The failure of trickle-down economics
Eugene Robinson explains here:
http://ht.ly/7c31o
Quotable:
Overall, in inflation-adjusted dollars, average after-tax household income grew by 62 percent during the period under study, according to the CBO. This sounds great — but only until you look a little closer.
For those at the bottom — the one-fifth of households with the lowest incomes — the increase was just 18 percent. For the middle three-fifths, the average increase was 40 percent. Spread over nearly 30 years, these gains are modest, not meteoric.
By contrast, look at the top 1 percent of earners. Their after-tax household income increased by an astonishing 275 percent. For those keeping track, this means it nearly quadrupled. Nice work, if you can get it.
So when critics accuse the Occupy Wall Street folks of class warfare and redistribution of wealth, they’ve got it wrong. We 99 Percenters are arguing that we’ve had 30 years of wealth redistribution — all in favor of the upper-upper class. It’s been a covert class war against middle-class and poor folks.
Words from Jesus and Paul come to mind:
No one can serve two masters: you can’t serve God and money …
Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.
And then there’s James … give James 2:1-4 and 5:1-6 a read, and sense where his sympathies lie.