Thom Hartmann, nice history here. Your next assignment is to tell us what historically happens if a country disbands its middle class. Do such countries become dirt poor? Do they have revolutions? Has one ever woke up one morning and decided to start the long process of bringing the middle class back again?
I really want to know, because the horses have left the barn if you know what I am saying.
But I am betting that the reason we have not seen Thom Hartmann tell us what happens if a middle class is completely zapped out of existence is that this has seldom if ever happened in the World.
A RESPONSE:
Bliss Doubt July 14th, 2009 1:12 pm
Doesn't Japan have universal health care too?
I think maybe FDR is the story of someone who decided to start the long process of bringing back the middle class, starting with the regulation of banks, then on to national infrastructure works, social safety nets, etc., everything that led to the mid- to late 20th century period of prosperity in this country, though there is a neo-con movement to discredit FDR and to say that war is what saved our country.
Japan is to universal single payer health care as the Los Angeles Lakers are to basketball. They have a system that is beyond good.
There is a very strong correlation between the progressiveness and quality (excuse the redundancy) of a countries' health care system and the overall, long term success of its economy and especially of its middle class.
The causation actually runs in both directions. It has become basically irrefutable that the countries with the best, most progressive health care systems are the ones where the average person (middle class by definition) is the most well off overall. At the same time, looking at the flip side, the more right wing and/or the more poor a country is, the less likely it is able to implement or support a single payer system.
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