Sunday, October 16, 2011
Why We Are Occupying Wall Street
The facts that justify us, in a few pages
by Russell Johnston,
(please feel free to redistribute)
We fight because, to quote Will Rogers in the 1930s: “We got it, but we don’t know how to split it up.” “During the first 70 years of the 20th century, inequality declined and Americans prospered together. Over the last 30 years, by contrast, the United States developed the most unequal distribution of income and wages of any high-income country.” [1]
Because we are not swayed by “the intellectual project of modern conservatism, which Galbraith once called 'one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.'” [2]
Because those Theodore Roosevelt called the “malefactors of great wealth” are waging a very successful class warfare against 90% or more of their own society, creating a black hole of wealth and power which may now be irreversible. [3]
Because “In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth—significantly more than the bottom 90 percent, who controlled just 26.9 percent.” and “Between 2002 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the U.S. went to the richest 1 percent of the population. That lopsided distribution means that today, half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent.” [4]
Because “The real numbers—like that the wealthiest 300,000 Americans received as much income as the bottom 150 million—sound too crazy to be true.” [5]
Because it wasn't always this way: “During the Second World War, and in the four decades that followed, the top 10 percent took home just a third of the national income.” [4]
Because: “From 1979 to 2007, for the middle class, average household income (after taxes) nudged upward from $44,100 to $55,300; by contrast, for the top 1 percent, average household income soared from $346,600 in 1979 to nearly $1.3 million in 2007. That is, super-rich families saw their earnings increase 11 times faster than middle-class families.” [6]
Because it's getting worse everywhere: “The rise of today’s super-rich is a global phenomenon. It is particularly marked in the United States, but it is also happening in other developed economies like the United Kingdom and Canada. ... and is now as high in Communist China as it is in the U.S.” [4]
Because four men: Mukesh Ambani. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Carlos Slim Helú are worth more than the world's poorest 57 countries put together. [7]
Because corporate profits have grown much faster than personal income or personal consumption for 20 years now. [8]
Because “the wealthy won’t pay for public goods or collective welfare, and the declining middle class can’t” [18] The severe underfunding of basic education is one example. Due to tax cuts which business has campaigned relentlessly for, housing prices have greatly increased as families compete for those few houses which are still near good schools. [9]
Because elections, and elected officials are corrupt. Money and advertising elect them, and guess who has the money now to donate to the lobbyists and politicians? This has become a more vicious cycle with each election, since those with money can, and have, slanted the laws ever more in their favor; against not just regulation, but in favor of the sort of outright robbery we saw the results of in 2008, and live with today. “Politicial scientists Lawrence Jacobs and Benjamin Page have found that the preferences of foreign policymakers correspond more to the preferences of executives of multinational companies than to the general public. Page and Jeffrey Winters estimate that the top 10 percent of income earners hold about 90 percent of materially based political power, and that 'each member of the top 1 percent averaged more than 100 times the power of a member of the bottom 90 percent; about 200 times if the index is calculated in terms of the more politically relevant non-home wealth.'” Maybe that's not so surprising given that “the median net worth of members of Congress is just under a million dollars.” ... “we’re getting caught in a negative feedback cycle: as the rich get richer and more powerful, policies are increasingly aligned with their interests” … “as political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson write, 'America's public officials have rewritten the rules of American politics and the American economy in ways that have benefited the few at the expense of the many.'” [5]
Because deliberate and systematic gerrymandering, (creating weirdly shaped electoral districts that will re-elect the present member) has destroyed democracy in most electoral districts in the United States by creating solid red or solid blue districts. This means that most elections are now not competitive, and that only the most extreme positions on the political spectrum are well represented. (If you've wondered why politics seems so much more polarized than decades ago, this is why.) Both parties cooperated in this. The unrepresented middle of the road voter can only look on astonished as Congress is stalemated, unable (and in the case of the Republicans, unwilling) to act to reduce the economic crisis. Or take to the streets.
Because we don't wish to continue to have to violate our own values in order to find work in this society. Think how many low level employes knew about mortgage-based debenture frauds, but kept quiet in order to keep their jobs. They did this because violating personal ethics (and the law) has not only become the norm in the workplace – it's a very real and absolute condition of employment.
Because employers are forcing us to work longer and harder and faster, instead of hiring anyone. [10]
Because this has caused corporate profits to shoot up 22% since 2007; as output increases and employment lags. And because our share of those profits is to work harder for less. [10]
Because corporate advertising is a massive, fast-growing kudzu-vine swallowing the world, (after first buying naming rights to it). Advertising allows the top 1% to drown out every other message, and all other human values, with relentless product-spam. So how else can we now be heard by most people during their day, save by Occupying Wall Street, and so many other streets?
Because we now live in a “Feudal Capitalist” society in which innumerable mergers and acquisitions have largely destroyed the free and competitive market - with the connivance of the Right, who swore they wanted to protect the competitive marketplace. Instead, more and more monopolies and oligopolies divide up markets at their pleasure: “just 147 entities” ... “control nearly 40 percent of all of monetary value of transnational corporations” [11][12] Feudalism didn't work out very well the first time. We don't want to see the repeat.
#law
Because the worldwide patent rights for a single invention now cost more than $100,000, ensuring that very few individuals can effectively patent anything. Consequently the inventions of the bottom 90% fall into the hands of the top 1%, without any payment. By far the most valuable property is now intellectual property, which constitutes the bulk of what businesses own - not factories, land or buildings - but it's perfectly legal to simply take it from the 90% of us too poor to protect our ideas, whether we got there first, or not. No wonder that in the U.S., the number of patents issued per capita declined during the majority of the 20th century. The laws have steeply eroded the chance that the average person can protect their ideas. [8]
Because copyright protection has now, unconstitutionally, been extended for ridiculous periods (70 years after an author's death, if you can determine that) that only benefit corporations, and enforced in ways that eliminate fair use and make it strictly illegal to transfer a movie we've bought to the device we want to watch it on. Corporations win, the law and the public lose out, just when information can be very cheaply distributed.
Because there are so many laws that there is no law - it then becomes the free choice of authorities who is jailed and who isn't. “the laws are so broad the police and prosecutors get to decide whom to go after and find guilty. Those decisions are about power. In the 'rule of too much law,' Stuntz advises, 'too much law amounts to no law at all.'” [13]
Because “For most of the twentieth century in the Northeast and Midwest, the ratio of police officers to prison inmates was two to one. Today, it is less than one to two.” In other words, the public gets far less protection from criminals, while more people spend more time in jail, increasingly arbitrarily (according to Stuntz). [13]
Because the spread of unpaid internships (illegally expanded beyond genuinely educational placements) demonstrates very well just how abusive the labor market in general has become. [14]
Because we feel poor - and we feel poor because we were robbed, in 2008, of unbelievable sums by a gargantuan and very deliberate real estate fraud; while our public officials and many accounting firms were being paid in one way or another to look the other way, and did, and still do. If your house has been robbed, it stands to reason that you're going to feel poorer for some time. Where are the arrests? Where are the executions, for the right that adores the death penalty?
Because according to Time magazine, “After Three Years and Trillions of Dollars, Our Banks Still Don't Work”. “73% of small business owners say they are still affected by the credit crunch.” “During the TARP bailouts, instead of buying bad loans directly, the government decided to inject cash into the banks, hoping executives would use the capital to fix their finances or boost lending. Neither of those happened.” The banks are now accumulating cash, not lending it, which was the purpose of the bailouts. [15]
Because banking reform hasn't happened. “Robert Johnson, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and an expert on financial regulation says the Dodd-Frank banking-reform bill, which Congress passed last year, has done little to make banking accounting statements more transparent.” Even the most suspect, derivative bonds are “still not fully quantified on bank's financial statements.” [15]
Because “Those foolish enough to raise objections are punished. The result is a system that selects for criminality, excluding and marginalizing the very men and women of probity most needed to build a sustainable state.” now describes not just Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, but our own country as well. [16]
Because blue collar workers have been hard hit since 1973, and white collar workers are now getting the same treatment. [17]
Because Unions and collective bargaining rights are now all but destroyed. States with the best educational results have the strongest teachers unions, and vice versa, but society, under the strong influence of the top 1%, is heading the other way: eliminating unions and their bargaining rights, simply because this highly benefits the top 1%. [8]
Because under the prodding of the richest 1% we have abandoned past wisdom for a cruel economic state of nature, or free-for-all. “The classic discussion of this movement is Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). Speaking of the Industrial Revolution and the consequent rise of “the free market” in England. Polanyi wrote that 'human society would have been annihilated but for protective countermoves which blunted the action of this self-destructive mechanism. . . . Society protected itself against the perils inherent in a self-regulating market system. . .'; and 'the principle of social protection (aimed) at the conservation of man and nature as well as productive organization. . .' (pp. 76, 132).” [18]
Because our foreign aid has been so miserly, under the influence of the top 1% who only want to avoid taxes, that some countries in the world are poorer than Medieval economies were! [19]
Because while the rich get far richer, “More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World”, “if every mother took iodine capsules [costing 25 cents per year], there would be a 7.5 percent increase in the total educational attainment of children in Central and Southern Africa. This, in turn, could measurably affect lifetime productivity.”, “in Indonesia, ... A year's supply of iron-fortified fish sauce cost the equivalent of $6, and for a self-employed male, the yearly gain in earnings [due to reduced anemia] was nearly $40 -- an excellent investment.” [20]
Because the top 1% - through the agency of the billionaire-funded Tea Party - pounds away with the fear of inflation in order to prevent any political or financial measures to promote economic recovery – this despite the fact that economists (including Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve) are now saying that previous recessions in 1973-75, 1980-82, and 1990-91 were DUE to monetary policies driven by excessive fears of inflation and not increases in oil prices that sparked that fear of inflation. [21] And in bad times, it is deflation that is to be (greatly) feared, not inflation. Thankfully, President Obama has been able to push through at least some “qualitative easing” expanding the money supply and making a deflationary spiral and thorough economic crash much less likely.
Because there is “An Agreement of the People”, (cf that 1647 Leveller document) that our society is now headed toward ever more profound abuses of the rights, freedoms, and livelihoods the vast majority of citizens.
Because the ordinary person has no recourse to the civil law in most cases; that has been made so expensive that only corporations and very rich individuals can afford to stand up for their rights. For the rest of us, those rights are almost entirely theoretical.
Because we tell our children not to bully each other, but live in a society now profoundly BASED on economic bullying. Why wouldn't our children bully if they can easily see that that's how people rise and maintain their positions in this society?
Because our higher education system has become a behemoth feeding only itself, while providing ever less genuine value to us: “According to The College Board, average annual in-state tuition and fees at four-year public universities increased by 72% over the past decade. Four-year private college tuition is up by more than 34% over the same time period, during which inflation rose only around 25%.” … “After all, U.S. News & World Report doesn't reward affordability.” [33]
Because “Universities in general redistribute money from average tax payers to rich ones and are anti-egalitarian. Their staff do not teach in sink schools or give literacy classes in prison or wrestle with Haringey social services.” [22]
Because even President George W. Bush has said that "The fact is that income inequality is real, It's been rising for more than 25 years." [23]
Because eduction will not remove this inequality: instead, today higher education is being used as a largely unproductive class barrier. To quote Bryan Caplan, "Going to college is a lot like standing up at a concert to see better. Selfishly speaking, it works, but from a social point of view, we shouldn't encourage it." Yet we now live in a world where “the starting salary for someone with a degree in English ($37,800) is higher than the average income of all those, including older and experienced workers, with only a high-school degree ($32,000).” [23] Education doesn't, and can't by itself, create equality. “The top 10 or 20 percent by income have education levels roughly equivalent to those in the top 1 percent, but the latter account for much of the boom in inequality. This appears to be related to the way taxes have been cut, and to the ballooning of the financial industry’s share of corporate profits.” [1]
Because as Winstanley argued in his seventeenth-century pamphlet “The New Law of Righteousness”: “Not one word was spoken at the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another, but selfish imaginations did set up one man to teach and rule over another.” [24]
Because 500 ships lie largely unremarked in the world's largest ship graveyard in Nouadhibou Bay, Mauritania: a staggering testimony to modern insurance fraud that has enriched those already rich. [25]
#taxation
Because in the U.S., federal revenues will only make up 14.4% of the gross domestic product this year - the lowest percentage since 1950. [7] Government is doing less because the top 1% don't want to contribute anything remotely like a fair share taxes, and have FOX news to tell everybody that's how things must be.
Because the rich have successfully shifted the burden of taxation onto the poor: the California Budget Project stated that "measured as a share of family income, California's lowest-income families pay the most in taxes." … “The bottom 20% of families pay 11% of their earnings in state and local taxes, executive director Jean Ross calculated. The top 1% pay about 8%.” [26] “In Alabama, for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1 percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more.” [27] No wonder “Growth in median family income was around 2.6% per year from 1947-1973 and only 0.37% from 1974 to 2007.” [8]
Because “people forget that the income tax is less than half of federal taxes and only one-fifth of taxes at all levels of government.” … “Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes (known as payroll taxes) are paid mostly by the bottom 90 percent of wage earners.” [27]
Because “Despite skyrocketing incomes, the federal tax burden on the richest 400 has been slashed, thanks to a variety of loopholes, allowable deductions and other tools. The actual share of their income paid in taxes, according to the IRS, is 16.6 percent.” That doesn't say they pay 16% of all taxes, it says they paid just 16% of their income in taxes. Without Obama overturning a secrecy rule put in place by Bush, we wouldn't know this. [27]
Because the McCourt's (Los Angeles Dodgers) divorce case showed they paid no taxes since 2004, but spent $45 million during one of those years. They did this by “borrowing” against Dodger team revenues. “To the IRS, they look like paupers.” They were Dodgers, alright! [27]
Because in all the time after Reagan was elected, “only the wealthy have gained significant income.” The bottom 90% of us have only gained $303 in all that time. That's not $303 per year, that's $303 total during all that time. That's what we have to show for our efforts. The top federal income tax rate in the United States was 70% back then. It is now 35%. [27] And just look at the fix that's put us in. No one can pretend that the most wealthy did anything extra wonderful with all that extra income.
Because the top 1 percent gained not just $303, no, their income per year has doubled to more than a million per year. The top one-tenth of that 1 percent saw their income per year increase four times, says a study by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. [27]
Because “The bottom 20% of families pay 11% of their earnings in state and local taxes, executive director Jean Ross calculated. The top 1% pay about 8%.” [26]
#religion #church
Because the Church's teachings on equality, charity and humainty - no matter what church you belong to - are being ignored in a post-Christian society of the elite. To cite but one example: “The Church’s influence on ideas about labor can be traced to the late nineteenth century. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued the Church’s first “social encyclical,” Rerum Novarum, which … gave moral sanction to trade unions, social assistance for the poor, and critical concepts such as the just wage, the dangers of concentrated wealth, the social obligations of ownership, and even worker ownership.” [28]
Because for 90% of the population, often unconsciously, “diminished expectations” have begun to replace hope. [29] To quote George Orwell from another time of oppression, “Instead of raging against their destiny they have made things tolerable by reducing their standards.” [20] Many of us have lowered our standards so much that we largely agree with the rich that everything's fine, just as it is.
Because: Our toys are better, but our lives, worse. Sorry, Mr. Jobs, but it's just the truth.
Because our children will inherit an increase in oppression, and a decrease in their freedoms.
#health
Because the U.S. and Syria have “an almost identical prevalence of disease.” [30]
Because chronic illnesses are becoming far more prevalent, but research into the causes of those illnesses is not being ramped up. For example, the majority of people in North America now have an autoimmune disease, something that was once rare; but research is not a priority because low taxes for business and the very rich are the only priority, and because the answers might not make the rich richer.
Because the spread of tuberculosis and many other communicable diseases will eventually find their way to the rich too, if enough of the rest of us become destitute, and receive less and less help. Meanwhile, the rich live many years longer than the poor: it's believed this is because they can't afford the same quality of food, but add in stress and longer hours of work to the equation.
#families
Because families are suffering: “Today, 85 percent of the $400 billion that the government spends to encourage things like home ownership, college attendance, investment and small business ends up in the pockets of the top 20 percent of earners (and half goes to the top 5 percent). Very little ends up helping the working poor. On the other hand, many social benefits cut off when a family’s income rises roughly 30 percent above the poverty line - which is still a far cry from being out of poverty.” [31]
Because “Today, a full two years into the 'recovery', more than 9% of Americans are still out of work.” (actually an underestimation based on those most actively looking work.) [32]
Because “More than 15% of Americans live below the poverty line. The total rose for the fourth consecutive year.” And add to that an extra three million adults just above the poverty line because they are now living with mom and dad, due to current conditions. Before the Occupy Wall Street movement began, Time magazine said: “While Americans historically haven't been as inclined to riot as Europeans to riot over inequality... it's hard to rule that out in a world in which the American Dream is increasingly becoming a myth.” [32]
Because we have become a downwardly mobile society. “'Poverty is in many ways about a lack of social mobility,' says Erin Currier, who studies these topics at the Pew Charitable Trusts. And research shows that even before the current crisis, Americans had much less mobility than people in many European Nations.” [32]
Because "We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both." - Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice from 1916--1939
In sum:
“We fight because severe economic abuse has become the norm, and our politicians ever more helpless and corrupt, have been captured by the richest 1% of society.”
[1] “Minding the Inequality Gap”, Stephen Kotkin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05shelf.html
[2] “Countervailing Powers: On John Kenneth Galbraith”, Kim Phillips-Fein
http://www.thenation.com/article/160602/countervailing-powers-john-kenneth-galbraith?page=full
[3] “Whatever Happened to the American Left?”, Michael Kazin, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/whatever-happened-to-the-american-left.html?pagewanted=2
[4] “The Rich Are Different From You and Me”, Chrystia Freeland, The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-14-biggest-ideas-of-the-year/8556/12/
[5] “The Public Overwhelmingly Wants It: Why Is Taxing the Rich So Hard?”, Alyssa Battistoni
http://www.alternet.org/story/150715/the_public_overwhelmingly_wants_it:_why_is_taxing_the_rich_so_hard/
[6] “McDonald's is killing the middle class”, Andy Kroll
http://www.salon.com/news/us_economy/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/09/mcdonalds_killed_the_middle_class
[7] Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/mr-smarty-pants-knows/
[8] “Don't Worry, Be Unhappy”, By Timothy Noah, plus comments
http://www.slate.com/id/2285927/
[9] “What’s Hurting the Middle Class” The myth of overspending obscures the real problem
Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, Boston Review
http://bostonreview.net/BR30.5/warrentyagi.php
[10] “U.S. workers are the victims of a speedup” By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
August 14, 2011, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-jeffery-bauerlein-speedup-20110814,0,5795904.story
[11] “Study shows powerful corporations really do control the world's finances”, Bob Yirka
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-powerful-corporations-world.html
[12] “The network of global corporate control”, Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, Stefano Battiston,
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.5728
[13] “The Crime of Punishment”, Lincoln Caplan, a review of The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, William Stuntz, America’s leading thinker on criminal justice
http://www.democracyjournal.org/22/the-crime-of-punishment.php?page=all
[14] “Less than Zero; The value of intern labor in an age of economic inequality”, Roger D. Hodge, Book Forum
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/018_02/7802
[15] “After Three Years and Trillions of Dollars, Our Banks Still Don't Work”, Stephen Gandel, Time
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2093317,00.html
[16] “Government by crime syndicate”, Sarah Chayes
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chayes-corruption-20110925,0,517490.story
[17] “Race To The Bottom?”, Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest Blogs
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/02/22/race-to-the-bottom/
[18] “Farewell to Democracy?”, Philip Green, Logos Journal
http://logosjournal.com/2011/farewell-to-democracy/
[19] The Not So Dark Ages, By Joshua E. Keating
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/the_not_so_dark_ages
[20] “More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World”, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/more_than_1_billion_people_are_hungry_in_the_world?page=full
[21] “Crude reality; Will a Middle Eastern oil disruption crush the economy? New research suggests the answer is no -- and that a major tenet of American foreign policy may be fundamentally wrong.”, Jeremy Kahn
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/02/13/crude_reality/?page=full
[22] “AC Grayling has caricatured British universities. No wonder they're fuming”, Simon Jenkins
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/09/ac-grayling-caricatured-british-university-fuming
[23] “Why Education Is Not an Economic Panacea”, By John Marsh, Chronicle Review
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Education-Is-Not-an/128790/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
[24] “A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 9]: MARTIN LUTHER’S ACCIDENTAL REVOLUTION”, Kenan Malik
http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/a-book-in-progress-part-9-martin-luthers-accidental-revolution/
[25] “Picture Show: 500 Wrecks in the World's Largest Ship Cemetery”
http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-500-wrecks-in-the-world-s-largest-ship-cemetery
[26] “'Buffett Rule' a bust in California”, George Skelton, Capitol Journal (this article contains some very poor logic, but a good couple of good facts)
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-buffet-20110922,0,3852704.column?page=2&track=rss
[27] “9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes”, David Cay Johnston
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9_things_the_rich_dont_want_you_to_know_about_taxes.html
[28] “The Church of Labor”, Lew Daly, Democracy Journal
http://www.democracyjournal.org/22/the-church-of-labor.php?page=3
[29] “How to make an intelligent blockbuster and not alienate people”, Mark Kermode
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/28/mark-kermode-multiplex-blockbuster
[30] “Genes, germs and the origins of politics”, Jim Giles
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028133.300-genes-germs-and-the-origins-of-politics.html?page=2
[31] “Out of Poverty, Family-Style”, David Bornstein
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/out-of-poverty-family-style/?ref=opinion
[32] “The Truth About the Poverty Crisis; It isn't just a reflection of job loss. It's a sign of downward mobility.”, Rana Foroohar
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2093321,00.html
[33] “Occupation: From Wall Street to the university”, Dan Primack, Fortune/CNN
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/05/occupation-from-wall-street-to-the-university/
by Russell Johnston,
(please feel free to redistribute)
We fight because, to quote Will Rogers in the 1930s: “We got it, but we don’t know how to split it up.” “During the first 70 years of the 20th century, inequality declined and Americans prospered together. Over the last 30 years, by contrast, the United States developed the most unequal distribution of income and wages of any high-income country.” [1]
Because we are not swayed by “the intellectual project of modern conservatism, which Galbraith once called 'one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.'” [2]
Because those Theodore Roosevelt called the “malefactors of great wealth” are waging a very successful class warfare against 90% or more of their own society, creating a black hole of wealth and power which may now be irreversible. [3]
Because “In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth—significantly more than the bottom 90 percent, who controlled just 26.9 percent.” and “Between 2002 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the U.S. went to the richest 1 percent of the population. That lopsided distribution means that today, half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent.” [4]
Because “The real numbers—like that the wealthiest 300,000 Americans received as much income as the bottom 150 million—sound too crazy to be true.” [5]
Because it wasn't always this way: “During the Second World War, and in the four decades that followed, the top 10 percent took home just a third of the national income.” [4]
Because: “From 1979 to 2007, for the middle class, average household income (after taxes) nudged upward from $44,100 to $55,300; by contrast, for the top 1 percent, average household income soared from $346,600 in 1979 to nearly $1.3 million in 2007. That is, super-rich families saw their earnings increase 11 times faster than middle-class families.” [6]
Because it's getting worse everywhere: “The rise of today’s super-rich is a global phenomenon. It is particularly marked in the United States, but it is also happening in other developed economies like the United Kingdom and Canada. ... and is now as high in Communist China as it is in the U.S.” [4]
Because four men: Mukesh Ambani. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Carlos Slim Helú are worth more than the world's poorest 57 countries put together. [7]
Because corporate profits have grown much faster than personal income or personal consumption for 20 years now. [8]
Because “the wealthy won’t pay for public goods or collective welfare, and the declining middle class can’t” [18] The severe underfunding of basic education is one example. Due to tax cuts which business has campaigned relentlessly for, housing prices have greatly increased as families compete for those few houses which are still near good schools. [9]
Because elections, and elected officials are corrupt. Money and advertising elect them, and guess who has the money now to donate to the lobbyists and politicians? This has become a more vicious cycle with each election, since those with money can, and have, slanted the laws ever more in their favor; against not just regulation, but in favor of the sort of outright robbery we saw the results of in 2008, and live with today. “Politicial scientists Lawrence Jacobs and Benjamin Page have found that the preferences of foreign policymakers correspond more to the preferences of executives of multinational companies than to the general public. Page and Jeffrey Winters estimate that the top 10 percent of income earners hold about 90 percent of materially based political power, and that 'each member of the top 1 percent averaged more than 100 times the power of a member of the bottom 90 percent; about 200 times if the index is calculated in terms of the more politically relevant non-home wealth.'” Maybe that's not so surprising given that “the median net worth of members of Congress is just under a million dollars.” ... “we’re getting caught in a negative feedback cycle: as the rich get richer and more powerful, policies are increasingly aligned with their interests” … “as political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson write, 'America's public officials have rewritten the rules of American politics and the American economy in ways that have benefited the few at the expense of the many.'” [5]
Because deliberate and systematic gerrymandering, (creating weirdly shaped electoral districts that will re-elect the present member) has destroyed democracy in most electoral districts in the United States by creating solid red or solid blue districts. This means that most elections are now not competitive, and that only the most extreme positions on the political spectrum are well represented. (If you've wondered why politics seems so much more polarized than decades ago, this is why.) Both parties cooperated in this. The unrepresented middle of the road voter can only look on astonished as Congress is stalemated, unable (and in the case of the Republicans, unwilling) to act to reduce the economic crisis. Or take to the streets.
Because we don't wish to continue to have to violate our own values in order to find work in this society. Think how many low level employes knew about mortgage-based debenture frauds, but kept quiet in order to keep their jobs. They did this because violating personal ethics (and the law) has not only become the norm in the workplace – it's a very real and absolute condition of employment.
Because employers are forcing us to work longer and harder and faster, instead of hiring anyone. [10]
Because this has caused corporate profits to shoot up 22% since 2007; as output increases and employment lags. And because our share of those profits is to work harder for less. [10]
Because corporate advertising is a massive, fast-growing kudzu-vine swallowing the world, (after first buying naming rights to it). Advertising allows the top 1% to drown out every other message, and all other human values, with relentless product-spam. So how else can we now be heard by most people during their day, save by Occupying Wall Street, and so many other streets?
Because we now live in a “Feudal Capitalist” society in which innumerable mergers and acquisitions have largely destroyed the free and competitive market - with the connivance of the Right, who swore they wanted to protect the competitive marketplace. Instead, more and more monopolies and oligopolies divide up markets at their pleasure: “just 147 entities” ... “control nearly 40 percent of all of monetary value of transnational corporations” [11][12] Feudalism didn't work out very well the first time. We don't want to see the repeat.
#law
Because the worldwide patent rights for a single invention now cost more than $100,000, ensuring that very few individuals can effectively patent anything. Consequently the inventions of the bottom 90% fall into the hands of the top 1%, without any payment. By far the most valuable property is now intellectual property, which constitutes the bulk of what businesses own - not factories, land or buildings - but it's perfectly legal to simply take it from the 90% of us too poor to protect our ideas, whether we got there first, or not. No wonder that in the U.S., the number of patents issued per capita declined during the majority of the 20th century. The laws have steeply eroded the chance that the average person can protect their ideas. [8]
Because copyright protection has now, unconstitutionally, been extended for ridiculous periods (70 years after an author's death, if you can determine that) that only benefit corporations, and enforced in ways that eliminate fair use and make it strictly illegal to transfer a movie we've bought to the device we want to watch it on. Corporations win, the law and the public lose out, just when information can be very cheaply distributed.
Because there are so many laws that there is no law - it then becomes the free choice of authorities who is jailed and who isn't. “the laws are so broad the police and prosecutors get to decide whom to go after and find guilty. Those decisions are about power. In the 'rule of too much law,' Stuntz advises, 'too much law amounts to no law at all.'” [13]
Because “For most of the twentieth century in the Northeast and Midwest, the ratio of police officers to prison inmates was two to one. Today, it is less than one to two.” In other words, the public gets far less protection from criminals, while more people spend more time in jail, increasingly arbitrarily (according to Stuntz). [13]
Because the spread of unpaid internships (illegally expanded beyond genuinely educational placements) demonstrates very well just how abusive the labor market in general has become. [14]
Because we feel poor - and we feel poor because we were robbed, in 2008, of unbelievable sums by a gargantuan and very deliberate real estate fraud; while our public officials and many accounting firms were being paid in one way or another to look the other way, and did, and still do. If your house has been robbed, it stands to reason that you're going to feel poorer for some time. Where are the arrests? Where are the executions, for the right that adores the death penalty?
Because according to Time magazine, “After Three Years and Trillions of Dollars, Our Banks Still Don't Work”. “73% of small business owners say they are still affected by the credit crunch.” “During the TARP bailouts, instead of buying bad loans directly, the government decided to inject cash into the banks, hoping executives would use the capital to fix their finances or boost lending. Neither of those happened.” The banks are now accumulating cash, not lending it, which was the purpose of the bailouts. [15]
Because banking reform hasn't happened. “Robert Johnson, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and an expert on financial regulation says the Dodd-Frank banking-reform bill, which Congress passed last year, has done little to make banking accounting statements more transparent.” Even the most suspect, derivative bonds are “still not fully quantified on bank's financial statements.” [15]
Because “Those foolish enough to raise objections are punished. The result is a system that selects for criminality, excluding and marginalizing the very men and women of probity most needed to build a sustainable state.” now describes not just Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, but our own country as well. [16]
Because blue collar workers have been hard hit since 1973, and white collar workers are now getting the same treatment. [17]
Because Unions and collective bargaining rights are now all but destroyed. States with the best educational results have the strongest teachers unions, and vice versa, but society, under the strong influence of the top 1%, is heading the other way: eliminating unions and their bargaining rights, simply because this highly benefits the top 1%. [8]
Because under the prodding of the richest 1% we have abandoned past wisdom for a cruel economic state of nature, or free-for-all. “The classic discussion of this movement is Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). Speaking of the Industrial Revolution and the consequent rise of “the free market” in England. Polanyi wrote that 'human society would have been annihilated but for protective countermoves which blunted the action of this self-destructive mechanism. . . . Society protected itself against the perils inherent in a self-regulating market system. . .'; and 'the principle of social protection (aimed) at the conservation of man and nature as well as productive organization. . .' (pp. 76, 132).” [18]
Because our foreign aid has been so miserly, under the influence of the top 1% who only want to avoid taxes, that some countries in the world are poorer than Medieval economies were! [19]
Because while the rich get far richer, “More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World”, “if every mother took iodine capsules [costing 25 cents per year], there would be a 7.5 percent increase in the total educational attainment of children in Central and Southern Africa. This, in turn, could measurably affect lifetime productivity.”, “in Indonesia, ... A year's supply of iron-fortified fish sauce cost the equivalent of $6, and for a self-employed male, the yearly gain in earnings [due to reduced anemia] was nearly $40 -- an excellent investment.” [20]
Because the top 1% - through the agency of the billionaire-funded Tea Party - pounds away with the fear of inflation in order to prevent any political or financial measures to promote economic recovery – this despite the fact that economists (including Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve) are now saying that previous recessions in 1973-75, 1980-82, and 1990-91 were DUE to monetary policies driven by excessive fears of inflation and not increases in oil prices that sparked that fear of inflation. [21] And in bad times, it is deflation that is to be (greatly) feared, not inflation. Thankfully, President Obama has been able to push through at least some “qualitative easing” expanding the money supply and making a deflationary spiral and thorough economic crash much less likely.
Because there is “An Agreement of the People”, (cf that 1647 Leveller document) that our society is now headed toward ever more profound abuses of the rights, freedoms, and livelihoods the vast majority of citizens.
Because the ordinary person has no recourse to the civil law in most cases; that has been made so expensive that only corporations and very rich individuals can afford to stand up for their rights. For the rest of us, those rights are almost entirely theoretical.
Because we tell our children not to bully each other, but live in a society now profoundly BASED on economic bullying. Why wouldn't our children bully if they can easily see that that's how people rise and maintain their positions in this society?
Because our higher education system has become a behemoth feeding only itself, while providing ever less genuine value to us: “According to The College Board, average annual in-state tuition and fees at four-year public universities increased by 72% over the past decade. Four-year private college tuition is up by more than 34% over the same time period, during which inflation rose only around 25%.” … “After all, U.S. News & World Report doesn't reward affordability.” [33]
Because “Universities in general redistribute money from average tax payers to rich ones and are anti-egalitarian. Their staff do not teach in sink schools or give literacy classes in prison or wrestle with Haringey social services.” [22]
Because even President George W. Bush has said that "The fact is that income inequality is real, It's been rising for more than 25 years." [23]
Because eduction will not remove this inequality: instead, today higher education is being used as a largely unproductive class barrier. To quote Bryan Caplan, "Going to college is a lot like standing up at a concert to see better. Selfishly speaking, it works, but from a social point of view, we shouldn't encourage it." Yet we now live in a world where “the starting salary for someone with a degree in English ($37,800) is higher than the average income of all those, including older and experienced workers, with only a high-school degree ($32,000).” [23] Education doesn't, and can't by itself, create equality. “The top 10 or 20 percent by income have education levels roughly equivalent to those in the top 1 percent, but the latter account for much of the boom in inequality. This appears to be related to the way taxes have been cut, and to the ballooning of the financial industry’s share of corporate profits.” [1]
Because as Winstanley argued in his seventeenth-century pamphlet “The New Law of Righteousness”: “Not one word was spoken at the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another, but selfish imaginations did set up one man to teach and rule over another.” [24]
Because 500 ships lie largely unremarked in the world's largest ship graveyard in Nouadhibou Bay, Mauritania: a staggering testimony to modern insurance fraud that has enriched those already rich. [25]
#taxation
Because in the U.S., federal revenues will only make up 14.4% of the gross domestic product this year - the lowest percentage since 1950. [7] Government is doing less because the top 1% don't want to contribute anything remotely like a fair share taxes, and have FOX news to tell everybody that's how things must be.
Because the rich have successfully shifted the burden of taxation onto the poor: the California Budget Project stated that "measured as a share of family income, California's lowest-income families pay the most in taxes." … “The bottom 20% of families pay 11% of their earnings in state and local taxes, executive director Jean Ross calculated. The top 1% pay about 8%.” [26] “In Alabama, for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1 percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more.” [27] No wonder “Growth in median family income was around 2.6% per year from 1947-1973 and only 0.37% from 1974 to 2007.” [8]
Because “people forget that the income tax is less than half of federal taxes and only one-fifth of taxes at all levels of government.” … “Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes (known as payroll taxes) are paid mostly by the bottom 90 percent of wage earners.” [27]
Because “Despite skyrocketing incomes, the federal tax burden on the richest 400 has been slashed, thanks to a variety of loopholes, allowable deductions and other tools. The actual share of their income paid in taxes, according to the IRS, is 16.6 percent.” That doesn't say they pay 16% of all taxes, it says they paid just 16% of their income in taxes. Without Obama overturning a secrecy rule put in place by Bush, we wouldn't know this. [27]
Because the McCourt's (Los Angeles Dodgers) divorce case showed they paid no taxes since 2004, but spent $45 million during one of those years. They did this by “borrowing” against Dodger team revenues. “To the IRS, they look like paupers.” They were Dodgers, alright! [27]
Because in all the time after Reagan was elected, “only the wealthy have gained significant income.” The bottom 90% of us have only gained $303 in all that time. That's not $303 per year, that's $303 total during all that time. That's what we have to show for our efforts. The top federal income tax rate in the United States was 70% back then. It is now 35%. [27] And just look at the fix that's put us in. No one can pretend that the most wealthy did anything extra wonderful with all that extra income.
Because the top 1 percent gained not just $303, no, their income per year has doubled to more than a million per year. The top one-tenth of that 1 percent saw their income per year increase four times, says a study by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. [27]
Because “The bottom 20% of families pay 11% of their earnings in state and local taxes, executive director Jean Ross calculated. The top 1% pay about 8%.” [26]
#religion #church
Because the Church's teachings on equality, charity and humainty - no matter what church you belong to - are being ignored in a post-Christian society of the elite. To cite but one example: “The Church’s influence on ideas about labor can be traced to the late nineteenth century. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued the Church’s first “social encyclical,” Rerum Novarum, which … gave moral sanction to trade unions, social assistance for the poor, and critical concepts such as the just wage, the dangers of concentrated wealth, the social obligations of ownership, and even worker ownership.” [28]
Because for 90% of the population, often unconsciously, “diminished expectations” have begun to replace hope. [29] To quote George Orwell from another time of oppression, “Instead of raging against their destiny they have made things tolerable by reducing their standards.” [20] Many of us have lowered our standards so much that we largely agree with the rich that everything's fine, just as it is.
Because: Our toys are better, but our lives, worse. Sorry, Mr. Jobs, but it's just the truth.
Because our children will inherit an increase in oppression, and a decrease in their freedoms.
#health
Because the U.S. and Syria have “an almost identical prevalence of disease.” [30]
Because chronic illnesses are becoming far more prevalent, but research into the causes of those illnesses is not being ramped up. For example, the majority of people in North America now have an autoimmune disease, something that was once rare; but research is not a priority because low taxes for business and the very rich are the only priority, and because the answers might not make the rich richer.
Because the spread of tuberculosis and many other communicable diseases will eventually find their way to the rich too, if enough of the rest of us become destitute, and receive less and less help. Meanwhile, the rich live many years longer than the poor: it's believed this is because they can't afford the same quality of food, but add in stress and longer hours of work to the equation.
#families
Because families are suffering: “Today, 85 percent of the $400 billion that the government spends to encourage things like home ownership, college attendance, investment and small business ends up in the pockets of the top 20 percent of earners (and half goes to the top 5 percent). Very little ends up helping the working poor. On the other hand, many social benefits cut off when a family’s income rises roughly 30 percent above the poverty line - which is still a far cry from being out of poverty.” [31]
Because “Today, a full two years into the 'recovery', more than 9% of Americans are still out of work.” (actually an underestimation based on those most actively looking work.) [32]
Because “More than 15% of Americans live below the poverty line. The total rose for the fourth consecutive year.” And add to that an extra three million adults just above the poverty line because they are now living with mom and dad, due to current conditions. Before the Occupy Wall Street movement began, Time magazine said: “While Americans historically haven't been as inclined to riot as Europeans to riot over inequality... it's hard to rule that out in a world in which the American Dream is increasingly becoming a myth.” [32]
Because we have become a downwardly mobile society. “'Poverty is in many ways about a lack of social mobility,' says Erin Currier, who studies these topics at the Pew Charitable Trusts. And research shows that even before the current crisis, Americans had much less mobility than people in many European Nations.” [32]
Because "We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both." - Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice from 1916--1939
In sum:
“We fight because severe economic abuse has become the norm, and our politicians ever more helpless and corrupt, have been captured by the richest 1% of society.”
[1] “Minding the Inequality Gap”, Stephen Kotkin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05shelf.html
[2] “Countervailing Powers: On John Kenneth Galbraith”, Kim Phillips-Fein
http://www.thenation.com/article/160602/countervailing-powers-john-kenneth-galbraith?page=full
[3] “Whatever Happened to the American Left?”, Michael Kazin, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/whatever-happened-to-the-american-left.html?pagewanted=2
[4] “The Rich Are Different From You and Me”, Chrystia Freeland, The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-14-biggest-ideas-of-the-year/8556/12/
[5] “The Public Overwhelmingly Wants It: Why Is Taxing the Rich So Hard?”, Alyssa Battistoni
http://www.alternet.org/story/150715/the_public_overwhelmingly_wants_it:_why_is_taxing_the_rich_so_hard/
[6] “McDonald's is killing the middle class”, Andy Kroll
http://www.salon.com/news/us_economy/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/09/mcdonalds_killed_the_middle_class
[7] Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/mr-smarty-pants-knows/
[8] “Don't Worry, Be Unhappy”, By Timothy Noah, plus comments
http://www.slate.com/id/2285927/
[9] “What’s Hurting the Middle Class” The myth of overspending obscures the real problem
Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, Boston Review
http://bostonreview.net/BR30.5/warrentyagi.php
[10] “U.S. workers are the victims of a speedup” By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
August 14, 2011, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-jeffery-bauerlein-speedup-20110814,0,5795904.story
[11] “Study shows powerful corporations really do control the world's finances”, Bob Yirka
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-powerful-corporations-world.html
[12] “The network of global corporate control”, Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, Stefano Battiston,
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.5728
[13] “The Crime of Punishment”, Lincoln Caplan, a review of The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, William Stuntz, America’s leading thinker on criminal justice
http://www.democracyjournal.org/22/the-crime-of-punishment.php?page=all
[14] “Less than Zero; The value of intern labor in an age of economic inequality”, Roger D. Hodge, Book Forum
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/018_02/7802
[15] “After Three Years and Trillions of Dollars, Our Banks Still Don't Work”, Stephen Gandel, Time
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2093317,00.html
[16] “Government by crime syndicate”, Sarah Chayes
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chayes-corruption-20110925,0,517490.story
[17] “Race To The Bottom?”, Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest Blogs
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/02/22/race-to-the-bottom/
[18] “Farewell to Democracy?”, Philip Green, Logos Journal
http://logosjournal.com/2011/farewell-to-democracy/
[19] The Not So Dark Ages, By Joshua E. Keating
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/the_not_so_dark_ages
[20] “More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World”, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/more_than_1_billion_people_are_hungry_in_the_world?page=full
[21] “Crude reality; Will a Middle Eastern oil disruption crush the economy? New research suggests the answer is no -- and that a major tenet of American foreign policy may be fundamentally wrong.”, Jeremy Kahn
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/02/13/crude_reality/?page=full
[22] “AC Grayling has caricatured British universities. No wonder they're fuming”, Simon Jenkins
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/09/ac-grayling-caricatured-british-university-fuming
[23] “Why Education Is Not an Economic Panacea”, By John Marsh, Chronicle Review
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Education-Is-Not-an/128790/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
[24] “A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 9]: MARTIN LUTHER’S ACCIDENTAL REVOLUTION”, Kenan Malik
http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/a-book-in-progress-part-9-martin-luthers-accidental-revolution/
[25] “Picture Show: 500 Wrecks in the World's Largest Ship Cemetery”
http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-500-wrecks-in-the-world-s-largest-ship-cemetery
[26] “'Buffett Rule' a bust in California”, George Skelton, Capitol Journal (this article contains some very poor logic, but a good couple of good facts)
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-buffet-20110922,0,3852704.column?page=2&track=rss
[27] “9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes”, David Cay Johnston
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9_things_the_rich_dont_want_you_to_know_about_taxes.html
[28] “The Church of Labor”, Lew Daly, Democracy Journal
http://www.democracyjournal.org/22/the-church-of-labor.php?page=3
[29] “How to make an intelligent blockbuster and not alienate people”, Mark Kermode
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/28/mark-kermode-multiplex-blockbuster
[30] “Genes, germs and the origins of politics”, Jim Giles
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028133.300-genes-germs-and-the-origins-of-politics.html?page=2
[31] “Out of Poverty, Family-Style”, David Bornstein
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/out-of-poverty-family-style/?ref=opinion
[32] “The Truth About the Poverty Crisis; It isn't just a reflection of job loss. It's a sign of downward mobility.”, Rana Foroohar
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2093321,00.html
[33] “Occupation: From Wall Street to the university”, Dan Primack, Fortune/CNN
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/05/occupation-from-wall-street-to-the-university/
