A President For Plutocrats
By Mitch Berg
The income gap has gotten worse under Obama.
Much worse:
In his speech in Illinois last week, and at events since, Obama described income inequality in the starkest terms. “This growing inequality is morally wrong,” he said, and “undermines the very essence of America.”
To be sure, income inequality is a standard trope for liberals, who always use it to advocate more wealth redistribution.
And Obama’s latest focus neatly coincides with his plans to push for more federal spending and taxes on the “rich” in coming budget battles.
But what Obama conveniently leaves out of his sermons is that income inequality has grown faster on his watch than any time in the past two decades, at least.
Research by University of California economist Emmanuel Saez shows that since the Obama recovery started in June 2009, the average income of the top 1% grew 11.2% in real terms through 2011.
The bottom 99%, in contrast, saw their incomes shrink by 0.4%.
As a result, 121% of the gains in real income during Obama’s recovery have gone to the top 1%. By comparison, the top 1% captured 65% of income gains during the Bush expansion of 2002-07, and 45% of the gains under Clinton’s expansion in the 1990s.
Who’da thunk it – the party whose entire compaign is aimed at gulling “the 99%” is the one that’s dedicated to screwing “the 99%”.
Couldn’t see that one coming.
August 2nd, 2013 at 12:23 pm
Repeat after me:
“Redistribution is not a substitute for economic growth”.
August 2nd, 2013 at 12:37 pm
Crony capitalism benefits the cronies and politicians, not the public. So who’s surprised that the income gap in widening under Obama? It’s The Chicago Way taken national.
August 2nd, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Few understand it, but the 99% would have much more power and opportunity with a much harder monetary standard and a financial system to go with it. Of course the government couldn’t overspend doling out goodies under that scenario. Freaking out about the minimum wage is a side show.
We are at the Neo Keynesian End Point.
August 2nd, 2013 at 5:35 pm
“Redistribution is not a substitute for economic growth”.
Redistribution keeps the poor happy. It doesn’t change their place in society. Neither does free medical care or pensions. Increased regulation restricts the freedom of companies to act, perhaps protecting the public, but in doing so generally cements their commercial position by raising barriers to new market entry. The Democratic agenda is to make today’s world more comfortable, not to change it.
The Republican party claims to be the party of opportunity. But they do so by celebrating those who have already succeeded, rather than giving a hand up to those who might succeed with the right opportunities. A true party of opportunity would seek to give a leg up to all those who demostrate that they are striving for excellence, while punishing all of the many systems that preserve privilege. I see little of that from the Republicans, but also little from the Democrats.
August 2nd, 2013 at 9:56 pm
I think, emery, that most conservatives (as opposed to Republicans) would say that some wealth redistribution is necessary, but that it is done at the cost of economic growth. This is classical economics. It’s even Keynesian economics — Keynes was in favor of redistribution, but not for reasons of ‘social justice’. Keynes knew that poor people spent more of their income, while the wealthy tended to save more of their income. By taking money from rich people and giving it to poor people, investment would decrease but consumer spending would increase.
I figure that about one out of one hundred people who quote Adam Smith or JM Keynes, or talk about ‘classical economics’ and ‘Keynesian economics’ has actually read Smith or Keynes.
Smith was extremely wary of commercial interests who promoted public policies (e.g. politics) for the ‘good of the country’. Keynes’ belief in government intervention in the markets and in the power of consumption to drive an economy were strongly linked to the response of the European society to WWI. The foundation of Keynes’ economic thought can be found in his ‘Economic Consquences of the Peace’ (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15776/15776-h/15776-h.htm)
Democrats deny reality. They believe, despite the evidence of nearly a hundred years, that command economy and redistribution of welath is both more just and more efficient. Government picking winners and losers makes the economy produce more wealth.
There is no economic theory which supports this belief.
August 3rd, 2013 at 6:52 am
Conservative strategy looks uncomfortably similar to the approach that served the Europeans so poorly in the Middle Ages. Weak institutions, excessive trust in the Church, low mobility, education only of the elites, persecution of minorities, disdain for science and reason…we’ve tried this before. And it only led to hundreds of years of poverty, disease, and getting cut down by Turkish archery. One day we woke up and tried something different…and it worked. I say we keep trying something that looks sort of like the thing that worked.
August 3rd, 2013 at 10:55 am
That is a bizarre description of conservatism, Emery. Do you watch the Daily Show?
It’s like a satire, or something you might read in a Democrat fundraising email.
August 3rd, 2013 at 2:52 pm
The Democratic agenda is to make today’s world more comfortable, not to change it.
What kind of self-refuting twaddle is that shit?
August 3rd, 2013 at 4:09 pm
The Republican party is now and always has been composed of two camps: the Rockefeller Republicans and the TEA Party, not always known by those names but holding those viewpoints. The only thing separating RR’s from Democrats is the degree and manner they’re willing to use government to promote their respective agendas. TEA Partiers – closer to Conservatives – are fighting a two-front war.
Conservatives don’t want feudal society, they would be happy with the level of government that existed when John F. Kennedy was president and that was a time of enormous economic mobility and prosperity. It’s Liberals who can’t stand the thought of giving up total domination over a single aspect of society, lest any single person end up with a smidgen more than all the rest.
August 3rd, 2013 at 5:13 pm
Conservatives have shot themselves in the foot by assuming that government is always its enemy, and corporations it’s friend. America’s private health care system has not served conservatives well. The amount of fat and sugar consumed on a daily basis by conservatives, turning their bodies to slush, was put into their food by corporations, not by the government. Obviously government is not always good (and personally I think that America’s conservative movement provides a needed restraint on government). But the idea that government is always bad, and that its ‘badness’ is a pillar of conservative faith, should be questioned, for the good of the conservative Americans themselves.
And finally, the contempt for education, science, and intellectualism urged on conservative audiences by many of their media figures seems so purely and obviously self-defeating that it almost doesn’t require discussion.
August 3rd, 2013 at 7:22 pm
You’ve erected an entire army of strawmen, Emery.
Which conservative has said that government is always its enemy? Has said that government is always bad?
You really need to examine what you believe and why you believe it, Emery.
August 3rd, 2013 at 8:53 pm
@Joe Doakes
I see at least five Republican parties out there, with a lot of overlap. There is a House party, a Senate party, and a presidential party. But there is also a Southern party and a non-Southern one. The two driving forces dominating today’s GOP are the House party and the Southern one — and they will not be moved by another presidential loss. If anything, they might double down on their worldviews and strategies. The attempt by any part of the GOP to wrest control from the extreme right-wing economic and/or social conservatives will fail, they’ve already won. What passes for conservatism today would make Barry Goldwater cringe. You cannot co-opt extremists – either in domestic politics or international affairs.
@PM
I’m a small government conservative and I am baffled at the right’s idol worship of tight monetary policy. If conservatives could advocate a monetarist solution, they would have a plan that could: 1) help the unemployed, 2) discredit keynsian fiscal stimulus, and 3) justify spending cuts all at the same time.
August 3rd, 2013 at 9:43 pm
Are you sure you are talking about monetary policy, Emery? Regardless of what conservatives think about monetary policy, the fed has been firehosing money into the economy for 5 years and it hasn’t done much good. Traditionally, wealthy people like a tight monetary policy because loose money drives inflation, and inflation erodes capital.
August 4th, 2013 at 8:48 pm
The income disparity isn’t Pres Obama’s fault.
What happened is that the 99% took off 6 months of work to go be at the Occupy rallies, Hispanics took time off to protest immigration, African Americans had to take off the weeks of the Zimmerman trial to get ready to riot, and tens of thousands of liberal women had to take off work to fight for free contraception with Sandra Fluke.
All of that non-economic activity skewed their income levels down.
August 5th, 2013 at 6:37 am
Why Is Inflation So Low? I think this is only a puzzle for those who believe that potential GDP has shrunk considerably so that there is little slack in the system. For the rest of us, it’s the large amount of slack that is the answer. Fears of high inflation given the amount of slack are misplaced.
August 5th, 2013 at 8:51 am
Consumers are shedding themselves of debt and not buying on credit, so Gross Domestic Product should be tanked, except the official government statistics for GDP include “all spending” and that includes government stimulus spending. Our “growth” is solely because government spending is replacing consumer spending in the formula. There is enormous increase in the money supply but no “price inflation” because the government formula excludes “volatile” commodities like gasoline and food, plus it massages the prices of other goods for “value.” So yes, your groceries cost more but that doesn’t count. And your refrigerator costs more but it runs quieter so you’re getting more bang for the buck and that means there’s no inflation, either.
In short – any damned idiot can see things cost more, but politicians lie about it to make themselves look good. And only fools believe them.
August 5th, 2013 at 9:21 am
“And finally, the contempt for education, science, and intellectualism urged on conservative audiences by many of their media figures seems so purely and obviously self-defeating that it almost doesn’t require discussion.”
Oh, right. conservative contempt for education. *That’s* why it costs $14,000 a year to get a black kid through 10th grade and out to the streets functionally illiterate. Those damn conservatives have really fucked up the government skools, Peni.
And science, why those right wing knuckle draggers have made redefining human biology a real chore with their insistance that men and women are different, and have seperate yet equally important roles in the priduction of healthy, well adjusted children.
And of course we can’t fail to illuminate the virulent anti-intellectualism that seeks to deny cradle to grave government care is “empowering”, or that “it takes a villiage”; “hope & change” in and of themselves, are such solid benchmarks upon which to guide a country they need no further explaination and of course only an Uncle Tom is ignorant enough to refuse to see the wisdom in using racism for our own good as a means of controling us.
Pffft. You poor, pathetic asshole. The only point in your ignorant babbling that makes any sense is hoping you and your ignorant ilk ever wake up enough to realize your worldview is so self-defeating it doesn’t require discussion; mockery and derision is what’s called for.
August 5th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
Emery, how much do you know about economics?
in 2008 people stopped spending money. This is measured by economists as a decrease in the velocity of money. Velocity of money is the frequency with which it is exchanged. Velocity is important in a market economy since every exchange of money is voluntary, it is presumed to add value to GDP (people wouldn’t buy if the exchange of money for value didn’t benefit them). To counter the drop in velocity, Bernanke & co. began pumping money into the economy.
August 5th, 2013 at 7:16 pm
On one hand, but then on the other hand. ;^)
August 7th, 2013 at 10:48 am
Conservative strategy looks uncomfortably similar to the approach that served the Europeans so poorly in the Middle Ages. Weak institutions, excessive trust in the Church, low mobility, education only of the elites, persecution of minorities, disdain for science and reason…we’ve tried this before. And it only led to hundreds of years of poverty, disease, and getting cut down by Turkish archery. One day we woke up and tried something different…and it worked. I say we keep trying something that looks sort of like the thing that worked.
You ignorant slut! Give one fucking example of where Soci@lism worked! Why do you hate the Constitution and the USA so much? Why don’t you pack your bags and head to Cuba, or Russia?
August 7th, 2013 at 11:23 am
I always am left wondering what the hell Emery thinks when he makes a stupid non sequitur like that after others offer reasonable opinions which differ sharply from his ….. it’s embarrassing to read. But his avatar-thingie is a cool-looking dude !
August 7th, 2013 at 4:19 pm
Leave to a Soci@list douchebag to have an avatar of a person who invents a Doomsday Machine. Pure Utopian.