Consumer spending and government spending account for 90 percent of GDP. We can redirect it to change both the political landscape and the equitable sharing of wealth and income in America.

[image: US Dept of Labor]

America: Change it or Lose it

Following WWII the U.S. economy began a growth pattern the likes of which neither we nor the world had seen before. As our economy grew, the middle class expanded, home ownership became common place, the number of college graduates swelled, our national debt fell, and prosperity was visible everywhere. This euphoria lasted until about 1970.

Beginning in 1970 and continuing today, the fruits of our labor shifted and got directed into two different streams—one branch became a gushing giant that flowed into the hands of the rich, while the rest of us saw our stream of plenty virtually dry up. Although our productivity continued to rise and rise, our efforts went unrewarded. We have had to settle for less and less. Today, the top one percent have more income and wealth than the other 99 percent combined. If that revelation doesn’t bother you, stop reading. You won’t like the rest.

The other readers should be asking: “What the hell happened? “

For the last 45 years you and I have rested on our soft spots content in our beliefs that we have a mighty free market economy, that it will correct itself, renew itself, and divvy up the fruits of our labor according to our productivity. Look at the chart above and find your answer to how well that proposition has worked out. A better way is to look at this division is in how wealth has been divided. The bottom 50 percent of Americans have none; the next 30 percent (the middle class) have about $10 trillion, while the top 20 percent have $80 trillion. That division, by the way, is the worst in the industrialized world.

If you are content with this division, please stop reading and go back into hibernation. The balance of this article is for those who care, who can think for themselves, and who rely on facts, logic, and sound reasoning in reaching valid conclusions.

We no longer have free markets or free elections in the U.S. We have a stacked deck, a political/economic system of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. The wealthiest among us have brought about a lot of tax law changes, voting law changes, inheritance law changes, investment and banking law changes, political maneuvering of voting districts, new laws aimed at reducing or eliminating unions and collective bargaining, less oversight of securities markets and of lending practices, lower tax rates on the wealthy, the emergence of overseas tax havens, job outsourcing, major manufacturing moves to overseas locations, and this above all: They now have funded a huge propaganda mechanism that controls who gets nominated and elected to public offices so that their will prevails far into the future.

The Problem. I could list the names of the top 100 wealthiest Americans, the names of the most powerful bankers, the politicians who vote consistently the way the rich want them to vote, the dollar flows from the PACs and from the Fed, and the top 5 or 10,000 lies perpetrated by all of them. I could also show which political party has opposed Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare, Obama care, minimum wage hikes, and increases in farm subsidies to the wealthy and cuts in food stamps for the poor. Which party wants to cut funding for higher education, which wants less regulation of clean air, water, more drilling for oil, less expenditures for renewable energy sources, more pipelines. I could show education data that reveals most students and adults can neither name nor identify more than 3 or 4 states on a map, don’t know who represents them in Congress, and whose buying and voting behaviors are exactly what the preponderance of TV ads tell them to do.

And then those who rely on facts, logic, and sound reasoning in reaching valid conclusions who would agree that everything I have said so far is accurate, or supportable by documented facts. But none of that would point to the solution or how to implement it.

The Solution. The American consumer is the key to change. We account for 70 percent of GDP and 59 percent of all jobs. We spend just $1.8 trillion each year. Each of those dollars turns over 6.2 times for a grand total of $11.9 trillion in GDP. That is a lot more buying power than the rich who have more than all of us combined. But they don’t spend theirs.

We need to organize into a small number of purchasing power pacs. Let’s call them PPPs. We would direct our spending power to those companies that agreed to increase wages consistent with the productivity of its workers. We would vote in blocs only for those politicians who agreed to roll back legislation enacted over the last 45 years that favor the rich and the powerful, and who will enact new legislation favorable to the middle class. Using the power of the purse we could reshape America from what it is now to what it once was. Remember also: Consumer spending plus government spending is equal to 90 percent of GDP. Yes, we can direct our spending intelligently and effectively for greater prosperity for all.

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