Mind the Gap

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that the income gap between the the richest one percent and everyone else tripled between 1979 and 2007. Average after-tax incomes in the top 1% bracket, adjusted for inflation, increased 281%. That is not a typo: THE INCOMES OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN AMERICA INCREASED BY TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-ONE PERCENT IN LESS THAN THREE DECADES. (Sorry for the pajamas-media-style all caps, but there are times when only all caps will do--not when responding to news stories with insightful comments like: TEH IMMGRANTS TAKE R JOBS SEND THEM BACK TO WHERE THEY COME FROM WE DON'T SPEAK MEXICAN HERE LOLOL!!!!--but when communicating something truly astounding.)

Go forth, read the report, be astounded (or have your suspicions grimly justified, whatever suits your temperament). One of the arguments my Republican friends make against European-style 'socialism' is that it hinders social mobility. I'm not entirely clear on why this would be so, but the gist seems to be that people coming from Europe to America found more opportunities here to Horatio Alger it up, without being sneered at for not going to Eton. Seems like it has been a while since Europe got on the "I don't really care where your money is from, as long as it is enough to pay for the upkeep of my 150-room ancestral mansion" bandwagon, but I was willing to grant that there was some truth to the idea that there was greater equality of opportunities and relative lack of class-based snobbery in the United States. Seems like a lot more people are making their money the old-fashioned way, though--that is, putting in a lot of time and hard work waiting for their trust fund to mature (check out this article about the creative ways in which the rich in America are enabling their great-grandchildren to be lazy shitheels).

Also, let's not forget that universal health care systems might contribute to greater social mobility. Lack of teeth is more of a barrier to the upper class than lack of, well, class.

Link Low Down

The Dutch win 3-2 over Uruguay today to move on to the World Cup Finals. That's the good news. I wish I were in Amsterdam, but then, I always do.

The BP/Government Police State (Salon) I mentioned a while back that I was disturbed by the apparent collusion between state and local law enforcement and BP. My illusions about who the police actually 'protect' and 'serve' have long since been dispelled, of course, but I still have this feeble belief: state agents should not be acting as rent-a-cops for any corporation at any time. Of course the Professional Bootlickers Association that calls itself 'the media' are being ever so cooperative with the limitations imposed by BP. I bet they've convinced themselves that actually reporting about the death of an entire ecosystem would just cause people to unnecessarily panic, so they're actually doing a good thing by ignoring it. Also, Lindsay Lohan got sentenced today, so they're, like, really busy.

Yves Smith and Rob Parenteau have an interesting article about the miserly behavior of corporations and how it's impacting the economy. In brief: corporations acting only with regard to short-term profits = long-term shit for everyone else. On a similar note, a wrist-slitting article in the New York Times about the totally abysmal employment rates of the Millenials, or whatever lame-ass name this generation has been tagged with of late. (Myself, I like to call the children of Boomers the Echoes: just a hollow refrain.)

Then there's this guy, who has studied some fractals and determined that the market is due for its biggest downswing since we were all trading chickens and butter. He thinks that the Dow will go as low as 1000. In which case, let's hope that we all invested in actual chickens and actual butter (and actual guns), because otherwise the Mormons will be the only ones who survive.

This is why I am really uninterested in adulthood (or at least, this is one of my many rationalizations for refusing to grow up). If we make it past 2012, I'll see what I can do about Being Responsible and Taking Things Seriously.