Ronald Reagan Was and Is No Friend of America's Middle-Class:
The Working Wage-Earners
In 1980, the average American wage-earning retiree had over $200,000 in defined pension benefits from their company. Today, 2004, the average retiree has about $40,000 in their 401k. In the 1990's stock bubble, over $7 trillion in wealth was lost by the little fella. During the same time, the top 1% of Americans went from owning 20% to 40% of owning America. Who is responsible for these trends? Ronald Reagan.
Reaganomics had two primary features that each successive Republican Administration, that of his vice president and of his vice president's son.
Voodoo economics in which the rich received taxcuts that were supposed supposed to trickle down as good jobs to the lower classes.
Individual Retirement Accounts in which workers' pension became the oil that lubricated the presses that turned out stock options.
Reaganomics increased the tax-burden on the middle-class while legalizing the transfer of their saving to the M&M's of the pension parasites.
The image of Reagan wearing a cowboy hat on a ranch is appropriate if the image is complete. America's herd of workers were told they would have greater grazing if the fences were torn down so the American worker could graze wherever. Well, the promise of greater freedom with no fences was played so loudly that the little voices were drowned out who tried to remind the sheep that the fences also kept out the wolves. The wolves were not the biggest problem for the newly liberated sheep. The big, lasting problem was the advocates of the no-fence policy who herded the sheep into the trailers owned by the slaughter houses.
Reagan's successor, Geo. Herbie Bush, expanded the revenue source for the pension parasites by legalizing 410k's and encouraging this decapitalistic activity by giving tax-credits to employers and employees to give up their pensions. Money that could have helped America remain competitive in manufacturing instead went into the parasites' M&M's--mansions and mistresses.
The same advocates for putting workers' retirement savings into IRA's and 401k's are now proclaiming the promise of better retirement if young workers are allowed and encouraged to put some or all of their Social Security into private retirement accounts. Which retirement security system has the best track record of taking care of worker's retirement funds: Wall Street or Social Security?
For the working wage-earners that compose the backbone of the American middle-class, there is Iraq. What is Iraq? It is another richman's Republican war being fought by and paid for by America's middle-class. Which President had a foreign adventure that became known as Iraqgate? The wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time in 2004 has its planting in the Reagan White House.
There are many reasons for questioning the intelligence and sanity of America's working wage-earners. One of the major mysteries is why over-worked, over-taxed and under-secured wages glorify Ronald Reagan as a friend of the America's worker.
Without a law outlawing stock options and pension pirates, working wage-earners
who demand control of their retirement funds for a 401-k plan are like people
who demand payment that their payments be in company-owned store scripts.
Annotated References: General
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