Our Latin American Inequality

One thing I love about the blogs is the virtual hobnobbing, or mutual pontificating, perhaps, of esteemed academics alongside the struggling single mother.  Though the former is still more or less observing the latter from a distance, from my Google Reader to your screen they both are trying to make sense of our crumbling economy and very circumscribed future.

MIT economist Simon Johnson lays out the case for what he sees as the Latin Americanization of the United States.  And not in the way that hard-line anti-immigrant types would think.  He demonstrates that the supposed economic recovery we're experiencing is really only impacting the upper 10% of Americans, while the rest of us struggle through joblessness, hunger and housing prices that are likely to remain weak for a decade.

"The United States has, over the past two decades, started to take on characteristics more traditionally associated with Latin America: extreme income inequality, rising poverty levels, and worsening health conditions for many.  The elite live well and seem not to mind repeated cycles of economic-financial crisis."

He ventures that wealthy Americans - who run our government, more or less - sit out these boom-and-bust cycles, but that eventually they'll be punished with lower overall economic growth.  They shudder to think of it, I'm sure.

Folks over at Counterpunch recommend a debtor's revolt, and hint at such an uprising in Europe.  I would argue that if we're going to become more like our neighbors to the South, then we'd better develop their class analysis and activism as well.

Whatever happened to the Employee Free Choice Act?   Have we become entirely focused on health reform?  (These search results certainly suggest that.)

(Photo of the Latin American Workers' Association by Martinxxxxx)