EXTREME INEQUALITY AND THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER

Concentrated wealth in the hands of the few not only skews the economy and produces inequality, but it also undermines our democracy.

This concentrated wealth leads to overwhelming political power by influencing elections, setting legislative priorities, and pressing for judicial ruleings that favor corporations and the already wealthy. And all this concentrated political power by the few leads to the kind of economic machinations that caused the 2008 financial collapse.

In the 30 years prior to the collapse, the bottom 70 percent of the U.S. population experienced stagnant wages necessitating two wage earners per household in a struggle to maintain their middle class life. The top 1% — freed from essential regulations and any kind of oversight — engaged in reckless Wall Street speculation, which didn’t turn out to be so much of a risk afterall for them, because in the end they demanded and received bailouts.

The 1% is better off financially than they were in 2008, before the economic collapse … while the rest of us are screwed.

The answer we may all be able to agree on is a public funding system for our campaigns to stop the influence of big money in politics. The 1% is basically funding our political campaigns, and there is no other way to view that funding than as “the buying of influence.” The rest of us, the 99%, must not continue to accept that corruption of our democracy.

Extreme inequality concentrates political power in the hands of the few … the 1%.