America's unsustainable inequality

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/america-s-unsustainable-inequality-1362667183



The hullabaloo over the sequester is, among other things, a monumental exercise in misdirection. While we debate who's to blame for the dysfunction of our federal government, and worry about the consequences for the nation's poor, sick, and elderly (liberals) or our war-fighting capabilities (conservatives), a more fundamental question is all but buried: What has to happen to restore the U.S. economy?

Even our best and brightest economists are focused narrowly on what it will take to sustain a weak recovery from the continuing drag of the Great Recession. A "recovery" is not a revolution, and if the recent past is any guide to the future it does not even imply any basic reform. So we can only imagine that a post-recovery economy will look very much like it did before the Big Bank Meltdown of 2008.

If so, even resolving the budget impasse in Congress, which may or may not keep the so-called recovery on track, will perpetuate a trend that can only deepen the real crisis we are facing – a crisis of sustainability. We simply can go on like this indefinitely and yet there is no way to fix it within the current power structure and rules of the game.

In a word, we have witnessed a steady concentration of wealth – income inequality – in this country that has reached levels no market economy can long endure. Without all sorts of artificial props – from credit-card debt and no-doc or "interest-only" loans to dodgy financial assets nobody understands (try wrapping your mind around a collateralized debt obligation or credit default swap) – is would have become impossible to camouflage what was (and is) happening.

[reteachinwi]

1. And the increase in wealth at the top was just printed by the fed.

So in total, this new action (QE4) will see the Fed buying $85B per month in US Tbonds and Fanny/Freddie bonds with newly printed dollars -essentially debasing the dollar by 1 $trillion per year. The Fed will continue doing this until:

the unemployment rate drops to 6.5%;
the inflation rate tops 2.5%;
the cows come home and the fat lady sings.

The Fed’s press statement had this comment included (emphasis mine).

The Committee will closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments in coming months. If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the Committee will continue its purchases of Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate, until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability. In determining the size, pace, and composition of its asset purchases, the Committee will, as always, take appropriate account of the likely efficacy and costs of such purchases.
http://www.triwealth.com/greedometer-2/no-qe3/

[xchrom]

2. We live inimteresting times. Nt