Libertarian Republic editor Austin Petersen took on Thom Hartman over the issue of whether America’s middle class is falling behind other developed nations. Hartmann cited a study that showed that we are 27th richest in the world behind countries such as Australia, Luxembourg or Japan. But liberal pundit Hartmann forgets that it may be better to be middle class in America, than middle class in Cyprus, considering their current currency crisis that’s destroyed the wealth of middle class citizens there.
Hartmann refused to acknowledge the role that inflation plays in harming the middle class. He claimed that there was no inflation, despite the facts that point to a rise in commodity prices of essential items like gasoline and milk. He rails against the “banksters” that are destroying this nation, and although I attempted to agree with him over the role of central banks in economic crises, Hartmann refused to believe that they were responsible. Instead the Russia Today anchor claimed that it was “Reaganomics” that contributed to the destruction of America’s middle class.
Hartmann echos familiar liberal moans about the stratification of wealth in America, but didn’t acknowledge that social mobility in the United States is going up. A study by professors at the University of California found that:
Conventional measures suggest that social mobility is substantial in the US, even
though the US is now regarded as having lower social mobility rates than in much of
Europe.
That means that even though the rich are getting richer, they aren’t the same rich people. Middle and lower class people are taking their place in greater numbers. Apparently, not everyone is too big to fail.
Also Hartmann fails to understand how free markets do indeed bring about inequality and that inequality is a measure of how free a society is. Aristotle famously stated:
“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”
What do you think?
The video debate is below:
