Source: Washington’s Blog
Preface: While conservatives are against redistribution of wealth and liberals want to tax the affluent, conservatives and liberals, the affluent and the less well-heeled should all agree that we have to stop the surge in inequality from risingfurther:
•As Robert Shiller said in 2009:
And it’s not like we want to level income. I’m not saying spread the wealth around, which got Obama in trouble. But I think, I would hope that this would be a time for a national consideration about policies that would focus on restraining any possible further increasesin inequality.
•The father of modern economics – Adam Smith - didn’t believe that inequality should be a taboo subject
•Warren Buffet, one of America’s most successful capitalists and defenders of capitalism, points out, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war ….”
•Conservatives – as well as liberals – are against rampant inequality. But all Americans underestimate the amount of inequality in our country
And while I am not calling for violence, I wonder if this is like South Africa at the end of the Apartheid era, where those in power had to hand over the reins to the majority to prevent violence.
And even if there is not a revolt, we are already seeing increased crime and the breakdown of society. See this and this.
Raging inequality was largely responsible for the Great Depression and for the current financial crisis.
I noted in January:
Egyptian, Tunisian and Yemeni protesters all say that inequality is one of the main reasons they’re protesting.
However, the U.S. actually has much greater inequality than in any of those countries.
Is there any way that the growing inequality could cause unrest in America or the rest of the Western world?
Initially, the Greek and Spanish riots have grown out of bailouts and other windfalls for the big banks and hedge funds (see this, this and this), and austerity for the working stiff. So in a sense, they are about inequality.
Moreover, I pointed out in February:
Agence France-Press reports today:
The International Monetary Fund stands ready to help riot-torn Egypt rebuild its economy, the IMF chief said Tuesday as he warned governments to tackle unemployment and income inequality or risk war.
Forbes reported in February:
Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, co-author of a best-selling book on financial crises, “This Time It’s Different,” told Forbes today in an exclusive interview, that the high unemployment rate and high levels of debt in the U.S. will sooner or later trigger serious “social unrest from the income disparities in the U.S.”
The Obama administration has “no clue,” he told me what do about this terrible disparity in the economy that is bound to erupt sooner or later, he feels.
“I don’t understand why people don’t wake up to the crisis they are creating,” he said to me just minutes after appearing at a Council on Foreign Relations round-table on “Currency Wars.”
And I wrote in June:
CNN’s Jack Cafferty notes that a number of voices are saying that – if our economy continues to deteriorate (which it very well might) – we are likely headed for violence, and civil unrest is a growing certainty.Watch the must-see CNN viewer comments on this issue:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Raging_I ... 0/Y/M.htmlPreface: While conservatives are against redistribution of wealth and liberals want to tax the affluent, conservatives and liberals, the affluent and the less well-heeled should all agree that we have to stop the surge in inequality from risingfurther:
•As Robert Shiller said in 2009:
And it’s not like we want to level income. I’m not saying spread the wealth around, which got Obama in trouble. But I think, I would hope that this would be a time for a national consideration about policies that would focus on restraining any possible further increasesin inequality.
•The father of modern economics – Adam Smith - didn’t believe that inequality should be a taboo subject
•Warren Buffet, one of America’s most successful capitalists and defenders of capitalism, points out, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war ….”
•Conservatives – as well as liberals – are against rampant inequality. But all Americans underestimate the amount of inequality in our country
And while I am not calling for violence, I wonder if this is like South Africa at the end of the Apartheid era, where those in power had to hand over the reins to the majority to prevent violence.
And even if there is not a revolt, we are already seeing increased crime and the breakdown of society. See this and this.
Raging inequality was largely responsible for the Great Depression and for the current financial crisis.
I noted in January:
Egyptian, Tunisian and Yemeni protesters all say that inequality is one of the main reasons they’re protesting.
However, the U.S. actually has much greater inequality than in any of those countries.
Is there any way that the growing inequality could cause unrest in America or the rest of the Western world?
Initially, the Greek and Spanish riots have grown out of bailouts and other windfalls for the big banks and hedge funds (see this, this and this), and austerity for the working stiff. So in a sense, they are about inequality.
Moreover, I pointed out in February:
Agence France-Press reports today:
The International Monetary Fund stands ready to help riot-torn Egypt rebuild its economy, the IMF chief said Tuesday as he warned governments to tackle unemployment and income inequality or risk war.
Forbes reported in February:
Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, co-author of a best-selling book on financial crises, “This Time It’s Different,” told Forbes today in an exclusive interview, that the high unemployment rate and high levels of debt in the U.S. will sooner or later trigger serious “social unrest from the income disparities in the U.S.”
The Obama administration has “no clue,” he told me what do about this terrible disparity in the economy that is bound to erupt sooner or later, he feels.
“I don’t understand why people don’t wake up to the crisis they are creating,” he said to me just minutes after appearing at a Council on Foreign Relations round-table on “Currency Wars.”
And I wrote in June:
CNN’s Jack Cafferty notes that a number of voices are saying that – if our economy continues to deteriorate (which it very well might) – we are likely headed for violence, and civil unrest is a growing certainty.Watch the must-see CNN viewer comments on this issue:
