I have written enough about Syria, Cruz, scandals, NSA, and shootings…..so let me change subjects for awhile…..change to economics. Okay this is where I turn my back on the class and some give me the finger, others act out choking and still others just roll their eyes and drift off…….yeah, economics is not a subject that many willing write about or talk about……and that is why I am here!
Let us begin with a look at some economic data…….
As Congress prepares for yet another fiscal showdown, new data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau should be a wake-up call that it is time to move away from a wrong-headed austerity agenda and pivot to a focus on creating jobs, boosting wages, and investing in family economic security.
The new data on poverty and income show that despite economic growth, there was no statistically significant improvement in the poverty rate or median household income in 2012.
Behind these topline numbers are data that contain real warning signs for American families and the overall economy if Congress continues down its current path.
Here are three things you need to know about the new data and how they affect the budget and policy choices before us:
- Income inequality has widened since the end of the Great Recession.
- Our safety net is working overtime to compensate for rising income inequality and the proliferation of low-wage work.
- High poverty rates among young children of color have long-term implications for our economic competitiveness.
And all that data is pointing to the Middle Class slowly disappearing….even if one does not want to admit it…..just look at any income data you like…..you can chart what is happening to the Middle Class.
The Middle Class? We could make a case that the Middle Class was an accident….that it was never intended to be a characteristic of capitalism……….
It’s a sign of Edward McClelland’s age that he remembers the middle class. He grew up in an automaking town in the 1970s, where even high school dropouts could get jobs that would support a family and a mortgage payment. Everyone assumed this was capitalism’s triumphant endpoint, that it “had produced the worker’s paradise to which Communism unsuccessfully aspired,” McClelland writes at Salon. Now, that prosperity looks like a “historical fluke,” a brief denial of normal economic trends made possible because the US emerged from World War II with its manufacturing base unharmed. “For the majority of human history … there have been two classes; aristocracy and peasantry,” McClelland observes. Left unfettered, capitalism will tend to reinforce that trend, “concentrating wealth in the ownership class.” This drift “can only be arrested by an activist government that chooses to step in as a referee.” But the US has been on a 40-year deregulation kick, running through Democratic and Republican administrations alike. The result: “The greatest disparity between the top earners and the middle earners in nearly a century.” Click for McClelland’s full column.
The US is starting to look a lot like the UK…….that is if you start in a certain strata of the economy you and your will never leave that strata…….in other words there will be two classes……the aristocracy and the peasantry……….once you are in one you will forever remain there with little chance of mobility…….
Since we are talking about the struggles of the middle class I thought I would point out a story in today Delaware News Journal.
Yesterday we had hit the number of 100 policies canceled for each person who signed up via the new insurance exchanges.
Today the number is 1,433 policies canceled for each person to sign up in the new exchanges.
And that’s just Highmak’s announcement. Conventry (our only other realistic choice in the “private” insurance market in the First State) has yet to make its announcement.
Yes, eventually (some time before the years 2100) the technical glitches with the new exchanges will be fixed. That won’t be because of the overwhelming need to provide insurance, but because Highmark, Coventry, Aetna et al cannot access their profits via the massive Federal subsidies for over-priced plans. Trust me, the entirety of Obamacare is being driven by the government engaging in the largest transfer of wealth from middle- and lower-class taxpayers to corporate interests that we have ever seen.
Supporters of Obamacare continue to talk about not being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, or being able to carry your children (who, it seems, won’t move out of the house) until age 26, and they make the case that 15 million people losing their insurance (or having to pay new premiums that are nearly double), or tens of millions seeing their premiums rise is somehow a better curb on the greed of the insurance industry than the pseudo-regulated market we had before.
The reality is much simpler. It was the failure of Hillarycare in the early 1990s that gave us the present mess of an insurance system; go back and take a look. When all is said and done in another few years we will understand that Obamacare represents exactly the opposite of what it was advertised as: It is the complete take-over of health care in this country by insurance companies.
Insurance companies are now buying into hospital chains, urgent care clinics, and the factories that produce medical devices. How can they afford to do this? Simple: the Federal government is handing them hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies. Simple (2): Obamacare was designed to favor centralization in medical care, and is driving private practice doctors out of business at record rates.
In other words: Obamacare will not be repealed or seriously revised. Repeal would require a political upsurge that’s not going to happen, and serious revision would require those who crafted and supported this boondoggle to admit they screwed up. Besides, the Republican opposition on this issue has got even less than nothing.
Nor, my liberal friends, are we going to now move toward single-payer. Obamacare has killed single-payer as a realistic option in this country for at least two decades. Why? Because just as Highmark has invested in MedExpress, Highmark will invest in Congressional Democrats and their legion of lesser clones to insure that the gravy train does not end.
All the promises that Obamacare would reduce the overall cost of medical care in this country were ALWAYS lies. You cannot extend new care to tens of millions of people, and extend the parameters of care for tens of millions more, and seriously expect the cost to go down because … well, because of what?
Hi Owen and welcome back….always glad to see you comment.
I have always like single payer…..this was a piece of crap from the get go because insurance companies had a hand in the making…..was gonna suck from the beginning….just that simple…..I still await a solution or two from our GOP comrades…..but that is hard to do when they only have 8 days to work in November……and next session they work a total of 126 days…..and most of that will be spent trying to vote on ACA….all in all DC is a pathetic mess.
Well we all know what is needed . . . fix the infrastructure . . . create jobs . . .I remember when Boehner and Company were all about “Jobs, Jobs,Jobs” . . . Jobs and Job Creators . . . and ever since they got their comfortable places in Washington more or less secured by the elective fiasco of 2010 . . . and they loosed the crazies . . . I haven’t heard one of them speak much about jobs since. It has been all about “Our way or we destroy the economy.” So that is . . in essence . . my vision of today’s Right Wing: Incapable . . disoriented . . disorganized . . and hopefully imploding! The sooner we can get them out of Congress and back onto the farm the better off we all will be.
John. sad part is while they try to implode they are killing the middle class……as an aging radical I say kill away for it will make change a necessity….not an option!
To: Chuq
Thank you for your comment.
🙂