Thanks to the Insanity

spewed by the likes of crackpot "economist" Milton Friedman and politicians of his stripe, the United States of America, including the middle class, is on its knees and headed for almost certain disaster.

It's because too few people have too much money and manufacturing, absolutely essential for a country's survival, has been "outsourced."

This is totally insane. Henry Ford knew a century ago that in order to make money in industry, workers have to make enough money to buy the products they make.

Bob Herbert:

With those coping mechanisms now exhausted, it’s painfully obvious that the economy has failed working Americans.

There was plenty of growth, but the economic benefits went overwhelmingly — and unfairly — to those already at the top. Mr. Reich cites the work of analysts who have tracked the increasing share of national income that has gone to the top 1 percent of earners since the 1970s, when their share was 8 percent to 9 percent. In the 1980s, it rose to 10 percent to 14 percent. In the late-’90s, it was 15 percent to 19 percent. In 2005, it passed 21 percent. By 2007, the last year for which complete data are available, the richest 1 percent were taking more than 23 percent of all income.

The richest one-tenth of 1 percent, representing just 13,000 households, took in more than 11 percent of total income in 2007.

Nobody in his or her right mind can justify this. The imbalance is so great, we are on the verge of bloodshed in this country.