Fewer believe that anyone who works hard can get ahead"
Free link: tinyurl.com/3ttszj4y
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You are spot on with this post. One issue I think you should consider discussing closely related to income inequality is housing affordability and how this is a primary source of anger, particularly among younger generations. One reason the sub 30 demographic you mentioned does not feel positive about the economy is the inability to purchase their first house without some type of family assistance. If you come from a poor family, good luck trying to buy a house.
I am 41 with two kids (9 & 7), living in Orange County (Irvine), CA. My wife and I know multiple families who are well off economically ($500K+ combined household incomes) and are unable to afford a basic single family home in Irvine, being forced to rent. Of course OC is incredibly expensive compared to most housing markets, but this traditionally coastal problem is spreading beyond these markets and impacting historically affordable places like Texas.
The younger generation literally feels hopeless about the possibility of home ownership. Much of this is driven by severe underbuilding and overly burdensome zoning laws, which in places like California is attributed heavily to NIMBYism driven by traffic concerns, preserving neighborhood character, etc., but ultimately the underlying reason is to preserve the value of most people's largest asset. The selfish attitude of "I got mine", particularly with the 50+ crowd, is sickening. As you know, housing is the key pillar of most middle class families' wealth, so taking this away will only further exacerbate income inequality.
Thank you for all of your writing. I always look forward to reading your notes.
-Matt O'Connor
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Thanks for this, Bob.
I'm a strong progressive, but I also acknowledge that the Democratic Party has been complicit in 40+ years of hollowing out the middle class. Why is conservative news and Trump effective in rallying the less-well-off to their side? Because the Dems haven't been "the party of labor" or "the party of the middle class" since 1980. Yes, there will always be some single-issue voters who's minds can't be changed, but what the Dems need now is a youthful leader who's willing to call out the injustice, to move the party back to favoring "the little guy" over billionaires, and to champion and enact policies that correct for all the abuses that we've seen in favor of a finance-driven economy. When I look around at the Dem leadership, I don't see that person. Maybe it's Cory Booker?
Chris Rimpl
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I heard an interview six weeks or so ago featuring Naomi Klein talking about her new book. She said something that has stuck with me. "The far right conspiracy theorists don't always get the facts right. But they get the tone perfectly."
Which is what your letter was saying, no? The democrats are tone deaf. Same as the Liberal party up here in Canada. Shouldn't be this way, but here we are,
Have a nice day,
Cheers, Owen Dearing
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BDS and the Federalist Society- what a great comparison. It's time for Jews to start investing in pro-Israel faculty so that we too can win the long game. Department chairs care mainly about grants and funding and I assume most agencies or orgs that currently fund would never give money to someone with a pro-Israel research proposal since it goes against the current academic ethos.
Anyway as always I love your take on these issues and I am thankful for your newsletter!
Best,
Michael Cantor
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The Truman-Eisenhower economy was hijacked starting around the late-70's when Carter slashed Cap Gains. Then Reagan went all-in on supply-side tax and fiscal policies. As a result, the broad 60% middle-class, since the early 1980s, has lost HALF its wealth. By design -- by policies that have reduced net tax rates on ultra-high-income, while keeping middle-class tax rates progressively higher. This has caused a massive 40-year upward redistribution of wealth from the broad middle to the very top.
But why do our elected officials vote these neo-Liberal, supply side policies into law -- year after year -- if they are killing our broad middle-class and causing increasingly severe class-disequalibrium? Because quid pro quo. Politicians need money for campaigns. Who funds those campaigns? Over 90% of campaign funding comes from 0.1%-wealth sources, who demand only one thing in return. Ultra-low tax rates. And they get it. Of course. Larry Lessig found that DC politicians spend roughly 50% of their working hours on the phone to their 0.1% constituents.
Does the middle-class understand this? No. Of course not. They are told by the 90% media (0.1%-wealth owned, leftist and rightist) that our problems are (fill in blank). Immigrants. Baby Killers. Gays. Socialists. Fascists. The truth is never spoken. You will never hear an in-depth report on profound class-inequality vis-a-vis supply-side tax policies on the 90% news.
Alas, the core problem is campaign funding laws that allow disproportionate influence of minority interests (special interests, money as speech). Lawmakers are the only one's who can change these horrific campaign funding laws. But of course that would be political suicide. And, as we've seen, the Supreme Court, who take massive gifting from ultra-wealth interests, is not going to make the required changes.
And so, the USA continues to grow increasingly unequal, the middle-class continues to lose real wealth, incr(ease their real debt load, and decrease their real savings -- core metrics that have been worsening for 40 years. At this rate of growth in class-inequality, the USA will reach 1% / 90% inequality ratios last seen in pre-revolutionary France, circa 1785.
Fix campaign funding, or die. Simple as that. (see UK, NZ, and other nations for healthy campaign funding law).
John LaGrou
www.cbpp.org/research/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality
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And, of course, in the ATTENTION economy, where clicks and likes are the currency, Trump is slaying it..It matters little WHAT one is saying, as long as they are shouting louder than anyone else..
I smugly assumed that in the eigth years since the Donald's ascension, attrition would seal the deal for us..Millions of old voters would die..Millions of new voters would come into the fold..The GOP would be grand no more, just old..
But we lost the young men..While sleepy Joe is cavorting with world leaders, Trump is going to WWF matches.."He's one of US!" They feel seen.
Trump plays "Macho Man" at his rallies.."Machismo" is still a thing in Latin culture..
Today's kids are SO Jonesing for some BDE, that Trump, Putin, Musk, and Andrew Tate are seen as viable role models..They should look to Travis Kelce..Talk about BDE! ("Phizer Boy" acc.to Aaron Rodgers, who's literally limping on the sidelines.)
The "great replacement theory" doesn't seem conspiratorial to today's dudes..Guys can't even get hired for roles in action/superhero movies..And if you boycott these films, you're a MISOGYNIST..Of course, the ladies get a pass, for not supporting THEIR OWN gender..
James Spencer
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Here's the problem the Democrats are up against:
Core inflation is the change in the costs of goods and services but does not include those from the food and energy sectors. Food and energy prices are exempt from this calculation because their prices can be too volatile or fluctuate wildly.
Food and energy (gas) prices are not factored in to that "lowering" inflation rate the Democrats (and I'm registered Democrat) tout. In the real world, where most of us live, food and energy is where inflation is hitting hardest.
Jeff Eyrich
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Case in point
"BREAKING: America's largest egg producers and industry groups illegally rigged the market to drive up the price of eggs a jury has found.
"Their price-fixing schme includd exporting millions of eggs overseas t drive up U.S. prices around Thanksgiving and Easter."
x.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1727068498197901568?s=20
Rob Meder
P.S. Our corporate overloads raised the prices and never looked back. Worked so well raised em again. People kept buying. They put less in each package. People keep buying. Margins have never been better. The grocery world has shrunk to where a few massive multinationals own every shelf in the place. This is not 'inflation' - it's simple old school greed. The only thing that will reverse this is when people stopping buying. Companies are more than happy with how thing are right now. Nothing a politician can do about it.
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Democrats need a targeted message, not a change in leadership.
HRC didn't have one for Wis, Mi, Ohio, and PA and she lost.
The financial abyss between the haves and have nots has never been wider
and deeper. If they're not smart enough to craft a message then a change
in leadership is warranted.
John Keith Sr.
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Dear Bob, I'm a union lawyer representing workers at many industries all around the country, including the young workers organizing Starbucks. Your observations are valid. Wage earners, especially the youth, are facing serious economic challenges and they're damn angry about it. I don't blame the Democrats per se, rather the increasing and perhaps inevitable monopolization of the economy. Major industries are controlled by just a few corporations so many workers are employed directly by them, or indirectly down the line by their multiple contractors and suppliers. As a result, they essentially control the labor market, as well as the market for their goods and services. It's not surprise to us in the labor movement that workers have not had significant improvements in earnings in over 30 years.
We also know that Trump will do nothing but accelerate this trend, but try telling that to the folks who are struggling in this economy. Keep up the good work, Bob Giolito
Bob Giolito
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Once again, Bob, you're dead on! Nailed all the liberal dems I know, and that's most of the people I know, except for my youngest brother, who lives in MI, a Trumper who grudgingly has a half-black grandson, a gay daughter who's afraid to come out at age 40 ("there's no hate like Christian love," she says), and of course believes everything in the bible and NT (except that part in Revelations that says children born of adultery should be killed).
Yes, it's 2016 redux! Scary, cause this time they will make the trains run on time, right to the camps.
Schuyler, a devoted reader
Schuyler Bishop
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I understand your perspective here. It's definitely anxiety-producing. At the moment, I am glad to have moved to Warsaw from Nashville. It's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper, for a start. I've recently been dealing with my two US banks. Both websites stopped working for bill pay. It took four days and a total of hours on the phone to resolve ONE of them. It's been a week and the other has not changed or gotten back to me, as promised. Plus, to pay a bill online from either means they POST A CHECK to the recipient in 7-10 days! This is absolutely unheard of at my banks in Poland and the UK...for years. They don't even have checks here.
Take a step back from your rant to encompass a broader view, like Xi and Putin do. The US (and EU) have completely yielded dominance in wind, solar and battery tech to China this century, including the raw materials supply chain. A huge strategic error with serious security implications, both energy and otherwise. And a perhaps more damning illustration of the complacency and incompetence you so rightly point out. How/why was this allowed to happen? There must have been many smart people on the inside shouting the warnings. It was the "leaders" who sat by doing nothing. Add to this the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. Frighten stuff.
Robert Bond
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We have corporate profit induced inflation: July 2020 through July 2022, inflation rose by 14%, but corporate profits rose by 75%, 5 times as fast.
Example: the cost for chicken went up 20% in 2021 as Tyson Foods doubled their profits from the 1st quarter of 21 to the 1st quarter of 22
The news media reports every day about how groceries are impacting the middle class, but they never say that prices are inflated because of corporate greed. And nothing else.
We collected $4 and 1/2 trillion in taxes in 2022. That's 1/2 trillion less than 2021. As a % of our GDP, it's less than 17%. Which is down from our historical average of 19.5%, which by the way is already super low.
If you compare America to other nations:
lGermany has tax revenue as a % of GDP of 24%.
UK 27%.
Australia 30%.
Not only are we bad at collecting taxes, we're not even trying.
The one agency where we've decided to cut spending this year was the IRS, whose one job is to… collect taxes.
If we raised our tax revenue to 24% of GDP, which is very reasonable (where Germany is now), we would 100% solve the deficit.
We have an inability to control perception.
We as a country are doing so many things to pivot back to making the USA as a whole better for the future.
Inflation is corporate greed induced.
Taxes and the debt are a result of Reagan. And greed.
Turns out greed is totally NOT good
Garu Witt
The Pabst Theater Group | Milwaukee
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You're constant misrepresentation of Biden is the reason you get blowback. If Biden was 15-20 years younger, you and everyone else would be praising his record. Student loan forgiveness efforts, minimum wage gains, helping and supporting the Union efforts, massive amount of progressive judges appointed, the infrastructure package and the list goes on. On could easily make the argument that the inflation is more of a result of corporate greed and the lack of regulation allowed due to Republican efforts.
Having said that…The time is now for Biden to step aside and help find someone younger and if he makes it known, I would like to think someone on the Democratic side would step up. I think there is a way to recognize Biden for all his accomplishments and at the same time say that it's time to hand the baton off.
Duff Rice
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Heavy stuff, but so on point with how I've been feeling. And as a lifelong Democrat, I have no idea what my Democrat friends are thinking cause I'm too afraid to ask, cause I'm afraid to get cancelled if I say I'm completely frustrated and over Biden.
I saw one of those editorial comic newspaper photos on social media few years ago that stuck with me and I wished I'd saved. Where there was earth but right above it was a livable orb that said AMAZON. It was like a Jeff Bezos planet. And I felt like it hit home. Like all of these new age billionaires could easily build a liveable place in space right above earth and leave this planet for a healthy living space above earth. I pictured the Kardashians, the Beyonces, the Taylor Swifts..meanwhile we're all killing each other here while they cast absentee ballots for Democrats.
So what do we do? I had so much hope for Pete Buttigieg in the last election, but good grief there's been seemingly no progress on the infrastructure of travel or high speed rail and nothing but toxic disaster trains in this country. Who do we pick to be our next president? Nikki Haskell seems viable?
We need someone as whipsmart as a tech guru whose not out for world domination.
Don't get me started on the Gen Z who couldn't find Palestine on a map prior to 10/7 but now are their biggest champions.
You're older than me, but when I hear older folk saying we're screwed - I feel like we are genuinely screwed.
Thanks for being the only person saying what likely a lot of us feel.
-Suzannah Wilkins
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As part of the liberal elite, I'm feeling it. My husband started a small business right before the pandemic. We got hit with the shutdowns, inflation, supply chain issues, and crime. We took out an adjustable home loan to fund it and this has been super rough with the Fed raising rates. Lately we have been withdrawing retirement savings and maxing credit cards to keep it afloat. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying how to pay the bills.
Don't discount how Covid has f*cked with people. My husband has been battling long Covid for a year and a half, and I've been getting insomnia, strong anxiety, and fatigue since my last infection in the summer. I can't say if it's long Covid or just life. I expect there are a lot of others who have seen strange health symptoms develop in the past few years. How many of these are from Covid?
I work in tech, not a great job like at Google, but a decent job. Our company had layoffs. Salaries are stagnant. Laid off tech people with experience are having trouble getting interviews and if they can find a job their salary is down. And expenses are up.
A number of years ago, a friend of mine was murdered in an antisemitic attack in this country, which I never thought could happen here, until it did. It is frightening how antisemitism is on the rise. I am sympathetic to the Palestinians too, though, how would anyone like to grow up under Hamas?
Although I am not Jewish, I understand what it is like to be targeted, because I am trans. I can go to jail for using the restroom in Florida now, thank you Ron DeSantis.
Things just feel - bad - so I get why people vote for Trump. I hope abortion will save the Democrats in 2024. I miss the hope and change. We need a positive message to counter the fear and hate.
Thanks Bob!
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Karl Marx: to the proletariat "all you have to lose are the chains that bind you!"
PS. I lost my business and all my income due to COVID. Small businesses were shut down by the government through no fault of their own. If you were big enough, you had accountants to quickly apply and get you that ppp money. The little guys were left to fend for themselves. I played the game and lost.
Renee Emmett
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