18
Nov
We are at decades-high inequality and declining social mobility - two major threats to the social order conservatives want to maintain. The tax code, as Tom Coburn has pointed out, is riddled with loopholes for the perquisites of the very rich, and for their income. Some groups of citizens have become rentier classes, using their expertise and mastery to enrich themselves at the expense of others. The top two categories of these sectors are doctors (vastly overpaid alongside every aspect of US healthcare) and bankers (bordering on criminal in the imbalance between what they contribute to society and what they get out of it). Globalization has accelerated income inequality even beyond our worst fears in the 1990s. And the rich have essentially bought the Congress, which is why healthcare reform and banking reform have become so tough.
