Capitalism is a great idea, but it is not working as it was intended. The primary reason being our elected officials and their collaboration with big corporations. The income gap in the U.S. is widening even more now.
The rich are getting richer, and the poor are at a standstill while the ranks of the poor is growing. The income gaps of Americans is widening. Has been for decades., but it is just getting plain ridiculous. We often hear the question of compensation for ordinary workers counterposed with the idea of profits. The reality, however, is that the total share of GDP that goes to workforce compensation remains eerily steady in the 56-59 percent range year after year.
Here is a nice easy to read article that explains simply
Working Harder – Getting Less
You can read more here
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/the-rich-getting-richer.php
Over the last few decades we have been taught that the rich should get richer because it trickles down to the entire economy creating jobs. Has anyone noticed that as companies are still making profits that jobs are being cut, wages have been almost at a total standstill for a decade.
According to the progressive economics blog.. “Real Average hourly earnings (AHE) of private sector employees rose by a total of just 6.7% over the entire decade, and the average includes private sector managers (AHE up 20.3%) Excluding private sector managers (8.1% of the private sector workforce), real AHE in the private sector rose by just 4.6%, and the median non managerial private sector worker (half make more and half make less) experienced a real wage gain of just 3.4% over the decade.
The real average hourly earnings of the highest paid 5% (essentially managers and higher paid private sector professionals) rose by 12%. The main change in the distribution of hourly wages over the period was a shift within the upper half of workers to the very top.
Real AHE were essentially flat over the entire decade for lower and middle wage occupations – including clerical jobs (down 0.3%); non supervisory manufacturing occupations (up 0.6%); cashiers and retail salespersons (down 3.0%) and even the construction trades (up just 2.2% over the decade.)”
For years corporate growth has not trickled down as our government officials still provide unnecessary tax breaks. The Los Angeles Times reported that “corporate earnings keep rising at a double-digit pace while workers are lucky to get even low single-digit wage increases.” During this period Corporate dividends were also growing.
Even now with the troubled economy the top 1% lost a lot of their value. But what have they down. As the bulk of America has bulked down, lost retirement income, lost jobs, used up their savings, lost wages, basically doing without a lot of things and dramatically changing the quality of their lives..the rich invested in Americas trouble and now are gaining ground again. Car manufactures were in deep crap a while back..I didn’t see any reducing their prices by much to try and get rid of inventory and generate cash. Hell some financial institutions are already making enormous profits again while the rest of America. While the income gap widens even more.
Capitalism is a great idea, but it is not working as it was intended. The primary reason being our elected officials and their collaboration with big corporations. It never seems to change, just with different elected officials. I am so disgusted.