Annals of hypocrisy: Welfare … or social insurance?

Robert Reich dissects the hypocrisy about government “handouts”:

Read/see his comment here.

Trumped

Bernie Sanders offers an analysis of why Trump came to be president, and where we go from here:

I’m often asked by the media and others: How did it come about that Donald Trump, the most unpopular presidential candidate in the modern history of our country, won the election? And my answer is—and my answer is that Trump didn’t win the election; the Democratic Party lost the election.

Read his speech here.

No comment

Here are the 50 states, ranked from “most shortchanged” to “least shortchanged” by the U.S. government. The ranking is based on an index combining: (i) votes in the Electoral College per state resident and (ii) benefits received per tax dollars paid to the federal government.

Source: New York Times.

Elite disconnect

A long history of elite disconnection from the economic realities faced by most Americans helped to set the stage for the nation’s current political turmoil:

For some time now most of the people in this country have been under economic pressure. Pay is not going up very much or at all, while living costs keep rising. One recent statistic stands out – 63 percent of Americans would have difficulty raising $500 to cover an emergency, like a sudden need for car repair so they can get to work. Around them the community’s roads and schools and services are in decline.

Most of the public can see this clearly, yet so many elites can’t see at all, and see it or not, they do little or nothing to make things better. This arrogance of our blind, well-fixed elites is helping drive the Donald Trump phenomenon.

Read more here.