Free Lunch: Preview

I have been reading David Cay Johnston's book Free Lunch and it's a very difficult book to read - every few pages I find myself putting the book down in a rage.

The American economy grew quite slowly from 1980 until 2005, but it did manage to increase the GDP per capita by 68%. Every penny of this increase, and more, went to the top 10% of money earners. The other 90% actually lost ground. Even among the top ten percent, a vastly disproportionate share went to the top 1%, and even more so to the top 0.1%. Almost all the money went to the rich, the very rich, and the super rich.

Why so? Part of the reason is the changed tax structure. Ronald Reagan decreased taxes on the rich and dramatically increased them for the middle class. That theme is not at the core of this book however. The same forces which permitted Reagan to greatly alter the tax structure also led to a number of special privileges which funneled tax dollars into the pockets of the super rich. Modern electoral campaigns are so expensive that it is nearly impossible for candidates to get elected without the support of powerful sugar daddies - rich men, or associations of rich men, who put a lot of money into politics and get their quid pro quo.

One egregious example - the stealthy, thief in-the-night way local, state, and federal government officials conspired to present billionair George Steinbrenner with $600 million dollars woth of subsidy for his new ball park while stealing city parks to build it. How did Steinbrenner manage this? Flattery, bribery with Yankees tickets and other stadium owner indulgences. All this was done quite secretly, and announced as a fait accompli before citizen's protest could be organized. A nice gesture, I think, would have been to open the new stadium by burning Giuliani, Bloomberg, the city council, and other criminal conspirators at the stake.

Did I mention that this stuff really pisses me off? Time to go read about the next outrage.

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