Newsgroup: it.politica.pds
Titolo: L'economia americana: UN BLUFF PER POCHI RICCHI E TANTI POVERI

Everyone's Getting Rich! 
Or so screams the cover of Money magazine's May issue 
by Bob Harris 
May 11, 1999 
On which planet, Money doesn't specify. 
Beneath the headline stands an upper-class white couple wearing blue
and red -- literally embodying the American flag, intentionally or not
-- on a lawn, crudely retouched into a literal field of green. 
The clear message: if you're not getting rich, you're an un-American
loser. But not to worry: Inside are Money's top 10 recommended stock
investments. 
None of which will help much if you don't have tens of thousands of
dollars lying around to invest. 
So who, pray tell, does common sense tell you "Everybody" is? 
Common sense, unfortunately, isn't. 
 
I'm driving down LaBrea in Hollywood with two friends a few months
ago. In the course of a discussion about Clinton's shockingly steady
popularity, one attributes it -- as is common -- to the terrific
economy. 
So I respond that the economy isn't terrific at all. As a matter of
fact, it sucks. 
(I'm a lot less articulate when I'm bonding with my male friends.) 
My friends express shock at such heresy. 
One of them is an honors graduate of Georgetown who, despite his
education and effort, still struggles with two part-time jobs and
barely gets by. The other is an actor who, after years of
pavement-pounding, finally landed a small recurring TV gig, putting
him in the upper two percent of income earners in his profession. He
now lives in a one-bedroom apartment. He also qualifies for health
insurance through his union, a luxury the vast majority of other
dues-paying members don't receive because they don't make enough
money. 
Even where we are -- a relatively nice part of town -- homeless people
with shopping carts sit hopelessly in bus shelters near almost every
stoplight. On our right, the McDonald's we're approaching has
60-year-olds working behind the counter. At night, you can walk from
where we are to a schoolyard where poor young men sell drugs and poor
young women sell sex. 
If we hang a left and drive a bit, we'll pass the closed gates of
several small specialty stores, followed by a strip mall anchored by
the big, box-building supply store that drove the smaller stores out
of business. Outside the big box, on weekday mornings, you can often
see poor men, many with families, lining up, hoping maybe a contractor
buying supplies will hire them as day laborers with no benefits or
security. 
All of which is in plain sight. 
And still my intelligent, good-hearted, well-educated friends need a
lengthy explanation. 
 
A recent Louis Harris poll discovered that only about half of all
American adults can answer even the simplest economic questions. Here,
try one: 
If the price of beef doubled and the price of poultry stayed the same,
people would most likely buy: 
A. More poultry and less beef.
B. Less poultry and more beef.
C. The same amount of poultry and beef.
(If you need me to tell you the answer, please remove your wallet,
proceed to the nearest public space, and begin hurling all your cash
at total strangers. You probably do this every day without realizing
it already.) 
Given 20 such questions, less than a third of Americans scored a C or
better. 
Half of the adults and two-thirds of the high school students received
an F. 
 
Here's some other stuff not enough people understand, the results of
decades of policies and laws designed to benefit Money's concept of
Everyone at the expense of everyone else: 
In the 1970s, the top 1 percent of households had about 20 percent of
the national wealth. This was widely considered excessive. Today, the
number is over 40 percent and climbing. 
Thirty years ago, about 10 percent of American households were broke,
with a net worth of zero or less. Fifteen years ago, the number was
about 15 percent. Today, the number is almost 20 percent. 
Adjusting for inflation, blue-collar workers are making less than they
did a quarter-century ago. The U.S. savings rate is now negative 0.5
percent, the lowest level since the early Depression. 
Most Americans have a lower net worth than they did 15 years ago, when
this greatest stock-market rally in history began. The bottom
two-fifths of households have lost about 80 percent of their average
net worth. The middle fifth has lost about 11 percent. The richest 1
percent of America owns more wealth than the entire bottom 95 percent
combined, and the inequality is increasing. 
Twenty years ago, a typical big-time corporate CEO was paid about 40
times what an average worker received. CEOs today are paid almost 420
times as much. As CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch has eliminated
128,000 jobs. But GE stock has appreciated about 40-fold, even
adjusting for inflation. So Jack Welch is paid $83.6 million. 
Meanwhile, after what economists will soon call the longest economic
expansion in U.S. history, 20 percent of all American children now
grow up in poverty. 
And Money can write "Everyone's Getting Rich!" in giant letters across
the cover. 
We hear the idea so frequently these days -- often expressed by
corporate media pundits with six- and seven-figure incomes -- we even
actually believe it, though our own eyes might protest. 
Bathed as we are in ignorance and corporate propaganda, these numbers
might seem stunning. 
How handy it is to have the real world around to check them against. 
 
One final note: 
It's about 3 a.m. on May 10th as I write this. I just did the math. If
you had bought this issue of Money when it hit the racks, and
obediently bought 100 shares of all 10 can't-miss picks, you'd be down
2 percent. 
During which time the Dow is up over 6 percent. 
Whoops. Maybe even Everyone gets screwed sometimes. 
Cool.  
 
Bob Harris is a radio commentator, political writer, and humorist who
has spoken at almost 300 colleges nationwide. 
To receive a free e-mail subscription to The Scoop, just a blank
e-mail to 
BobHarris...@listbot.com
. Or visit his Web site. 
E-mail the Editors | Other Articles by Bob Harris 
 
 

Etc. etc. etc.