Cheat Sheet on Inequality

Talk about inequality has been in the news recently, but you won’t believe what’s really happening in America today:

• Americans consistently underestimate the amount of inequality in our country.  They would beshocked to learn the truth

• It’s a myth that conservatives accept runaway inequality.  Conservatives are as concerned as liberals regarding the stunning collapse of upward mobility

• Inequality in America today is twice as bad as in ancient Rome , worse than it was in in Tsarist Russia, Gilded Age America, modern Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen, many banana republics in Latin America, and worse than experienced by slaves in 1774 colonial America

• It’s worse in America than in any other developed nation

• Staggering inequality in America has become permanent

• There are 2 economies: one for the rich, and the other for everyone else

• The economy has only recovered for the 1% … the rest of the country is more or less stuck in adepression

• The super-rich are raking in more than ever

• On the other end, more and more people are sliding into poverty

• 1 out of every 5 households in the United States is on food stamps

• The middle class has more or less been destroyed

• A who’s who of prominent economists and investors say that inequality causes crashes and hurts the economy

• Extreme inequality helped cause the Great Depression, the current financial crisis … and the fall of the Roman Empire

• Inequality isn’t happening for mysterious or uncontrollable reasons. Bad government policy is responsible for runaway inequality

• Bush was horrible, but income inequality has increased even more under Obama than under Bush