Yet another report, this one from the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO), highlights what many American families already know: The rich keep getting richer, while everyone else keeps struggling to get by.
The CBO report, released Thursday and prepared at the request of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), examines trends in family wealth from 1989 to 2013.
Give 'em hell Bernie, FDR would be proud.
Well this is great! Now we can really âhold Clintonâs feet to the fireâ with this! (end snark)
Hillary told reporters she plans to update the party platform.
Fixing the inequality in this country isnât in the Clinton playbook. They could fix it sure, but they wonât.
Jill Stein 2016
Hard to know whatâs worse: The fact that we (the people) canât do anything about this, or (perhaps as a result) we donât care. Probably the former.
Dr. Stein is all of those things, and so is Bernie.
We know how far that is going to take them to the Oval Office.
Income inequality is the major failure of the Obama administration along with its inanely ineffectual policies toward climate change.
Rather than aiding the average citizen, which would have benefited the broader economy, the administration rode to the rescue of the big banks and left the middle class and the poor in the dust. This was not the change we voted for in 2008.
And to say the administration did what it could do is just wrong. I donât remember Obama taking his case to the American people, barnstorming around the country, pointing out the glaring unfairness of the system. Furthermore, economically, he let down African Americans in the most profound way possible, leaving them to bear the brunt of the economic collapse.
Along with its unjust wars, this administration has a trail of shame that one hopes history will acknowledge forcefully, provided the human species actually has a future.
Jill Stein is the ONLY candidate who understands the problems we face and the urgency with which we need to face them. We can either vote for our future or for our destruction.
If the system is rigged, how can working with it change things?
Direct Democracy
What many of us fail to understand is that Bernie has not abandoned the revolution. Rather to wait until 2020, he has wrung a number of concessions out of the Dem Party, such as a min. wage of $15.-/hr and he will follow through to see them realized in this legislative period. If he succeeds millions will be thankful for their increased income and for starting to get their nose above the water a few years sooner.
Meanwhile watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwLu587U7No of Jill Steinâs CNN town hall meeting. Unlike Bernie she is not a party colleague of Clinton and thus not have to pull any punches concerning her criminality and âtoo powerful to jailâ and she doesnât
I thought that she would be too soft to lead a revolution. But that is just her voice.
If you liked, what Bernie stood for, you will have to vote for Jill on Nov. 8, not for either of the evils!
Another perspective: Bill Clinton brought the war on the poor to fruition back in the 1990s. The number of Americans in poverty has soared, and we threw away the tools that were necessary for repairing the damage, and rebuilding. We are now 20 years deep into a hell of a war on the poor. This has split apart the Dem voting base, and has deeply divided those who are not on the right wing. As Hillary Clinton began preparing for her 2016 campaign, the Clinton wing in Congress voted to virtually end food stamps to the elderly poor and the disabled, cutting monthly allotments from $115 to $10 â defining their goals.
Democrats and liberal media restrict their âinequalityâ discussion to the gap between workers and the rich. Itâs impossible to fix a problem if you donât know understand what that problem is. In real life, not everyone can work (health, etc.) and there arenât jobs for all. The US shut down/shipped out a huge number of jobs since the 1980s, ended actual welfare in the 1990s â and took the first steps to similarly âreformâ Social Security, targeting the disabled. The last I heard, there are 7 jobs for every 10 jobless people who still have the means to pursue one (home address, phone, etc.), and we have no mercy on those who are left out. The overall life expectancy of the US poor has fallen to age 60-63, something that would normally be considered a national crisis.
We have spent years making the US itself unsustainable, while pitting Americans against each other by class and race. The more people in deep poverty, the fewer the consumer purchases, the fewer products need to be made, the fewer workers are needed to make those products, the more people in poverty. Now what?
A revolution to nudge up the minimum wage for the (comparatively) more fortunate? Thatâs the equivalent of putting a piece of duct dam on a growing crack in a major dam. Duct tape and raising the minimum wage and are both good and useful things, but in our case, are simply too little, too late.
Sheep dogging it again. Bernie?
The alternative was to get absolutely nothing during the 2017 to 2021 term. Meanwhile the concessions from the Dem Party to Bernie include a general commitment to the idea of a $15-per-hour minimum wage, a compromise commitment to some sort of âupdatedâ Glass Steagall financial regulation and to breaking up too-big-to-fail institutions; and a full-throated commitment to ending the era of mass incarcerations. It also includes a multimillionaire surtax and support for the principle that universal health care should be a right. These are all goals worth fighting for now instead of delaying them.
On top of all that, the draft includes a commitment to expanding Social Security benefits. And that is not a small thing. The idea of expanding Social Security was long dismissed as a fringe proposal even among many Democrats until only recently. That it is now in the platform shows that Sandersâ campaign and economic worldview have had a real impact on party doctrine and priorities.
For the 2020 campaign all doors are still open, including a joining of forces of Jill and Bernie.
I expect that Bernie will stick it out long enough to see the make-up of the 2018 Congress and if he still runs against a brick wall, he will leave the Dem Party to join Jill either in the Green Party or in a new progressive party.
Meanwhile view this video and vote for Jill on Nov. 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwLu587U7No
Who contributes to election campaigns? Who buys the law makers? One percent owns 42% of all net worth, you can guess. Read some of the CBO report. Between 1989 and 2013, 24 years, the lowest 25% go from $1,000 in debt to $13,000. The 25 to 50 group loses 6% of their savings, the 50 to 91 group gains 35% more savings, and the top 10% gain 153% more savings. The top 1% increases their share from 24% to 42% according to the report by Emmanuel Saez of U.C. Berkeley. And over all, total net worth doubles, but for whom? See the Flow of Funds report, Fed. Reserve, Table B.101, page 136, and the total assets is 70% financial assets, real estate assets 30%.
Yeah, that Bernie character is such a nothing, while lucky9 posts vapid comments for a few dozen readers on CD, and flatters himself by calling them snark. Just who of the two might be of more consequence in the struggle for economic justice?
Oh, so now youâre a âbernie broâ? after months of trashing him? I post vapid comments? lolâŚ
Bernie worked so hard and so successively to obtain a positive program for a new congress and a new administration! So now letâs all vote against it! Bernie proved himself the better person when he walked away from the fanatics among his supporters.
I didnât trash him. I have always trashed you, Bernie Bro. You no longer have him to hide behind.
Lol in comments is the very definition of vapid.
