Michael Moore says that America is not broke but, rather, that 400 individuals have managed to loot half the wealth of the nation and are holding us hostage. Is he right? Well, let's look at a couple of nice pictures. Here is the situation in 2007, before the massive bailouts transferred even more wealth to the top 1% (click the images to make them bigger):
So in 2007, the top 1% had 43% of the wealth. It's well within the realm of possibility that after the hundreds of billions of dollars of bailouts, the top 1% could have more than 50% of the wealth. So whether Michael Moore is 100% correct or not, he's right that the top 1% owns an obscene amount of America.
So what are the repercussions of allowing the top 1% to hold this gun to our head and say "your money or we crash your economy"? Well, EBM points us to this nice little picture showing the consequences of tax breaks for the rich and what they say about the priorities of our so-called leaders:
Any questions?
As Jazzbumpa is fond of saying: WASF.
- Badtux the Waddling Penguin
And what do the republicans do about this? They want to cut services to the poor, to the underprivileged, and cut programs aimed at preventing child poverty while at the same time giving tax cuts to the wealthy and big business all of which just transfers more wealth upward and continues to build the poor and destroy the middleclass.
ReplyDeleteThe question is when are the people getting f**ked going to get up off all fours, turn around, and cause a little civil unrest? Wisconsin is a good start, but shutting down an entire state for weeks at a time is what's needed. No work, no profits. Pretty simple. Until then, stock up on lube, people.
ReplyDeleteAnd how many people know about those statistics, and how many care? It's easy to win a class war when you're fighting against ostriches*.
ReplyDelete(*Actual ostriches could never be as stupid as actual Duhmericans, because if they were, they would all be eaten by ravening lions. Which, come to think of it, might be the fate of average Duhmericans...)