The Great Recession has been great for the top 1% income bracket in this country, for the bottom 90% not so much.
The cause and solution of the Great Recession is pretty obvious to anyone who has studied even the most basic economic principals. For the last 30 years the wealth of this country has shifted into the hands of the wealthy few while everyone else saw their wages decrease. Now the majority of citizens simply don't have any money to purchase goods, that depresses manufacturing which depresses wages, which leads fewer goods being purchased depressing wages, in a vicious cycle.
There are two powers in the country that can break this cycle, the government and the unions. The government could make a progressive tax system where the rich pay a higher percentage than the middle class, as opposed to the current system where if you add up all federal taxes, Fed, Social Security, Medicare, ect, those making $100,000 a year pay roughly 40%, those making over $250,000 a year pay 33% and the very top income, multi-million dollars a year have their income classified as capital gains and pay 15%.
The federal government could change this so the people who get the greatest share of benefits from the government (the richest) paid slightly more than those who have less, moving money into the hands of people that will spend it, creating demand, making the economy work again.
Unfortunately, the Democrats are unable, or unwilling to take on the wealthiest people in this country, and the Republicans are determined to push through policies that the vast majority of economist say will make the Recession worse.
That leaves the Unions as the only force to deal with the huge wage inequity that is keeping the recession going.
Over the last 30 years the average middle class wages fell slowly as they didn't keep up with inflation. Using the Recession as an excuse, the large corporations are pushing not only to nibble away at middle class wages by not making them keep up with inflation but actively cutting wages. Only workers standing together and saying, “No we won't take this” by having a Union, or the threat of having a Union form keeps them from pushing wages down to starvation levels.
In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker gave billions in tax breaks to billionaires as well as proposed selling the public utilities in no-bid contracts to his supporters and expects the middle class to pay for it. If it weren't for the Unions this huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to the richest 1% would have gone through and Governors around the country would declare war on the middle class prolonging the Recession making low wages and high unemployment the norm in this country.
So to everyone who doesn't support Union rights in this struggle, I say, “Shut-up Stupid, the Unions are the only thing that is keeping this recession from turning back the clock on all the economic progress that 90% of the country has earned over the last century. Unless you belong to the top 1% income bracket your current standard of living depends on the Unions being successful in this fight.”
By Darrell B. Nelson author of Alien Thoughts
