>4) In the US, homeland of neoliberalism, average incomes are almost
>flat at the middle of the distribution (household income for the
>middle quintile up 4% between 1989 and 2004 - not per year, but
>total - cf. top 5%, up 30%; bottom quintile, 0%). Real wages have
>resumed their decline, after rising in the late 1990s for the first
>time since 1973. If this is the best the US can do, with all its
>imperial advantages, what can you expect in the rest of the world?
I should add: growth in the US has been possible only with huge borrowing. That doesn't mean that a big smashup is ahead - that's one of the things that Leo Panitch & I took issue with Harvey on - but it does suggest some kind of eventual trouble, and also that there are real aggregate demand problems when incomes are squeezed - debt can substitute for income for a while, but if your creditors get bored or nervous, you've got a problem.
Doug