Boats Rose in New Orleans, But Not for the Poor

Excellent article from Steven Pearlstein with The Sojourners for Truth:


Put your hands together, folks, for Barbara Bush! Her sentiment may have been reprehensible, her choice of words unfortunate, but our Queen Mother has managed to blurt out the unpleasant truth about the harsh realities of life in the American underclass..

Four years into the recovery, capital's share of national income is still rising, and at 17.7 percent remains near the top of its historical range.
It wasn't always this way. The period from World War II to the mid-1970s was characterized by rising income equality. But the steady reversal since then suggests that the forces that are combining to make labor, product and capital markets more efficient are also making incomes less equal. They are part and parcel of the same structural changes.
It is unclear whether we as a society find that morally unacceptable. If we do, we will have to accept slower economic growth and more aggressive redistribution of income through government tax and benefit and regulatory systems. There is no realistic high-growth, low-inequality solution.