I don't think it's so simple. The following from the Christian Science Moniter.
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Rich-poor gap gaining attention
A remark by Greenspan symbolizes concern that wealth disparities may destabilize the economy.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – The income gap between the rich and the rest of the US population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself.
Is that a liberal's talking point? Sure. But it's also a line from the recent public testimony of a champion of the free market: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
America's powerful central banker hasn't suddenly lurched to the left of Democratic National Committee chief Howard Dean. His solution is better education today to create a flexible workforce for tomorrow - not confiscation of plutocrats' yachts.
But the fact that Mr. Greenspan speaks about this topic at all may show how much the growing concentration of national wealth at the top, combined with the uncertainties of increased globalization, worries economic policymakers as they peer into the future.
"He is the conventional wisdom," says Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. "When I'm arguing with people, I say, 'Even Alan Greenspan....' "
Greenspan's comments at a Joint Economic Committee hearing last week were typical, for him. Asked a leading question by Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island, he agreed that over the past two quarters hourly wages have shown few signs of accelerating. Overall employee compensation has gone up - but mostly due to a surge in bonuses and stock-option exercises.
The Fed chief than added that the 80 percent of the workforce represented by nonsupervisory workers has recently seen little, if any, income growth at all. The top 20 percent of supervisory, salaried, and other workers has.
The result of this, said Greenspan, is that the US now has a significant divergence in the fortunes of different groups in its labor market. "As I've often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing," Greenspan told the congressional hearing.
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Now the Good Book says where your heart is, your treasure is, also.
Exactly how much treasure is being directed towards Greenspan's solution, education for furloughed workers?
As a furloughee, I can personally testify - very little.
And, one such program, the Workplace Investment Act, just got it's budget slashed - in our area, 60%. Why, when according to Greenspan, the economy is doing well?
But somehow, while we can't subsidize the public for an admitted need, we CAN dole out the cash to corporations.
http://www.progress.org/banneker/cw.html
http://www.pww.org/past-weeks-1999/Corporate%20welfare.htm
(I recommend you read everything by Bartlett and Steele you can get your hands on).
http://blog.ntu.org/main/post.php?post_id=479
