If This Doesn't Make It Clear

Basically, this shows what we all know.  But did we know how far back it went?  Not surprisingly, there was pretty big uptick during Reagan's presidency.  And the rich certainly enjoyed the rise of the economy during Clinton's presidency, and then received another huge boost with the tax cuts from Bush junior.  The big drop you see was in the tech bubble bursting.  But they climbed right back with the help of Bush and company.  The level of income the top 1%  had by 2007 become obscene.  In real income they were making 5 times what the top 1% were making in boom of the 1920s.  Understand that when I say real income, I'm comparing apples to apples.  In other words, if you took someone from the top 1% of the 1920s, their purchasing power would only be a fifth of what the top 1% of 2007 had.  And the disparity has only grown worse.

While I'm not comparing tax laws, economic policies, or even the advent of multinationals, I am just talking about income.  And the incredible disparity that exists today.  If this doesn't make it clear that something has to change, I really don't know what will.

Set 'em up and shoot 'em down

While Christie has spent most of his time the last six months swearing he's not going to run, delivering national policy speeches certainly belie that fact. If he does decide to run here's a good article on Politico on just the logistics of a run this late, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64788.html . But the greater issue is where he stands on the issues. So far, we've found out he's anti-union, he's against regulations on the securities industry(he lobbied to keep securities fraud from inclusion in Consumer Fraud laws), deregulation of the energy industry, and he has never been above using his office for his own gain, or to protect friends and relatives.

While as a US Attorney he was well known for going after corruption in government offices, as long as it didn't involve a republican or someone too high up on the food chain. He also however regularly awarded no-bid contracts to friends and people who did right by him. When a federal prosecutor declined to go after Christie's brother, shortly thereafter he was awarded a multimillion dollar no-bid contract. Oddly, in the group of brokers and traders under investigation, Christie's brother was the only one of any import that avoided prosecution, while several smaller fry were indicted.

Also while Christie was a US Attorney, he abused the system of deferred prosecution so thoroughly that the Department of Justice had to rewrite the rules. Deferred prosecution is basically akin to bribing your way out of charges. Corporate America readily makes use of this system, that is, essentially only available to them, as they have to be some pretty big chunks of change. In 2009 he walked out of a US Congressional Hearing when being questioned about his handling of deferred compensation cases (in one case he had the company dedicate $5 million for a chair on business ethics, AT HIS ALMA MATER) basically saying he was too busy to answer their questions see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Christie#cite_ref-Christie_Defends_21-2 . How's that for thinking you're above the law?

He's not above throwing people under the bus though. When New Jersey lost out on $400 million in federal education, it was initially deemed a clerical error by Christie, and he tried to blame the Obama administration for "bureaucratic tyranny". When it was revealed that Christie's education commissioner knew about the issue, Christie demanded his resignation, and the commissioner said he would do so. But the next day, the commissioner demanded to be fired, ostensibly because he needed the "unemployment checks". It turned out that this was an effort to try and make Christie come clean and also admit that he had been informed of the issues regarding the application for the $400 million. Christie then at this point tried to blame the loss of funding on a deal his commissioner made with the Teachers Union. Christie never admitted any wrongdoing in the matter.

Like any good republican, ducking responsibility is second nature to them. They can't NOT do it.