Portrait of the American Oligarchy – The Very Troubling Income and Wealth Trends Since 1989

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One of the primary purposes of Liberty Blitzkrieg is to dispel the myth that America is politically a democracy and economically a free market, and prove that it is in fact a centrally planned oligarchy. If the people were well aware of this and fine with it, that’s one thing, but my contention is that the vast majority of the public is merely buying into the myth. This is why the population is so passive and easily controlled. They simply don’t understand what is happening to them. The proverbial frog slowing boiling to death.

Whenever I note that real median incomes in America haven’t increased for decades, many people have a hard time believing it. Nevertheless, as John Adams famously proclaimed: “facts are stubborn things.” Indeed they are, and an article published today by Bloomberg View provides some disturbingly stubborn facts that must be admitted to and faced. We learn that:

If you worry about the declining fortunes of the U.S. middle class, take heed: It might be worse than you realized.

Tracking the middle class can be difficult, because the group is hard to define. Typically, researchers look at households with incomes or net worth in the middle of the entire population. This approach, though, might provide a falsely rosy picture.

Two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — William Emmons and Bryan Noeth — sought to address this shortcoming by focusing on households’ demographic characteristics, rather than income or wealth. Specifically, they looked at families whose breadwinner was at least 40 years old and had achieved a level of education that would typically allow a middle-class standard of living. Whites and Asians needed exactly a high-school diploma to qualify. For blacks and Hispanics, it took a two-year or four-year college degree — a stark recognition of persistent racial inequality.

The results are not pretty. As of 2013, this group’s median annual income stood at about $45,000, down 16 percent in inflation-adjusted terms from 1989, with a big part of the drop occurring since 2001. Over the same period, a more commonly used measure of the middle class’s fortunes — the median income for all families — declined just 1 percent.

Yep, since 2001. This is not a coincidence. This is when America reacted like a bunch of scared imbeciles to a terrifying terrorist attack, and squandered what was left of freedom, civil liberties and common sense (see: How I Remember September 11, 2001). But moving along…

The picture for wealth is no better. The group’s median net worth (assets minus debt) was about $127,000 in 2013, down an inflation-adjusted 27 percent from 1989 and 38 percent from 2007, just before the financial crisis hit. By comparison, the median net worth for all families declined just 4 percent over the whole period (it’s also lower overall because it includes younger families that haven’t yet saved much). 

While the numbers revealed by this alternative methodology are downright devastating, I’d note that even by the conventional measurement income and wealth are still DOWN since 1989. Don’t worry though, oligarchs are more wealthy and more powerful than ever. This is no accident, it’s baked into the system.

For related articles, see:

The Stock Market Myth and How the Japanese Middle Class is on the Precipice Thanks to Abenomics

Just Another Tale from the Oligarch Recovery – $100 Million Homes Being Built on Spec

The Face of the Oligarch Recovery – Luxury Skyscrapers Stay Empty as NYC Homeless Population Hits Record High

Another Oligarch Preaches to the Peasants – Charlie Munger Says “Prepare for Harder World”

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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13 thoughts on “Portrait of the American Oligarchy – The Very Troubling Income and Wealth Trends Since 1989”

  1. Thank you, Michael, for your efforts to inform citizens of reality. First they need to understand HOW STALIN WON WWII & USED SCIENTISTS TO HIDE CREATION:

    Stalin used National Academies of Science worldwide to hide evidence of creation by:

    1. Changing astronomy textbooks that showed the interior of the Sun was mostly iron (Fe) in 1945 into mostly hydrogen (H) in 1946

    2. Changing nuclear textbooks that used Aston’s “nuclear packing fraction” to indicate nuclear stability before WWII to Weizsacker’s flawed concept of “nuclear binding energy” after WWII.

    These changes in the foundations of solar and nuclear physics allowed Stalin to hide from the public the fact that the Sun’s pulsar core:

    1. Made our chemical elements
    2. Birthed the entire solar system
    3. Sustained the origin and evolution of life
    4. Still controls every atom, life and world in the solar system, and the climate of each planet, in a volume of space that is now greater than that of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 Earth’s!

    See: “Teacher’s Supplement to Solar Energy”
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Supplement.pdf

    Reply
  2. Ok now for the most important question and I would like to see a post on this – how do we fix it? More socialism? Wealth redistribution? Those are mechanisms the oligarchy uses to get richer. So I would like to here your opinion on how to fix it.

    Reply
    • I write about this all the time. The most important thing to do is restore the rule of law. Criminals no matter how rich or powerful must serve hard time in jail for their crimes. If they can loot and pillage without repercussions, and indeed become even richer by doing so, they will continue to loot and pillage.

    • How can we fix it?

      We can’t”. I am not a religionist, but I believe the power that controls the universe can and will fix it because we were endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to self-governance!

    • More on how to fix it.

      I do NOT think we should punish those who took totalitarian control of society in 1945 to try to save themselves and the world from nuclear destruction.

      That would be repeating their mistake of “playing God.”

      We each need to improve contact with the God of our individual understanding, regardless of particular religious belief. For me, that is the intelligent and creative Mind that Max Planck recognized in 1944 behind the force that holds the spinning subatomic particles of each atom together.

  3. Mike, I don’t even know how to respond to your comment about putting oligarchs in jail. Maybe 150 years ago that would have been possible but you’re talking about people that control entire governments. The only way to “punish” those people is to bury them 6ft in the ground and that’s if you can even find them or figure out who they are. I admire what you are doing because the only solution I can think of is educating people to the current problem but it seems very naive to think any oligarch could ever be jailed. An oligarch goes to jail only when the other oligarchs want him there.

    Reply
    • I too would instinctively like to punish those who selfishly deceived the public, but I think that would be repeating their mistake.

      This part of the evolution of mankind had to happen so we could realize that science and spirituality are separate paths to reality.

      Experimentation and observation led to the same reality, God & TRUTH as meditation, contemplation and prayer.

  4. I don’t understand where is the difference between a lying politician and lying citizen. It doesn’t matter how big is a lie. It is a lie. If you think its okay to lie to your wife or friends, then do not expect politicians to be honest either. Lying and cheating is a state of mind and a lifestyle. People should finally realize that each government of the world is a perfect reflection of their own society. If politicians are corrupted it is because the citizens are corrupted as well. Americans will have to change the way they think in order to get rid of the problems they are currently facing. Same goes for every single nation of this world. However that change won’t happen without restoring morality – at home, at school, and especially in the MEDIA. Media are extremely powerful tool to influence the masses. The real purpose of movies is to teach morality and uplift society. Something that is not anymore happening today – ON PURPOSE to mislead and cause chaos. You cannot believe newspapers anymore and movies are extremely violent, celebrating the culture of arrogance and hate. The only positive trend I’ve noticed are beautiful 3D animated movies today for kids and adults. I can learn more from a Toy Story or Hotel Transylvania than from any other movie or a popular book. So if we want to change society without violence we simply need to open our hearts, get rid of the arrogance and be honest to ourselves instead of blaming others. I think the main lesson of American people is to stop worshipping the money and instead develop new ways of wealth creation or maybe to understand what is the real meaning of wealth. The one that benefits whole society and the world or the one that serves only to my ego. Another lesson for American people is to stop playing the blame game. With blame we will never be able to see the truth and move forward. Unfortunately both Conservatives and Democrats are playing this blame game. I can honestly say that if you listen to these two groups you will never find the answer. Both groups have brutally skewed understanding of moral principles.

    Reply
  5. The remedy has been known for more than 240 years, explained in the Wealth of Nations, nations gain wealth when workers are paid “LIBERALLY’!
    But today Adam Smith is ignored, distorted and/or suppressed.
    He explained why when we pay as now, by the Unfree Market, we find we “are going fast backwards.” We have been for decades.
    But the Oligarchs are not concerned, as their wealth keeps growing. They need the rest of us, but we are declining. The Oligarchs are OBLIVIOUS!
    Workers are CONSUMERS! Who KNEW?
    The PITCHFORKS are coming!

    Reply

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