(quotes from a Paul Solomon interview, PBS News Hour, 7-28-14)
Nick Hanauer, billionaire, venture capitalist:
"A fundamental law of capitalism is, if workers don't have enough
money[, businesses, [then] don't have enough customers... "
"the average age of fast food workers is 28 years-old, earning poverty
wages; and tax payers have to make up the difference-- in the form of
more food stamps, medicaid and rent assistance."
"Ceo pay went up 1000% in the last 20 years [or something like that (30 yrs)],
and worker pay went up 5.7 %."
"this ridiculous idea that a worker on Wallstreet, securitizing imaginary assets,
or doing high-frequency trading, is worth 1000 times more than an
educator teaching our children, a worker growing our food, or workers
throwing themselves in harms way, [this huge gap in the valuation of
workers in poverty and super-rich workers] is nonsense.!"
Hanauer calls his view "middle-out" as oppsed to "trickle down" or
"bottom up" et.al. economics.
"We have run a 30-year experiment in what happens to an economy
when you structure it to benefit the few, at the expense of the many.
And I would argue that for most people that experiment hasn't gone
very well....
"Its simply nuts that we have allowed this [Plutocracy] to happen.!"
What a relief, what balm, to hear Hanauer and a small minority of
degreed experts come around to what Yours Truly has been thinking
for over 40 years!
L.S. Heatherly 2014 Creative Commons
