As Reaganomics transferred America’s wealth to the top as wages stagnated, the economy kept humming because Americans supplemented their spending power with easy credit card debt, consumer debt.
Reaganomics put both the country & individual in debt
One has to ask if we had great levels of prosperity under Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, why is it that much of it did not translate into broad wealth creation? In other words, why is it that the booming market in which many thought they were doing well, did not allow them to accumulate anything.
It was a phantom economy just like we have now. It was extractive. Everybody works for wages that were not keeping up with their inflated costs for healthcare, products, services, and much more. The powers encouraged them to borrow which they did.
The bankers, the Plutocracy made a killing on all sides. They profited from paying lower wages. They benefited from raising prices on everything not in line with any increased pay. And they make money as Americans struggle to pay back debt at relatively high interest rates. That is the definition of extraction.
Those without pricing power have no way of controlling their destiny in an economy defined as ours. If a few can set the price of everything you must have at will, you are an indentured servant to the system unless we force it to be more humane, more egalitarian. It seems the mythical market is anathema to the economic success of the many. Reaganomics is an abject failure.
It is time for Americans to understand that the problem is neither themselves or their neighbors, but the economic system. This acknowledgment requires us to free ourselves from a system that a few brainwashed us into, forcing us to believe it is the only way and that any changes are somehow a loss of our freedoms. The converse is where the truth lies. It is time to self-embolden and seek other options. That is what candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are offering. It is not the time for a failed nostalgic mythical center. We must move forward.