The Bleat: Down, Why?,

Fallen, and Can't Get Back Up

Woody waz there:
Early in the Raygooner's regime, Treas Sec. Don Regan colluded with the NAM. the USCoC, and the rest of the binness lobby to decouple wages from increased productivity, redierect the 'extra' into stock prioces and execs' salaries, and fuck the little people.
As the graph shows, it worked extraordinarily well.
The ONLY  teenie, little problem with the approach was that it would decrease personal, discretionary spending and possibly threaten the "consumer economy."
To address this minor flaw, they radically reduced the restrictions on lending/credit, which in time inevitably led to the spate of bubble bursts, and bankruptcies, and finally the Great Recession of '07-present.
NOBODY EVER anticipated that; but NOBODY ever expects the Spanish Inquisition...

Why, Baby, Why?

Really wanna know?
Probably because most Americans do NOT KNOW that it doesn't contribute to the deficit/debt. That minor factoid is not a common utterance in the public discourse of "Entitlement Reform."
Hell, most Americans still, actually think the debt/deficit IS a "real" crisis (Hint: It's NOT!)
Nobody, as HL Mencken sagely noted, 80 or 90 years ago, ever LOST money by underestimating the taste of the average American...
To be fair, average Ummrrkins have been submerged in an unending, ceaseless, perpetual, all-encompassing, cradle-to-grave, swamp of pro-corpoRat propaganda, mis- and mal-information, and out-right falsehood for so long they've lost any referent to truth.


The Beeb: A Memoir