It is true that we need to make real investments in transportation, energy, education and technology for the future-and that our future fiscal difficulties will be eased if we make those investments now. Yet the most immediate need is to promote demand, which will restore confidence and encourage investment.
What we ought to learn from this episode is that extreme inequality reduces national economic stability. The falling wages of working families forced them to rely too much on credit to maintain and improve their standards of living. Restoring the American dream means putting a floor under family incomes and reducing the gap between the richest and poorest, not only for the sake of simple justice but because that is the most reliable economic policy for the nation as a whole. Whence cometh the hed above.
But let's be clear and real, here. Wages didn't simply "fall." They were suppressed, by both Pukes and Dims, since 1980 or thereabouts, to boost the bottom lines (and bonuses) of the corporat class. Working families were TOLD cheap credit was as good as higher wages (Greenspan, among others), and to regard their homes as liquid assets, cuz you know housing NEVER falls...Extreme income inequality is the NORM in the USofA, since forEVAR...The FDR "middle class" almost bridged the gap, but we see what's happened to them/us...
Them widda gold makesa rulez...And it ain't gonna change now...
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