Time to change it all

The U.S. continues to lead the world in billionaires (571 in 2014, with China a distant second at 190). But after decades of financial deregulation and attacks on employee rights, Americans rank 26th in median wealth (defined as assets owned, minus debts owed for the person on the middle rung of the wealth ladder). The median Australian is four times wealthier. The Canadians are twice as wealthy.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranks 43 nations by the degree of employee protection provided by government. The 21 indicators used include such items as laws and regulations governing unfair dismissals, notifications and protections during mass layoffs, the use and abuse of temporary workers, and the provision of severance based on seniority. Countries are ranked on a scale of 0 to 6 with 6 going to those who provide the most legal protections for employees and zero for those with the least. The results showed the United States second-last at 42.

American has nearly the lowest union density rate (the number of union members, both public and private divided by the total number in the workforce). Mass strikes virtually disappeared, making it extremely hard for workers to collectively press for higher wages and set higher wage patterns for non-union workers as well.

Pro-business policy makers, pundits and academics came up with the "Better Business Climate" model. They said we could get out of the 1970s period of high unemployment and inflation (stagflation) if we unleashed business by cutting taxes and regulations. In particular, the theory held that businesses need maximum "labor flexibility" —that there should be virtually no legal restrictions on employer-employee relations. The more flexibility, the more economic efficiency, and therefore the more economic growth. The pie would grow bigger and there would be more for everyone.  What happened instead? Virtually all the "growth" went to the top fraction of one percent. The bottom 90 percent stagnated. Finance was deregulated. Wall Street and CEO compensation skyrocketed.

Many argued that it was all about equal opportunity so that everyone has a fighting chance to move up the income ladder, a land of opportunity, not aristocracy. In the U.S., the odds are about 50/50 that you'll be stuck in the same class as your parents. But in Denmark the odds are greater than 4 to 1 that you'll improve your economic position.

The free-marketeers of the Tea Party blame immigrants, not CEOs and of the Libertarian Right blame the government. They both vilify ordinary folk as the "takers," while allowing the "makers" to rob us blind. The People are on our own. We'll need to build a new movement that challenges elite power.

Before globalization, in Homestead, Pennsylvania remember the way Carnegie and Frick pacified their America iron workers by locking them out and bringing in Pinkerton thugs? Today large corporations continue to engage in activities calculated to pacify their workers to maximize profits. They just use different tactics. Our elected non-representatives, excel in dividing us, the victims, the 99%, who then blame one another for our common plight instead of focusing on the actions of the 1% who control the economy. The 1% is afraid of “We the people”. Homeland Security, NSA spying and providing military weapons to the police are three signs of this fear. The 1% fear that the 99% might learn from the rebellion in Ferguson.

Remember the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s and 90s? 1,043 savings and loan associations in the United States failed due to white collar crime. Thousands of innocent customers suffered great financial harm.

Remember the Enron scandal? Enron customers were cheated through fraudulent overcharging. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Enron employees lost their jobs, pensions, savings, health insurance and more by reason of its CEO’s criminal conduct. Innocent investors also lost millions of dollars.

Remember downsizing? Greedy corporations moved their production facilities to so-called third world nations to take advantage of wage slave labor, child labor, lack of employee safety laws and environmental regulations, all to garner excess profits. Think of current Detroit as an example of the economic horrors visited upon American workers and their communities by these greedy laissez faire capitalists without consciences.

Remember the 2008 financial crises? The days of toxic mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps? The entire world suffered and still suffers from the crimes of banksters and financial elites. People lost their homes, pensions, jobs, cars, health insurance and more. Their children had to drop out of college. Spousal and child abuse and suicides abounded. The corporate crooks who orchestrated the crash got bailed out with trillions of public dollars and took huge bonuses.

Remember, today the top 1 percent of Americans control 43 percent of the financial wealth while the bottom 80 percent control only 7 percent of the wealth.  How much of that 80% is the result of the horrors documented above? This inequality is also the direct result of federal laws that were passed in return for campaign donations – legal bribery.

From here and here