<html><head><base href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/big-lie-america-doesnt-ha_b_3516185.html"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Bruce Cockburn wrote a great song about this. It's on his You Don't Know Everything CD. The song is called Trickle Down. Here are the lyrics.<div><br></div><div>Ed Oberweiser</div><div><br></div><div>Picture on magazine boardroom pop star <br>
Pinstripe prophet of peckerhead greed<br>
You say 'Trust me with the money -- the keys to the universe' <br>
Trickle down will give us everything we need<br>
<br>
Brand new century private penitentiary <br>
bank vault utopia padded for the few<br>
And it's tumours for the masses coughing for the masses <br>
Earphones for the masses and they all serve you <br>
Trickle down give /em the business<br>
Trickle down supposed to give us the goods<br>
Cups held out to catch a bit of the bounty<br>
Trickle down everywhere trickle down blood<br>
What used to pass for education now looks more like ignoration<br>
Take the people's money and slip it to the corporation<br>
Yellow rain golden shower pesticide firepower<br>
Summon feudal demons of sweatshop subjugation<br>
<br>
Workfare foul air homeless beggars everywhere<br>
Picturephone aristocrats lounge around the pool<br>
Captains of industry smiling beneficently<br>
Leaking hole supertanker ship of fools <br>
Trickle down give me the business<br>
Trickle down supposed to give us the goods<br>
Cups held out to catch a bit of the bounty<br>
Trickle down everywhere trickle down blood<br>
Take over takedown big bucks shakedown<br>
Schoolyard pusher offer anything-for-profit<br>
First got to privatize then you get to piratize<br>
Hooked on avarice- how do we get off it?<br>
Trickle down give me the business<br>
Trickle down supposed to give us the goods<br>
Cups held out to catch a bit of the bounty<br>
Trickle down everywhere trickle down blood<br>
Trickle down give me the business<br>
Trickle down supposed to give us the goods<br>
Cups held out to catch a bit of the bounty<br>
Trickle down everywhere trickle down blood<br>
Trickle down<br><div><div><div>On Jul 21, 2013, at 10:37 AM, Mark Safron wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareWrapperClass" contenteditable="false"><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentTopClass" applecontenteditable="true" style="line-height: 14px !important; color: black !important; text-align: left !important; font-size: 18px; ">(Excellent article!)</span></span></div><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareWrapperClass" contenteditable="false"><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentTopClass" applecontenteditable="true" style="line-height: 14px !important; color: black !important; text-align: left !important; font-size: 18px; "><br></span><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareSharedContentClass" applecontenteditable="true" style="position: relative !important; font-size: 18px; "><base href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/big-lie-america-doesnt-ha_b_3516185.html"><div><div class="original-url"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/big-lie-america-doesnt-ha_b_3516185.html" style="font-size: 16px; ">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/big-lie-america-doesnt-ha_b_3516185.html</a><br><br></div><div id="article" onscroll="articleScrolled();" class="auto-hyphenated" style="-webkit-hyphens: auto; "><div class="page" style="font: normal normal normal 20px/normal Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4; text-align: justify; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; "><h1 class="title" style="font-size: 1.33em; display: block; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.25em; text-align: start; -webkit-hyphens: manual; ">Big Lie: America Doesn't Have #1 Richest Middle-Class in the World... We're Ranked 27th!</h1><p>America is the richest country on Earth. We have the most millionaires, the most billionaires and our wealthiest citizens have garnered more of the planet's riches than any other group in the world. We even have hedge fund managers who make in one hour as much as the average family makes in 21 years!</p><p>This opulence is supposed to trickle down to the rest of us, improving the lives of everyday Americans. At least that's what free-market cheerleaders repeatedly promise us.</p><p>Unfortunately, it's a lie, one of the biggest ever perpetrated on the American people.</p><p>Our middle class is falling further and further behind in comparison to the rest of the world. We keep hearing that America is number one. Well, when it comes to middle-class wealth, we're number 27.</p><p>The most telling comparative measurement is median wealth (per adult). It describes the amount of wealth accumulated by the person precisely in the middle of the wealth distribution -- fifty percent of the adult population has more wealth, while fifty percent has less. You can't get more middle than that.</p><p>Wealth is measured by the total sum of all our assets (homes, bank accounts, stocks, bonds etc) minus our liabilities (outstanding loans and other debts). It the best indicator we have for individual and family prosperity. While the never-ending accumulation of wealth may be wrecking the planet, wealth also provides basic security, especially in a country like ours with such skimpy social programs. Wealth allows us to survive periods of economic turmoil. Wealth allows our children to go to college without incurring crippling debts, or to get help for the down-payment on their first homes. As Bill Holiday sings, "God bless the child that's got his own."</p><p>Well, it's a sad song. As the chart below shows, there are 26 other countries with a median wealth higher than ours, (and the relative reduction of U.S. median wealth has done nothing to make our economy more sustainable.)</p><p><img alt="2013-06-28-werenumber27.JPG" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-06-28-werenumber27.JPG" width="600" height="478" class="reader-image-large" style="float: none; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%; height: auto; margin-top: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-bottom: 0.75em; display: block; "></p><p><br><strong>Why?</strong></p><p>Here's a starter list:</p><ul><li><strong>We don't have real universal health care.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We pay more and still have poorer health outcomes than all other industrialized countries. Should a serious illness strike, we also can become impoverished.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Weak labor laws undermine unions</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and give large corporations more power to keep wages and benefits down. Unions now represent less than 7 percent of all private sector workers, the lowest ever recorded.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Our minimum wage is pathetic</strong>, especially in comparison to other developed nations. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">We're # 13</a>). Nobody can live decently on $7.25 an hour. Our poverty-level minimum wage puts downward pressure on the wages of all working people. Also while we secure important victories for a few unpaid sick days, most other developed nations provide a month of guaranteed paid vacations as well as many paid sick days.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Wall Street is out of control</strong>. Once deregulation started 30 years ago, money has gushed to the top as Wall Street was free to find more and more unethical ways to fleece us.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Higher education puts our kids into debt.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In most other countries higher education is practically tuition free. Indebted students are not likely to accumulate wealth anytime soon.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>It's hard to improve your station in life if you're in prison,</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>often due to drug-related charges that don't even exist in other developed nations. In fact, we have the largest prison population in the entire world, and we have the highest percentage of minorities imprisoned. "In major cities across the country, 80 percent of young African Americans now have criminal records." (See Alexander, Michelle (2010),<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em>The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>New York, The New Press. p. 7. as cited in Wikipedia.)</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Our tax structures favor the rich</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and their corporations who no longer pay their fair share. They move money to foreign tax havens, they create and use tax loopholes, and they fight to make sure the source of most of their wealth -- capital gains -- is taxed at low rates. Meanwhile the rest of us are pressed to make up the difference or suffer deteriorating public services.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>The wealthy dominate politics.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong>Nowhere else in the developed world are the rich and their corporations able to buy elections with such impunity.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>Big Money dominates the media.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The real story about how we're getting ripped off is hidden in a blizzard of BS that comes from all the major media outlets... brought to you by...</li></ul><ul><li><strong>America encourages globalization<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong>of production so that workers here are in constant competition with the lower wage workers all over the world as well as with highly automated technologies.</li></ul><p><br><strong>Is there one cause of the middle-class collapse that rises above all others?</strong></p><p>Yes. The International Labor organization produced a remarkable study, (<a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_194843.pdf" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">Global Wage Report 2012-13</a>) that sorts out the causes of why wages have remained stagnant while elite incomes have soared. The report compares key causal explanations like declining bargaining power of unions, porous social safety nets, globalization, new technologies and financialization.</p><p>Guess which one had the biggest impact on the growing split between the one percent and the 99 percent?</p><p>Financialization!</p><p>What is that? Economist Gerald Epstein offers us a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/programs/globalization/financialization/chapter1.pdf" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">working definition</a>:</p><p>"Financialization means the increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors and financial institutions in the operation of the domestic and international economies."</p><p>This includes such trends as:</p><p>• The corporate change during the 1980s to make shareholder value the ultimate goal.</p><p>• The deregulation of Wall Street that allowed for the creation of a vast array of new financial instruments for gambling.</p><p>• Allowing private equity firm to buy companies, load them up with debt, extract enormous returns, and then kiss them good-by.</p><p>• The growth of hedge funds that suck productive wealth out of the economy.</p><p>• The myriad of barely regulated world financial markets that finance the globalization of production, combined with so-call "free trade" agreements.</p><p>• The increased share of all corporate profits that go to the financial sector.</p><p>• The ever-increasing size of too-big-to-fail banks.</p><p>• The fact that many of our best students rush to Wall Street instead of careers in science, medicine or education.</p><p>In short, financialization is when making money from money becomes more important that providing real goods and services. Here's a chart that says it all. Once we unleashed Wall Street, their salaries shot up, while everyone else's stood still.</p><p><img alt="2013-06-28-wallstreetwagegap.JPG" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-06-28-wallstreetwagegap.JPG" width="600" height="532" class="reader-image-large" style="float: none; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%; height: auto; margin-top: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-bottom: 0.75em; display: block; "></p><p><br><strong>Do we still know how to fight?</strong></p><p>The carefully researched ILO study provides further proof that Occupy Wall Street was right on the money. OWS succeeded (temporarily), in large part, because it tapped into the deep reservoir of anger toward Wall Street felt by people all over the world. We all know the financiers are screwing us.</p><p>Then why didn't OWS turn into a sustained, mass movement to take on Wall Street?</p><p>One reason it didn't grow was that the rest of us stood back in deference to the original protestors instead of making the movement our own. As a result, we didn't build a larger movement with the structures needed to take on our financial oligarchs. And until we figure out how to do just that, our nation's wealth will continue to be siphoned away.</p><p>Our hope, I believe, lies in the young people who are engaged each day in fighting for the basic human rights for all manner of working people -- temp workers, immigrants, unionized, non-union, gays, lesbians, transgender -- as well as those who are fighting to save the planet from environmental destruction. It's all connected.</p><p>At some point these deeply committed activists also will understand that financialization both here and abroad stands in the way of justice and puts our planet at risk. When they see the beast clearly, I am confident they will figure out how to slay it.</p><p>The sooner, the better.</p><p><br><em>(This article was originally posted on<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/how-did-major-hedge-fund-earn-30-returns-20-years-straight" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">Alternet.org</a>)<br></em><br><em>Les Leopold is the director of the Labor Institute in New York and the author of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Million-Dollars-Hour/dp/1118239245/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358022645&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+make+a+million+dollars+an+hour" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: How Hedge Funds get away with Siphoning off America's Wealth</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(Wiley 2013)</p><p><strong>Also on HuffPost</strong>:</p><div><ul><li><h4>Unemployment</h4><p>When the economy was roaring in 2007, the U.S. unemployment rate <a href="<a href="http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/recession/pdf/recession_bls_spotlight.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/recession/pdf/recession_bls_spotlight.pdf</a>">was 5 percent</a>. In January 2013 the unemployment rate <a href="<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/january-jobs-report-unemployment-rate_n_2597751.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/january-jobs-report-unemployment-rate_n_2597751.html</a>">was 7.9 percent</a>.</p></li><li><h4>Income And Wages</h4><p>The U.S. median <a href="<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/12/news/economy/median-income-poverty/index.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/12/news/economy/median-income-poverty/index.html</a>">income fell to $50,054 in 2011</a>, which is the most recent full year in which that data is available. That's down 8.1 percent since 2007. Wages also fell to a record-low <a href="<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/sunday-review/americas-productivity-climbs-but-wages-stagnate.html?_r=0" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/sunday-review/americas-productivity-climbs-but-wages-stagnate.html?_r=0</a>">43.5 percent of the economy</a> in 2012, according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, corporate profits are still booming.</p></li><li><h4>Number Of People On Food Stamps</h4><p>The number of Americans on food stamps <a href="<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/48898378/Record_46_Million_Americans_Are_on_Food_Stamps" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.cnbc.com/id/48898378/Record_46_Million_Americans_Are_on_Food_Stamps</a>">surged to a record in 46 million </a>in June 2012. That's compared to <a href="<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/31foodstamps.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/31foodstamps.html</a>">26.5 million in 2007</a>.</p></li><li><h4>Uninsured Americans</h4><p>More<a href="<a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2012/september/12/census-number-of-uninsured-drops.aspx" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2012/september/12/census-number-of-uninsured-drops.aspx</a>"> than 16 percent of Americans</a> -- or 48.6 million people -- were uninsured in 2011, according to Kaiser Health News. This number is higher than what it was in 2007, when the share of uninsured Americans was <a href="<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26404454/#.UTYwAnyfHEl" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26404454/#.UTYwAnyfHEl</a>">15.3 percent</a>.</p></li><li><h4>Student Loan Debt</h4><p>The average student loan debt for a class of <a href="<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/education/report-says-average-student-loan-debt-is-up-to-26500.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/education/report-says-average-student-loan-debt-is-up-to-26500.html</a>">2011 graduate was about $26,500</a>, according to the Project on Student Debt data cited by the New York Times. Since 2007, when the<a href="<a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/09/26/a-record-one-in-five-households-now-owe-student-loan-debt/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/09/26/a-record-one-in-five-households-now-owe-student-loan-debt/</a>"> average student debt was $23,349</a>, student loan debt has increased for almost every demographic and the size of that debt has gone up as well, according to Pew.</p></li><li><h4>Homelessness</h4><p>In 2011,<a href="<a href="http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/01/18/10177017-homeless-numbers-down-but-risks-rise?lite" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/01/18/10177017-homeless-numbers-down-but-risks-rise?lite</a>"> 644,067 Americans experienced homelessness</a> on any given night, according to data from the National Alliance to End Homelessness cited by NBC News. Though that number is <a href="<a href="http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/the-state-of-homelessness-in-america-2012" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/the-state-of-homelessness-in-america-2012</a>">actually down 13 percent from 2007</a>, the decrease is largely attributed to a boost in the number of programs to help keep the homeless off the streets.</p></li><li><h4>Children In Poverty</h4><p>More <a href="<a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-244.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-244.pdf</a>">than 16 million children</a> -- or about 20 percent of American children -- were in poverty in 2011, according to the Census Bureau. That's up from nearly <a href="<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/03/child-poverty-20-percent_n_1181548.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/03/child-poverty-20-percent_n_1181548.html</a>">18 percent of American children</a> in 2007.</p></li><li><h4>Homeownership</h4><p>We're on our way to becoming a renter nation. The homeownership rate in the 12 months leading up to May 2012 was <a href="<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/30/real_estate/home-ownership/index.htm" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/30/real_estate/home-ownership/index.htm</a>">65.4 percent</a>, according to Census Bureau data cited by CNNMoney. That's the lowest rate in 15 years. In the last quarter of 2007, the homeownership rate was <a href="<a href="http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/qtr312/q312press.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/qtr312/q312press.pdf</a>">67.8 percent</a>.</p></li><li><h4>Foreclosures</h4><p>There were <a href="<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/12/real_estate/foreclosures/index.htm" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/12/real_estate/foreclosures/index.htm</a>">2.7 million foreclosures</a> in 2011. That's up <a href="<a href="http://www.realtytrac.com/content/press-releases/us-foreclosure-activity-increases-75-percent-in-2007-3604" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">http://www.realtytrac.com/content/press-releases/us-foreclosure-activity-increases-75-percent-in-2007-3604</a>">from 2.2 million foreclosures in 2007</a>.</p></li></ul></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div><div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><br><p><b>Follow Les Leopold on Twitter:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.twitter.com/les_leopold" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); ">www.twitter.com/les_leopold</a></b></p><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="font-weight: bold; "><div><div><div><a title="Follow @HuffPostBiz on Twitter" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127); "> </a></div></div></div></div></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></div></div></span><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentBottomClass" applecontenteditable="true" style="line-height: 14px !important; color: black !important; text-align: left !important; "><br></span></span><br>TO UNSUBSCRIBE from this list send an email to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:occupymendocino@lists.mcn.org">occupymendocino@lists.mcn.org</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>put "Un-Subscribe me" in the Subject.<br><br>For listserv technical problems please contact:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:listmanager@mcn.org">listmanager@mcn.org</a><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></body></html>