A combination of police crackdowns and bad weather are testing the young Occupy movement. But rumors of its demise are premature, to say the least. Although numbers are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests the movement is growing.
As importantly, the movement has already changed the public debate in America.
Consider, for example, last week's Congressional Budget Office report on widening disparities of income in America. It was hardly news -- it's already well known that the top 1 percent now gets 20 percent of the nation's income, up from 9 percent in the late 1970s.
But it's the first time such news made the front page of the nation's major newspapers.
Why? Because for the first time in more than half a century, a broad cross-section of the American public is talking about the concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top.
Score a big one for the Occupiers.
Even more startling is the change in public opinion. Not since the 1930s has a majority of Americans called for redistribution of income or wealth. But according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, an astounding 66 percent of Americans said the nation's wealth should be more evenly distributed.
A similar majority believes the rich should pay more in taxes. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, even a majority of people who describe themselves as Republicans believe taxes should be increased on the rich.
I remember the days when even raising the subject of inequality made you a "class warrior." Now, it seems, most Americans have become class warriors.
And they blame Republicans for stacking the deck in favor of the rich. On that New York Times/CBS News poll, 69 percent of respondents said Republican policies favor the rich (28 percent said the same of Obama's policies).
The old view was anyone could make it in America with enough guts and gumption. We believed in the self-made man (or, more recently, woman) who rose from rags to riches -- inventors and entrepreneurs born into poverty, like Benjamin Franklin; generations of young men from humble beginnings who grew up to became president, like Abe Lincoln. We loved the novellas of Horatio Alger, and their more modern equivalents -- stories that proved the American dream was open to anyone who worked hard.
In that old view, being rich was proof of hard work, and lack of money proof of indolence or worse. As Herman Cain still says "if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself."
But Cain's line isn't hitting a responsive chord. In fact, he's backtracked from it (along with much of the rest of what he's said).
A profound change has come over America. Guts, gumption, and hard work don't seem to pay off as they once did -- or at least as they did in our national morality play. Instead, the game seems rigged in favor of people who are already rich and powerful -- as well as their children.
Instead of lionizing the rich, we're beginning to suspect they gained their wealth by ripping us off.
Mitt Romney is defensive about his vast wealth (reputed to total a quarter of a billion). He's reverted to scolding his audiences on the campaign trail for "attacking people based on their success."
The old view was also that great wealth trickled downward -- that the rich made investments in jobs and growth that benefitted all of us. So even if we doubted we'd be wealthy, we still gained from the fortunes made by a few.
But that view, too, has lost its sheen. Nothing has trickled down. The rich have become far richer over the last three decades but the rest of us haven't. In fact, median incomes are dropping.
Wall Street moguls are doing better than ever -- after having been bailed out by the rest of us. But the rest of us are doing worse. CEOs are hauling in more than 300 times the pay of average workers (up from 40 times the pay only three decades ago), as average workers lose jobs, wages, and benefits.
Instead of investing in jobs and growth, the super rich are putting their money into gold or Treasury bills, or investing it in Brazil or South Asia or anywhere else it can reap the highest return.
Meanwhile, it's dawning on Americans that in the real economy (as opposed to the financial one) our spending is vital. And without enough jobs or wages, that spending is drying up.
The economy is in trouble because so much income and wealth have been going to the top that the rest us no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services we would produce at or near full employment.
The jobs depression shows no sign of ending. Personal disposable income, adjusted for inflation, was down 1.7 percent in the third quarter of this year -- the biggest drop since the third quarter of 2009. Housing prices have stalled, home sales are down.
The only reason consumer spending rose in September is because we drew from our meager savings -- mostly in order to pay medical bills, health insurance, and utilities. That's the third month of savings declines, according to the Commerce Department's report last Friday.
This can't and won't continue. Savings are now down to 3.6 percent of personal disposable income, their lowest level since the recession began.
Americans know a rigged game when they see one. They understand how much money is flowing into politics from the super rich, big corporations, and Wall Street --- in order to keep their taxes low and entrench their privileged position.
The Occupy movement is gaining ground because it's hitting a responsive chord. What happens from here on depends on whether other Americans begin to march to the music -- and organize.
Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
Follow Robert Reich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBReich
Maybe so; but the guardians of coporate power have also become warriors. They are now fully engaged in a winner-take-all struggle for control of Government; and they know a final battle will soon come to a decisive conclusion.
This conflict began at some earlier date when conservative wisdom said, "Government is the problem". Over time, this said-to-be fundamental truth was eventually expanded to, "What's good for Corporate American is good for American". And now, neo-conservative wisdom says, "What's good for America is Corporate control of America".
The "warriors in battle" analogy reminds one of the ancient battle at Thermopylae where 300 Spartans (and their allies) took a stand against a hoard of invading Persians in 480 BCE. Corporate America has allies too; but we all know what happen at Thermopylae.
Moreover, our ruling plutocracy are multi-national. They have no loyalty to our country. In contrast to the hold-outs in Germany, who have protected their highly expensive work force we are heading towards feudalism. That Republicans whine about class warfare is their fearful acknowledgement that in a democracy being outnumbered 99:1 usually means that you lose--even if you control the media. Hence, they are desperately trying to suppress the vote.
Fortunately, the truth is out. Thank you Occupiers! You are aligned with the Greatest Generation, kicking the rear ends of the lackadaisical Boomers. You're doing what is expected of your generation, starting to rebuild this country from the bottom up.
A Republican senator is calling on President Obama to cancel the $12.8 million in bonuses that were approved for 10 executives at the government-seized mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that received a $170 billion taxpayer-funded bailout.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/01/republican-senator-calls-on-obama-to-cancel-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-bonuses/#ixzz1cZFi1Q2z
Or are we not supposed to know about that?
Are you actually suggesting confiscation of wealth by taxes and giving benefits to folks that have not earned them? That is also un-American.
Imagine telling that to the illegals as they enter this country...."Come and prosper, so we can take your earnings and give it to people that won't work."
Some of the "protesters," the ones that don't know what they are protesting, are college students. They should be riding their liberal leftist influences out of town on a rail, because they "can't get a job."
There is plenty of work for those who will work...spend time flipping burgers & making pies and you will suddenly get a lot of motivation to rise up above your temp. job and get a life!
Greed and corruption is the reason for the protests. Greed and corruption are the cause of everything that is wrong with the economy. Where are the jobs that the "job creators" who rebel and lobby against an increase in their taxes were supposed to provide if only their taxes don't go up?
As to your last paragraph -- do you know something the Dept of Labor doesn't? Are their statistics false?
Aww --
Greed and corruption could not have happened if the people we trusted to Regulate the housing market did so. Instead dir bags like Barney Frank perverted the market and allowed it to happen.
Obamacare has turned out to be the largest confiscation of wealth and invasion of privacy ever imposed...and it is MANDATORY.
The energy producers are still faced with a tax on production and consumption.
EPA is so strong, it takes about ten years to open for business.
There are other nations, that are not imposing offensive environments for business.
President Bill Clinton says that imposing taxes on an economy without a strong rate of growth is a bad idea....
All nations forget about the greed and corruption whilst the economy is booming...it's when a recession happens that the tendency for Socialist control is suggested.
Remember too, that the same greedy & corrupt folks at the helm are literally itching to make $B's...get the threat of confiscation of their wealth removed, and everything changes...according to history...and they absolutely cannot do so without workers to do the labor.
Forcing a labor contract upon a good employer is not conducive to a healthy economy, it only forces an employer that actually takes care of their workers (we still have those), to employ attrition as a tool for business. Good employers don't have to worry about unions.
47 million living in poverty.
50 million with no health insurance.
Blame the victim???????????????
The poverty level is what...$40K?
Get Obamacare off the backs of business and you'll see an increase in business resulting in more health care coverage.
Victim of what? There are many sources of help to establish a business such as Small Business, etc.
Satchel Paige who played baseball back in the day, said "Ain't no man can avoid being born common, but they ain't no man got to stay that way."
Greed and corruption will unfortunately continue. When the economy is strong, nobody cares about how greedy or corrupt it gets.
You are correct in identifying government as the seat of the housing bust, yes, Mr. Frank did this amongst others. That's what happens when you vote a one party ticket for so long.
Bush warned of the risk, but nobody listened so he gets the blame...
Yes, the Department of Labor lies every day. They don't count out-of-work people unless they register for unemployment each week, their ONLY measure of their success...that emperor wears no clothes also...if they don't register as when the funds run out, they are counted as EMPLOYED. Is that a blatant, public lie? We don't protest that, so no change will come soon enough...
Look at most of the laws made by congress to see "the bottom line" is about the poor financing the rich. Almost all recent laws has loopholes for the rich which cost the poor, that's how the rich keeps extending the amount of wealth they control, government keep imposing laws on the poor to increase the rich's income.
That is TREASON & includes the president who sign them into law. Paraphrased the Preamble says every action by the US Government is to benefit WE THE PEOPLE of the USA and not only them Corporations. There's but one way to eliminate that, a Constitutional Election in 2012 or sign http://www.change.org/petitions/eliminate-capitalistic-military-regime for immediate eviction of congress and the president. My vote goes on the latter, WHO'S WITH ME?
go progressives and liberals !!
We had the Vietnam War, which was a politically sustained conflict where policies did not allow for a winning strategy or effort. Like political policy toward domestic police efforts, the idea in Vietnam was to keep the enemy at bay and force an accord like in Korea.
Instead of a stalemate though, we lost; but the good news is the whole drawn out affair whetted the appetite of defense contractors, who have been looking for a new Vietnam ever since.
And what do you know, they got not just one, but two in the form of Afghanistan and Iraq. Well, except that one was so we could chase a few thousand people through the mountains hoping to kill a few bad guys amongst all the civilian casualties, and the other, it was a bonus war brought to us by the Republican president who had a personal issue with Iraq's leader.
So, since the MIC has only grown and become half the nation's budget since the sixties--which includes 36 years out of the last 50 with Republican presidents--I ask again what dilution occurred in the sixties that has left you blaming the left for our present situation?
I remind you, in the sixties Wall Street was not yet the powerhouse it is now.
Please be specific.
Now, back to the 60s. It was the revolt of the liberals at the 1968 Democrats Convention that moved the party to the fringe left. Moderate and conservative Democrats moved to the Republican party. The Democrats of today are the leftist fringe folks of the 60s. JFK was a conservative conpared to any Democrat today. Today's Republicans want a return to a moderate political climate but are wrongly accused of being Right Wing. Debt reduction, spending only what you have, individual freedom, less governmental intrusion and all the rest. Only fringe, un-American, and socialists can be against that. It's definitional. Now you know!
"heir success"? Becoming successful because you are an heir?
Is this a typo or a pun or was he serious?
If we multiply that number by 1% (of the population), we get 3,125,372.
If we divide that result by 20 (% of the income), we get 156,268 people per one percent of the nation’s total income.
Now we multiply the nation’s population by 99%, and we get 309,411,828.
We then divide that result by 80 (% of the total income), and we get 3,867,648 people per one percent of the nation’s total income.
That’s a ratio of 156,268 : 3,867,648 , or 1 : 24.75.
That means the average 1%er makes almost 25 times the average 99%er.
Nice info, income disparity is a bit of a misnomer, given asset disparity.
divide by 25 = 15,500 - you claim is what the rest of the 99% make.
Give us a freaking break - please
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html#table3
http://taxfoundation.org/files/sr196.pdf
Do you know anything about statistics--you know, percentages, averages and such?
I was offering a DIFFERENT perspective than individual income or income ranges.
Persons per one percent of the total national income means how many incomes on average comprise said one percent.
FOR EXAMPLE, if people in the 99 percentile made and AVERAGE of $1 per hour, it would take 100 such persons to make $100 dollars per hour total. On the other hand, if people in the 1 percentile made an AVERAGE of $25 per hour, it would only take 4 such persons to make $100 dollars per hour total.
A 1:25 ratio.
Got it now?
My post had nothing to do with actual earnings; rather it was a different perspective illustrating income discrepancy.
Give us all a break by taking a minute to think about our posts before you respond.
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