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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I found myself in the same spot watching that Carlson monologue.

He's right. And Shapiro and French and everybody else who argues that "personal responsibility" dictates life outcomes are deluded. They're also quite unlearned regarding the modern economy.

There are fewer and fewer paths to prosperity in this country for those born affluent and middle class, let alone poor. If you're born poor, you have to pitch a near perfect game, and be incredibly lucky along the way, to ascend several rungs on the class ladder. You've no margin for error at all. You're likely leveraged with debt, and one slip starts a spiral of adverse reinforcing impacts.

It has not always been this way. This is a result of financialization. Carlson nails it when describes Bain Capital's model as predatory. Too much of the increase to the 1% has been created by eliminating the wage costs historically providing income to the lower 40%. And our worship of financialization is amazing. We actually consider consultants and financiers to be among the best and brightest. But ask yourself, "How hard is it to buy a business, lard it with debt, pare labor costs, and then sell it?" Any of us here could do that. It's not rocket science. How hard is it to make a boatload running a fund where you're getting 2 and 20? The hard part is getting into the game. Once you're in it, it's a joke.

The system is rigged to protect the interests of those with a few bucks. The poor kids are priced out of the high paying jobs. And as more and more of the wealth funneled into the financial sector, as no one gives a shit about anything but that and tech anymore, it sucked all of the cash out of the other professions. Nothing in this country will be fixed until we start looking at corporations and economies wholistically, over the longer term. If all we fixate on is cost cutting by removing or arbitraging labor abroad, all of the money will continue to drift into the financial sector (until it succeeds in then eliminating itself with algorithms, which it's doing to an extent already).

There are two options as I see it: Rein in finance and create a new "Contract with Labor" in which corporations are charged with benefiting society as a whole rather than just meeting quarterlies. (If corporations are people, then they should be strongly compelled to act decently, as people are, no?) This would allow for workers to earn decent pay and organically grow the economy. Option two is let everything go to shit and live in one of two dystopias:

DemocratLand: Where the half of society that's eliminated from economic activity is managed with a mix of safety nets.
GOPLand: Where the half of society eliminated from economic activity is ignored and subsists in hellish conditions with minimal safety nets.

I fear the people doing alright at the moment (the top 20%) favor the second option. They like the way things are going and don't really want change. They just disagree about what form of dystopia the economic losers degrade into over the coming decades.

You sound like the sort of Democrat who feels a need to disparage other Democrats (e.g., by saying their plans is to put half the society on safety nets), economic hippie-bashing to win credibility with those to your right.

Yes, trusting the free market is not working. Yes, it's hard to find good ways to foster shared, robust economic growth.