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Rasmus calls it "QEs for them." "Austerity for the rest of us." Economic slowdown and recession are assured. It's baked in the cake. Policy makers mandate it.
Bipartisan complicity pledged high times for rich folks. Everyone else is on their own out of luck. Elections change nothing. They haven't for decades. They do little more than reshuffle deck chairs.
Money power rules. What it wants, it gets. It's the American way. It's no different across Europe and most other parts of the world. It's a sorrowful state. People needing help don't get it.
Hard times devastate young people. Imagine developed countries like Spain and Greece with 50% youth unemployment. Imagine policy makers doing nothing to help. Instead they're making things worse.
Half of all US households are impoverished or bordering on it. For a family of four, America's official poverty line is slightly over $23,000.
Families this size can't manage in Chicago, New York, Boston, or other large US cities and most mid-sized ones. Adjusted for real, not manipulated, inflation, they're pressured more each year.
Incomes are declining. Benefits are eroding or ending. Job creation is moribund. Most pay borderline or sub-poverty wages. In 2011, the Gini coefficient measuring social inequality grew at the fastest pace in two decades.
Average and median family income keeps dropping. The harder times get, the less able most people can cope. Candidate Obama promised change to believe in. He didn't say what kind.
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