A Hedge Fund Republic? (must read)

[dtotire]

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 17, 2010


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/opinion/18kristof.html?hp

Earlier this month, I offended a number of readers with a column suggesting that if you want to see rapacious income inequality, you no longer need to visit a banana republic. You can just look around.My point was that the wealthiest plutocrats now actually control a greater share of the pie in the United States than in historically unstable countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana. But readers protested that this was glib and unfair, and after reviewing the evidence I regretfully confess that they have a point.

That’s right: I may have wronged the banana republics.

You see, some Latin Americans were indignant at what they saw as an invidious and hurtful comparison. The truth is that Latin America has matured and become more equal in recent decades, even as the distribution in the United States has become steadily more unequal.

[dtotire]

1. Note this paragraph

Oops! That’s already us. The top 1 percent of Americans owns 34 percent of America’s private net worth, according to figures compiled by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. The bottom 90 percent owns just 29 percent.

That also means that the top 10 percent controls more than 70 percent of Americans’ total net worth.

[xchrom]

2. recommend -- nice summation of the crisis we are in.

and it is a crisis.

[Enthusiast]

3. And we will borrow 700 billion

to give these extremely wealthy another tax cut. It is going to happen. And social security will be cut. And more jobs will be outsourced. And there will be more 'free trade' deals. And eventually we will need another war, probably with Iran. And such is the nature of this fucked up nation.

[yurbud]

4. We needed FDR and we've got a president with Bill Clinton's policies & Jimmy Carter's effectiveness

[cbayer]

5. dtotire

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Thanks,

cbayer
DU Moderator