The Elites Are Unanimous: Lower Everyone's Wages and Standard of Living -- Except They Don't Say it

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/156219/the_elites_are_unanimous%3A_lower_everyone%27s_wages_and_standard_of_living_--_except_they_don%27t_say_it_out_loud/

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alls for a bipartisan “Grand Bargain” on taxes and spending for the next decade ring out daily, if not hourly, from the politicians and pundits who dominate our political media. But the national discourse is silent on the tacit agreement both parties have already made on the future that lies ahead for the majority of working Americans: a dramatic drop in their living standards.

The United States can no longer satisfy the three great dreams that have driven most of its domestic politics since the end of World War II: the multinational corporate class's dream of limitless profits; the military-industrial complex's dream of global hegemony; and the dream of the people for rising incomes and expanding opportunities. One out of three? Certainly. Two out of three? Maybe. All three? No.

So far, Corporate America gets priority boarding in the economic lifeboat – with the safest seats reserved for Wall Street. Four years after the crash, the financial sector remains heavily subsidized with cheap federal loans that it uses to buy higher yielding bonds, speculate in exotic IOUs and pay outrageous salaries to those at the top. Larger than ever, they are more than ever “too big to fail.” As a result, Wall Street continues to divert the nation’s capital away from investment in sustainable high-quality jobs in America.

Next in line is the Pentagon and its vast network of corporate contractors, members of Congress with military facilities in their districts and media propagandists for the empire. The administration, along with some libertarian Republicans, insists that military spending will not be spared in the coming era of austerity, and has proposed modest cuts over the next decade. At the same time, virtually all of Washington supports the policies that require huge defense budgets, i.e., remaining in the Middle East, expanding in Latin America and containing China in its own neighborhood. The threatened across-the-board cuts in federal spending that become automatic if a long- term budget deal is not made by December will almost certainly be finessed in order to protect the military budget.

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. That Is What Reagan Meant About Creating Service Economy

When Reagan said he was creating a "service economy" he meant reducing workers' standard of living was the plan. Now we have been at it for over 30 years. The elite are the "job creators". You can wash their toilets and cut their lawns. At DOL anyone paying attention knew immediately what Reagan was saying. The public apparently thought it was a good idea. Their votes over the years helped create what we have now.

When will the voters wake up to the GOP scam. Based on the polls in this election there is no evidence that voters are waking up.

The Democrats have allowed themselves to be forced to the right by big money extorting them. Any Democrat who has run on a pro labor or progressive agenda has been roasted and toasted at the polls. American voters will not seem to vote for any politician who calls for fair wages and economic justice. It is too socialistic or communistic for voters. Getting a share of the wealth you create as a worker is just unacceptable for some reason.

Why people keep voting for their own slavery every time is beyond me.

[bvar22]

9. Actually, the opposite is true.

America loves champions of the Working Class.
A populist running on a platform of Economic Justice for Americans who Work for a Living (a la Huey Long) [font size=3]with Party Support[/font] can WIN anywhere.
The key phrase here is "With Party Support".

Some populist Democrats even manage to do well without Party support,
like Paul Wellstone. He won support and votes in conservative areas by unashamedly supporting the Working Class, and telling the plain truth.
They had to kill him to get rid of him.

You stated:

[font color=red]"Any Democrat who has run on a pro labor or progressive agenda has been roasted and toasted at the polls."[/font]

I disagree.
Any Democrat who has run on a pro labor or progressive agenda has been roasted and toasted BY the Corporate ("Centrist&quot elements within the Party and their friends, The Media. Most of them have done well in their districts or states until torpedoed by Big Money and the entrenched elements inside the Party.

The pattern over the last 10 years is frightening:

*Paul Wellstone... KIA

*Howard Dean.... discredited, marginalized, banished for cheering too enthusiastically!

*Cynthia McKinney..... attacked, isolated, marginalized, cut off from Party support, expelled

*Eliot Spitzer...... Honey Trapped, discredited, isolated, expelled

*Anthony Wiener..... marginalized, discredited, isolated, expelled

*Russ Feingold.... attacked from The Center, marginalized, isolated from party support, exiled

*Alan Grayson .... attacked from The Center, marginalized, isolated from party support, exiled

*Dennis Kucinich ... attacked from The Center, discredited, marginalized, isolated, redistricted, exiled

*Shirley Sherrod... Blackballed by the Party Leadership over an exaggerated allegation (BY BRIETBART!), expelled

*Van Jones... Blackballed by Party Leadership and expelled over a contrived and over-hyped Republican allegation

*John Edwards.... expelled and demonized for weakness in his personal life that regularly goes unpunished for others

*Dan Rather... set up and bitch slapped by the Conservative Media over a minor offense, and left hanging

The downfall of some of the above can be partially attributed to their own personal foibles,
but in every case, the party leadership was quick to condemn and abandon, and made no effort to embrace or assist any of these Liberals in their time of need. There ARE politicians in BOTH parties guilty of far more serious transgressions who managed to survive their troubles because of Party support.

*Maxine Waters... currently under attack

*The Congressional Black Caucus..... admonished by the President to quit whining, "Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes" and get behind the President's agenda.
(When has he EVER spoken to the "Blue Dogs" like that?)
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-tells-blacks-stop-complainin-fight-015928905.html

*The Progressive Caucus.... no seats in the cabinet, almost none appointed to positions of any power in the Executive Branch, the White House doesn't take their calls.

*ACORN.... quickly thrown under the bus by Party Leadership over a hyped and contrived allegation.
The Party leadership literally could not run away fast enough!

*Organized LABOR... while holding up a facade of supporting Unions, the Party leadership continues to advance Anti-UNION policy (unregulated International Trade with Slave Labor countries), and attack UNIONS as a major problem in Education, Government Employment, and the Work Place.
An "anonymous White House Spokesperson" even ridiculed LABOR for "wasting $10 Million Dollars" by supporting a Pro-LABOR challenger to virulently Anti-UNION Blanche Lincoln in the Arkansas Democratic Primary, 2010.
To rescue Lincoln's failing Primary Campaign, Party Leadership gave Lincoln an Oval Office Endorsement, and even sent Bill Clinton back to Arkansas to help out poor, Anti-LABOR Blanche.
("I've always depended on the kindness of Corporate Management&quot


*Democratic Primaries 2010.... Strong pattern of endorsing and supporting Blue Dogs and Big Business Conservatives,
even including one "former" Republican running against more Liberal, Pro-Working Class challengers.
(See: Arkansas, Pennsylvania and others)



The pattern is clear.
---bvar22
A mainstream/Center loyal FDR/LBJ Working Class DEMOCRAT, now relegated to the "Fringe Left" wing of the "New Democrat" Centrist Party.

The disturbing article cited in the OP shines more light on the real basis for our problems,
and it is NOT The American people.
It IS a Rigged System that offers no viable alternative.

[HiPointDem]

13. quite a list.

[Blecht]

16. This really deserves to be its own OP

I would kick & rec it.

[quaker bill]

2. When you arrange a social order

That promotes the 1% coming into possession of 37.4% of all wealth, and the top 10% possessing 74.9% of all wealth, certain things become "unaffordable".

First this arrangement leaves the lower 50% of us scrapping with each other to figure out how the remaining 1.1% of all wealth is divided between us. Most of us feel that "we can't afford anything" because with the tiny scrap left to us, we can't afford anything.

With this sort of arrangement, we can't afford:

properly funded schools

Social Security benefits

Medicare

defined benefit pensions

living wages and occasional raises


These things are in a real sense "affordable", but they aren't "affordable" when the first priority is to assure that those with great wealth get a larger and growing share of the economy. When this is the first priority, you do not collect taxes from the people who have the money to pay them.

It is important to understand that if the upper 10% came to possess a just little less wealth, say only 73.9% of everything (still quite rich), the lower 50% could have twice as much money as they do now. People are paid so little now that simply a reduced bonus to the CEO class and Wall Streeters would allow working class wages to double with no change in retail prices.

It is hard to wrap one's head around the numbers, but this is what they are saying.

[HiPointDem]

14. +1

[mother earth]

3. I now fully understand why Sanders is an Independent. If there were ever a time when we needed

true democracy it would be now, sadly this paradigm is illusion.

What we truly lack is rule of law and no measure of military force will translate a return to that rule of law, in fact, the military budget should be spent on prosecuting crime that has engulfed our nation.

[nashville_brook]

4. This is @ Jeff Faux's new book "The Servant Economy" -- link to Diane Rehm interview

This is a GREAT interview -- I bought the book after listening:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-07-17/jeff-faux-servant-economy



Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Servant-Economy-Americas-Sending-Middle/dp/0470182393/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342792770&sr=1-1&keywords=jeff+faux

From the Inside Flap:

In his acclaimed 2006 book, The Global Class War, economist Jeff Faux predicted a major financial catastrophe in the next few years. Sometimes, one would rather be wrong.

In The Servant Economy, Faux surveys the wreckage and asks: Where do we go from here? The economy may recover from the financial crash, but the historic and geographic cushions that have kept Americans prosperous are deflated. The United States can no longer support the dreams of Wall Street for boundless speculative wealth, the military-industrial complex for global hegemony, and the middle class for rising living standards. One of these dreams? Certainly. Two? Perhaps. But not all three.

Republicans and Democrats brawl in public, but, in effect, they have already cut a deal: the middle-class dream will be sacrificed. Even with a cyclical economic recovery, the average American will face substantially lower income, less opportunity, and hardening class lines by the mid-2020s. As high-paying service jobs follow industrial jobs offshore and government safety nets are systematically dismantled, more and more Americans will scratch for a living as educated twenty-first-century servants—insecure and stripped of dignity.

(snip)

The Servant Economy takes the reader on a historical tour of the rise and fall of the idea that democratic government has a responsibility for shaping the future, shows how Barack Obama is trapped in Ronald Reagan's legacy, and delivers a savage indictment of Wall Street financiers and their Washington toadies who promote an age of austerity for the people and an age of gluttony for themselves. The book paints a brutally honest picture of what austerity will mean for twentysomethings laden with college debt who will become thirty- and fortysomethings still stuck in low-paying jobs, for the elderly who will have to work until they die, for communities where services and safety will deteriorate. It warns of a future in which military power becomes the only instrument for exerting U.S. influence in the world.

The core problem, writes Faux, is not that we don't know what to do, it is that the corruption of our politics by big money smothers any attempt at transformational change. Thus, there is no escape from the grim scenario he describes—unless an aroused citizenry abolishes the system that equates money with free speech and corporations with citizens. Washington insiders scoff that such an effort is "hopeless." Even more hopeless, Faux concludes, is the notion that we can shape a better economic future—unless we do so.

[xchrom]

5. +1

[reformist2]

6. Corporations will be corporations; regulation is the only way to rein them in to serve the people.

I think one reason there is resistance to this basic argument is that there is an error in the law that needs to be fixed: a corporation is not really a person, it's more accurately described as a machine - a profit-maximizing machine. Seen in that light, it becomes clear that they do not serve the interests of the public at large, but that they are merely tools for creating wealth for the owners. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but that shift in thinking would be very helpful in putting the role of corporations in their proper place.

[hifiguy]

7. Those babbling orcs who shriek most loudly about "freedom from government"

are the first to drop to their knees and demand to be enslaved by a corporate master.

That is stupidity that can not ever be fixed.

[raouldukelives]

8. It's our "greed is good" mindset.

People giving Wall St all the extra money they have in the hopes they can cash out and be a little Trump in their neighborhood.
Unfortunately all that additional power has only led to them eviscerating even more of our environmental regulations and workers rights. Only led to more workers in virtual bondage and promoting massive amounts of climate change.
But I understand right wingers and libertarians investing in corporations. It's a foothold on what they want to accomplish in the world. All of that additional money & power only helps them obfuscate the truth of what they are doing even more. Only allows them to place even more corporate friendly politicians in office. Only kills all of us, all the animals, all the plants, that much faster.

[Zalatix]

10. It's about time people started noticing this. This is not accidental. It is a conspiracy.

[bvar22]

11. A depressing essay that tells the unvarnished truth.

a [font size=5]MUST READ[/font] for every American.

"Certainly, most of the blame lies with the reactionary Republicans whose fear of their lunatic fringe trumps loyalty to their country. And there’s been some bad luck, such as the European crisis. But Obama shares some culpability. He took up the Bush plan for no-strings Wall Street bailouts, expanded unregulated trade, cold-shouldered his union base, and has now adopted fiscal austerity as his economic priority. Whether you think the president is a wimp, a willing tool of Wall Street or a political saint mugged by right-wing thugs, the fact remains that he could or would not engage in all-out battle for the economic transformation he so eloquently promised.

The last four years have demonstrated that, taken together as a governing class, the leaders of our two-party system are currently unwilling to do what is necessary to reverse declining standards. As for the next four, given the choice, Obama is clearly the better option. Under Democrats, the slide will be less steep and rough. Whoever the “real” Romney might be, the extinction of Republican moderates among the Party’s pool of potential policymakers means that his administration will be largely staffed by conservative fundamentalists and corporate fixers who can’t wait to return us to the dog-eat-dog labor markets of the pre-New Deal."

The only thing lacking in this piece is the solution.

Our neighbors in Latin America have given us a Blue Print for CHANGE.
Many Latin American countries have successfully taken their countries back from the hands of the 1% in near bloodless revolutions,
but you won't hear about it in the US Media,
or from the politicians of either party who will continue to demonize these emerging democracies and support their overthrow.

[font size=3]"The worst enemy of humanity is U.S. capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neoliberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge this reality, that nation states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then each day the most fundamental human rights are being violated."[/font]
----Bolivian Reform President Evo Morales

There IS precedent for these types of reforms here in America.
FDR said much the same thing in 1944 with his Economic Bill of Rights,
but FDR and THAT Democratic Party are long dead,
so we have some work to do.

When The American Working Class and The Poor realize WE have MORE in common with each other
than we have in common with the ruling 1% and their employees in Washington,
WE can have change too!

Spread the Word.
VIVA Democracy!
I pray we get some here soon.



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
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[woo me with science]

12. Excellent essay. K&R

It is an orchestrated plan, and it is bipartisan. This is the one percent against the rest of us.

Wake up, America.

[Egalitarian Thug]

15. K&R. More for them, nothing for you or me.

They believe themselves to be the masters and we belong to them. It's not very hard to see without performing some impressive mental gymnastics to avoid seeing it.

The picture is perfect. Clinton totally suckered me the first time and I admit to some small satisfaction when he showed his true colors after leaving office.