This is a tacit admission that our form of capitalism has failed.
Here is a pretty good article on the subject from the economist of all places.
http://www.economist.com/...
Income inequality is soaring, poverty is rising, the rich are getting richer, and they are doing it faster than they ever have before.
Billionaires have doubled their net worth in the past five years- that has never happened before. the billionaire class is worth trillions, and those trillions are purchasing land, water, and food stocks- things that everyone else has to purchase for survival. before long those trillions will exponentially generate trillions more.
The battle between capital and labor has been lost, and it was never a fair fight- labor has lost- badly.
When half of the country doesn't own any assets, stock, real estate, or savings, and they rely on government assistance for basic substance we need to question, well, everything.
The one piece of the puzzle, that most forget to add into the puzzle, is the role of FIAT money. Money creation is no longer backed by gold, its backed by guns, courtesy of the military. When dollars are created by debt, and no one would dare to reject debt dollars, what is the value of that debt, or the interest to pay that debt? Supply side doesn't work, showering the top with cash doesn't trickle down fast enough, and when it does the purchasing power of those dollars is anemic.
In the near future the debt will be 20 trillion, but so what. As long as counter-parties take dollars, we will always be able to print more, to pay more.
Banks create loan and credit dollars out of thin air, and charge interest on those trillions of phantom dollars. The government pays 200 to 400 billion in interest (depending on what creditor is paid) to service the debt. But the poor and middle class have to fight and struggle to make ten bucks an hour. In a nation where there are tens and tens of trillions sloshing around, none of that is getting to those that need liquidity the most.
Yes, i know that the US government creates a Treasury out of thin air, and then they give it to the FED to create cash out of thin air- and the swap is done.
I know this, but the end result is the same, paper has been turned into cash, but it is a debt, and interest must be paid.
Soon the interest on the debt will be 1 trillion dollars per year, and labor will be made to suffer even more. Since there are so many dollars in existence, the inflation needs to be masked, and the primary way to mask it is to export our inflation, through trade. But the other way, the more nefarious way, is to stifle wages, to create poverty; that poverty makes dollars scarce, and thus valuable.
With that said, something needs to be done. The system we have in place, it isn't working for half of the country. Since we have the ability to create money, it needs to be put to better use than enriching the rich, and starving the poor.
BTW:
I am not arguing for the gold standard, or the dissolution of the FED, i am not even criticizing Ben Bernanke. I am stating the obvious, and trying to understand the system that is in place. The only way to get ahead, is to understand the rules of the game.