I was doing updates to include better links and background, and deleting what turned out to be an ignorant rant about bail-outs and pay-backs — then it turned out I had two half-edited versions of the diary open at once, and what I (re)published—this one—is missing the improvements. Oh well, it’s been around twice and is falling off into oblivion anyway. So that;s that.
"All that matters is whether people are better off when you quit than when you started"
—Bill Clinton
That’s what Bill Clinton said during a lull in his sharpest-yet attack on Sanders yesterday.
Well… Were we better off when Bill Clinton quit than when he started?
That’s what we’re supposed to think, but were we really?
“The Heyday of America’s Middle Class (1950-1980)” was “when the wealthiest 1% had about 10% of total income”.
Reaganomics* changed that. Then came Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama.
But a close look at the charts tells a story you might not expect.
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Reagan started the assault on the middle class, but it was Bill Clinton, and ONLY Bill Clinton, who took Reaganomics to the next level—of inequality.
Look at the top chart... The one called
Income Inequality Achieves Escape Velocity After the 1%...
During the Reagan years, there was a rapid growth in inequality, peaking very sharply circa 1986, but then DECLINING during Reagan’s last two years and especially during GHW Bush’s four years. Keep looking…
(You may see years before 2007 more plainly on the chart called Mind The Gap, further down.)
The years before Clinton:
1987-1993 If you draw a straight line from the 1986 peak to 1993 (when Bush 1 left office), it will go down — the looting of the economy by the super-rich had abated. It wasn’t down enough to undo the damage caused by Reagan, but wealth-distribution was going back in the right direction for a while—if Clinton had allowed that trend to continue, instead of rushing to TRICKLE-DOWN... exporting good industrial jobs, unleashing the casino economy… “the heyday of America’s middle class” just might have been revived.
The years after Clinton:
to 2012 If you draw a straight line from 1999 (Clinton’s peak year, and the year before Bush 2 was selected President) to 2012 (the end of Obama’s first term, the last year shown on the most recent of these charts), that line will be LEVEL. To repeat: There was NO net increase in inequality after Clinton left office (as shown on charts that go through to 2012).
ALL OF THE NET INCREASE IN INEQUALITY CAME UNDER JUST TWO PRESIDENTS — RONALD REAGAN AND BILL CLINTON.
and it happened more under Clinton than under Reagan.
Note that the lower three charts reproduced below this point don’t go past 2007.
The longest sustained growth in INEQUALITY happened in the Clinton years— the redistribution of wealth from poor and middle class families to the richest.
The basic idea is that wealth “trickles down” to everyone else when the rich get richer.
But it looks like wealth has been pouring upwards a hell of lot faster than it’s been trickling back down.
It was largely Clinton’s deregulation of Wall Street and banks that set the stage for 2008’s bail-outs, transferring TRILLIONS from working taxpayers to Wall Street and big banks —who celebrated by paying themselves executive bonuses again before long.
We’re still waiting for those trillions to trickle back down.
But only Sanders seems to think that such a generous (although involuntary) bail-out deserves some pay-back.
Not even the full amount repaid with interest, God forbid!
But some.
Is that too much to ask?
Have another look at that top chart.
The real growth in income and assets was happening more and faster for the rich (top 1%) than for middle class or poor…
but
….much more, and much faster for the super-rich (top 0.1%) than for the merely rich,...
and...
... by far the most and the fastest for the super-super-rich
… That’s the top 0.01% ( the top 1% of the top 1%). In a city or county with a population of a million, only one hundred people will be in the top 0.01%.
*Let’s call what Clinton did “Reaganomics” because by far the most striking feature of Reaganomics (as we look back at its lasting damage), is rapidly growing inequality — the rich get richer—the upper-middle enjoys some prosperity. The rest stay afloat, if they’re lucky. Or go under if they’re not. Traditionally this is known as “trickle-down” and it was around long before Reagan. But it was out of fashion during “the heyday of the American middle class” because we were doing fine without trickles.
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PS: By popular request, here’s a link to something about sectoral balances: www.concertedaction.com/… (I’d tell you why if I knew)
PPS:Personally I did somewhat okay during Clinton’s presidency… and Reagan’s and Bush’s too… the 1996 illustration above was used by the Wall St Journal, where I’d started freelancing in 1983. Am I an agent of Wall Street? Alas, those days are long gone.