I commend Nick Schultz for spelling out the obvious in his LA Times editorial "No Easy Fix"
Income inequality is a reality, but not the result of a cabal of corporate cronies cornering the market at the expense of the little guy.
He outlines three reasons why the the top "1%" is getting richer will the remaining "99%" seem to be getting less for the work.
1. Globalization and technology. More invest is going overseas as those markets are growing; financial investment and innovation is permitting more efficient trade without decline in quality, while the job market is still waiting for competent prospective employees to step up and take on the training to fill these available positions.
2. The "99%" are clamoring for the rights of illegal aliens to live and work in the United States. Yet the growing pool of unskilled labor is only driving down the cost of labor, depressing entry-level wages while limiting the number of available jobs for prospective employees.
3. The breakdown of the nuclear family. An intact home was the most certain way for an individual to develop cultural and economic capital to venture into the world and take care of himself. With the decline of two-parent homes, much of the time with only one parent caring and rearing the children, poverty has overtaken a greater number of youth who have less to learn and less to work with when the graduate from high school and face an uncertain world where the cost of post-secondary education is skyrocketing past inflation into a job market which demands a skill-set that outstrips the current offerings in colleges and universities.
Occupy Everywhere has done a large job -- hardly a good one -- of drumming up dissent and outrage. Yelling and screaming, however, will not undo the cultural barriers which have dragged down the education of young people to enter the world sufficient enough to fend for themselves without the ongoing aid of impoverished parents and a deprived welfare state.
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