If Wages go up...

So wages have been stagnant since the late 70s. More time than I have been on this earth. They have been stuck for so long that it is accepted truth that this is the only reality we have. I disagree. What would our society be like if wages had kept going up? This would not have forced us to use our homes as our primary source of wealth. Our wives wouldn't have been forced to move into the workforce just to stay middle class. We could have avoided taking out home equity loans to cover expenses after since two incomes doesn't cover expenses in a lot of cases nowadays. We could have kept our pensions in our jobs and 401(k)s wouldn't have been as attractive because the lack of income caused by stagnant wages wouldn't have existed. It would be very different. It would be so much better. This is a class war, no doubt. One I feel stronger about more and more each day. Now, I think that if anyone is going to make an argument against this, it is going to be someone who is rich and in the establishment.

Robert Reich of Salon said it perfectly in his Feb. 3rd article in Salon:

What happened to the money? According to researchers Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, since the late 1970s, a greater and greater share of national income has gone to people at the top of the earnings ladder. As late as 1976, the richest 1 percent of the country took home about 9 percent of the total national income. By 2006, they were pocketing more than 20 percent. But the rich don't spend as much of their income as the middle class and the poor do -- after all, being rich means that you already have most of what you need. That's why the concentration of income at the top can lead to a big shortfall in overall demand and send the economy into a tailspin. (It's not coincidental that 1928 was the last time that the top 1 percent took home more than 20 percent of the nation's income.)

If this can get fixed, and I hope that I can in some small way to help make it happen. Then I have hope for our future as a country and I will have some pride in being an American. I will be able to look my son in the eye when he gets to a point in his life where he can confront these issues and be able to tell him that my generation was able to make things right.

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