"It’s the inequality, stupid"

[applegrove]

It’s the inequality, stupid

by ROBERT B. REICH at the Globe & Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/its-the-inequality-stupid/article17294105/?utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=The%20Globe%20and%20Mail&utm_type=text&utm_content=TheGlobeandMail&utm_campaign=114426120

"SNIP.................................


Once the middle class has exhausted its coping mechanisms – wives and mothers surging into paid work (as they did in the 1970s and 1980s), longer working hours (which characterized the 1990s) and deep indebtedness (2002-present) – the inevitable result is slower growth and fewer jobs.

This hits the poor especially hard, because they’re first fired, last hired and bear the brunt of declining wages and benefits. A stressed middle class also has a harder time being generous to them.

Helping America’s poor presumably requires money, but the U.S. fiscal cupboard is bare, and the only way to replenish it now is through tax increases on the wealthy.

The shrinking middle class also hobbles upward mobility. There is less money for schools, training and social services, and the poor face a more difficult challenge moving up – the income ladder is far longer and its middle rungs have disappeared.





..............................SNIP"

[winter is coming]

1. About fucking time. That's been my sigline for months. n/t

[Laelth]

2. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth