The super-rich get a LOT richer while we fight their very profitable wars

this article from alternet, citing the incredible gains made by the top .01 percent of the income pyramid, offers tax cuts as the principle explanation...

Saying that the majority of the country's economic gains in recent years have gone to the top one percent of the income ladder understates the trend. You have to cut the pie into even smaller slices to get the full picture. Because while the bottom half of the top one percent of the income distribution have done far better than the average wage slaves, it is a smaller slice still -- the top .01 percent -- that has grabbed most of the gains--seeing an impressive 250 percent increase in income between 1973 and 2005 -- from an economy that's grown by 160 percent.

An analysis by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez gives us the best perspective of what's going on for everyone else. They found that despite several periods of healthy growth between 1973 and 2005, the average income of all but the top ten percent of the income ladder -- nine out of ten American families - fell by 11 percent when adjusted for inflation. For three decades, economic growth in the United States has gone first and foremost to building today's modern Gilded Age. The recipients of those gains don't care about a fully funded Social Security system or a healthy Medicare program -- they don't need them.

Meanwhile, even as the top earners' incomes have gone through the roof, their tax burden has shriveled. At the same time, the share of federal revenues contributed by corporations has declined -- by two-thirds since 1962.

commenter and contributor, jim, fills in the rest of the picture...

(this is jim's comment to his earlier post, too salient to leave buried...)

At this point, the Elite, which is a very loose term for the top 1% of the population, have their assets protected in international financial markets.
They can afford to let the dollar decline.

The approximatley 200 or so largest trans-national corporations no longer totally depend on the dollar for their profitablilty and growth. This enables them to draw off incredible amounts of accumulated equity in this nation.

In addition, despite a declining dollar and a reduction in long term economic value, Americans will continue to consume at a rate that is far beyond their ability to pay, making this nation the prime marketplace to sell goods produced internationally. When the money finally dries up, corporations will simply move on.
How does the war fit in?

War is a wonderful profit opportunity. Thanks to the American taxpayer, the military industrial complex is recording record profits. Also, destabilization in the middle east drives up oil prices. On the political side, continued war and fear of war make it possible to control multiple facets of society.

None of this is a new philosophy. These ideas have been around for centuries:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
- James Madison, April 20, 1795

It's like he had a crystal ball.

We can't really do justice to these issues here. I think if you read from the published works of the Founders, you will find the answers.

not at all a pretty picture...

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