As if the 99% don't need any reminding of inequality I recently saw a PBS report which said that retail items for the middle class are disappearing this holiday season because the trends towards increased inequality.
Politically we know it's effects, the rich get represented while the middle and working classes get shafted as is illustrated by a Princeton study (pdf.) which points out "senators are vastly more responsive to the views of affluent constituents than to constituents of modest means."
And the graph from the study is telling,
However that's not the ending, far from it. The study's author Larry Bartels tells of a possible vicious cycle which is happening because of the representation,
In what should basically be called the Bartels Cycle and be known to everyone for it's devastating effects is getting no attention despite it's dire warnings. As Bartel's points out,
These disparities are especially troubling because they suggest the potential for a debilitating feedback cycle linking the economic and political realms: increasing economic inequality may produce increasing inequality in political responsiveness, which in turn produces public policies increasingly detrimental to the interests of poor citizens, which in turn produces even greater economic inequality, and so on.
This can be seen in the failure of the COP17 to pass a legally binding global warming resolution (instead opting for one by 2020) when climate change could be irreversible by 2017, a similar vicious cycle, because the rich hold the political system hostage.
Not quite a positive message for the holidays and new year.