Robert Freeman: ‘The Economy Isn’t Working. That’s Exactly the Plan.’

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  

From Common Dreams:

For the four decades between 1940 and 1980, the share of national income that went to the top 10% of income earners was remarkably stable, around 34%. This included those decades that are generally regarded as “the golden age of capitalism” 

But in the four decades since 1980, the share of the same top 10% has skyrocketed to 47%, a breathtaking upward shift in national income to those who are already the richest.  The upward distribution of wealth over the same period is actually even greater. 

It’s a cliché, but like so many clichés, it is grounded in reality. The rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer. That is exactly the plan, and the plan is working exactly as intended. In fact, it is accelerating, as every new crisis becomes a new pretext for ladling more and more and more of the nation’s wealth into the coffers of the already wealthy....

Donald Trump has been stunningly successful for the very wealthy which is part of the reason they have backed him. He passed massive tax cuts that accelerated the upward transfer of wealth. But that is actually the lesser part of what makes him so valuable to the wealthy. 

The far greater part is that he has re-directed the rage of the dispossessed, downwardly-mobile working class from the economic system that has caused their distress ... to the altogether bogus factor of race. This has shielded the wealthy from being held accountable for having engineered and built an economy that has intentionally shafted the vast majority of its own citizens.

 

 Read the full article.