Aram Zucker-Scharff

azspot:

Some are more equal than others

Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy:

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists. 

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

“During Reagan’s two terms as president, dedicated funding for outright grants-in-aid decreased, federal guidelines pushed individual loans, and private bill collectors were brought in to ensure that the hardest kind of debt to escape was whatever you took on for your education. Even more important was the shift in tone and expectation. Public goods became private services, and by the end of the 1980s, the anti-tax, infra-structure-starving, neoliberal Weltanschauung meant that as states cut their budgets, support for higher education was thrown into a cage match with every other necessary public good.”

– Ronald Reagan stuck it to millennials: A college debt history lesson no one tells. Dramatic, awful changes occurred on my generation’s watch — and it amounts to a fiendishly successful conspiracy.

mittechnologyreviewdesign:

The disparity between the rich and everyone else is larger than ever in the United States and increasing in much of Europe. Why?

(Read the full story / Illustration by Javier Jaén)