It is really 99.2% of us that W is shafting!
Just as in the Iraq war W depended upon propaganda to confuse the apathetic US populace as the article continues "It's easy to get confused about the Bush tax cuts. For one thing, they are designed to confuse. The core of the Bush policy involves cutting taxes on high incomes, especially on the income wealthy Americans receive from capital gains and dividends. You might say that the Bush administration favors people who live off their wealth over people who have a job. But there are some middle-class "sweeteners" thrown in, so the administration can point to a few ordinary American families who have received significant tax cuts. Furthermore, the administration has engaged in a systematic campaign of disinformation about whose taxes have been cut. Indeed, one of Bush's first
actions after taking office was to tell the Treasury Department to stop producing estimates of how tax cuts are distributed by income class - that is, information on who gained how much. Instead, official reports on taxes under
Bush are textbook examples of how to mislead with statistics, presenting a welter of confusing numbers that convey the false impression that the tax cuts favor middle-class families, not the wealthy."
He's hoping to pull the wool over our eyes and make us into a banana republic as the article continues "Today, we're completely out of line with other advanced countries. The share of income received by the top 0.1 percent of Americans is twice the share received by the corresponding group in Britain, and three times the share in France.
These days, to find societies as unequal as the United States you have to look beyond the advanced world, to Latin America. And if that comparison doesn't frighten you, it should."
We can look at Latin America and see how badly the course that big bro 43 has set us on will turn out as the article concludes "In the end, the effects of our growing economic inequality go far beyond dollars and cents. This, ultimately, is the most pressing question we face as a society today: Will the United States go down the path that Latin America followed - one that leads to ever-growing disparity in political power as well as in income?
The United States doesn't have Third World levels of economic inequality - yet. But it is not hard to foresee, in the current state of our political and economic scene, the outline of a transformation into a permanently unequal
society - one that locks in and perpetuates the drastic economic polarization that is already dangerously far advanced."
Krugman was asked at a news conference if he saw a trend of Nobels going to people who were anti-Bush and Krugman said "A lot of intellectuals are anti-Bush."
Paul Krugman also, in the May 27, 2003 article, "Stating the Obvious", at
click here
made some further disastrous predictions that the current economic structure of the U.S. is definitely being challenged by 43's administration as the article states "The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum." So wrote the normally staid Financial Times, traditionally the voice of solid British business opinion, when surveying last week's tax bill.
Indeed, the legislation is doubly absurd: the gimmicks used to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry an official price tag of only $320 billion are a joke, yet the cost without the gimmicks is so large that the nation can't possibly afford it while keeping its other promises".
That sounds bad, but Krugman predicts such a complete destruction of the U.S. economy that the "social safety net built up over the past 70 years" vanishes. He hypothesizes that this is a calculated strategy. He attributes this dishonorable plan to laziness by moderates and liberals and further states," But the people now running America aren't conservatives: they're radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may give them the excuse they need."
What is W's goal in this? Herr Karl told him that the only people who use the social safety net are the lousy 99% who predominantly vote for Democrats-so screw them. Besides, people who live hand to mouth, as W wants the 99% of us, are so concerned for their daily survival that they are susceptible to any hypocrisy as long as they have food for their kids. Poor people can't dream of higher goals when acquiring the next piece of bread is paramount.
Plus our concern about the economic crisis is causing us to concentrate on it rather than going forward with investigations into big bro 43's criminal activities in his "everlasting war against terrorism".
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