Our Balance is Broken

Art Credit: The Henry L. Stimson Center.

I'm hazarding a guess that most of the people in the U.S., that is the 99.9%, would agree that our system is broken. It's out of balance so to speak, with the .01% holding the winning hand, politically and economically, too.

How has this come about? Dr. Robert Reich has a good explanation.

Here's the whole story... it's about "countervailing power"... America's Economy Is Unsustainable

"...go back to the first three decades after World War II – a period that coupled the greatest economic expansion the world has ever seen with the creation of the largest middle class the world has ever witnessed. The great economic thinker John Kenneth Galbraith asked at the time: Why is capitalism working so well for so many?"

"His answer was as surprising as it was obvious: American capitalism contained hidden pools of what he called 'countervailing power' that offset the power of large corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy: labor unions, state and local banks, farm cooperatives, and small retail chains, for example. All of these sources of countervailing power had been fostered by the New Deal. They balanced the American economic system."

"But since the late 1970's, these sources of countervailing power have been decimated, leading to an unbalanced system and producing widening economic inequality and stagnating wages. The result has become a vicious cycle in which big money–emanating from big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy – determine the rules of the economic game, and those rules generate more money at the top."

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So, today's question is: Can we get our Mojo back... our balance?

Muddy Waters - Got My Mojo Workin'- 1957