I saw a fascinating documentary last night. It is Robert Reich's Inequality for All. He served in various administrations of both parties for all of his career but he can tell you about that.
I knew about many of the facts and economic trends in the documentary beforehand but what surprised me was that it started much earlier. The economic trend of minimizing/eliminating the middle class goes back to at least 1970. In other words, my entire working life has been spent as part of a middle class that has now shrunk almost to the point of invisibility.
He punches holes in one of the biggest Republican lies in current vogue - the 'impairment of the job creators' through asking them to ... well actually pay their current taxes for one thing, or pay a rate that is commensurate with the huge wealth increases they are reaping without contributing anything to the economy...and certainly not jobs.
Reich makes a compelling point that the middle class represents the true 'job creators'. After all, I don't think a CEO of a large corporation making, oh, $90 million per year is going to go out January 1st and say "I am going to create some jobs this year so I can make less money next year."
No, for the large majority of American businesses, demand = job creation, and the middle class is overwhelmingly responsible for demand in this country and economy. Of course, if the middle class ceases to exist or suffers huge losses in real income as they have since 1970....there is no demand, and no job creation. Sound like any economies you know of?
This is a well done, very factual documentary and is done without the usual preachiness of someone on a pulpit. One gets the sense that Reich is done with Washington politics and wants to very much leave it in his rear view mirror, but because he understands what is going on, he cares about what is going on.
I don't give a fig about voter ID to vote in US elections, but I really think it should be a requirement for every American voter to sit down and watch this documentary and understand it before casting another misguided vote based on the most charismatic candidate, the richest, or heaven forbid based on political party membership!
Update: That whooshing sound you heard was the Canadian middle class zooming by the US, eh?
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