In the decades since Reagan sold us on Milton Freeman economics and convinced us that greed is oh so good, we have managed to sell out the middle class and in doing so eliminate the consumer class.
We used to have a manufacturing economy. We built things that the world wanted--we sold them and our companies prospered. We had unions that demanded that if a company prospered then the employees should prosper. The prosperous employees became consumers and the companies prospered even more; there was a cycle of prosperity that seemed endless.
But then greed took over. Simon Legree mentality reasoned that greed is so very good. There are all of these middle-class people with money. Hmm, let's take it away from them. They did.
Aesop was no fool, he saw all of this coming (it was so long ago, it's really hard to say exactly what to credit to Aesop, but let's ignore this) when he wrote about the Goose Who Laid the Golden Eggs. Wikipedia tells us the consequences:
Greed destroys the source of good
Think before you act
Those who want too much lose everything
