The U.S. Economy as I See It Today

The U.S. economy as I see it today is moving in the wrong direction. Yet for Wall Street and the top 20% of U.S. earners taking 85% of the national income every year the 230 million people sharing just 15% of the lemon pie of prosperity life is getting tougher. If Obama economic recovery meant just giving trillions of no interest loans and bail outs to the 1% and food stamps and extended unemployment benefits to the former middle class and present poor it would have been better simply to reform the economy and transition it to an ecological economic foundation.

I have been reading another book simply titled Plutocracy with contemporary data about the tale of two economies-one for the rich and one for the 230 million Americans not on the prospering side of concentrating wealth. One of the more remarkable yet in retrospect obvious points is that with just 15% of the national income the supply and demand of producers is more geared toward the minority with most of the income instead of the majority with only 15%. Producing stuff the rich will buy is a better way to get rich oneself, and of course the rich are increasingly the producers so they can to a certain extent have their cake and eat it too.

Numerous writers have pointed out that in 1944 the tax rate on the rich was 94%. The disparity between rich and poor wasn't very great and the middle class flourished until the Reagan tax cuts kicked in reducing the top tax rate from 70% down to 30 something %. The decline of the American middle class and problems for the poor in the modern era largely began in that time.

The Obama administration evidently feels that politics can't do anything to take back the economy for the majority of Americans and that is plainly wrong. Global economic forces make direct a more lassez faire approach to economics however political economy can also be influence by political reformers with intestinal fortitude in any era from that of the founders to F.D.R. and the new deal folks. Corporate networked power can be cut, taxes increased and ecospherically progressive business accentuated. America does not need to be a nation of progressive decay with 84% of corporations outsourcing.

Does President Obama really expect the Trayvon Martins of tomorrow to take out a $100,000 dollars in student loans and graduate from a college with little chance of a job thereafter? What is the alternative for the class of Americans getting 15% of the economic pie of prosperity who have also been given the demographic opportunity to start buying life insurance many don't need in order to pay for Obamacare? When the 230 million with 15% of the nation's income have to subsidize itself that is robbing Peter to Pay Paul and vice versa.

With the Plutonomy a nation for-itself and Wall Street a separate and unequal economy pumped up by the U.S. Government the national infrastructure and quality job creation prospects for improvement fade away. The comfortable middle class remnant may just not care yet the ecosphere and economic decline will erode their comfort zone in the years ahead too. Without taking back the nation's economy for the majority the corporate chains will continue to displace and expropriate American ingenuity, inventiveness and material production and after co-opting it and skimming savings relocate it abroad. That cycle is not being corrected by the Democrat Party, and who else is there?

The Opiate of the masses; entertainment in music, sports and Hollywood can keep the 230 million pre-occupied with things other than their political economic vital interests. It is possible to have free trade yet also develop a political ethos that lets the big corporations take care of themselves with government devoting itself to the well being of the people of the United States. While Asia, India and other BRIC nations have faster growing economies in the conventional non-sustainable style the U.S.A. could reform through taxation and a host of legislation the prioritization of limited size businesses independent from large corporations, and such would produce the majority of material infrastructure Americans require for living well.

An American defense industry ought to be as concerned about increasing the ecospheric health and economic and social well being as much as dropping napalm on terrorist clumps somewhere 'out there'. National defense of economic vital interests of the majority isn't well served when a global plutocracy makes the majority a kind of slum dwelling crowd pacified by entertainment.