Ruled by the rich

Lawrence Lessig is a Harvard academic researching ethics and politics. Guess what he found out?

All but a small proportion of political campaign contributions are made by “the tiniest fraction of the one percent.”

If you are a 1-percenter, your average income is over $1 million a month. Your house and stuff averages to $16 million and change. Your non-home wealth – bank account, investments, Learjet, fourth home in the Swiss Alps – averages $15 million plus. Perhaps you consider yourself comfortable.

Meanwhile, down here with the hogs are the rest of us. The bottom four out of 10 Americans have annual incomes of just $17,300 and are in massive debt – their household net worth is negative $10,000, and their assets are negative $14,800.

Four out of 10? No way even half of these people are there because of bad habits, violent proclivities or poor decision-making. They were put there by the economic policies of the United States. Those policies are written by 1-percenters to benefit their wealth-seeking interests, and then congresspeople are rewarded – monetarily and otherwise – for introducing, endorsing and voting for those policies.

Presto! A nation where people think there’s democracy, but there actually isn’t.

Nancy Runyan

Spokane Valley