Populist passions rising
No time to write my thoughts right now, but I just have to share this writer’s comment, posted on a New York Times blog, about Geithner’s bank rescue plan:
Suzanne Garment’s column in the Wall Street Journal–in which she expresses her belief that populism is being stirred up by Obama–or any other politician–for political advantage, is a shocking reflection of just how out of touch the culture on Wall Street is from the rest of the world.
The populist passions–and growing fury–is not a creation of opportunistic politicians–nor is it the a reaction to the bonuses at AIG.
For 30+ years, ever since Ronald Reagan aw shucked his way onto the national stage and began peddling the idea of trickle down economics as a sure path to prosperity for the majority of Americans–the public has tolerating a widening gulf between what 99% of Americans get in the way of wages–and what the top 1% get.
To the point that in the U.S. today, the average CEO is paid 450 times as much as the average worker makes.
Compared with 11 times as much Japan, 12 times as much in Germany–22 times as much in Britain.
And that shocking multiple is a mere fraction of what hedge fund managers have been pulling in.
The promise was that if we showered the wealthy with ever more wealth, they would create more wealth–and shower it down on the rest of us.
The promise was a lie.
The wealthy have proven that what they excell at is not creating wealth–but accumulating it.
And adjusted for inflation, the average working man in the U.S. is making less today than he did in 1977.
And those 401Ks we were all sold as superior to company provided pension plans–because we could “control” them–and put them to “work” in the stock market are looking pretty shabby.
The populist sentiment rising in the public square is not the creation of craven politicians. It is real–and a direct result of 30 years of a one-sided class war–waged by and for the rich–that has left the bottom 95% less well off. And mad as hell.
— Don Duval
