Rich will keep getting richer by devouring the middle class
Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama used radically different pitches to appeal to their voting base although both increased the size of government and did the bidding of the corporate world. Each in their policies favored big business, even though President Obama pretended to be an adversary of the corporate world.
The “too big to fail” motto echoed in the Wall Street crisis in late 2007 as a definitive statement of the ties to the corporate world and their abandonment of small businesses. “Crony capitalism” has been coined to describe this symbiotic relationship.
Since the over $800 billion bailout, the “one percenters” of the uber rich have increased their wealth by 28 percent while the middle class has lost 5 percent of their earning power. There have been an incredible 9 million jobs-plus lost in the past five years of the Obama administration, as well as a whopping 11.5 million unemployed and 4.2 million people who have been out of jobs for six months. Soon, the Obamacare train wreck is going to have a negative financial impact on the middle class, especially young adults.
The stock market has gone through the roof, setting an all-time high with the aid of the Federal Reserve’s, Ben Bernanke, increasing the money supply each month by $87 billion. These QE policies 1, 2 and 3 have devaluated our dollar and have kept the stock market revved up for the one-percenters. Additionally, the cheaper dollar has made it easier for international corporations to sell their products overseas. Although it has made foreign items much more expensive at home to the middle and lower class. We are being nickeled and dimed by invisible taxation of regulations, not representation, which is further shrinking the middle class.
The ever-expanding safety net for the unemployed is depleting the middle class. It has deincentivized and demoralized many citizens, especially the youth, working up the economic ladder. Even the meager number of jobs being created are 93 percent part-time, low-paying positions primarily in fast food and retail marketing. Thirty-six percent of the Millennial generation is still living at home.
Regardless of government and their pals in the media, the economy is growing at a pathetic 1.4 growth rate (as usual, it will be revised lower next month) and a 7.4 unemployment rate, which is actually hovering at 14-16 percent. This is a disaster for the middle class and a bonanza for big government and corporate greed.
In the U.S. according to an Associated Press survey, four out of five U.S. adults will face joblessness, welfare or poverty at some point in their lives. This widening gap between rich and poor is a natural outcome of the fascist marriage between a centralized government and large corporations.
“Pay for play” opened up the floodgates of corruption of government and the corporate world. Only the big corporations have the assets for lobbying to gain favor with D.C.
The process of government co-opting corporations is not a new phenomenon. The government can more easily enforce and control a smaller number of humongous corporations that will comply with their questionable regulations than deal with many independent, self-made entrepreneurs. This hijacking of certain corporations by the central government leader results in a Mussolini or Hitler.
Small businesses are screwed in competing fairly against the corporate world. The corporate lobbyist with the Washington ruling class creates the laws that favor big business. Small businesses are a nuisance to an autocratic government and need to be suppressed. This government manipulation of regulations and tight money policies for small business has significantly reduced their ranks in the middle class.
This insidious partnership between big government and the corporate world is beneficial to both of them and the “one percenters” who are heavily invested in securities.
Remember, America, the land of freedom and opportunity, has produced the greatest and most prosperous middle class in the history of man. Presently, the middle class is being dismantled and shafted.
Dr. Maglio is an author and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. You can visit Dr. Maglio at www.drmaglio.blogspot.com.
