About that Iron Mine…

Yeah…  Economist Joseph Stiglitz points to the kind of economic policies pursued by the Walker administration, and Republicans in general, that create the kinds of economic distortions that drive levels of inequality higher in America.

Inequality is bad for growth, stability and efficiency. … Inequality peaked both before the Great Depression and before the Great Recession, and it’s not an accident. So basically, when we have a lot of inequality, demand goes down. … All this inequality was offset by creating a bubble. The bubble allowed people to consume more. Now we have the inequality but we don’t have a bubble, and that means that we will have persistent, weak demand, and therefore unless we create another bubble it’s going to be very difficult for us to get back to full employment.

A lot of the inequality that we have in the United States is created by distortions – excessive financial sector, monopolies like Microsoft … giving the oil companies, mining companies resources at a discount. … These things distort the economy, while they create wealth at the top. So it’s not wealth creation – it’s wealth redistribution, which makes the size of the pie smaller.

This kind of trickle-up economics, where private companies blackmail the public with threats of job loss or job non-creation if these companies aren’t given all kinds of breaks is the kind of corporate welfare is insidious.  It shifts money from citizens to corporations.

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