The Richer Rich

This one should be short and sweet, but it angered me quite a bit to read about the distribution of wealth and income in America in a more thorough manner in Perfectly Legal by David cay Johnson. I think the distribution of wealth needs to be studied and exposed to a much greater extent than what it is because it impacts so many other things such as health care, social security, community services, etc etc. One of the great things to complain about today is the current state of our Social Security System and our desperate need for a good health care system, well the answer lays in the distribution of wealth. The top 10% of Americans make 50% of the income. Yep, that's 50%. The most elite families in America have seen their income rise by a good 500% while the rest of America has seen their incomes decline when adjusted for inflation. Don't let the numbers fool you that you may get from more conservative sources, families may be making more, but that is because more households have both parents working, and working longer hours...and the right likes to portray themselves as the proponents of values. Some values party when parents are less involved with the lives of their children.

With a president that assures us that privatization of everything is the answer for what ails us one has to consider what privatization will to further fatten the pockets of the rich. Furthermore, if Americans are forced to pay for even more services out of their own pockets that will make their wages decline even further, a dollar will be worth even less, and they will have less disposable income. And yes the rich continue to get tax breaks, so combined with privatization I'm sure the rich will be doing very very well in a horrible understatement.

Another thing that I found amazing is how much the IRS goes after the middle and working classes, but the wealthy get away with millions by way of tax evasion and fraud. What makes more sense?, to go after a factory worker making twenty thousand dollars a year, or the corporate CEO who is making millions, and getting away with millions, millions in the form of taxes which pay for services.

The sad part of this all as that it does not get out enough, and not enough people care to do anything about it. I find this extremely scary. The American dream does not exist, it never existed. Money goes to money. When the Astors are still fabulously wealthy hundreds of years after John Jacob Astor swindled Native Americans for furs which he used to make a fortune in real estate, then I think we have an aristocratic problem. A country is a social pact, an agreement that we'll all live and work together for the good of the entire nation. That's not how it exists in America right now. To steal a term from Laurence Gronlund, the lower classes are getting "fleeced" of what the justly deserve. The businessman takes their wool and does great things with it, and the rest of America gets to work longer and harder to get by.