Third Party & Independents Archives

Yes, we should take heart in the fact that we can experience the loss of political figures, and great change in policy or the direction of government and survive it all as a nation. However, the Founder’s didn’t leave us with a government as a glass half empty. We were left with a glass half full as in ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. We should rail against mediocrity in government, the status quo or underperforming officials. That said in the context of abiding by the Constitution. We have a lot of housecleaning to do in that regard.

We do indeed, Roy.

I like your glass half full analogy, it is very apropos’. It is hard these days, after trillions of dollars of mismanagement in the past, to see the glass half full going forward, despite the Constitutional prospective.

Kennedy stood up for his convictions. He was a great man. Even though I think I disagree with most of what he stood for I respected him and mourn his passing.

Bernake is the right man for this time. He is a scholar of the Great Depression and I believe future scholars of the economy will credit him with preventing its return.

I don’t think you will get any naysayers on this post, but I am not sure what you mean by saying the transition after JFK was not peaceful. Indeed, he was murdered by a crazy man, but Lyndon Johnson quickly assumed power, peacefully and according to the rule of law, w/o any significant opposition.

Christine, the line was: “This peaceful transition of power, unlike that of JFK, marks one of America’s great strengths.”

The transition from JFK to LBJ was not peaceful and non-violent. It was a political assassination. Remember Sirhan Sirhan? He had a political motive for changing the President.

Last I checked, our rule of law does not endorse assassination as the method of transitioning from one president to the next.

Always remembering Senator Kennedy in the Congress I do wish that he would have stayed around long enough to see what the Children of the 21st Century has learned from their parents and grandparents. For remembering times that I just wanted to scream at the Senator unwillingness to move his political position even a hair. I personally take forward a better understand of the American Dream.

Because why I can’t tell you how “We the People” are going to get there or even what it will look like once every American learns how and why they are to be rconomically viable and financially independent. Having the ability to speak open and honestly with the Children of My Brothers and Sisters of the 70’s I do see the American Dream of the 60’s and 70’s being drawfted by a generation who actual understtand the Political Argument of Ignorance being Debated in Congress.

So as America searches for a path back from the Bottoms’ Edge I hope that most Americans can take refuge in the fact that Senator Edward Ted Kennedy like other American Elders never meet a Challange that they would not meet straight on.

The transition from JFK to LBJ was not peaceful and non-violent. It was a political assassination. Remember Sirhan Sirhan? He had a political motive for changing the President.

What does Sirhan Sirhan have to do with the assasination of JFK???

David

A criminal killed JFK. His death was not peaceful, but the transition of power subsequently was. If Kennedy had died of a massive stroke, the transition would have worked the same way. The people who succeeded into power had nothing to do with the murder, did not seize power through violence and there was no violence in the procedure.

And Sirhan didn’t murder a president at all, so it had nothing to do at all with the peaceful transition of power.

I think if we define things so broadly as to include all sorts of tangential factors and squeeze out the essentials, we cannot use the information to aid understanding or support decisions.

In the JFK example, if you were advising a young democracy in the peaceful transition of power, what kind of lesson could you draw? I think the only lesson would be how the system of peaceful transition WORKED in a very stressful situation.

The lesson you can learn from the murder itself is unrelated to transition and you could draw the same conclusions whether or not there was a transition of power. You have to have better security and maybe better law enforcement.

Schwamp, right, S,S was the other Kennedy. My bad. It was a long day.

Christine, LH Oswald had a motive for killing JFK, and it appears to have been tied to JFK’s policy toward Cuba. Though, of course it could just as easily been mob related, Giancana, among others. In any event, it was not a violent transition of power. That was the point. Assassination is a violent transition of power.

And may I remind you that just 4 years later our cities were burning and there were riots in the streets, and demonstrations against power, and national guard shooting rock and bottle throwing students and some innocent bystanders. No, it was a violent transition of power. I know. I lived through it. Bore witness to it live in Detroit and on TV throughout those tumultuous and violent years born of civil discontent and government ignorance and police violence, and governor hate speech. The JFK assassination helped spark a disillusionment with our government, and a vocal distrust of it.

David

We Americans are very lucky, so lucky that we can refer to such things as you mention as violent changes of power. In many places, violent change of power means thousands killed, gulags and tens of thousands or millions disappeared.

God bless the USA. Okay, by Americans standard it was a violent change of power. I suppose by Bill Gates standards a million dollar home is a hovel and a 6’ tall man is a shrimp in the NBA. As long we we know the ball park we are playing in.

I agree, however, that the 1960s were a bad time. It took us a generation to recover. But I don’t think we can blame it all on the death of JFK. Johnson had a lot to do with the disillusionment, if you want to blame Johnson on JFK’s death you can and his overreach did create a big trouble that we still face.

JFK barely won the election of 1960. The country was closely divided and the election of 1964 would have been close too. But JFK’s death propelled Johnson to a great undeserved mandate. He overreached. The reaction was Nixon, who overreached. Then we got Carter, who under-reached. Then a great mandate for Reagan; you see the pattern.

Christine said: “We Americans are very lucky, so lucky that we can refer to such things as you mention as violent changes of power.”

Yep! That IS PRECISELY what this article said.

Thank you.

Christine said: “But I don’t think we can blame it all on the death of JFK.”

Yes, then we agree with my previous statement: “The JFK assassination helped spark a disillusionment with our government, and a vocal distrust of it.” ‘Helping spark’ is a far cry from ‘blaming it all’.

David

I don’t think the assassination did it except to the extent that it brought Johnson to power and gave a giant dollop of hubris to a man already richly endowed with it. The Great Society, the Vietnam experience did in faith in government. But the demographics of the baby boom were already at work.

Think about the other similar transitions. Lincoln’s assassination probably strengthened the Republic’s will. Garfield was just a bump. McKinley is an interesting counter example to the Johnson debacle, because it brought a strong President to power and so the county did all right. So the transitions may exacerbate trends, slow them or do nothing. Sort of depends on the players and what they do next.

Re what the article say, I thought you were just trying to praise Teddy and Bernake.

BTW - I can call Teddy Kennedy great, forgive his indiscretions and mourn his passing as a great man. I believe that on balance he did more harm to our country than good, but I will wait until the dust settles and let the historians figure out the balance.

Christine said: “I don’t think the assassination did it except to the extent that it brought Johnson to power and gave a giant dollop of hubris to a man already richly endowed with it.”

I would disagree with that interpretation based on my own experience of the reactions of folks in Detroit, at the time. If our government could not protect the President, none of US were safe. That was the reaction I picked up from a teacher, my parents and grandparents, and some other adults. I was 13 at the time.

There was a pervasive sense that our government was not in control. The Cuban missile crisis was still fresh in folks minds, the Cold War was at its Zenith, and the Communists were at our back lower door. The assasination spurred a sense of helplessness, and psychologically speaking, helplessness is often followed by rage and violent reaction. Just 4 years later, with the additions of rage over the civil rights violence, and hostility by Blacks at the nearly all-white Police Department making arrests at a blind pig, Detroit was set ablaze just blocks from my apartment and where I was working at the Detroit Art Museum in Summer Stock Theater.

JFK was perceived as a champion of the African American community, and his efforts and protections promised were taken away from the African American community in Detroit as the government stood idly by, or, as rumors had it, then, was complicit in JFK’s assassination.

One thing piled atop another. JFK’s assassination was a spark and contributor to the psychology that erupted into violence in the years following his assassination.

By 1967, LBJ’s civil rights objectives and legislation were taking a back seat to the anti-war movement, and African American resentment of the draft which, so many white kids were able to circumvent via student visas or monied connections to doctors who would provide letters to the draft board of conditions precluding military service. LBJ to this day, does not get the credit he deserved for his attempts to advance the cause of Civil Rights, as a result of the war, and the counter-culture revolution taking place across college campuses, and spilling into the high schools like wild fire.

David
I don’t know. I never lived in a time when people had complete confidence in the Federal government. I suspect that those wonderful times are either mostly a fable or the anomaly of a unique time just after WWII.

I have noticed in my own lifetime that people tend to misremember their own feelings before some big event and look back with more fondness than the time deserves. As a thirteen-year-old, this would have been your first almost adult experience. I am sure the people who expressed their feelings were telling you what they thought to be the truth.

I remember reading about the supposedly united fifties. That was a time when on the one side you had the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss were trying to destroy our society from the left and on the other McCarthy was bringing people before congressional committees and destroying freedom from that direction. I cannot believe the people involved with this had a lot of confidence in the Federal government nor did they seem to feel part of the same society. Many of the societal breakdowns we saw in the 1960s were just bubbling back then.

I give LBJ credit for his ATTEMPTS to make things better. I am just a little younger than you are, so I cannot say for sure, but I believe I would have supported LBJ’s attempts in the 1960s. But I came of age when we were suffering under the results of his big ideas. I now see his overreach as a good case study of how good intended big programs can make worse the conditions they are supposed to address.

We learned from the mistakes of the sixties that incremental, iterative change gets things done best. We never can anticipate all the interconnections in our complex society and too sweeping changes create all sorts of unintended negative results.

Kennedy was a good president, but not a great one. The weakness he displayed in the early part of his tenure and his behavior at the Vienna Summit, convince Khrushchev that he could roll the good looking young guy. It led to the building of the Berlin Wall and almost led to nuclear war when Kennedy had to prove himself in the Cuban missile crisis. After his untimely death, people read in all sorts of things he would have done. What he really DID do was cut taxes (good), show weakness toward the Soviets (bad) but redeem himself albeit at great risk (good). He greatly increased our involvement in Vietnam and was passively complicit in the murder of the Vietnamese president (bad). He showed more support for civil rights than Eisenhower (good) but really accomplished not so much, despite the pressure from his brother (less good). He was good looking and charismatic (good) but he showed a troubling capacity for misleading the public and people around him (bad mostly, sometimes good).

Had he not been killed, IMO, he would have been remembered a lot like Bill Clinton.

BTW - Many rich white kids avoided the draft (they are often now the movers of academia). Poor ones went as often as anybody else. Many patriotic Americans of all races volunteered, and the dying was equal opportunity. Of the 58,193 Americans killed in the war, 50,120 were white. http://www.archives.gov/research/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html#race.

Christine said: “I don’t know. I never lived in a time when people had complete confidence in the Federal government.”

I did, though I was not old enough to appreciate it. The post WWII period to 1962, was a time, by historical accounts, when confidence in the federal government was high. But, perfection, as Plato tells us, is not of this world. So, when discussing confidence levels in the federal government, one must refer to relative levels. And to be empirical about it, one must refer to polling data, if they exist for the period in question.

Christine said: “I have noticed in my own lifetime that people tend to misremember their own feelings before some big event and look back with more fondness than the time deserves.”

Yes, this and other memory phenomena are well documented in research. Which is why empirical, statistical measures are best in addressing social phenomenon, rather than anecdotal recollections. However, public opinion rests far more upon anecdotal recollections than on empirical data.

Christine said: “I now see his overreach as a good case study of how good intended big programs can make worse the conditions they are supposed to address.”

How can you be sure he did not overreach, and that the worsened conditions were not a product of mismanagement of the ideas afterward?

Too often, policies are set in place to address issues and well crafted initially. But, time marches on, and if subsequent administrations, courts, and Congress’ don’t reevaluate and adjust policies for changing circumstances, great programs can and will eventually produced unintended results. This is an inherent flaw with our two party system, in which, their musical chairs of reversing or failing to maintain previous Party’s initiatives, result in previous solutions becoming problems in their own right.

No intelligent person would argue with the concept that long term issues require long term consistently applied solutions. Reversing solutions everr 8 or 16 years meant to address issues 20 years or more outward, is a prescription for failure in addressing those long term issues.

As for Kennedy, what you recite about his administration is all hindsight and has no bearing on how he was perceived during, and in the several years following, his administration for the general public.

Your statistic on whites dying in Viet Nam says nothing other than 14% who died were non-white. Doesn’t change the perceptions of the time in situ.

David

No disagreement about most of your comments on my comments.

Re LBJ – the overreach is almost always the result of implementation. That is the hard part. It is easy to imagine solutions. Reality tends to set in soon after somebody tries it out. Our society is really complex. Back in the 1960s, we suffered from a little more hubris that we COULD both understand it and manage it.

I do disagree with your characterization of “reversing policies.” You have to have a dynamic system that responds to changing circumstances and allows learning. No individual or group of individuals is smart enough and/or has the necessary information to do complex DETAILED planning twenty years into the future.

I think we need to design a PROCESS that keeps the intent in mind but changes course and “reverses” as necessary. The tired old analogy (but still a good one) is that an airliner crossing the Atlantic is “off course” most of the time. The crew is constantly bringing it back on line to the goal by responding to changes and circumstance.

Politics has trouble with this kind of planning because it tends toward credit and blame. They also has a two-year time horizon. The investments today’s president and congress put in place will pay off, or not, five or ten years OR MORE from now when they won’t get credit. On the other hand, a quick fix that pays off now at the cost of future benefits is very attractive for politicians.

In the Great Society case, as one example, it was clear by the early 1970s that concentrating the poor in public housing and tying welfare benefits to child production was creating a hateful situation and a persistent under class. But too many politicians, bureaucrats, contractors and others were invested in the failed system. They chose to blame outside factors and throw more money at the problem.

Re Kennedy and perceptions of the time. Kennedy was not wildly popular during his term. He looked forward to a tough reelection campaign. You are right that the perceptions changed when he was shot.

The other false perception – that blacks were doing most of the fighting and dying in Vietnam – is more troubling. That was evidently active disinformation spread by radicals and probably by Soviet active measures. We found a lot about their activities when the KGB files were opened. A lot of people ignorantly went along with the lies and indeed – as you say – the perception was very bad for our county, just as those passing the rumors hoped.

As a tangent – it was recently revealed that the police officer who shot a student protester in Berlin in 1967 – the shot that set off much of the student rebellion and inspired the terrorism of the 1970s, was actually an East German agent http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/world/europe/27germany.html.

This was sort of the German “Kent State” photo. It was set up by the bad guys and it worked - for more than forty years.

You are right about the perceptions and that is tragic. A lot of what happened in the 1960s - and a lot of the perceptions - was based on lies.

Christine said: “I think we need to design a PROCESS that keeps the intent in mind but changes course and “reverses” as necessary.”

NOT POSSIBLE with a two party system that reverses each other’s policies. Democrats initiated HeadStart. Bush and Republicans came along and reversed it by putting forth No Child Left Behind which they refused to fund adequately. That was a reversal of the Headstart long term investment in education. Just because Bush and Republicans put a misleading name on their policy, doesn’t mean they didn’t IN FACT, refuse to fund early child education. The undereducated afterall, are the GOP’s base in the South, and they are well aware of it, as GOP representatives (ala David Vitter) support the utterances and likes of Rush Limbaugh who cater to that under educated audience who swallow entirely illogical and false statements as if gospel from on high.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Democratic politicians also harbor a desire to keep future voters away from education that would engender questioning authority, but, they aren’t as blatant about it, and their policies do fund early education programs for the disadvantaged.

Christine said: “On the other hand, a quick fix that pays off now at the cost of future benefits is very attractive for politicians. “

That is true enough. Which is why the voters have the inefficient and corrupt government they vote for. Until voters hold their own representatives accountable on election day for their approval or disapproval of Congress’s results as a whole, voters will continue to have the disappointing incumbent run government they vote for.

“peaceful transition of power”?, “sirhan,sirhan”??
What is this author talking about???
Power is transitioning from EMK to an empty seat.

Bernanke was already a failure during the last administration. The current administration’s reappointment of him clearly proves that they have no ideas any different than what their opposition would do in the same situation.

David

You got it right, but draw the logical conclusion. Big government cannot tackle complicated and/or controversial problems because it cannot plan in the way required by our dynamic information society.

That does not mean it can do nothing or has no role. ON the contrary. Government is essential. But government’s role is to set general direction and create infrastructure that allows the people to create prosperity. The era of big government may not be over (unfortunately, Clinton was wrong) but the era of the hoped for efficient big government was over by 1970.

Christine, where we differ is after you say: “But government’s role is to set general direction and create infrastructure that allows the people to create prosperity.”

For you, and your party, that word: “people” refers to the current system where a very few own most of the nation’s wealth, the majority own a piece of it, and a smaller but growing minority own none of it.

Hence, the opposition to the GOP by the majority who booted Republicans out. You see, that majority would not have held doubling the national debt against Republicans IF their policies had enriched the majority and secured the economy for prosperity. Instead, the GOP doubled the national debt, kept the middle class’ wages stagnant while fostering a private sector without appropriate oversight and regulation, and championed executive salaries which the majority of Americans and consumers cannot afford on their stagnant or declining real wages.

Yes, government has a responsibility for the infrastructure needed to support private sector economic activity and protect it. But, it also has a responsibility to ensure against predatory behavior by the rich and powerful over the average American, which the GOP finds abhorrent. One need only look at the incredible rise of executive salaries in the face of extraordinary incompetence and lack of responsibility by those same execs under the GOP rule, or, the 47 million uninsured or, BofA’s 32% interest rates designed to create paupers in perpetuity to see the results of GOP policies.

I bring these up because your comment reflects a much more benign representation, of what I suspect your comment is really saying, that government has no role to play in wealth and services redistribution. I, of course, disagree since, the private sector is both unwilling and incapable of insuring health care access for all Americans, requiring government intervention toward that end. And the private sector, would, without progressive taxation, tie up the nation’s entire wealth into so few hands, as to bring about economic collapse, as was partially the case in 1929.

When 70% of the nation’s economy depends DIRECTLY upon consumers, and close to 60% of the nation’s wealth is held by several thousands of that 330 million population, and economic calamity is in the making. The day is coming when overseas investments will attract American wealth, and American wealth no longer circulates in the American economy. That is prescription for disaster that comes straight out of the GOP’s playbook, though, remarkably, they don’t even see it, or at least, don’t confess to seeing it.

ohrealy, Bernanke saved the world. That is the opinion of the vast majority of economicians. I will agree with them, and not you on this point; sorry!

I will put a feather in your cap however, if you want to lambast the Obama administration and Democrats for not taking immediate measures to pare down the size of these ‘too big to fail’ monstrosities created by the GLB Act and mergers and acquisitions since its passage.

To blame the deficits on ‘too big to fail’ bailouts they say were required, without taking action to reduce their size to ‘small enough to fail’ requiring no government rescue, is unconscionable.

“saved the world”, DRR, do you have access to PBS where you live? Much of what you write suggests that you’ve never seen any news reports that concentrate on actual detailed reporting rather than biased puff pieces where there is an agreement not to offend the object of the piece.

On “mergers and acquisitions”, 2.3 million just vanished into thin air from the loan on one house in Wilmette. I used to know the owners of the local banks. Now I’m banking with Russians.

ohrealy, I rely on a great number of resources for my information. Which is why I can honestly state that the majority of economicians agree The Fed’s rapid and voluminous actions to coordinate a global central bank response to the looming credit market and banking collapses literally saved the world from global economic depression, and worse.

What does one home’s loan have to do with mergers and acquisitions? Your comment makes no sense.

David

For me “the people” means just that. There are more smart people outside than inside any organization, and that includes government. We are better off using their imaginations, intelligence and innovation rather than trying to tell them what to do.

Ultimate legitimate power rests in the people - all the people. The government doesn’t have the need to “fight” for or against any of them who follows the law.

Government in our democracy represents the people, but imperfectly, since its execution and implementation must be in the hands of fallible people.

Greed and power seeking are common vices. History shows that when government becomes too powerful, ambitious people abuse it and oppress others. In the 20th century, we witnessed absolute nightmares of communism and fascism. Experience also shows that greedy people will try to get richer and concentrate wealth and power in their hands. Liberty exists in the spaces created by separating power and distributing it widely.

My father was a socialist who taught me to dislike rich people. I overcame this prejudice when I observed that among the rich, like others, were good and bad individuals. I also saw that wealth in America was fluid. Poor people became rich. Some rich people became poor. The income distribution remained more or less the same, but the people in the pyramid changed.

I don’t have any love of the wealthy. My economic morality supports those who are productive and behave in responsible ways. I don’t like people who are indolent, shiftless or hedonistic. The idle rich are despicable as the idle poor.

I don’t know what we can do about this problem. The poorest half of the population already pays almost nothing in net income taxes. Maybe the Democrats have some real ideas.

I still dislike those very high salaries paid to CEOs, sports stars, fat-cat trial lawyers and entertainers. Let’s see how Obama changes this. Let’s see IF the Democrats even try. They talk a good game, but don’t do much about it as they shuttle between lucrative jobs at Goldman-Sacks and the lesser paid but more powerful government positions that make those jobs possible.

If I can make a simple suggestion for you. Check today how much of the national wealth is in the hands of the richest 10%. Today. Not yesterday or tomorrow. Check back on August 28, 2013. I bet the top 10% will make a greater % in 2013 than they do now. Just as they did after Bill Clinton’s terms compared to when he came in.

Christine said: “For me “the people” means just that. There are more smart people outside than inside any organization, and that includes government. We are better off using their imaginations, intelligence and innovation rather than trying to tell them what to do.”

Sounds like the words of a direct democracy advocate. Rather ironic, don’t you think? Perhaps a bit of cognitive dissonance here?

Christine said: “Government in our democracy represents the people, but imperfectly…”

I agree with your entire statement. People represent themselves, imperfectly. There are very few people of integrity in the world, Christine. Government reflects the strengths and weaknesses of its people in the long run. We agree on this.

Christine said: “History shows that when government becomes too powerful, ambitious people abuse it and oppress others.”

Okay. But, this line of thinking leads to the Tea Partyist on TV today shouting over and over again, Government is the Problem, as if anarchy were the preferred alternative.

The government of the United States however, since Reconstruction, has shown an incredible historical record of overcoming so many of the abuses prior to, and following Reconstruction.

Minority suffrage, end of slavery, trial by innuendo during the McCarthy era, civil rights, child labor protections, the end of sweat shops and indentured servitude and company store indentured servitude, senior citizen discardment, and a legally protected right to emergency medical treatment; all these offenses by the rich and powerful, in and outside government, have been overcome by our government. Our government remains an example of what good government can do for people, since Reconstruction. What many on the Right erroneously refer to as the age of Socialism in America.

Socialist policy has been part and parcel of our governments’ designs, at the State and federal levels, from the signing of the U.S. Constitution. The very creation of the Judicial Branch, for example, was a socialist construction, in which government revenues would be expended to defend the rights of individuals and individual States, at public expense.

Though there was no income tax, the Constitution sanctioned tariffs as one of several means of funding government, to the detriment of certain private enterprises I might add.

Our government was a brilliant invention. And its evolution has facilitated the greatest national development in two centuries as history has ever witnessed. Our nation is faced with dire challenges today. If those opposed to action to meet those challenges are defeated, our government will continue its shining record of evolution toward a more perfect union. I believe that.

Christine said: “Check today how much of the national wealth is in the hands of the richest 10%. Today. Not yesterday or tomorrow. Check back on August 28, 2013. I bet the top 10% will make a greater % in 2013 than they do now. Just as they did after Bill Clinton’s terms compared to when he came in.”

My crystal ball has never worked. So, you might be proved right. I dunno. Changing the distribution of wealth in an economy this size is not easily accomplished in 4 years, if it is accomplished at all.

I suspect however, that you might not be proved right by 2017. Just my guess if Obama is reelected. Not due to any mandates by his administration. But, due to his influence upon the general public which will become less tolerant of the competitive bidding war for exec salaries for example, by shareholders whose profitability will be seen as diminished by such outrageous compensation packages. Then there is the progressive taxation policy which I believe will prevent your prediction from becoming true. The Bush tax cuts will not remain on the books through 2013. By 2017, that alone will prevent your prediction from becoming true, I suspect.

Please, please, help us insure that Sarah Palin becomes the GOP nominee for President in 2012. Then our nation may just have a chance of gaining some ground on these challenges which we are beset with.

David

I AM a direct democracy advocate, so I find no irony. I just don’t think we can achieve it through government. Government is representative not direct. Our society can provide direct democracy in the sense it can give everybody choices on the topics most important to them through the free market.

Re tea parties – I don’t think they are advocating anarchy, but I cannot speak for them. I advocate STRONG government in its appropriate role. Government is a problem when it steps outside its legitimate role. A good analogy is water, which is essential for life but is a problem when it floods outside the banks of the river.

I believe our American government is certainly among the best in the world and absolutely the best government ever in a large and diverse country. Other large countries have been ruled by governments that overreached. We don’t want to repeat the errors that ruined them.

In your list of abuses, BTW, McCarthism and indentured servitude were both government sanctioned. You couldn’t have had McCarthy w/o government enforcement.

Re 2013 – I wasn’t playing fair. Inequality grows with economic growth and falls when we have hard times. Inequality DROPPED in 2002 – despite the tax cuts - because the rich took a bigger hit on their portfolios. It dropped again last year and in 2007, for the same reason. The Gini Coefficient was almost identical (i.e. no higher) at the end of the Bush Presidency as it was in the beginning. (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p60no231_tablea3.pdf) If the economy picks up, so will inequality. Obama, Bush or Clinton really have not much to do with it. It is a consequence of globalization.

So unless the economy remains in the toilet or globalization is reversed, the trends will continue.