I think that an important element keeps getting lost or forgotten in these discussions when we compare the 1890’s and the 1920’s to the wealth inequality issue of today. We hear economic experts speak of the lessons that we learned from the Great Depression, but those lessons always revolve around around the average working class person and the consumer economy in general. The experts never address the lessons that the 1% have learned and believe me, the evidence is in that they learned everything that they needed to know to get their fortunes back to where they wanted them to be. It all began with the Powell memo of 1970 and proceeded at a quick pace since; the proliferation of conservative think tanks, the Koch brothers giving lavish educational endowments to universities to promote their supply-side economic theories and their libertarian philosophy. The new emergence of wide income inequality is by no means an accident; a lot of thought, funding and campaign donations went into this widespread problem. I call it a problem deliberately because they are dragging down our economy, our morale and our unified belief that we were all living in a special land of opportunity and possibility. The 1% have shattered this belief and made it into a myth; a bedtime story that we can tell ourselves so that perhaps we don’t get plagued by nightmares of credit collectors and home foreclosures. Yes maybe a tad melodramatic, but unfortunately there are too many Americans who are not living the American dream.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/13/when-you-get-done-hiding-_n_5491409.html?utm_hp_ref=politics#comments