Originally <a href='/showthread.php?p=17145456'>posted</a> on 12/16/2012:

SB it certainly was handed over. Thirty years ago a revolution took place. It was decided that the middle class was too big and policies were put in place that radically altered the tax code that had been in place since the first republican depression and stood through both R and D presidencies, got rid of the Sherman anti-trust act so corporations turned into multinational conglomerates, busted unions, and decriminalized Wall st fraud. This movement was stopped dead in its tracks in the last election fortunately but the damage has been done and the result is an income gap in the US that rivals third world countries, and that was the plan.

A plan put together by people who think that society works best when a very small group of oligarchs have everything and the rest of the rabble lives on subsistence level so they are too poor, powerless, and scared to cause any trouble and are just "thankful to have their jobs". I strongly disagree with these people and it seems like you are one of them. You had a good thirty year run but it's over. Thank god.


Itchy nobody is advocating for "everything being equal". Not me, not Obama, not Bernie Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren etc. It's funny how you equate a living wage with the old Soviet Union, just like your mischaracterizations of the Occupy movement. The productivity of American workers has increased by huge margins and their pay has remained stagnant. Almost all the wealth generated in this country in the last 10 years has gone to the top one or two percent, I can pull up the numbers when I park later if you want.

I've worked since I was 15 years old and have always had decent paying jobs over the years, and am doing quite well in my current situation-especially since Obama has taken over and dug us out of the Bush depression. But, for whatever reason, there are people who are going to do nothing but work on the bottom rung. They might not be the school type or not ambitious or whatever, but if they come in and bust their ass for 40 hours a week and stay out of trouble then they are entitled to a living wage. Of course not equal to the plant manager, but a living wage. If there have to be less billionaires because of that, then so be it.