05 July 2007

Poll: Majorities say income gap too wide

An AP article on Yahoo! reports that, "seven in 10 said discrepancies between income levels are too large". This has been a problem in societies since the dominant social patterns changed from roaming bands to larger semi-sedentary tribes, although the more complex and large a culture is the more pronounced the gap between rich and poor is.

In the United States, free market capitalism and entrepeneurialship have devolved into little more than short term greed. The conservative Republicans who have been in charge of this nation virtually since 1970, continue to be true to their corporate masters and find ways to further unbalance the economic system to favor greed. Reagan began a series of tax cuts for the rich and corporate loopholes (remeber Vodoo economics and the 'trickle down effect'?), which were added to by the first Bush, and compounded exponentially by King George.

They will try to sell you their propaganda that tax cuts are good for the economy, but the real results have been the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Previous to these pieces of draconian legislation, a family could easily get by with one income earner, while today, both parents need to work to attain almost half of what was to be had a generation earlier. On the other side of the spectrum, the richest 80,000 people in this country own half the wealth. HALF!

What could anyone possibly need that much money for anyways? One private jet isn't enough? Need to have a 72' yacht on both coasts? One mansion isn't enough? Come fucking on, over a third of this country is struggling to simply put food on the table, and conservative politicians talk about giving tax breaks to oil companies? Well, the poor got fucked for a long time, but it hasn't been until recently that the middle class in America has started to seriously suffer from wealth consolidation.

If the rich and powerful can return someone like King George to his throne (such as the election of 2004), despite his tragic deficiencies, what hope is there for any of us to turn this situation around? They will always outspend groups seeking to balance the situation by a magnitude of 10, and some talented sap will always be willing to pull the wool over their own eyes and do their dirty work for a big paycheck, so this situation might be inescapable. Who knows, perhaps one day poor people will start selling their children and bodily organs, oh wait, THATS ALREADY GOING ON!