“The Curse of the ‘Resting’
Classes”
Leonard’s take on the disparity between rich and poor in
“the first four years of Regan’s gerontocracy.” Two very interesting points:
- From 1981-1984, “the richest one-fifth of American families gained $25B of disposable income, while the poorest one-fifth lost $7B.”
- The Savings and Loan bailout cost taxpayers ~$500B in the late ‘80s with the primary cause of “thrift” failure – unwise real estate lending!
Of course, the disparity between rich and poor has only
increased since then. Here is an interesting related article from Jacobin Magazine:
And, since I’m referencing a socialist magazine, here a great
quote from the piece:
[Barbara] Ehrenreich, the only known socialist left
in America with a sense of humor, notes that the number of rich white men who
have never married is almost exactly equal to same number of poor black single
mothers: “In the absence of the old fashion ways of re-distributing wealth…the
rich will just have to marry the poor.”
New word: lumpenproletariat = term coined by Marx to describe the part of the
working class that will never achieve class consciousness and, therefor, never
participate in the revolution.
Kracken ad from Jacobin Magazine:
New
learning: in 1989, the Resolution Trust Corporation was created to close bankrupt
Savings & Loans and to liquidate their assets. The only problem was that
the Act creating the RTC prohibited the sales of distressed assets for less
than 95% of appraised value (to protect property values)!
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