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Thom's blog
We need an economy that works for the 99 percent
According to the Economic Policy Institute, we need an economy that works for everyone – not just the top one percent. The EPI recently issued a new report on how those at the top have fared - compared to the rest of us - over the last few decades. What they found proves that the system is rigged. The EPI report states that, “between 1979 and 2007, the top one percent of taxpayers in all states captured an increasing share of the income.” And, in the years since the Great Recession, the “top one percent of incomes in most states once again grew faster than the incomes of the bottom 99 percent.”
The report shows that in all 50 states, income inequality has gotten worse, and the average worker has been shut out of our nation's prosperity. EPI noted that unionization rates are lower than they've been since before 1928, which means that most workers don't have the power to demand higher wages. In fact, the EPI report states “The federal minimum wage purchases fewer goods and services than it did in 1968.”
There is just no denying it – those at the top are getting richer, and the rest of us aren't even keeping up. In their conclusion, EPI states, “In the next decade, something must give. Either America must accept that the American Dream of widespread economic mobility is dead, or new policies must emerge that will begin to restore broadly shared prosperity.” Income inequality is finally getting some long-overdue attention from our lawmakers, but we need less talk and more action to make our economy work for the 99 percent.
-Thom
(What do you think? Tell us here.)
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Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 9pm... Bob Swarup, Money Mania: Booms, Panics, and Busts from Ancient Rome to the Great Meltdown (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT, and catch past shows on Youtube)
Watch the video 'Last Hours' narrated by Thom Hartmann about the "time bomb" that is ticking underground, underwater and under ice… frozen methane that is now escaping and could trigger runaway climate change. www.lasthours.org
Have a question or comment for Thom? Grab your phone, hit record and send your video to YourTakeMyTake@gmail.com and we may air it on "The Big Picture."
Conversations with Great Minds - Bob Swarup, Money Mania: Booms, Panics, and Busts from Ancient Rome to the Great Meltdown.
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Thursday's Daily Stack
Hour One: Denmark Vesey...abolitionist or terrorist?- Professor Douglas Egerton, He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey
The Big Picture- Nate Sweet, The Big Picture producer
Bible: " John 8:7" " He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.".
Hour Two: We have the RIGHT to know what's in our food...
Article: " GMO Dangers" by Institute for Responsible Technology.
Hour Three: GOP, ‘full of a bunch of damn bigots’- Minister Derrick Grayson, Candidate for U.S. Senate (R-GA)
Speech: " A Rendezvous With Destiny", 27 June 1936 acceptance speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt. " An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men.""
Plus, Geeky Science - Does your dog or cat have "super vision?"
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Friday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 3-6pm ET
Hour One: Anything Goes Friday!
PLUS, a health exchange success story- Eliot Richardson, Small Business Advocacy Council
Hour Three: A pardon for Abraham Bolden?- Lamar Waldron, The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination.
And, the best of the rest of the news and your calls right here on...
The Thom Hartmann Program...your media support group for "we the people"...
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Monday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 3-6pm ET
We'll have all the latest news and information that you won't be hearing from the corporate owned news media...
Plus, have you heard about the "ag-gag" bills proposed in a number of states? We'll tell you what you need to know to fight back if your state has one...
And, Arizona's anti gay bill may have gone down in flames this week...but, wait...there's more! We'll tell you which other states are considering them as we speak...
Plus we'll be taking your calls too...right here on...
The Thom Hartmann Program...Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"...
And remember...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...
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Thom's Poll
Should the cost of the internet be determined by how much you use it?
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Watch & Listen to Thom
We Have the RIGHT to Know What's in Our Food
Geeky Science - Does Your Pet Have "Super" Vision?
Your Take / My Take Live - Prez Obama, Climate Change and Fukushima
Crazy Alert! How Reporters Deal with Snot
Fukushima Isotopes Arriving on the West Coast?
Stop the Job-Killing Trade Deal
Or watch the Full "Big Picture" Show...
Full Show 2/27/14: The Fukushima Radiation is Coming
Thom discusses the TPP and the state of labor in America with Teamster's President James Hoffa and the latest Fukushima news with Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter. Thom takes viewer video questions and phone calls in "Your Take, My Take Live" and in tonight's "Daily Take" Thom discusses why we have a right to know what's in our food.
GOP: 'Full of a Bunch of Damn bigots'
The Bible and 'Traditional Marriage'
Caller: Sugar is Having an Effect on Transplants
The Thom Hartmann Program - February 27, 2014
Thom on 'Wimpy Democrats'
Food Labeling and the Sugar Epidemic
Denmark Vesey Abolitionist or Terrorist?
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Thom and Louise Hartmann founded the New England Salem Children's Village (NESCV) in New Hampshire in 1979. With states delaying payment for the children they entrust to the village, they need help with cash flow. Can you help? Now on Facebook.
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