teamosil
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2009
- Messages
- 6,623
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- Location
- San Francisco
- Gender
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- Political Leaning
- Liberal
However, altough I share their views on corporatism. I do not agree on the remainder of their views and think such protests are dangerous.
At this point, their views on corporatism is all the movement stands for. Certainly many people amongst them have many conflicting views on all kinds of stuff, but that is what they share.
Fact is, living standards in the US are high, and the ones protesting are not poor. People need to get more sensible expectations.
High standard of living isn't an absolute number, it is relative to the overall economic success of the country. It isn't like there is a set list of things that constitutes a good standard of living and once that is reached, for the rest of history we will have no need to progress. As time goes on and the economy continues to grow, the amount of pie the people doing the work of growing it deserve goes up too.
The US used to enjoy the highest standard of living in the world as recently as the early 90s. We were consistently ranked #1 in the world. Now we've fallen to #13. The median productivity of an American worker is an outstanding $97k/year. It has been steadily rising year after year. But our median income isn't following it. Our median income is presently $44k/year. Less than half what we're worth.
Since the 60s the US's GDP per capita has gone up 400% in today's dollars, but the median income only 40%.
During the entire Bush administration the median income for the top 1% went up a shocking 400%, but the median income for the other 99% actually FELL.
The reality is that the US's workforce is producing more and more value each year, but that growth isn't being shared with the people accomplishing it. As the pie gets bigger instead of everybody's slices getting bigger, the slices of a tiny fraction of people are rapidly expanding while everybody else's stays the same size. And it isn't because they work hard and the rest of the people are lazy or whatever. Far from it. It is the rapidly increasing productivity of the 99% that is powering all that growth. The 99% are working incredibly hard and incredibly smart and they're producing more value for their employers every year. It's because the game has been set up in such a way that the growth is all getting diverted into the pockets of a very small number of people.
THAT is what OWS is about. It's not about unbearable poverty, it is about not getting cut in on the profits we're creating.
It bugs me that I have to specify this every single time, and I don't think you would need this, but for the sake of the right wingers here- that doesn't mean we need redistribution or socialism or whatever, it just means we need to ferret out those policies that are giving the super rich unfair advantages. Get rid of those, and things will go back to the normal state of affairs we've had for most of our country's history where a rising tide really does raise all ships. That's all we're asking for.
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