Having lived through Cuban missile crisis, riots, assassinations, Vietnam, OPEC, 9/11...

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Fri Dec 27, 2013, 05:09 PM - Edit history (5)

In my view, the biggest bad, horrible, calamitous, "this changes everything" thing that has happened to America in my lifetime is the increase in wealth inequality during the last five years.

The majority of the accumulated wealth of the working class has disappeared, with some going to money heaven and the rest reappearing in the coffers of the capitalist class. Literally. For real.

And it is not even seen as a crisis by the average American.

This is the part in the "frog in slowly heating pot on the stove" metaphor where the water comes to a boil. (Probably while the frog is writing an indignant blog post about the war on Christmas)

Related OP about why this is not perceived as a crisis:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024236210

And another reason this is not perceived as a crisis is having a Democratic president... which is, on balance, better than the alternative. For five years the constituencies that should have been screaming in the street have been muzzled by a need to make the incumbent look good... which is a very valid political consideration. I am not casting blame, but rather merely explaining a phenomenon wherein the constituency of the Democratic Party has gone broke while taking it all surprisingly well. It is bad timing, is all. "We" happened to go broke on "our" watch... "they" handed us the hot potato. It's just life.

[PowerToThePeople]

1. It is math.

Exponential growth. Unchecked capitalism since Reagan is the root cause. It has been happening for 30 years or more.

[kelliekat44]

4. You are correct about unchecked capitalism. But please don't forget what is behind a lot of the

money staying in the hands of the greedy, capitalists who are rolling in dough since Obama came into office. They are deliberately holding on to their wealth and not investing in either the US economy or its people. They want us all to suffer for having elected this black man to office twice. It doesn't hurt them, in fact, Obama's many hard and not appreciated decisions have enable them to increase their wealth and to keep more of it because they can pay to have their cronies elected to office by the ignorant self-defeating base. It's a shame and a sham but people don't seem to care and the ones who really care and who would be helped most if this President just had a little cooperation from the RW, are virtually powerless to do anything about it. They can't even afford to NOT buy stuff or to boycott their nemesis because they are trying to survive day to day.

[ewagner]

8. I think you're on to something here...

...I think it's more subtle than that though...

I think the overriding message is that we are being punished for electing liberals in general...or anybody that LOOKS like a liberal...

[kelliekat44]

10. Correct again! nt

[zeemike]

2. Well by what other means can we ever get to feudalism?

Which is where we are headed...once the 1% own all the land we will have a feudalistic society and the kingdom will be restored to power.

[dmosh42]

3. The average American doesn't demand equality because they're ass-kissers to the rich....

We only need to see the line up of TV shows showing the lavish lifestyles, and those shows get the highest ratings. I was born in 1942 and I don't recall such groveling to satisfy the rich billionaires and rich corporations until, as you said, during the Reagan era and continuing to now.

[ewagner]

9. I once worked in a family-owned corp

...one of the peons (like me) was very fond of "tattling" to the owner whenever a co-worker was goofing off or wasn't 100% loyal to the proposition that our job was to increase the wealth of the owner by any means possible...even if it was dishonest...his reward for tattling (as he bragged to me)was "...whenever I do that he (the owner) slips a $50 in my hand..."

This dipshit thoroughly believed that sucking up to this multi-millionaire would lead to him becoming wealthy...unfortunately he died very young (late 40s) of an stroke still living as an hourly wage-slave...with a nice title but still an hourly wage.

on edit...hit the return key too fast...

Unfortunately, I see much of American society brainwashed into believing this micro-version of trickle-down economics...it seems to be paraphrased "If I stand close enough to a rich person, he will make me rich also."

BULLSHIT

[dmosh42]

12. That story is true many times over in our country, and even to my in-laws and friends!

[pansypoo53219]

5. tinkle down economics. if somebody says supply side, 'oh, tinkle down?'

the gnewz media still thinks it works.

[pscot]

6. That and the spying

and the militarization of the police and the whole "money is speech" business.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

7. We are seeing the effects of conditioning the people.

[DallasNE]

11. As For The Cuban Missile Crisis And Riots

I witnessed those up close and personal.

I joined the National Guard in the summer of 1962 to avoid being drafted in 1963. When the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out I was 1 week from finishing basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. We were returning from out last day of actual training and the next week was test week but instead of returning to our barracks area we ended up at a large, empty assembly building where other troops were converging from all directions. Our first thought was it was some kind of unannounced closing ceremony to the end of basic training. Our first inkling that it was something else was when an officer came on stage, made a very brief statement, then introduced the Brigadier General in charge of all basic training units. We all looked at one another, wondering what was up. As the General spoke you could hear a pin drop as he spelled out what was happening and we were all on alert for deployment on as little as 48 hours notice. This time was to be used for going home to tie up loose ends -- translation, say goodbye to your loved ones. So, yes, this is one of those events where you still remember details 50+ years later. That died down so it never came to pass but it was one scary moment.

When the 4th of July riots broke out in Omaha in 1966 I was in Minneapolis visiting friend when the national news reports spoke of the riot and named the National Guard units that were to report for duty. I cut short my visit and arrived back in Omaha and immediately called my unit to see if I was still needed. After chewing me out for not having already reported they told me to get there ASAP. I got there within the hour or about 10PM. At about 2:30AM we departed for the riot area to be deployed. We were armed with one clip of ammo kept in out pocket, one vomiting gas grenade and gas mask; fixed bayonet on our rifle. After about 2 hours of patrolling the troops were withdrawn and we were release but ordered to return the next evening at 6PM. The next night we were not deployed and released but told to pay attention to the news. Another smaller riot broke out after a George Wallace fiery speech and the Guard was again called out. This time we deployed to the Civic Auditorium, which was much close to the riot area -- indeed it was the same building George Wallace spoke from hours earlier. We were told to try and get some sleep but to be ready to deploy on short notice. That order never came so we returned to our headquarters where we were dismissed. I was never so happy for my Guard tour to end. In between out drills doubled from 48 to 96 per year which translated into two "muta 5" weekends a month -- each session started Friday at 6PM and ended Sunday at about 3PM and counted for 5 drills.

So, yes, I was up close and personal to both of those events and they did a lot to shape my life and career.

[Faygo Kid]

13. Well said. I'm of your era, and agree.

Right now, it looks like the Koch brothers have won. This is for sure: Wealth owns Congress like never before.

[wryter2000]

14. I'm also old enough to remember those things

And I totally agree with you. However, I'd change the time line to 33 years, since St. Ronnie took over. The collapse and recession have made things very much more visible, but the cause goes back farther in the past.

[Deny and Shred]

15. Capitalism isn't supposed to have a middle class

It has wildly successful owners and workers. The workers recieve, by definition, less than their value to the business. When that isn't the case, the business fails.

The middle class won't exist eventually, unless there is a systemic sea change. Capitalism is about profit over every other consideration. The American Middle Class that has existed since WWII is an aberration. Raw capitalism resulted in the robber barons within a few decades. It took the political courage of Teddy Roosevelt to alter that, and a Great Depression and the destruction of European industry via world war to enable the American Middle Class.

[frazzled]

16. Inequality didn't happen in the last five years

It has been growing since the 1970s. Indeed, the biggest increase appears to have occurred in the mid-1990s until around 2000 (the dot com crash, no doubt). It's climbed again since then. But this is not a new phenomenon: we were talking about it in the 1980s.

[cthulu2016]

18. That is income (I edited to clarify)

The OP references (or was intended to reference) accumulated wealth and class position

The huge dip on that chart preceding where we are today was the bursting of the dot.com bubble. That stock market drop did not result in anything being better for average people.

Would you desribe the Bush era as beginning with an explosion of economic progressivity because inequality dropped more than it had since the great depression? For that matter, was the great depression (beginning with a huge drop in income inequality) a workers' paradise?

The last five years have been extraordinary in working-class wealth destruction. Household net worth. (And a likely predictor of greater future class immobility)

For instance, all gains in African-American household net worth from 1992-2008 were wiped out in 2-3 years.

[frazzled]

20. True, however ...

inequality in both income and wealth for African American families has always lagged significantly behind (even when its wealth, due to the housing bubble, may have seemed to be rising from the 90s until the recession), so this isn't new either.

If income inequality hadn't been a steady issue, this loss of "wealth" (household net worth) would not have occurred.

True these are two different issues, but they are related.

[cthulu2016]

21. We have, in general, see rising inequality steadily since Reagan

Rising inequality in all measures. True.

But I think that the well-established 1980-2013 trend of reversing gains made since 1932 reached a crisis tipping point in the last five years in terms of destroying plausible hope that the system could be corrected within the system.

Real people made gains under Clinton, as an uptick within a downward trend. There was some hope that a few more decades like the 1990s would reduce class inequality.

With the jobless 2000s and the collapse of 2008, that hope went out the window.

I doubt many DUers really believe (any longer) that the orderly progress of the existing system can repair the situation in almost any scenario.

Whenever climate change hits a tipping point where its effects become critical-mass it will be true that it is part of a longer trend of human-caused climate change, but will still be referred to as an acute crisis.

[frazzled]

22. Very good points

Although I've looked at it through a slightly different lens. Though I believed that people made gains under Clinton, in retrospect it seems as if many of those gains may have been somewhat illusory: while "wealth" may have seemed to increase because of liberal credit terms and mortgages extended to people, incomes, as we have seen in the chart, did not increase. And those mortgages, when bundled and sold on Wall Street as worthless instruments, were bound to crash, as they did in 2007. Those hurt most were those at the bottom, who were sent right back to square one.

Regulation of financial markets and trading remains at the heart of what is needed to restore some measure of equality (in addition to wage increases). When unscrupulous marketeers are making billions on arcane schemes, there is no hope for anyone else to win. Those schemes are what have grown steadily over the decades, and what we are back to after the Great Recession ... despite efforts of late to rein them in.

It does feel hopeless ... but I think one can never give up hope that the system can be made to repair the situation.

[airplaneman]

17. The whole ethics have changed

In the 50's and 60's most businesses had a sense of social responsibility. Wealth of the workers was going up faster than the CEO and shareholders. Companies were happy with 6 or 12 percent profit and were more than willing to share the wealth with the workers. Now its 30-50 percent profit and corporations don't care who they screw to get it.
-Airplane

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. The entire dynamic was changed. A contract takes two parties, American business

just walked away from their obligations, and we let them get away with it.