Leroy N. Soetoro
2013-12-06 05:40:41 UTC
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-05/obama-decries-u-s-income-gap-
that-has-widened-under-his-watch.html
The gap between rich and poor that President Barack Obama yesterday called
a fundamental threat to the American dream has grown during his
administration.
The richest 10 percent of Americans earned a larger share of income last
year than at any time since 1917, according to Emmanuel Saez, an economist
at the University of California at Berkeley. Those in the top one-tenth of
income distribution earned at least $146,000 in 2012, almost 12 times what
those in the bottom tenth made, Census Bureau data show.
Much of the gap is out of the presidents control, economists say, citing
forces such as globalization and the spread of technology that are
overwhelming government remedies.
Yet while Obama complains that Republicans are blocking his efforts to
boost the minimum wage and provide universal pre-school, other policies
that he has enacted such as trade agreements also may have contributed to
inequality, they say.
There are things he could do that he hasnt done, says Dean Baker, co-
director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Democratic-
leaning research group in Washington. Hes done nothing to rein in the
financial sector.
The president also stumbled in implementing the biggest new government
program that would benefit the have-nots, the health-care law known as
Obamacare. The Oct. 1 debut of the programs website was botched so badly
that it has sapped public support for the administration and emboldened
its political opponents.
While acknowledging yesterday admittedly poor execution in introducing
the health-care exchanges, Obama said the insurance expansion would reduce
a major source of inequality and help ensure more Americans get the start
that they need to succeed.
Energizing Voters
The speech -- filled with bedrock themes of equality dear to Obamas base
-- comes as some Americans are expressing disappointment in his handling
of the Affordable Care Act, National Security Agency snooping and other
issues. Obama and the Democrats need to energize the partys voters
heading into the 2014 congressional elections, and the speech offered much
to remind them why they supported Obama in the first place.
At the same time, there were few new concrete proposals to combat
inequality and little in the way of specific policy prescriptions to close
the gap in Obamas remaining three years in office. The speech also
contained many of the same themes of an address he delivered almost two
years ago to the day in Osawatomie, Kansas.
Top Thriving
The top tier of Americans are doing fine. After-tax corporate profits have
more than doubled as a share of the economy and are now at their highest
level since records were kept in 1947.
Meanwhile, workers are compensated with a smaller share of national output
than at any time since 1952.
Were talking about a society where the well-off and the educated are
doing better and the rest are doing worse, Mohamed El-Erian, chief
executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach,
California, told Bloomberg Television last week.
Rather than embracing new government programs, Republicans say economic
growth will help resolve what Obama calls the defining challenge of our
time. With House Republicans opposed to any expansion of federal
spending, the president challenged them to advance alternative ideas for
promoting greater economic opportunity.
If Republicans have concrete plans that will actually reduce inequality,
build the middle class, provide more ladders of opportunity to the poor,
lets hear them, he said yesterday.
Public Concern
Its a political issue that resonates with voters. In a May survey by the
Pew Research Center, 66 percent of Americans said inequality has increased
and 47 percent agreed it was a very big problem.
And there are signs that public attention to the issue may be
intensifying. In Washington, where chronic concern over federal budget
deficits has diminished since the 16-day government shutdown in October,
the president has thrown his support behind proposals to increase the
$7.25 federal minimum wage.
After proposing an increase to $9 in February, Obama last month endorsed a
Senate bill that would raise the rate to $10.10 over two years.
The president is talking about what I think the country ought to be
talking about, says economist Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy
Institute, a Washington-based research group that focuses on the needs of
lower-income workers. It does reflect a shift in the center of gravity.
Workers Strike
Elsewhere, fast-food workers in 100 cities plan to strike today, seeking a
higher minimum wage, which was last raised in 2009. Pope Francis last week
added his voice to those worried about the deepening chasm between
societys most and least affluent.
Just as the commandment thou shalt not kill sets a clear limit in order
to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say thou
shalt not to an economy of exclusion and inequality, the pope said.
Such an economy kills.
Workers havent done as well as investors under Obama. Since the end of
the recession in mid-2009, the economy has grown at an average 2.1 percent
pace. The 7.3 percent jobless rate, though down from its 10 percent peak
in 2009, remains more than a full percentage point above the 30-year
average.
New trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama continued a decades-
long expansion of cross-border commerce that some economists say has cost
American workers millions of jobs. A trade deficit of about 3 percent of
gross domestic product is probably directly costing the economy about 4
million to 6 million jobs, says Baker.
Stocks Soar
Since Obamas first inauguration amid the depths of the recession, the
stock market has powered to new heights. The benchmark Standard & Poors
500 index closed yesterday at 1792.81, up more than 120 percent since Jan.
20, 2009.
Though those gains have cheered investors, most Americans have watched
from the sidelines. The richest third of U.S. households account for 89
percent of all equities ownership, according to the Center for Retirement
Research at Boston College.
To contact the reporter on this story: David J. Lynch in Washington at
***@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at
***@bloomberg.net
--
Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United
States of America.
Eric Holder, racist black murdering United States Attorney General, still
has his job.
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
improper vetting of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama, a confirmed
felon using SSAN 042-68-4425, belonging to a dead man.
Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptitude.
Obama continues his goal of disarming America while ObamaCare increases
insurance premiums 300% and leaves millions without health care.
Obama backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt prior to their removal for
failing to represent the people and constitutional violations.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ***@netfront.net ---
that-has-widened-under-his-watch.html
The gap between rich and poor that President Barack Obama yesterday called
a fundamental threat to the American dream has grown during his
administration.
The richest 10 percent of Americans earned a larger share of income last
year than at any time since 1917, according to Emmanuel Saez, an economist
at the University of California at Berkeley. Those in the top one-tenth of
income distribution earned at least $146,000 in 2012, almost 12 times what
those in the bottom tenth made, Census Bureau data show.
Much of the gap is out of the presidents control, economists say, citing
forces such as globalization and the spread of technology that are
overwhelming government remedies.
Yet while Obama complains that Republicans are blocking his efforts to
boost the minimum wage and provide universal pre-school, other policies
that he has enacted such as trade agreements also may have contributed to
inequality, they say.
There are things he could do that he hasnt done, says Dean Baker, co-
director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Democratic-
leaning research group in Washington. Hes done nothing to rein in the
financial sector.
The president also stumbled in implementing the biggest new government
program that would benefit the have-nots, the health-care law known as
Obamacare. The Oct. 1 debut of the programs website was botched so badly
that it has sapped public support for the administration and emboldened
its political opponents.
While acknowledging yesterday admittedly poor execution in introducing
the health-care exchanges, Obama said the insurance expansion would reduce
a major source of inequality and help ensure more Americans get the start
that they need to succeed.
Energizing Voters
The speech -- filled with bedrock themes of equality dear to Obamas base
-- comes as some Americans are expressing disappointment in his handling
of the Affordable Care Act, National Security Agency snooping and other
issues. Obama and the Democrats need to energize the partys voters
heading into the 2014 congressional elections, and the speech offered much
to remind them why they supported Obama in the first place.
At the same time, there were few new concrete proposals to combat
inequality and little in the way of specific policy prescriptions to close
the gap in Obamas remaining three years in office. The speech also
contained many of the same themes of an address he delivered almost two
years ago to the day in Osawatomie, Kansas.
Top Thriving
The top tier of Americans are doing fine. After-tax corporate profits have
more than doubled as a share of the economy and are now at their highest
level since records were kept in 1947.
Meanwhile, workers are compensated with a smaller share of national output
than at any time since 1952.
Were talking about a society where the well-off and the educated are
doing better and the rest are doing worse, Mohamed El-Erian, chief
executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach,
California, told Bloomberg Television last week.
Rather than embracing new government programs, Republicans say economic
growth will help resolve what Obama calls the defining challenge of our
time. With House Republicans opposed to any expansion of federal
spending, the president challenged them to advance alternative ideas for
promoting greater economic opportunity.
If Republicans have concrete plans that will actually reduce inequality,
build the middle class, provide more ladders of opportunity to the poor,
lets hear them, he said yesterday.
Public Concern
Its a political issue that resonates with voters. In a May survey by the
Pew Research Center, 66 percent of Americans said inequality has increased
and 47 percent agreed it was a very big problem.
And there are signs that public attention to the issue may be
intensifying. In Washington, where chronic concern over federal budget
deficits has diminished since the 16-day government shutdown in October,
the president has thrown his support behind proposals to increase the
$7.25 federal minimum wage.
After proposing an increase to $9 in February, Obama last month endorsed a
Senate bill that would raise the rate to $10.10 over two years.
The president is talking about what I think the country ought to be
talking about, says economist Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy
Institute, a Washington-based research group that focuses on the needs of
lower-income workers. It does reflect a shift in the center of gravity.
Workers Strike
Elsewhere, fast-food workers in 100 cities plan to strike today, seeking a
higher minimum wage, which was last raised in 2009. Pope Francis last week
added his voice to those worried about the deepening chasm between
societys most and least affluent.
Just as the commandment thou shalt not kill sets a clear limit in order
to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say thou
shalt not to an economy of exclusion and inequality, the pope said.
Such an economy kills.
Workers havent done as well as investors under Obama. Since the end of
the recession in mid-2009, the economy has grown at an average 2.1 percent
pace. The 7.3 percent jobless rate, though down from its 10 percent peak
in 2009, remains more than a full percentage point above the 30-year
average.
New trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama continued a decades-
long expansion of cross-border commerce that some economists say has cost
American workers millions of jobs. A trade deficit of about 3 percent of
gross domestic product is probably directly costing the economy about 4
million to 6 million jobs, says Baker.
Stocks Soar
Since Obamas first inauguration amid the depths of the recession, the
stock market has powered to new heights. The benchmark Standard & Poors
500 index closed yesterday at 1792.81, up more than 120 percent since Jan.
20, 2009.
Though those gains have cheered investors, most Americans have watched
from the sidelines. The richest third of U.S. households account for 89
percent of all equities ownership, according to the Center for Retirement
Research at Boston College.
To contact the reporter on this story: David J. Lynch in Washington at
***@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at
***@bloomberg.net
--
Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United
States of America.
Eric Holder, racist black murdering United States Attorney General, still
has his job.
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
improper vetting of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama, a confirmed
felon using SSAN 042-68-4425, belonging to a dead man.
Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptitude.
Obama continues his goal of disarming America while ObamaCare increases
insurance premiums 300% and leaves millions without health care.
Obama backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt prior to their removal for
failing to represent the people and constitutional violations.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ***@netfront.net ---
