From the daily consumption of the news over the years, I have become aware of the deterioration of the middle class. What I was not aware of (and I would bet most people are not aware of this) is just what the instigating factors were. How did this all happen? It certainly didn’t happen overnight. This has been a process decades in the making.
Warren begins by recalling her own childhood, and how her mother’s job at Sears could actually sustain a family back in the 60’s. A startling fact is that the minimum wage today, adjusted for inflation, is around 24 percent lower than back then. We learn about some real life examples of people who struggled to survive, but the system is rigged against them. Three factors are identified that will allow people to succeed in society: is the economy producing opportunities for all, is it producing security so people are not bankrupted by illness or accident, and is it delivering on the promise of a better future. The author notes that our current economy is failing on all counts.
In chapter two, we are given a history lesson on how this country developed a safer economy. It starts with the depression and FDR’s New Deal that provided things like FDIC insurance, broke up big banks, and put a cop on Wall Street. Of course, this caused an outrage among the wealthy who liked things just the way they were. These protections for the “people” ran into trouble in 1971 when a lawyer named Lewis Powell wrote a thirty-three page letter for the CEO crowd arguing that the entire free-enterprise system was under attack, and the super rich must fight back! The wealthy wanted to return America back to the pro-corporate, mostly unregulated government that existed prior to the Great Depression. Yikes! Do we have to ask why? From the 1980s onward deregulation and trickle-down economics became the mantra in conservative circles. Now the author points out, government was the enemy, not corporations. Deregulation had a price that was paid to the tune of $132 billion; remember the S&L crisis? By 1999, the last provisions of Glass-Steagall were repealed, and this resulted in big banks growing into giant banks and giant banks growing into monster banks. Few banks controlled more and more of the market. By 2008, the economic crash that year was to cost the economy an estimated $22 trillion.
In chapter three, Warren explains to us how from the 30’s to the 70’s America actually invested in expanding chances for the middle class. In fact, from 1935 to 1980, 90 percent of America got 70 percent of all income growth – that’s everyone outside the top 10 percent. Wow! This is an incredible tidbit of information, most people are unaware of. But it all changed around 1980. From this time on, we see a steady increase in the GDP. What changed is who the economy worked for. Now read the next sentence carefully. “From 1980 to 2015, 90 percent of America – everyone outside the top 10 percent – got almost nothing. Not even 1 percent.” What a reversal! Many other topics are covered in this chapter as well, such as the student loan debt, infrastructure spending, how more than half of federal investment in research has been cut since the 1960s, the decline in union membership, and more.
Chapter four delves into the machinations of the rich and powerful. We are informed of the attack on Dodd-Frank, the Affordable Care Act, and other institutions designed to protect Americans. And now with the new administration as of 2017, we see billionaires in charge of deciding the fate of the relatively poor middle class. And it’s not just the billionaires in office, but the billionaires who hold those in Congress accountable to their wishes. An interesting statistic, Warren notes is that members of Congress spend between 30 to 70 percent of their time raising money from those who have it to give. Today, it’s as if “there’s a shadow government that’s been hired by rich and powerful people to make sure that the elected government doesn’t get out of line.” This chapter contains a wealth of information on how the wealthy and big business operate to achieve there ends. Warren sums it up saying, I’ve done my best to make a case that the rich and powerful have a well-stocked armory for seizing control of our democracy – and that they are already using it very effectively.”
The final chapter concludes with the 2016 election and its ramifications for the middle class. She notes that we need to be clear about where we stand and our core principles and what’s worth fighting for. I have to agree with the author when she emphasizes, “We have to believe in ourselves, in our cause, and in our absolute, unwavering willingness to get in there and fight.” So then, “This fight is our fight.”
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So I'm only partially through the book and enjoying it, but the book itself has an odd print/ink defect..
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Nick Rowley
She tells it as it really is!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 26, 2018Lauraine Schooley
Okay, but not as good as I expected.
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 11, 2017
