We've become accustomed to the Ratchet Effect in American politics, the idea that our politics keep moving to the Right.  (Thanks, Ellen.)

Loosely speaking, some other Ratchet Effects are occurring. One huge one concerns the migration of wealth upward; recent figures say that the Ruling Class 1% now owns around 45% of the country's wealth (their assets, minus what they owe), and the bottom 50% owns about 2% of our wealth (by 2007 figures).  If the old adage is true: It takes money to make money, now we're off to the races!  (ratchet, ratchet)

We tend to blame Congress and the President and the Fed for a lot our current predicaments (and we should, IMO), but if we step back and look at wealth inequality, we have to admit that there is a Ruling Elite, an Oligarchy that is also responsible.

We used to laugh a bit at Euro-nations whose businesses and government were so entwined (think: BP and England, for instance), but we're now seeing increased evidence of it in the US, and we're frustrated at our lack of options for reversing the trend.  How entwined was the White House with BP, we want to know, and for good reason.  Is 75% of the oil released in the Gulf really gone?  Are the shrimp and clams and crabs really safe to eat?

Citizens United was a low blow for regular Americans; it's effectively erased constraints on advertising dollars spent for elections.  Even the Democrat's Crap Bill to neutralize the SCOTUS decsion which simply required a line identifying who paid for an advertisement was shot down recently.  Good grief; if ad sponsors need to be hidden from voters, what's up with that? (Read Jim Hightower on it here.)

Over the past decade or two, Americans seem to have been fairly inured  to the fact that the CEOs of major corporations received such huge salaries and bonuses and profits.  And of course their incomes being ratcheted upward had a lot of different causes: stagnating wages for workers, off-shoring aided by NAFTA, tax loopholes, disinterested corporate boards, you can name more causes...  But still there was the over-arching shrugs the public made: Hey, they probably deserve all that largesse!  They know more than we do, and should be rewarded for it; they're captains of industry, of banks; they know how the system works, and we don't! They're the ones who provide the jobs, and pay the most taxes!

So now with the Bush Tax cuts about to expire on Dec. 31 of this year unless Congress acts, there's some discussion around tax fairness; it will be interesting to see how it plays out.  The most recent polls show a large majority of Americans are convinced that at least those making over a quarter of a million a year should have their rates raised.  A  little more...uh...progressive tax rate.

 American workers' income hasn't even kept up with cost of living increases, and wages are the lowest in decades in real terms.  And Reagan's union-busting has settled out in something like 12% of workers being unionized.  Unions have been successfully pressured  to settle for decreases in health coverage and pensions, and are stuck with supporting Democrats for now, even though currently passing EFCA seems a mirage.   (Ratchet, ratchet.)

 And love it or hate it, the health insurance 2,000 page reform package will put more money into the hands of private health insurance companies, and will pay for more lobbyists in the future who will influence Congress's rules concerning the kinds of care we'll receive in the future unless something like Medicare For All is passed. (Ratchet, ratchet.)

Our foreign policy is still driven by fears of terrorism, and the military budget is $700-odd billion dollars, with requests for future supplementals sure to come.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost well over a trillion dollars, with more to come.  New figures showed 860,000+ employees with security clearances work in the Security and Intelligence fields, generating so many reports they can't be analyzed.  Contract security and intelligence companies have their own lobbyists now, and NGOs are operating in war zones, wasting buckets of taxpayer money according to new reports by Oxfam and the CBO.  War is increasingly profitable to the Ruling Elite and has become so intertwined with the federal government that it's hard not to see them as a unit.  (Ratchet, ratchet.)

 Laws allowing increased control of media ownership in different markets have been passed, virtually assuring many consumers hear single versions of the news.  Unless Congress acts soon, Google and the telecoms may set the rules for internet user-fees and faster delivery for some users and their internet and cellphone providers.  Feh! 

Newspapers are going out of business, or cutting costs by hiring less investigative reporters and closing their foreign offices, so we're relying more often on single-source news, and what gets aired is arguably decided in corporate boardrooms.  (Ratchet, ratchet.)

Since the economic collapse and the bailout of the Big Banks, Americans have gotten noticeably peeved.  We don't trust government, we're going crazy at the lack of effort to stimulate jobs, prevent mortgage foreclosures, and we're pretty split on who or what to blame, or how to fix any of it.  Workers are being forced to accept low-paying jobs, and sometimes even two jobs to make up for their lost job income. (Ratchet, ratchet.)

Sixty-some percent of Americans are against the war in Afghanistan, 25% of homeowners' mortgages are underwater, raising the retirement age for Social Security may be on the table, most pensions went to IRAs over the past decade, so too many of us have poor or no retirement funds, and the private prison-industrial complex is alive and booming...and racist as hell.

The FDA fast-tracks drugs now, and has few watch-dogs; the same for food products.  Big Pharma advertises their pills on the teevee, and 'describe' new ailments for their pills (download this checklist to take to your doctor...) Our government is heavy with bureaucracy, but not so much for accountability, and even the social safety net systems designed to help people, often don't, or lag miserably in their services. 

BUT: and this is a big but: I can't find current figures, but almost half of all Americans seem to be on anti-depressants.  Outstanding!  We're apparently not supposed to figure out how to make our lives better, or our brothers' and sisters' lives better: we take one of Big Pharma's fast-tracked anti-depressants.  And maybe a sleep aid at night, and we feel better, and are relieved that there's more and more Reality Teevee to amuse us.

And now here comes Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute, who's got a scary-good track record of prognostication re: housing bubbles, bank troubles, etc. telling us that:

"...there's no risk of a "double-dip recession" because the first "dip" never ended.

"We're saying there's no double dip, it never ended," Celente said. "We're looking at the Greatest Depression. There's no way out of this without [rebuilding] productive capacity. You can't print [money to get] out of it."

But today, Celente argued, there are no new booming industries pushing towards economic expansion. And the US middle class may not have the right skills to take up the challenge.

"We went from a country that used to be merchants, craftspeople, manufacturers, to clerks and cashiers," Celente said. "We have to bring manufacturing back to America."

Yep, America needs to start making some things; good things, Green things, necessary things, to offset the $217 billion trade imbalance with China, just as a for-instance.  And government can help; Jennifer Granholm talked about public-private enterprises in Michigan recently.  And here's 15 Mind-blowing Facts About Wealth and Inequality in America...charts and data from 2007, but mind-blowing even then....

Feeling like we're screwed?  Yeah; me too.  Ready to give it up and get more of those meds?  Smoke a little (still stupidly illegal) weed?  Send some bags-o-poop to your least favorite Overlord or his/her Congressional minions?  Yeah; me too.  Want to settle back while American workers live to serve the Bastard Elitists, and only the wealthy go to college?  Nope; me either.  Or demand some jobs so that too many of our high school graduates (if even that) join the military for a job and a signing bonus?  No.  Me either.

Old school activist time:

I'll post this closer to October, but one bright spot on the horizon for pissed-off grass-roots populist action is the One Nation Working Together March on Washington on October 2, 2010.  If you live anywhere close, and can afford somehow to get there, I'll envy the stuffing out of you.  Seventy-some grassroots organizations and unions are trying to put a movement together.  Can't hurt a bit.  Their battle cry is: DEMAND THE CHANGE WE VOTED FOR!