Dow is up, middle class still down

Yeah! The stock market has hit a brand new high. That must mean the recession is over. Unemployment is just a scary legend of the past used to scare the young into productivity. Inflation has deflated and gas prices are reasonable again. Home prices are up and credit is easier to find than a conservative talk show host that lies.

Oh wait a minute. Nope same as yesterday and last year and last decade, the rich are still getting richer and the rest of us are still getting poorer. Which is still something no one talks about. The recession hasn't hurt rich people and in fact they are doing better than ever. If the 2012 election is any indication, the rich are doing so well they have billions of extra dollars to spend in no other effort except to elect other rich people to push their agenda of keeping the system fixed in their favor.

And there are very specific reasons for that. Let me take you back a few hundred years when there were feudal lords and serfs. In those days, the serfs toiled from sunup till down and never found a way out of their poverty because their labor was tribute to bolster their wealthy landlords. Turns out those wealthy landowners had no interest in changing that system either.The reason then is the same as now, the system benefited them.

The rich argue they should pay lower taxes because they need their money to create jobs. But they are making more money than ever and creating fewer jobs and the jobs they create produce lower wages. I can't figure out what the argument is that has created so many monopolies in a country where monopolies were outlawed 100 years ago by Theodore Roosevelt but they exist nonetheless. They argue they need fewer regulations to boost the economy. They wail they are hamstrung by too stringent laws, like prohibitions on air quality and fair, safe working conditions. Unions and minimum wage laws choke their profits, blah blah blah ad nauseum.

And yet they blame the poor people for not doing their fair share, not paying enough taxes, not tightening their belts enough, not working hard enough. That's a fun game. I bet the rapist would love to get out of jail for blaming the girl for being so rapable. The thief would love to blame the bank for being so robbable. And the murderer would love to blame the dead guy for needing to be killed.

But the rich even have an answer for the best argument. It must be just or God wouldn't let it happen.