The Economic Recovery That Wasn't -- A Tale of Capitalism's Neglect of the People Who Gave Them Their Opportunity to Begin With ....

A Business Insider article that decimates the conservative mantra that regulations are strangling American businesses and impacting their ability to earn a profit.  The Gadfly has always known that that mantra was pure horseshit so to have a business friendly media outlet validate The Gadfly's view is, at most, sweet rectitude.

Btw -- the article does not paint a very pretty picture of unfettered capitalism that is left to it's own devices, which is what conservatives are rabidly pining for these days, so if your widdle sensibilities might be offended because someone dares to point out the deficiencies in a system that has steamrolled the American middle class and transformed the quest for the American dream for many in to a nightmarish quest for basic human survival, then don't fucking read any further than this.

Read on and take a little extra time to view the charts and understand them - you will be better informed for doing so:

Five years after the start of the financial crisis, the U.S. economy is still struggling.

Unemployment is above 7%.

Growth is weak.

Most consumers are strapped.

Meanwhile, the stock market is hitting record highs, and corporations are printing money.

If you're wondering what's going on here--why these two seemingly contradictory things are happening--we have four charts for you. They go a long way to explaining why our economy is the way it is--why a handful of Americans have never had it better while everyone else is getting crushed.

(The answer is that our 30-year obsession with "efficiency" and "return on capital" has produced a business culture that believes that companies only exist to make money for their owners, instead of also serving their other stakeholders--customers and employees. But we'll let the charts speak for themselves.)

http://www.businessinsider.com/profits-high-wages-low-7-2013


The Gadfly does not begrudge the right of business to make a profit.  But when you view these charts and understand the devastating impact that they portray, and that is currently happening in a great many American people's lives, then you have to question whether or not the business people's right to profit should inherently override the rights of their fellow citizens to have decent pay, decent working conditions, decent health care, and a decent and dignified retirement.

There has to be a some level of accountability in the business community for what is happening to the middle class in America.  If we don't hold them accountable now, America is destined for 3rd world economy status where there are only two classes of people - wealthy and non-wealthy.  That, dear readers is a guaranteed recipe for the eventual end of the republic.


----TFG