Income Inequality Follow Up

We don't typically do follow up of our posts around here but I have new/additonal info to add to my post from the other day.

First of all, there is this collection of charts published by the good folks at Mother Jones:

It's the Inequality, Stupid: Eleven charts that explain everything that is wrong with America.

Fascinating - and not the least bit surprising - information.

Secondly, I saw economist Jeffrey Sachs on the TV machine last night discussing the union-busting in Wisconsin (or, at least, the implications of it in a more macro sense). I am just going to turn the floor over to Dr. Sachs - one of the few economists with a resume that rivals The Great Paul Krugman. This is some of what he had to say about unions:

The reason (for unions) is that the wages have been going down while the income at the top has been soaring and what these billionaires (my note: the Koch Brothers for example) have been doing is buying up the whole congress (and) now buying up the governors to make sure they never have to pay taxes again. And then we have these huge budget deficits because they don't pay taxes anymore and what do they want to do? Cut the benefits for the poor. Cut the education stipends. Cut the wages for teachers. It's unbelievable the game that is going on in this country... this is absolutely vile given what's been happening in the last twenty years. We got workers going down, we got billionaires soaring and they're doing everything they can to put in that final twist.

The key part there, at least as it pertained to my previous post, was how governments are cutting social programs that benefit the poor/working class and middle class to deal with lost tax revenue from the tax cuts given to the rich (who are doing VERY well in today's economy even as everyone else is getting left behind and the vast majority of the country may be looking at a lower standard of living than the previous generation).

Then the conversation turned to the prank phone call where Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker acknowledged the political calculations of his bill. In the call, Governor Walker likened himself to President Ronald Reagan when Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Dr. Sachs was asked if that was a fair comparison. This was his response:

It is true that Reagan got a lot of this started. This unbelievable surge of income and wealth inequality. We've never lived like we do right now with the middle class disappearing in this country and the rich - in a contagion of greed - trying to crush the bottom and I think Reagan did get that started. The fact of the matter is that when you look at how the middle class started it's decline in America, it was in the 1980s when the tax cuts on the top were given, the budget deficits opened up, they started to squeeze education and social spending and we're breaking this country in two. That's what's happening.

Not good times.