America’s ‘Primal Scream’ | NewMexiKen [hat tip]
Three factoids underscore that inequality:
¶The 400 wealthiest Americans have a greater combined net worth than the bottom 150 million Americans.
¶The top 1 percent of Americans possess more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent.
¶In the Bush expansion from 2002 to 2007, 65 percent of economic gains went to the richest 1 percent. [mjh: “level playing field”? bullshit!]
As my Times colleague Catherine Rampell noted a few days ago, in 1981, the average salary in the securities industry in New York City was twice the average in other private sector jobs. At last count, in 2010, it was 5.5 times as much. (In case you want to gnash your teeth, the average is now $361,330.)
America’s ‘Primal Scream’ | NewMexiKen
How Democrats can use Occupy protests to their advantage – The Washington Post
By Eugene Robinson, Published: October 17
“Defend Wall Street” is not likely to be a winning campaign slogan in 2012. For Republicans, this is an obvious problem. For President Obama and the Democrats, it’s a golden — if largely undeserved — opportunity. …
Enter the Occupy Wall Street protesters with their simple demand for “economic justice” — the right cause at the right moment.
Republicans initially overreacted, as if Karl Marx had risen from the grave. Mitt Romney was so flustered that he almost mussed his hair. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, surveying the small protest encampments in New York and other cities, called them “growing mobs” that threatened public order.
Within a week, however, Cantor was backing away from that “mobs” characterization and acknowledging “a growing frustration out there across this country” about unemployment. I’m guessing he must have seen the Time magazine poll indicating that 54 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the Occupy New York protest — versus just 27 percent who have a favorable view of the Tea Party.
This week’s New Yorker has a laugh-out-loud cover illustration: Top-hatted bankers march down Wall Street, carrying protest signs that say “Keep Things Precisely As They Are,” “Leave Well Enough Alone” and “I’m Good, Thanks.” That’s the danger for Republican candidates. That’s what they risk sounding like.
How Democrats can use Occupy protests to their advantage – The Washington Post