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Why Occupy: A Chart's Worth A Thousand Words
A series of mind-boggling charts - and a handful of heartbreaking stories - document all you need to know about the current economy and what's wrong with it. From Alternet.
1. The American Dream is imploding...
The productivity/wage chart says it all. From 1947 until the mid-1970s real wages and productivity (economic output per worker hour) danced together. Both climbed year after year as did our real standard of living. If you’re old enough, you will remember seeing your parents doing just a bit better each year, year after year. Then, our nation embarked on a grand economic experiment. Taxes were cut especially on the super-rich. Finance was deregulated and unions were crushed. Lo and behold, the two lines broke apart. Productivity continued to climb, but wages stalled and declined. So where did all that productivity money go? To the rich and to the super-rich, especially to those in finance.
2. Our wealth is gushing to the top 1 percent...
Actually the top tenth of one percent. Because of financial deregulation and tax cuts for the rich, the income gap is soaring. Here’s one of my favorite indicators that we compiled for The Looting of America. In 1970 the top 100 CEOs earned $45 for every $1 earned by the average worker. By 2006, the ratio climbed to an obscene 1,723 to one. (Not a misprint!)
3. Family income is declining while the top earners flourish...
As women entered the workforce, family income made up for some of the wage stagnation. But now even family incomes are in trouble. Meanwhile, the incomes of the richest families continue to rise.
4. The super-rich are paying lower and lower tax rates...
To add financial insult to injury, the richest of the rich pay less and less each year as a percentage of their monstrous incomes. The top 400 taxpayers during the 1950s faced a 90 percent federal tax rate. By 1995 their effective tax rate – what they really paid after all deductions as a percent of all their income – fell to 30 percent. Now it’s barely 16 percent.
5. Too much money in the hands of the few combined with financial deregulation crashed our economy...
When the rich become astronomically rich, they gamble with their excess money. And when Wall Street is deregulated, it creates financial casinos for the wealthy. When those casinos inevitably crash, we pay to cover the losses. The 2008 financial crash caused eight million American workers to lose their jobs in a matter of months due to no fault of their own. The last time we had so much money in the hands of so few was 1929!
6. We’re turning into a billionaire bailout society...
We bailed out the big Wall Street banks and protected the billionaires from ruin. Now we are being asked to make good on the debts they caused, while the super-rich get even richer, some making more than $2 million an HOUR! It would take over 47 years for the average family to make as much as the top 10 hedge fund managers make in one hour.
7. The super-rich still control politics...
4 Comments so far
Show AllShould protest against economic injustice be the number 1 issue? We just killed millions of civilians in Iraq, many of them children - maybe that should take priority. I am getting a little troubled by the 'me and my money' theme. Time to look up the old FISK photos of the bombed Iraqi children........
Who is going to challenge the idiot Cain with his own words?
If we elect him, every "person," which includes corporations, must pay 9% on everything they buy, right?
And the Supreme Court has said that corporations are persons too.
Can't have that both ways?
OK then, the last I checked, the average daily volume on the NYSE alone was 4.1 Billion shares.
If the average price per share is $2, (and I believe it to be higher than this).
A 9% sales tax on these transaction brings in 738 Million dollars PER DAY!
This brings in 269.2 Billion Dollars per YEAR in tax revenue from Wall Street transactions alone.
That should balance the budget quickly enough, and spare SS & Medicaid, and is appropriately progressive enough!
I say: we give it to them; compel them to deliver. Cain: either agree now that this is indeed part of your plan, or your candidacy is DONE. Right here. Right now! And if you agree, and we elect you and you welsh on the promise, we good American 99% riot in the streets, and bring the economy to a screeching halt.
in greece; (from znet):
...The official rate of unemployment, already announced for this month at 16.5% according to the OAED (the official government employment bureau). But everyone knows that the real unemployment level is already around 25%. Up to 60% of unemployed young workers refuse to register as they see no point in doing so! This picture does not take into consideration the ‘underemployment’ levels which are at similar figures to unemployment figures. Poverty figures and drug addiction and suicide rates have all risen sharply. Many people suffer from poor health and illnesses because they cannot afford to pay for medical costs and because of deep cuts to the public health services – 50% of hospital beds face the Troikan axe! Children are going to school complaining to teachers they are hungry. The teachers’ union reported cases of children fainting in the class rooms due to malnutrition....
the greek crisis like the american crisis, is also largely the result of goldman sachs' business as usual greed, and, i should add, the even worse greed of the european banks..
You stated: "And when Wall Street is deregulated, it creates financial casinos for the wealthy. When those casinos inevitably crash, we pay to cover the losses. The 2008 financial crash caused eight million American workers to lose their jobs in a matter of months due to no fault of their own."
...due to no fault of their own????
It should be pointed out that people who didn't have the income to buy homes for speculation were bated with 'Liar Loans' by the banks. To me, the greed was throughout the class and income levels. But I must admit, the banks knew what they were doing while the people at the bottom didn't know they were going to get squeezed in the end. Buyer beware!!!
AND, the greedy at the top should have know that the overt fleecing the bottom feeders would come back to bite the 1%ers in the ass.