America Now a Banana Republic - Slate via New York Times via Business Insider

Before reading further, understand that the orginal article is Timothy Noah's The United States of Inequality: Introducing the Great Divergence   in SLATE.

His work was picked up by the New York Times which led to the headline cerated by Business Insider,   reporting IT'S OFFICIAL: America Is Now A Banana Republic

One of the hallmarks of banana republics, says the NYT's Nicholas Kristof, is income inequality. In some countries, the wealthiest 1% of the population takes home 20% or more of the national income.

And now the same is true in America:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

I am not sure which is worse, Republicans who made it happen, or Democrats who refused to stop it and aquiesced.  Thus the heading for this blog:

A candid examination of right-wing policies and the Democrats who play along and the horrid liberal policies designed to assuage the moderates but end up irritating everyone. And other stuff.

This is not other stuff.

 

 

 

Comments

[antpoppa]

The loud/quiet. Without argument or dissent. A sad complicity of bipartisan assent.

[Ty O'Mara]

As far as who is most guilty: if I watch a crime being committed and do nothing, I hope most people would think that I am as guilty as those who are actively committing the crime. In a democracy, we are all to blame for letting this happen to us. I am not saying that voices of dissent are silent.

Next on the agenda looks like the extension of the Bush tax cuts. If you read some of the links provided in the post, it would be difficult to imagine that we are not drifting further into Banana Republicanism--if we let this happen. The Dow just went from 6600 to 11,400. The capital gains taxes alone(that are not being collected)are staggering. We need to pay for basic services and take care of emergencies that will arise. We need to ask the Banana Republicans, "Where is your Patriotism? Where were you allowed to proper?

[Ty O'Mara]

prosper? Yes.

[buckyblue]

Had a campaign worker for Walker literally say to me, "community has never worked." Mind you, I knew this man from our contact with our kids at school. But I believe that's the mindset. We are only as strong as the strength of those who are strongest amongst us rather than, we are greater than the sum of our parts. I don't know if anyone has been following the multiple threads at ballon-juice about tea partyers complaining that trash collection is a form of socialism. Truly, if you have to explain why we even need to have a government, the republic is lost.

[Brian (neaguy)]

A major factor is the weakness of unions. One of the only ways workers can exert power v. their employer is through solidarity.

The Democrats should have had as one of their top priorities pushing labor rights. This is more important than tax policy. It would work to their advantage better if more tax revenue came in as the result of workers bargaining for and making more income to be taxed rather than trying to get that revenue from the rich in the form of higher taxes.

But, of course, the Democrats, most of them anyway, function as the second Business Party.