Mar 16, 2015

What's Killing the US Economy

(quotes from Nick Hanauer, billionaire, 2/8/15 in theatlantic.com)

"Profits once flowed to higher wages or increased investment. Now, they
enrich a small number of shareholders [super-rich shareholders]."

"..economic power has shifted from workers to owners over the
past 40 years..."

"A 3.6 trillion budget shortfall has left... public infrastructure in disrepair."

"Federal spending on...research and development has plummeted 40%..."

"...public university tuition, adjusted for inflation, has more than doubled
in the past 30 years."

       "Where did all the money go?"

"...much of it went to stock buybacks -- more than 6.9 trillion dollars
went to stock buybacks since 2004 [alone]."

"In the past, this money flowed  through the broader economy in the
form of higher wages, and plant and equipment investment..."

"But, today these buybacks drain trillions of dollars of windfall profits
out of the real economy [the American people's economy] and into
a paper-asset bubble, inflating share prices [of the super-rich], while
producing nothing of tangible value [to the American Peoples lives,
well-being, incomes, future and infrastructure]."

[It should be added that the above chunk of the demise of US democracy is
occurring in China, India, Western Europe, Brazil-- anywhere that an
upper 1% are stealthily, illegitimately, taking money from Earth's evolved
natural resources--the Earth's lands, waters, other
natural resources, and from Earth's masses of diverse peoples.--
L.S. Heatherly]



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