If you have a yard full of orange trees, lemon trees, and lime trees, and the lemons and limes had all been picked, which fruit would be left?
Thanks to whatever group you care to name and blame, the “limes” and “lemons,” i.e., the middle classes and the poor, are fast losing ground in this century. Their demise began in the last century when capitalism began to take a global turn in earnest.
In this century we can expect to see continuing unemployment, cuts in programs for the poor, and wage decreases due to union-busting, the coming inflation, and pressure from the unemployed who increasingly will be cut off from unemployment compensation.
And there is an imminent threat to the rich too.
This week Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs wrote an article for the Financial Times titled, “Stop this race to the bottom on corporate tax“. Sachs points out that the dominance and mobility of global capitalism is pushing the US and other countries into a race for the bottom when it comes to corporate taxes and loopholes for taxes on the rich.
Says Sachs, “The problem [with this race to the bottom] is that both the US and UK are aiming to do the impossible: run a modern, high-technology, prosperous 21st-century knowledge economy without the requisite tax base…” Continue reading →