Engineered Inequality

[Emit]

Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Engineered Inequality
March 1, 2012
Bill Moyers explores how America’s vast inequality didn’t just happen, it’s been politically engineered.
http://billmoyers.com/segment/jacob-hacker-paul-pierson-on-engineered-inequality/


Early in this video a woman, Amanda Greubel, is featured. She was invited to testify last summer at a Senate hearing on how Americans are coping in hard times. Her story really resonates with me. Mine is a five-person household with two working adults (three if you count my college-aged daughter who works part-time) and we are struggling with recent medical bills, various unexpected expenses and wage decreases due to furloughs and budget cuts for my spouse who works for the state. We're struggling with two incomes; others are in far worse shape!

GREUBEL: My name is Amanda Greubel. I am 32 years old, born and raised in Iowa. I've been married for ten years today to my high school sweetheart, Josh. He’s the High School Band Director in the same district where I am the Family Resource Center Director. We have a five-year old son Benen, and our second child on the way in December. Like a lot American families, we have a lot of debt - mortgage, two vehicles, and because we both have masters degrees, a lot of student loan debt. ... This past spring our son was hospitalized for three days, resulting in $1000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses beyond what our insurance covered. Then a problem with our roof required $1500 in repairs. Even though we'd been setting aside money every month for emergencies like that, we still didn't have enough. (...)

MOYERS: Our once and future middle class is in trouble. Their share of the nation’s income is shrinking, while the share going to the top is growing. Wages are at an all-time low as a percentage of the economy, and chronic unemployment is at the highest level since the Great Depression, but the richest Americans now hold more wealth than at any time in modern history. This gross inequality didn’t just happen. It was made to happen. It was politically engineered by powerful players in Washington and on Wall Street...

Moyers introduces authors of Winner-Take-All Politics - Jacob Packer and Paul Pierson: "Through exhaustive research and analysis, the political scientists Hacker and Pierson — whom Bill regards as the “Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson” of economics — detail important truths behind a 30-year economic assault against the middle class..."

and they discuss winner-take-all economy and the American politics that produced it.

I feel like I'm playing a game of Monopoly and losing miserably! Always hated that f$*ing game!!

Must see:

http://billmoyers.com/segment/jacob-hacker-paul-pierson-on-engineered-inequality/

[kairos12]

1. One percenters want a nation of serfs, nothing less

[2naSalit]

2. +93,000,000 nt

[cbrer]

3. ONLY Power and Force

Will make our politicians promote general welfare, and make sound decisions that improve the lives of all and distribute wealth more equitably.

Our foreign "walk in and take over" policy also has to be done away with, and big business must be forced to pony up its' fair share.

These changes don't even begin to address what may be the biggest game changer of all, the environment.

But barring our citizens involvement, nothing substantial will change.

[hfojvt]

4. well, I said the same thing a few years ago

it's not like they discovered America (or I did either, for that matter).

[Flying Squirrel]

5. Monopoly....

"Remember, it's not enough to simply get rich... you must also drive all the other players into bankruptcy."

That's the deal, in real life too.