The reason gas prices of $4.00+ a gallon in 2011 feel so painful, is because wealth disparity has been widening exponentially over the past several decades, where the rich are getting filthy rich and the poor and middle class have seen their incomes stagnate or even be lowered. Incomes aren't keeping pace with inflation, so even though today's gas prices are on par with 1970s gas prices in equivalent dollar value, the middle class don't have as many dollars to
spend.
When I started driving in 1977, gas was between $0.35 and $0.45 a gallon. When gas rose to over $1 a gallon in the 90s, no one complained because everyone could afford it. Look at the chart on
this site. Note that gas prices didn't start exploding until we started 2 wars in the largest oil-producing region in the world. And so it continues now with Libya, not to mention all the political unrest in several countries throughout the region.
Now look at the graph showing wealth disparity
here, and scroll through the next 15 screens.
This one is the most sickening.
If it doesn't blow your mind and/or piss you off, you have no concern about the future of this nation.
Guns, abortion, homosexuality -- those are all nothing more than distractions from the
real problem this country faces, and that's ensuring that we have a strong and solid middle and working class. The more the wealthy Republicans fight to strip workers of their piddly benefits by comparison to what they're raking in, the more people will be forced into reliance on Government programs. The more people relying on Government programs, the more the Republicans fight to eliminate those programs as too costly. The
only place this can lead us is into Third World status, as poverty rises and the government leaves people to fend for themselves on the streets. Don't tell me it can't happen. It's happening right now!
It's an ugly, vicious attack on the very people who have literally built this nation with their blood, sweat and tears.
Real Average Earnings have not increased in 50 YEARS! But the
best compensated 400 Americans earned on average, $345 MILLION per year!
Republican tax cuts have SIGNIFICANTLY increased the wealth gap.
And it should be no surprise that
income inequality is worst in the areas around Wall Street and oil producing states.
This path is unsustainable. Cutting and gutting government services is a make-believe "solution" that will actually only make the problem worse, leading to increased poverty, more unwanted babies whose mothers cannot afford to feed them and nowhere to go to find food or shelter. Private charities could never hope to raise the kinds of funds needed to take care of the volumes of indigent families that will need these services, mostly because there'll be
far fewer people with enough disposable income to give.
We need someone in the White House with some common sense on this issue. I'm deeply disappointed that President Obama has fallen prey to the machinations of the Republicans, who have been guiding the narrative in the wrong direction. If we want to stop the bleeding, we need to
participate in our government by calling and writing our Representatives and making it clear that we want them and the President to stop being dragged around by the nose and to start exposing the destructive path Republicans are taking us down.
I don't give a shit about guns. Keep all you want. Shoot all the Bambis you want. I don't care if you hate gays, just don't expect our laws to enshrine your personal hatred in it. I don't care if you want to teach and preach abstinence and "the right to life" (even if I find it grossly hypocritical), just don't elevate it to the level of distraction from what's really endangering this country in the here and now.
We have to get
real, people!
(Whew! How's that for a first post following my long hiatus?
)
04-28-2011, 10:47 AM
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