A great President?
From Wealth and Democracy

A point to underscore: serious U.S. arousal against abuses of wealth and power has always transcended class lines -- class warfare is both a rare bird and a dubious term -- and many of the notable triumphs have been led by persons with sophisticated and affluent backgrounds: Jefferson of Monticello and the Roosevelts of Oyster Bay and Hyde Park. Indeed, George Washington of Mount Vernon led the earlier opposition to concentrated wealth and hauteur three thousand miles away in London that created the United States.

Also, Americans have given their highest regard to presidents who wove political battle flags from the various threads of popular indignation -- a definition that adds the names of Jackson and Lincoln to the four just mentioned. The lesser esteem given to those presidents hailing bankers or proclaiming that "the business of America is business" completes the historical measurement.

TV Ads
Is it just me, or are MoveOn's TV ads about a thousand times better than those from the Kerry campaign? This is one area where we have to get better.

JUST A THOUGHT
WHAT GOOD IS BEING CONSISTENT, IF YOU ARE CONSISTENTLY WRONG?

MUST READ ABOUT IRAQ
One of the best pieces I have read about the true costs of the invasion of Iraq.

http://richardreeves.com/columns/latest.html

Strange Bedfellows
More from Wealth and Democracy

Shrewd Republicans and conservatives have long understood their political danger from public outrage over such imbalances. Lee Atwater, the 1988 campaign manager for George HW Bush, summed it up: "The way to win a presidential race against the Republicans is to develop the class warfare issue [as 1988 nominee Michael Dukakis belatedly did at the end.] To divide up the haves and have nots and to try to reinvigorate the New Deal coalition." Page xiii

"Tax fairness" anyone? The "Middle Class Squeeze" anyone? George Bush's answer to everything -- "Tax Cuts For The Rich" anyone

Wealth and Democracy
THE MIDDLE CLASS SQUEEZE REACHES THE TOP OF THE MIDDLE CLASS

Between 1979 and 1989 the portion of the nation's wealth held by the top 1% nearly doubled from 22% to 39%. By the mid-nineties, some econimists estimated that the top 1% had captured 70 percent of all earnings growth since the mid-seventies.
...
No one, then, should regard the $90,000-a-year accountant or the $125,000-a-year lawyer -- members of the top 5 or 10 percent -- as fellow riders on the same glittering escalator as the investment banker making $1.5 milion or the corporate CEO collecting $40 million in annual compensation. Many, many households in the top 5 percent of the population have seen their own status and access to luxuries shrink in the backwash of these new top wealth levels.

Daily Rant
In my mind, the choice in this election comes down to this:

When John Kerry was tested, and other people's lives were on the line, he turned his boat into the ambush, grabbed a weapon and personally went after the attacker.

When George W. Bush was tested, and other people's lives were on the line, he sat there reading My Pet Goat.

WHO WOULD YOU VOTE FOR?!

Kerry's plans
I thought I would change course slightly and intersperse some of John Kerry's economic plan with my selected quotations from Wealth and Democracy. It seems to me that Kerry has some excellent ideas about how government can aid the economy, ideas that need more exposure.

From his website, some ideas about broadband:

"Over the past four years, the United States has dropped from 4th to 10th in broadband use. Countries such as South Korea and Japan are now deploying networks that are 20 to 50 times faster than what is available in the United States. ....
Government research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) led to the creation of the Internet and the government has an important but temporary role to play in catalyzing the extension of broadband to our entire nation.
It is especially important in creating new opportunities in areas of America -- especially rural areas and some of our inner cities -- that are now all but cut off from the economy of tomorrow. The same Internet technologies that makes it possible to export technology and services jobs to India can make it possible to create similar jobs in rural areas here in America, which often enjoy a combination of low business costs and high quality of life.
...
Expanding high-speed broadband is the information-age equivalent of the rural electrification initiatives of the Roosevelt years: a strategic public investment that could pay off a thousand time over in creating new economic opportunities,,,,"

More from Wealth and Democracy -- W's Ownership Society
This entry deals with statistics from the late 20th Century, but the trend can only be worse over the past four years. Think about this when W. talks about the "Ownership Society" at the convention:

"For all the talk of mutual funds and 401(k)'s for the masses, the stock market has remained the privilege of a relatively elite group" observed the Wall Street Journal in 1999. "Nearly 90% of all shares were held by the wealthiest 10% of households. The bottom line: that top 10% held 73.2% of the country's net worth in 1997, up from 68.2% in 1983. Stock options have pushed the ratio of executive pay to factory worker pay to 419 to 1 in 1998, from 42 to 1 in 1980.
...
Given the stagnation of median family net worth, talk about the United States becoming a Republic of Shareholders hardly applied to a family whose miniscule stock "portfolio" or pension fund interest had grown by $2,600 or even $6,100 while its debt load for college, health insurance, day care and credit cards had jumped by $12,000.
Page 142.

MIDDLE CLASS SQUEEZE
From Wealth and Democracy, by Kevin Phillips. So this is what John Kerry is talking about?

Currency nuances notwithstanding, the evidence illustrates the transformation of the United States from its high-wage and best-working-conditions status during the quarter century after 1945 to a society that, for the bulk of its workforce, was increasingly middling in wages, harsh in hours worked, and more stinting in benefits (pg 164)

For the middle class there were other costs as the huge money flows to the rich increased the price tags of affluent forms of consumption enough -- not just first-class airline seats, but the cost of health clubs, sports admissions, symphony tickets, museum admissions, good restaurants, private schools, banking services, and big-city automobile maintenance -- that many in the eightieth and even ninetieth percentiles could no longer afford what their similarly situated parents in the 1950s and 1960s had often managed. (pg 167)

So, the real questions are, is it easier to enter and stay in the middle class today than in the 50s and 60s? And does the middle class enjoy the same relative lifestyle today as it did back then?

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