A Tribute to Bernie Sanders

While Obama and the Republicans sold America out one last final time, one guy gave it to us straight. Sadly, I think it's too late:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.


http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here's-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,SPY,MCD,WMT,XRT,DIA


I don't think it's reversible. The country is so divided and people so misinformed there's no way to get back on track. America's best days are indeed behind us.

 

No, but the wealthy are entitled to yours though.

 

I know what to do! Complain about fast food bans and Obama giving up the podium to a former Prez!

That'll solve all our problems!

rtsy? Couldn't you even pick a better nick?

Seriously, brah!

 

we extract it from you in oh so many ways.

 

The problem isn't how they acquire it - forget about the fees and fine print. That's nothing.

It's what they do with it. They don't reinvest it. They aren't interested in chasing a saturated U.S. market that's flooded with cheap goods fighting for 1% changes in market share. They are going after global markets. The money - your money, is flowing out of this country. It use to be the wealth was reinvested. So yes, cutting taxes could SPUR economic growth.

But instead, in order to find greener pastures, that wealth doesn't get re-invested. It being used to grow the rest of the world. On some level, that's a good thing. But if you want to know why our wages are actually shrinking, that's why.

Companies are simply chasing the biggest profit and that's by taking the money they make off Americans and putting it into 3 things:

investing in foreign markets
investing in foreign companies
Manufacturing in foreign companies to export back

The rest of the wealth just gets accumulated to ridiculous levels to amounts that no human being can conceivably need. Why does any one need a billion dollars anyway?

I have deep respect for Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. While idiot conservatives call them socialists, they are the greatest capitalists in this country and even they know how stupid tea baggers are.