And the poor got poorer!

"The percentage of Americans struggling below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest it has been in 15 years, the Census Bureau reported Thursday, and interviews with poverty experts and aid groups said the increase appeared to be continuing this year."

We're just going through a little period of adjustment while the consumers we don't need anymore drop through the cracks. We'll get those star salaries back up there where they belong before you know it.

I can't remember the last time I watch a Hollywood movie. I've been watching a lot of foreign films and find they do a lot more with a lot less. I just watched Un Prophete which has some great performances from a bunch of first time actors.

Screw the rich and screw Hollywood.

And how much net wealth is possessed by the bottom 25% of Americans?

Zero.

75,000,000 people.

Zero net wealth.

And that isn't an average!

Just to get into the very exclusive club of the bottom quartile of the distribution of wealth in America, you have to have nothing.

Zero wealth!

All 75,000,000 of them!

Their total net wealth all together is exactly the same as the net wealth of each and every one of them.

Zero.

And every single one of them believes America is the land of opportunity!

The strange thing is that for most of the history of capitalism while the rich did get richer, the poor really did not get all that much poorer. Conditions actually improved a little due to efforts by trade unions, progressives etc., which gave us public education and some broader opportunities. But lately the crises have gotten bigger and they've been coming closer together. This one is the biggest since the 30's, yes, but the one in the early 90's was nothing to sneeze at, and neither was the one after the dot.com bubble burst, and the one after 9/11... In the past, poverty only deepened at the very bottom, and from one generation to the next. With this more recent pattern it's not unusual to see the entire bottom drop out of whole sectors of the public all at once.

I just watched Michael Moore's 1989 film "Roger and Me" again, and despite the title and the supposed focus on GM President Roger Smith, it's really about the town of Flint and the rapid social decline there in the wake of the first wave of globalization. It's amazing to watch how quickly people can be reduced to almost nothing. If anything the current crisis, which swept through poor communities in the form of massive foreclosures first, is playing out in slow motion through the rest of the economy. It's like we're all living in Flint circa '89 now, only some of us don't know it yet.

rated.

yeah.

----We need a better ghost in the machine...----

Sir, we must bring back real Laws, those that punish begging in the street and living under bridges and such. Yea, verily, civilized times. I await your reply. Hurumph! Hurumph! Amen.