Our economy is changing in ways that are alarming. Income inequality and wealth inequality are at their highest point in many decades; some say we are back to the age of the robber barons. Most of the gains in the economy since the great recession of 2008 have benefitted the 1%, or even the 1% of the 1%. The middle class is shrinking, and we no longer have the richest middle class in the world. The U.S. has the highest child poverty rate of any of the advanced nations of the world (and, no, I don’t count Romania as an advanced nation, having visited that nation, which suffered decades of economic plunder and stagnation under the Communist Ceausescu regime).
Forbes reports that there were 442 billionaires in the U.S. in 2013. Nice for them. Taxes have dropped dramatically for the top 1% since the 1970s. But don’t call them plutocrats. Call them our “job creators,” even though they should be called our “job out-sourcers.”
Now what caused these changing conditions? My guess would be that unbridled capitalism generates inequality. Deregulation benefits the few, not the many. People with vast wealth give large sums to political candidates, who when elected, protect the economic interests of their benefactors. Anyone who wants to run for President must raise $1 billion or so. Where do you raise that kind of money? You go to the super-rich, who have the money to fund candidates of both parties, as well as an agenda to keep their money and make more.
A recent paper by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern University concludes that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.” Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court removing limits on campaign contributions by corporations and individuals reinforce elite control of our political system. The danger signals for democracy are loud and clear.
We often hear talk of the “hollowing out” of the middle class. We know that many regions in our country are economically depressed because they lost the local industries that provided good jobs for high school graduates. Some of those jobs were lost to new technologies, and some were outsourced to low-wage countries. Free trade sounds good, but did the politicians realize how many millions of jobs and thousands of corporations would move to Mexico, China, Bangladesh, and other countries that do not pay what Americans consider a living wage?
Instead of looking in the mirror, our politicians blame the schools. They say that we lost those jobs because our schools were preparing students poorly, not because the “job creators” wanted to export jobs to countries that pay their workers a few dollars a day.
The politicians say we must send everyone to college so we can be “globally competitive,” but how will we compete with nations that pay workers and professionals only a fraction of what Americans expect to be paid and need to be paid to have a middle-class life? How can we expect more students to finish college when states are shifting college costs onto individuals and burdening them with huge debt? How can we motivate students to stay in college when so many new jobs in the next decade–retail clerks, fast-food workers, home health aides, janitors, construction workers, truck drivers, etc.–do not require a college degree? (The only job in the top ten fastest growing occupations that requires a college degree is registered nurse.)
So here we are, with politicians who could not pass an eighth grade math test blaming our teachers, our schools, and our students for economic conditions that they did not create and cannot control.
In a just and sensible world, our elected officials would change the tax rates, taxing both wealth and income to reduce inequality. There is no good reason for anyone to be a billionaire. When one man or woman is worth billions of dollars, it is obscene. A person can live very handsomely if their net worth is “only” $100 million. How many homes, how many yachts, how many jets, does one person need? In terms of income taxes, consider this: under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the marginal tax rate for the very rich was 91%; it is now 35%. The tax on long-term capital gains has dropped from 25% to 15%. No wonder that billionaire investor Warren Buffett famously said that there has indeed been class warfare, and “my class has won.” Buffett noticed that secretaries in his office were paying a higher tax rate than he was. He even took to the op-Ed page of the New York Times to complain that the tax code unfairly spared the richest Americans.
Will the “job creators” lose all ambition if they can’t pile up billions and billions? I doubt it very much. Surely there will be even more people yearning to get very rich, even if their wealth has a limit of $100 million or even $200 million.
We need to spend more to reduce poverty. We need to spend more to make sure that all children get a good start in life. We need to reduce class sizes for our neediest children. We need to assure free medical care for those who have none. We have many needs, but we won’t begin to address them until we change our tax codes to reduce inequality.
I am glad that you have a louder voice than I. So many people keep trying to get others in their communities to understand the basic principles that you have laid out here. My voice is a mere whisper. Thank you for using your megaphone.
This post is powerful in its simplicity.
Here in Ct. we have a Democrat as Governor and he led the charge in bashing teachers–publicly declaring that all we do is show for four years and we get tenure.
Gov. Malloy’s policies have benefitted one of the richest hedge funds in the world–based here in Westport. Our gold coast is one of the richest areas in the world while our cities achievement gap is one of the highest in the nation.
And Malloy appointed an attorney to head our state dept of education–who also was a founder of Achievement First, a proliferating charter school chain here and in surrounding states. Conflict of interest? Too obvious to matter, I guess.
Anyway, how do we 99 percenters take our state and country back?
Before it is too late?
“Anyway, how do we 99 percenters take our state and country back?
Before it is too late?”
It’s never too late.
But unfortunately if history is any guide it will not be pretty to take back what was stolen from not only the commons but from individuals. Remember “Some men rob you with a six gun. And some with a fountain pen.”* The ones that rob you with a six gun are almost always caught and punished. The ones that rob you with a fountain pen are almost never caught and are usuually lauded.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdeTr3lWPnY
Warren Buffet recently had an opportunity to vote against an obscene pay package for Coca Cola executives where he has a large chunk of stock invested. A chance to put his money where his mouth is… and he abstained instead of voting… He lost my respect with that move… I see no one in the so called “business community (sic)” who either holds or will act on convictions of economic justice… and since the “business community” now has the largest megaphone they can continue to persuade millions of people who are unemployed or underemployed that their hard earned taxes are being wasted on welfare and public employee pensions…
Let’s hope a viable third party can give a full throated argument against the oligarchs and in favor of economic justice in the next few years… otherwise our politics, like our economy, will mirror the oligarchies in Russia and China…
“. . . will act on convictions of economic justice.”
Economic justice? We don’t need no stinkin economic justice!!
The Center for Political Accountability website has data on the deplorable record of financial firms, when it comes to voting for corporate transparency.
The firm, that touts itself as serving teachers, ranked in the bottom half of the list.
Foreign firms ranked near the top.
Care to wager on the odds between an ultimate revolution and an electable third party?
I agree with everything you have said Diane, except faulting someone for being a billionaire, or a mega-millionaire. I think where the fault lies are the policy makers who keep the rich getting richer at the expense of the low and middle-class. That’s what is wrong with this system. But how do we stop this cycle of politicians being beholden to their donators, and working just for their interests alone?
Campaign finance reform is urgently needed. The problem is the foxes are guarding the henhouse, and have no incentive to change the laws.
Throw in true financial accountability and regulations. We learned nothing from the 2008 collapse and little has changed. We also need more support of working Americans with a voice in government. Perhaps a trend towards employee owned corporations. No one says the people working towards the company’s success can’t also be the new definition of capitalist. Might actually be a better model in the future global competitive markets.
It’s very hard if not impossible to become a billionaire without doing some very questionable (at best) things – squeezing your suppliers so they have to outsource to dollar a day workers in India, squeezing your workers so they have to get food stamps, stealing others’ intellectual property, creating monopolies and crushing competition, buying politicians, selling fraudulent junk securities, stealing pensions, the list goes on. Most such activities may not be illegal per se (because politicians have been bought off to make them not illegal), but all are immoral and unethical. I’m not sure it’s possible to become a billionaire without also having at least moderate to severe sociopathic tendencies. So, yeah, I’d say there’s plenty of “fault” for being a billionaire.
As Balzac wrote,”Behind every great fortune lies a crime.”
Michael Fiorillo, Balzac was a genius.
“. . . except faulting someone for being a billionaire, or a mega-millionaire.”
Maybe, just maybe the problem lies with public education as not enough people seem to understand concepts of economic justice.
Wait a minute, those born with silver spoons in their mouth don’t go to public schools do they??
“. . . except faulting someone for being a billionaire, or a mega-millionaire.”
Just like we shouldn’t fault rapists for having sexual urges, eh? Wait, rape isn’t about sex is it? It’s about POWER.
So just like a rapists push for power the m/billionaires urge for money is not only greed but POWER.
“Just like we shouldn’t fault rapists for having sexual urges, eh? Wait, rape isn’t about sex is it? It’s about POWER.”
Whoa, this really takes me back to the late 1980s.
This whole thing is criminal and it can be compared to a hooker and a john. Who is the bigger criminal in this transaction, the one who takes the money or the one who offers the money? According to our justice system the one who takes the money is more culpable…but I’ve never really agreed with that law. They should both be equally guilty. You can’t have one without the other. Though, the politicians did promise to represent ALL the people who voted for them, not just the one who paid them the most! And on the other hand just HOW MUCH MONEY do the rich need…does their greed know no bounds? It just stinks no matter how you look at it, and I used to love America ) – ;
Bravo!! This post is another Ravitch masterpiece.
An outstanding post!
“It’s no secret that income inequality has skyrocketed in the United States in recent decades, that economic and social mobility have plummeted, that wealth has been increasingly concentrated at the top, and that increasingly, the affluent in this country are isolated in their own circles–living in their own separate neighborhoods; sending their kids to their own separate schools from preschool through college; keeping their money offshore; spending much of their time in homes outside the country; and so on.
“Isolation from ordinary people breeds contempt and prejudice. Lack of intimate, long-term interaction with ordinary people makes it easier for the wealthy to generalize about “those people,” whoever they might be–workers, teachers, the poor, etc., and to buy into across-the-board, one-size-fits-all prescriptions regarding those Others. It becomes easy to think that it makes sense that we have a top-down, mandated, invariant curriculum for the masses based upon the vise of invariant standards on the one side and invariant tests on the other if one thinks of teachers, students, workers, the poor–of any group of people outside the privileged class–as homogenous. “If only we held those people accountable via a standardized test!” begins to sound sensible, even though giving the same test to every third grader is equivalent to giving the same certification exam to plumbers, doctors, airplane mechanics, and NBA players. And when the privileged, with all their accomplishments and clout, make such generalizations, others buy in out of fear and self interest and, of course, respect. How could a man as clearly brilliant and skilled as, say, Bill Gates, be so terribly wrong? Our politicians left and right have almost entirely bought into the absurd generalizations underpinning the accountability movement. And why? Because Dimocrat or Repugnican, they are wind-up toys for oligarchs.
Welcome to the U.S. banana republic, folks, where the latest big product is kids, not bananas.
Meanwhile, there are more African-American men in prison or in jail in this country, mostly for breathing while black, than were enslaved in 1850.
As of year-end 2011, 6.9777 million U.S. adults were “under correctional supervision,” that is, on probation, on parole, in jail, or in prison. That’s about 2.9% of the U.S. population. It’s the highest rate in the world. Think of the most venal, corrupt country in the world. We imprison far, far more people than that country does. Quite a distinction, that.
Increased punishment always accompanies bifurcation of wealth and income and is a sure sign of a civilization in decline. Lots and lots of historical evidence for this.
And the cost of all this imprisonment?
As of 2010, according to a Pew report, average cost of incarceration per inmate in state systems was $47,421 in California, $50,262 in Connecticut, $38,268 in Illinois, $38,383 in Maryland, $41,364 in Minnesota, $54,865 in New Jersey, $60,076 in New York. . . .
There’s plenty of money for all that. Meanwhile, every teacher I know buys supplies for his or her own classroom.
I think policy makers will eventually get there (they aren’t there yet) but in my opinion, the problem with the justice system is not so much the initial sentence but probation and parole.
They keep them on probation too long, and they fall into this cycle they can’t break, where nearly everything they do is a probation violation and they end up back before a judge. It isn’t just the sentence. It’s the post-release control. You can be adjudicated for a misdemeanor juvenile offense at 17 and remain “on paper” until you’re 21. It’s almost a guarantee that person will end up back in court, because probation violations are not new offenses – the bar is much lower for violating probation- but they’re treated as new offenses. The problem isn’t entry to the system. It’s getting out of it. We have made it nearly impossible for them to pay for the initial offense and move on. We keep them under court supervision FOR YEARS.
A few years back, Chiara, there was a marijuana decriminalization initiative on the California ballot, and I remember reading, at the time, that in California a) white teenagers used pot more frequently than did black teenagers but b) black teenagers were 17 times as likely to be arrested for doing so. That figure really stuck with me. 17 times!!!! That’s disproportionate entry to the system for a low-level offense.
So true! So eloquently argued! Thank you!
I have a question.
Do talks about how many children people have ever come up in debates about our economy?
I see resistance to some changes by the old “white guard” in my state, and I tend to think some of it is passively (or maybe even actively) aimed towards not moving to a philosophical point where those who practice family planning are suddenly responsible for those who do not. ? Who should assimilate? Those who practiced family planning? Or those who did not? Who should adjust to whose values? Whose ideals should be the norm?
I don’t mean eugenics. I mean family planning. Is it discussed? Should the minimum wage be higher (resulting in higher costs for products, perhaps) because there are a so many families who have more children than they can support?
Hind sight doesn’t help, I know. But understanding where resistance to certain mindsets is coming from might. I have never been satisfied simply by the explanation of greed. I think it is deeper than that. But it takes bold conversations about values and how values play into resources to uncover that depth. I feel like we talk around issues, many times, because of our pluralistic age and our supposed celebration of multiculturalism—-all-embracing, anything goes. But does that work in terms of resources?
If we really do want to understand actions, mindsets and paths, I think we have to understand the philosophies behind them.
The only effective form of “family planning” that I’m aware of is contraception, and in our wacko country, the word “contraception” is one step away from the third rail.
On the flip side of the family planning coin, our economy probably needs higher rather than lower birth rates. The long-term budget is built on a set of expectations and requirements that are essentially a pyramid scheme, built on the backs of workers who don’t exist yet.
Don’t be ridiculous. Contraception is readily available in the US.
I actually think they’ll be a reckoning, and it will come about because of deregulated campaign finance and the resulting corruption charges and prosecutions. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before in our history. Unlimited money in politics and a revolving door between government and business interests (and I would add foundations and nonprofits to the modern scheme, because they have huge money and clout) is an incubator for regulatory capture and corruption. It’s inevitable. It’ll get more and more blatant and will become impossible for the public to ignore, and then there will be political movement to clean it all up and start over.
You can’t have regulators moving between government and the entities they’re supposedly regulating or overseeing or contracting with. It’s never worked without systemic corruption and capture resulting, and it won’t work this time.
The Opens Secrets website quantifies and identifies the revolving door spinners from government to industry.
Thanks. The transparency effort is great and necessary, but I don’t think people have reached a tipping point yet as far as regulatory capture. They’re aware it’s happening, but there’s a lot of hand waving and “nothing can be done”.
I think when it slops over the faint and blurry line from “lobbying” to actual, actionable “outright buying of politicians” we’ll see the public respond.
One of the things I find genuinely alarming in the Chris Christie situation is how many of his “insiders” came from the US DOJ. Christie was a US attorney, so those are the people he knows, but to me that’s a new area of revolving door bleed. I didn’t think I could get any more alarmed. but reading those names and where they worked prior from scares me. I think that’s a line that should not have been crossed. I don’t know how to prevent it happening, but it’s still scary.
Chiara, we already have outright buying of politicians.
I ask the 70,000 readers of the Ravitch blog and the people her columns are forwarded to, to do something simple. Please Internet search “Koch Colleges”. If you find your alma mater among the list of more than 250 U.S. colleges that take Koch money, e-mail the economics departments and ask them if the Koch’s permit them to include Piketty’s bestseller, in the Koch-funded course curriculum or allow the professors to teach from it.
Thank you.
At my institution no one vets any course syllabi.
Check out what Florida State University was asked to do (and, agreed to do) to get their money from the Kochs.
The simple answer is to just say no. My department did.
glad your institution has that policy.
wow. Glad to see that list.
Wow, that’s a pretty extensive list! Schools all over the map, too, including ones that have huge endowments and don’t need Koch money at all. The university where my husband teaches economics is not on the list, but my guess is that is not because of any moral objection. They probably see it as their bad luck.
I worry my alma mater might think the same thing. But not sure.
Look closely at the business schools at those colleges, where economics is taught to future entrepreneurs etc., not just the regular economics departments where more generic economics courses are taught to the masses.
TE, the Kochs contributed to the School of Business at your college, and also extensively to the Youth Entrepreneurs there: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Family_Foundations
They may well have. I don’t teach in the Business School.
My undergrad alma mater is not on that list. However, two campus affiliates of my graduate school (Rutgers, New Brunswick) is: Rutgers School of Business (SHOCKING!) and Rutgers-Newark. Back in 2011, my GSE prof warned us that “public” Rutgers University was approximately 66% privately funded. I wonder which private source gives the most?
They blame the schools because it distracts the public from the real issues of inequality and growing poverty. The rich are no longer part of America. They have their own schools, public safety forces, food system, laws, housing, and transportation as a nationless global hegemony. The stock market is now a charade with the rich siphoning gains through the shadow finance market in the trillions. Now, soon they will have their own communications system and fast-lane Internet.
Sadly, there are still those in the 99% who believe our system is working. They have a religious faith in our “capitalism” not realizing capitalism no longer exists nor functions. Lacking critical, objective thought, these zealots are quick to attack anyone who challenges their religion as “socialist”, “anti-free market”, or “Nazis” (see Tom Perkins).
While the inequality has been building since Reagan, the 2008 collapse enabled many who should have been penalized in a correction to instead avoid accountability at the expense of Main Street. This major power shift solidified and legitimized the ill-gotten gains of the wealthy on Wall Street. And the middle class is still paying the price.
I agree with you that the politicians and rich businessman need to quit interfering with education for their own profit. But I see public education as the equalizer, not money. The economic picture you paint here is pretty one-sided, and I just don’t agree with you that the redistribution of wealth solves problems. There is a whole other side to your argument, but I just don’t agree that taking money from earners and giving to takers is the solution. You cannot sustain a society on those principles. But I don’t want to focus on economics.
There is currently an absence of desire and will to learn within this generation of kids, and apathy is deadly to any society. We can’t instill in kids a desire to fight for themselves or to “better” themselves when they don’t care – when all they care about is having enough money (and in general provided by someone else) to keep a smartphone and have fun. If this is all they want out of life (oftentimes, it is all they see at home), then how can we create in them a desire to work hard to achieve something they don’t want? We can’t buy an inner desire to achieve, to persevere; we can’t simply purchase a magical pill that will make kids succeed.
College graduation rates should show that. In the past decade, we have sent an entire generation to college on the backs of taxpayers, and yet graduation rates have declined for that exact reason: we are sending kids to college who have no buy-in. If money and opportunities were the problem, then why hasn’t it been fixed by sending more kids to college? We gave them the money. We gave them the opportunity. But it hasn’t worked. I teach at a community college, and the increasing rate of apathetic students scares the crap out of me. And it isn’t fair to blame society and poverty. I have students who come into my class working a full time job to support a family and who work their tails off to succeed. Then I have students who come into my class and tell me that life is just hard, that they are so sorry but they couldn’t do their work because they had to work and they have three kids, and on and on and on. If it is merely a money/class issue, why is that some students overcome their excuses and others continue to use them as excuses. These students then become adults who can’t hold down jobs because they constantly have excuses as to why they can’t do the job they are asked to do. And of course it is always someone else’s fault. Then they have kids who see the example set, see a government that allows a somewhat sustainable lifestyle (not ideal but sustainable), and they follow it. They adopt the mentality that they have been dealt an unfair hand, and “it isn’t fair” – that life owes them.
I have MS. It is NOT fair. I did nothing to deserve it, but it is my path in this life. It means I have extra medical bills; I have little to no energy; I have times where I struggle to think and to walk. It means I have more challenges to overcome. Fair? No. But I do it. I get up every day and do what I can do. I have graded final exams from a hospital bed. I have designed lessons for a sub, laying flat on my back after having a spinal tap. Yet I have students who come to me and say they couldn’t write their papers because their boyfriend’s aunt was in the hospital. Really?? Really?? They honestly think they deserve an “A” because life isn’t fair. So tell me, how fair is it, if I give that student an “A” when I have another student whose mother died, and she still got her paper done. I have another student who was in a terrible car wreck and still got her work done. I have another student who lost her husband to cancer and is a single mom, but she still got her work done. And we want to take wealth from those who work their tails off to continue to help people with no sense of responsibility? Bullcrap! I do not buy into the idea that life is fair or that our goal in society is to smooth the path to fairness.
We should provide opportunity. And yes, that opportunity should help provide more social services in the schools for all kids. But until our society learns to buy-in to their own lives, we cannot fix poverty. Poverty of spirit is worse than physical poverty. We have to break the cycle of poverty, but throwing more money at it is not the solution.
I agree with some of what you write, Melody, but we have gotten to the point in the US where the decks are really stacked. No, we shouldn’t have equality in wealth, but we do need to make systemic changes so that the wealth isn’t so concentrated. As Diane points out in her piece, even within the 1%, wealth is extremely concentrated in the hands of the top 1% of the 1%. That is just a disaster waiting to happen.
I recently read a book called “Plutocrats.” (It was OK.) As one of the rich folks at the end of the book said, the current division of wealth is like living in a huge and beautiful mansion in the middle of a giant slum. The house might be nice, but at some point, even for the rich person living in it, it can’t be sustained in that neighborhood and will lose most of its value while the owner is scared to leave the premises.
This concentration of wealth will eventually hurt everyone, even those at the top. I hope we can halt it before ti gets too dire.
You have the whole concept of “earners” and “takers” exactly backward.
And this: ” In the past decade, we have sent an entire generation to college on the backs of taxpayers.”
What on earth are you talking about??? The past generation has seen the least government funding for higher education in the past century. Public subsidies for state universities have all but dried up. Grants are almost impossible to get. Even subsidized loans (which, to make it clear, are still loans and still have to be paid back with interest) are getting harder to find and are covering less of what students need to get by in school. The past decade has seen kids go deep into debt – owed to private institutions at extortionate rates – to get an education. And you’re trying to tell me that young people aren’t invested in education?
Your thinking is very, very distorted. Please get out in the real world and stop buying right-wing talking points.
Some good economic news just in: the estimate for net new jobs in April is 288,000.
That IS good news. What kind of jobs, what median income, and how much longer till we gain what was lost in The Great Recession? But it is a start.
MathVale,
Remember that the 288,000 is a net figure. There were millions who started new jobs in April, millions who left their job in April. It will be a while before we know the characteristics of those couple of million new job hires.
Yes. A net and different household/employer surveys as you know which can give different results. Plus workforce participation affects the numbers. As well as revised figures. I’d liked to see more focus on the types of jobs.
MathVale, check the link from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and see which are the new jobs that will need to be filled in the next decade. Only one–registered nurse–of the top ten categories requires a college degree.
You will have to wait a while to get more detailed information. Formulating economic policy is like driving a car by looking through the rear view window.
And how many of those are low-level, low wage service positions? More jobs today are part-time than full time.
See my response above. When you are asking questions about a couple million jobs, it takes some time to find the answers.
So we’re supposed to celebrate all these new jobs, when we don’t even know what kinds of jobs they are? Sorry, but I’m really not excited if Amazon is hiring more warehouse workers for minimum wage in 120 degree warehouses, or if Wal-Mart is hiring more part-time clerks who will still need food stamps to survive.
Dienne,
If you are interested in the details we have, here is a link to the BLS press release. Keep in mind that this is just the first estimate, and it will be revised as more data becomes available.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm
Wow. I am reading the comments, and it saddens me that we are demonizing everyone who succeeds as selfish and greedy. Yes, there are those who are that, but there are a lot who aren’t. Wealth is NOT a bad word. Why should we encourage students to work hard and succeed if we are just going to demonize them when they do? Do we only want them to work and succeed to a certain point?
And if we want to talk about taxes. The top 10% pay over 70% of taxes, yet they earn only 45% of the income.
But here is the thing, I don’t envy them their wealth. I have no desire—NONE to enter a rat race of long, crazy hours. I have friends living the supposed lifestyle of comfort. Yet, their husband are rarely home because they are working 10 hour days at the office. They may take nice vacations and have nice homes, but he is working his tail off for that money. So should I claim that it isn’t fair that they have a better life and take some of that money?
Success is not about wealth. I see families living in rather “poor” or “middling” circumstances, who work hard and are happy. I see families who are living in “rich” circumstances, who are doing the same. Yet, I see families from these same monetary circumstances who are miserable and lacking moral character. Wealth is not the problem.
Have we come so far that we are now the society in Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”? Do we need to put birdshot around the necks of our dancers and athletes? Do we need all of our people with high IQ’s to wear headphones that emit periodic loud noises, so they cannot think too deeply about things? Do we need a Handicapper General who will make sure life is fair and no one feels bad about themselves?
Wealth is not bad. Wealth inequality is. The problem is not wealth. Rather if you look at productivity gains recently compared to the distribution of rewards from those gains, you will see only the wealthy benefitted. The system is broken – since when did working hard without a fair share of the rewards become a good idea?
Your tax claims do not include state and local taxes nor Social Security. When those are taken into account, we have a nearly flat tax with the lower earners paying a higher percentage of income. Earned income is taxed at a much higher rate. Consumption taxes are highly regressive. It also makes no sense to tax a waitress making minimum wage money she needs to survive at the same rate as a wealthy person.
I also dispute your assertion only and all wealthy work hard. This “Just World” view is simply not realistic. Many middle class and poor work long, hard hours for little pay. Many wealthy inherit their prosperity – including quite a few of the Reformers – or enjoy unearned income (stocks, options). The implied assumption in the Just World is that if you don’t have wealth you didn’t work hard. That morphs into if you get sick, in an accident, or have a misfortune, it is somehow your fault. Sort of a rationalized blame game to make people feel safe.
Melody, I don’t envy wealth. But I am very angry about inequality. It hurts children, it hurts families, it hurts our society.
Inequality isn’t just about money. There is an excellent case to be made that the flat-out unwillingness, historically and in the current day, of such a high percentage of white people to live next to or even in the same town as more than a handful of people of color, along with our reluctance to confront governments and businesses that actively create segregation, is a more significant driver of inequality than economic or taxation policy.
In the economic development literature, distance to economic density is an important determinant of the potential for income growth.
But Tim, is that because of color or culture? That’s the part people tiptoe around. WHY do white people flee minority neighborhoods?
I enjoy other cultures. I teach a diverse population and grew up in one (as much as a North Carolinian can). But instead of everyone just ho humming this factor of “whites don’t want to live near minorities,” we have to ask why. And analyze it. And talk about it. If we want change.
Certainly fear of that which is different does drive the flocking of humans (sort of tribal), but where there are pockets of folks who believe in conservative behavior and lifestyles (and certainly there is the possibility of double standards, which makes it harder to accept), but as I posted earlier,, whose culture and lifestyle gets to prevail? Why? How does that relate to the responsible use of resources?
These questions have to be discussed. Otherwise it’s just hollering back and forth, name calling, generalizing, pointing out human error without understanding the impetus behind it.
That’s what I am ready to read about. Those are the discussions that will bring about answers.
NC is seeing this in a big way. I see it in my own building. Whose culture (that is, whose value system) should set the norm? Why?
“…, but where there are pockets of folks who believe in conservative behavior and lifestyles”
Am I misunderstanding you, or are you saying that black people don’t believe in “conservative behavior and lifestyles”?
Dienne:
You are misunderstanding me.
Values tied to resources.
The effect of values to resources.
The effect of choices to resource availability, on a large scale and on a small scale.
We don’t talk enough about the correlation of choices and resources. (I don’t mean school choice).
Again, whose values matter most? Whose values lead to the most wealth for a society? Whose values lead to the possibility of choices that lead to resource availability?
It can’t be as simple as we make it seem. Greed is not enough of an answer. It isn’t that simple. It can’t be.
Dienne–
As a matter of fact, in NC, many times the black communities have shown that they prefer conservative lifestyles as a way to structure society than some of the white communities. But my original statement had no particular group in mind.
We no longer seem to attach lifestyle choice to the options they engender or exclude. We don’t seem to have an agreement across our country about what values should be taught to children for the preservation of the society.
I think we have to look at what value systems are driving choices and policies and what connection those value systems have to the availability of resources.
Melody,
-You should be sad that the 1% use their money to destroy our democracy.
In the 2012 elections, the Kochs spent more than 2.5 times the combined spending of the top 10 labor unions. The union members democratically elect their leadership, pay dues from their pockets (bless them) and they live and pay taxes in our communities.
-Policies funded by billionaires harm and kill us for the sake of greater profits.
The rate of workplace deaths is 53% higher in right-to-work states.
-Billionaires have rigged the system to benefit themselves.
In the 1950’s, the CEO’s made 20 times as much as the workers, now it is 200 to 1.
Corporate tax breaks cost almost twice as much as any shortfall in public pension funding.
The 83 richest people in the world have wealth equal to 3.5 billion people, at the other end of the scale.
Between 1993 and 2012, the incomes of the top1% rose 86%, compared to 7% for the remaining 99% of wage earners.
I could go on, but it would fall on deaf ears.
You do know that more and more of the most wealthy people got their wealth through inheritance, rather than earning it, right?
Exactly, Dienne, and this is the growing oligarchy that Picketty warns of –being ruled by an aristocracy: http://billmoyers.com/episode/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-know-2/
Poppycock Melody. Poppycock is a great word isn’t it?
Some of the synonyms for poppycock are equally amusing…
Blather and claptrap are two that spring to mind.
Thank you for bringing such funny sounding but applicable words to mind.
I agree with every word you’ve just written. It seems that the 1% just does not care.
When it comes to schools, they state that every person deserves the offerings provided by a private education, yet they do nothing to approach the class size, course offerings, and opportunity for individual self-actualization of “their” schools.
They claim that these things could be offered if only teachers’ unions didn’t demand decent salaries and benefits. They try to imply that true teachers aren’t concerned about a living wage. They act as if teachers should be like Gandhi or Mother Theresa, sacrificial, rejecting a middle class lifestyle, and subservient to the power of their leaders. Except these leaders aren’t Gid or even morality!
Even they push for college degrees, acting as if everyone wants a job in tech, medicine, science (PhD level), finance and insurance, when the jobs available are in fast foods, custodial, delivery, clerical, etc. No one needs a college degree to perform these duties. And no one could pay for a degree on those wages.
There seems to be little respect for college professors, relegating so many to adjunct, non-tenure track, low paying jobs even as the cost of education/tuition rises. Who is getting the money? Administration? Coaching? Paying athletes? Research funded by government grants? Where is the excess money going?
As you said, how much can the 1% need?
Yet I have read report after report that any attempt to redistribute money to the masses is “socialism” with public schools leading the way to taking away liberty and the freedom to earn as much as can be hoarded.
I waa raised that if you applied yourself, did a good job, played fair, and were unselfish, you could live a decent life with some time for rest and vacation. I was raised to believe that my “freedom” stopped when it became harmful or encroached on someone else’s life.
My views are laughed upon by the Ayn Rand philosophy. Yet while they want the freedom to mislead people and manipulate the market, they want to call those who wish to be middle class “geddy” and “lazy”.
These viewpoints are gutting the very heart of America.
Very well said, deb.
This is interesting. It’s an Ohio charter school website. They have testimonials and endorsements from Arne Duncan and half the office-holders in the state.
Has an Ohio public school ever gotten this kind of lavish lawmaker attention?
It’s pretty incredible to compare how public schools are treated in this state compared to charter schools. “Agnostic”, my foot. Our lawmakers bash public schools and lavish praise on charter schools.
http://www.hsas.org/hsa-in-the-media/
As I’ve stated many times on this blog, this is the real problem. What is happening to public education is just a symptom of the egregious power the billionaire-boys-club wields. They know sooner or later taxes will have to increase on them and they are working overtime to prevent that. Sooner or later something has to give. Hopefully it will just be tax increases.
“Bob Shepherd
May 2, 2014 at 8:33 am
A few years back, Chiara, there was a marijuana decriminalization initiative on the California ballot, and I remember reading, at the time, that in California a) white teenagers used pot more frequently than did black teenagers but b) black teenagers were 17 times as likely to be arrested for doing so. That figure really stuck with me. 17 times!!!! That’s disproportionate entry to the system for a low-level offense.”
Oh, I agree. I have seen enough stats to know AA suspects and defendants are treated differently than white suspects and defendants, at every point in the process. I am convinced.
As far as “fixing it” though, as a practical matter, one has to look at the whole process. It is almost impossible to “turn around” a 20 year old who enters the system at 15 and stays in it. They come to believe they belong there. It’s a huge part of their lives.
The focus has been on “follow up” and keeping them on paper and under court supervision for years, and I think it’s exactly the wrong approach. It was well-intended. The problem is they start to see themselves as career offenders, people who are under court supervision just as part of their lives. Once that happens it is like pushing a boulder uphill to turn them around. They sort of cede responsibility for their own lives to this “authority” (the court and the justice system) and they are kids when they enter, so that’s not surprising. It’s just hard as nails to get them out of that mindset, though. I think the key for juveniles is not “follow up” it’s to move them in and then OUT quickly and let them go back to being kids. This is not a popular opinion, but I have come to it from watching this happen again and again.
I am certainly no expert in this, Chiara, but what you say makes a lot of sense to me. Who is the same person at 25 that he or she was at 16? No one. People make mistakes. Increasingly, we are making early mistakes irremediable.
very interesting talk about research related to effects of wealth on moral decision making:
Reblogged this on Dolphin.
These are great questions about charter school financing and financial practice, from parents in Pennsylvania.
State lawmakers need to ask these questions. What are they doing on debt service? Are they transferring public ed funds from one project to another? Public schools have to report all of these transactions, and charter school contractors should have to report them, too.
It is impossible for the public to determine where this money is going. That’s unacceptable.
http://articles.philly.com/2014-05-01/news/49555288_1_aspira-inc-new-schools-finances
This will make you laugh out loud:
“The “Nerd Prom,” the affectionate term Washington insiders have for the marathon of social events surrounding the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, is about to get nerdier.
High-tech firms — Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc., YouTube and Tumblr Inc. — are leading the party train, bringing geeks and glitz together for a variety of events, starting today.
Expect everyone from the cast of “House of Cards” to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President Gary Cohn to attend the Saturday night black-tie dinner at the Washington Hilton, as well as pre-dinner and post-dinner parties.”
Read the whole thing. When the history is written about the Second Gilded Age, this piece should be included 🙂
I reads like a parody of an exclusive club of insiders. How much do I love that public schools expert Mr. Netflix is all over the place?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-02/white-house-correspondents-dinner-means-blowouts-dancing.html?alcmpid=
The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is quite possibly one of the most nauseating events, even by Washington standards, and is symbolic of much of what’s wrong with our country. “Journalists” (and I use that term very loosely in connection with any attendees of this dinner) should not be paling around at fancy dinners with the people they are supposed to be covering for the benefit of the American people. But instead it’s almost gotten to be a competition as to which “journalist” can get in closest with the most politician and be most in the inner circle.
Thanks for your great post. Interesting that Fareed Zakaria has an opinion piece in the Washington Post today spouting the bad conventional wisdom:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-americas-educational-failings/2014/05/01/b61eaa22-d15c-11e3-9e25-188ebe1fa93b_story.html
He presents himself as a thoughtful, independent thinker but is looking more like a mouthpiece for elite opinion than ever.
Reblogged this on jonathan lovell's blog and commented:
A powerful, succinct argument from Diane Ravitch on the need to reform our tax code if the call for “educational reform” is to be anything more than utterly hollow and specious political posturing.
My what a lot of comments for a post made just earlier today! There’s clearly a disadvantage to those of living on the west coast as for as participating in these conversations is concerned.
The only insight I have to add is one remark that Paul Krugman made when he was interviewed recently by Bill Moyers concerning Thomas Piketty’s Capitalism (google “what the 1% don’t want you to know”). In essence, what he said was that Piketty’s monumental and surprisingly readable study of capitalism over three centuries revealed a startling truth. It was this: in terms of economic disparity, we as a nation have now become EXACTLY similar to those 18th c. European nations we fought our war of independence to distinguish ourselves from. Oy vey.
What do you mean “nations”? There was only one 18th century nation we fought against and that was Great Britain. The rebellion against Great Britain had nothing to do with economic inequality which was not necessarily greater in Great Britain at that time than in the American colonies.
Read what Jonathan Lovell suggested: http://billmoyers.com/episode/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-know-2/
It wasn’t just about taxation without representation. Our forefathers did not want to be ruled by aristocracy, as the English, French, Spanish, etc.
I have blogged this several times; Read
“Why Nations Fail”, depicting this problem from earliest recorded time to the present, globally, with MANY pages of footnotes of scholarly research.
Also:
Perfectly legal by David Cay Johnston.
MANY other books explore this too.
Diane, what steps can we take to stop/ reverse this? Politicans won’t raise taxes on billionaires if they are “owned” by them. What can we do, or is it already too late?
What someone like Warren Buffet does with his wealth is mostly invest it. If the government confisticated it they would quickly squander it.
Buffet’s personal lifestyle isn’t all that sybarite. Sometimes I wish he was a little more colourful – like Diamond Jim Brady. That guy knew how to party.
Here’s a telling excerpt from a Bill Gates interview. He knows things that aren’t true and denies things that are obvious:
At least he’s a “big proponent of the estate tax.”
I think he wants to keep more people alive longer so they can buy more of what he sells!
Income inequality is a huge problem that should be challenged. Reducing it is a huge priority.
At the same time, it appears that the country is making progress on high school graduation rates. A report released this week says that the nation’s overall grad rates is more than 80% for the first time. It also points out that in some places grad gaps between different groups of students are closing.
http://www.americaspromise.org/news/2014-building-gradnation-report-released
Randal Hendee,
Thanks for posting the Gates interview.
Paxman could have asked Gates, how much philanthropy he directed to the goals of increasing estate taxes/income taxes on the 1% and eliminating tax loopholes for companies like Microsoft.
When fewer than 100 people, like Gates, have the same amount of money as 3.5 billion people, the employment problem is transparent. The demand for goods and services is thwarted by the inability of the 100 to spend their money fast enough to create demand and jobs.
Bill Gates’ and the Koch’s reputations in history will be that of men whose influence cost their nation it’s democracy and impoverished it’s people of hope and money.
Numbers can and do lie. I see standards being lowered dramatically and here in Los Angeles, they are reducing by about 30 credits the number of classes kids need to graduate. Economics will be an elective. Think about how absurd that is. When I was in school we had geography, California History and a ton of electives. We also have seen a dramatic drop in illegal immigration which means fewer kids entering our schools who speak no English at all In the last 10 years I have seen fewer kids desiring to go back to their home countries.