TIME FOR A NEW "NEW DEAL"
Those of us arguing for a reshuffling of the deck for a new "New Deal" don’t argue for equality of outcome (although that’s the shibboleth the Right tries to pin on liberals) but rather a fair distribution of the fruits of prosperity — something we haven’t seen since Reagan bamboozled the electorate with the fantasies of Reaganomics.
I submit, maldistribution is self evident when the richest 10% of income earners garner 87% of the growth in national income, as they did during Reagan’s term in office, and 98% during the first 7 years of Bush’s (before the wheels came off the wagon in 2008), not to mention when there is appalling poverty, hunger, homelessness, lack of medical care in a country that brags endlessly about its “exceptionalism.” The fairness to which liberals appeal implies a change of rules regarding fairness of opportunity, taxation, education, employment, access to health care, etc.
Here’s the point the extreme Right misses about changing the rules to stop the ineluctable campaign by the rich to gather up all the marbles: It’s not just fair, but also good business for them to “spread the wealth.” Concentration of wealth has three undesirable side effects for rich people:
The middle class, which has been marking time with no real pay increases in over three decades, tends to borrow beyond their means to repay, just to keep up with what has become the chimera of the American Dream. To the extent that the middle class defaults, the rich suffer, since they are the main ones doing the lending. (Of course, those paragons of free-market/government-is-the-problem virtue are first in line for government handouts when the defaults begin cascading.)
The lack of growth in income for the middle and lower classes, particularly when combined with the deleveraging that follows a credit meltdown, means a lack of growth in consumer spending, in turn meaning a lack of growth in corporate sales, income and investment, producing a corresponding damper on the prices of stocks mostly owned by the rich.
If "the rest" are economically oppressed beyond endurance, they will revolt and redistribute wealth by either ballots or bullets, depending on their options.
Henry Ford had the foresight to pay his workers well because he wanted them to be able to afford to buy the cars they were making. The rich and powerful elite today show no such enlightened self-interest.
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