Economic Inequality

Bill De Blasio Would Be First NYC Progressive Mayor Since John Lindsay And Fiorello La Guardia!

Ronald 2 Comments

NYC Public Advocate Bill De Blasio has surged to the lead in polls for the Democratic primary for NYC Mayor, over Anthony Weiner, Bill Thompson, and Christine Quinn, and it is clear that he would be the best hope for a progressive mayor, who would work to end economic inequality, and promote education and health care, and seek to limit Wall Street power, so evident under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Mayor with a mixed record.

And the fact that he has been against “Stop and Frisk”, the policy just declared unconstitutional by a federal judge, the only candidate to be against it all along, helps De Blasio, who is married to an African American woman, and has a 15 year old son, who, with his African American appearance and age, would be a prime candidate for being stopped by the police, based on racial profiling.

New York City has not had a true progressive Mayor since John Lindsay (1966-1973), who had many shortcomings, and really, the last truly progressive mayor and success as Mayor goes back to Fiorello La Guardia (1934-1945).

Class Division, Conflict, Stress Multiplying: Dangerous For American Social Stability!

Ronald Leave a comment

A new survey demonstrates that the biggest problem developing socially in America is economic class conflict and division, more than racial differences or the debate over immigration.

Economic inequality, leading to a sense of rich versus poor, and very little middle class, is a time bomb that could endanger the nation’s future.

The great increase in this feeling is, interestingly, most common among whites, middle income earners, and independent voters, but also increased among Republicans.

73 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Independents believe there is strong economic class conflict.

Also, 71 percent of those who earned between $40,000 and $75,000 believed there are strong class conflicts, up from 47 percent in 2009.

The Census Bureau has come up with the figure that the top ten percent of the population have 56 percent of the national income in 2009, up from 49 percent in 2005.

If this trend continues, and if the masses become more and more resentful at the unfairness of national income distribution and taxation policies, it is not going to benefit the Republican Party, and could lead to demands for far greater taxation of the wealthy, already at the lowest level it has been since the 1920s!