Axulus
Veteran Member
I think most people are well aware of this shit happening. I think most of them are also upset about it to varying degrees. Unfortunately, the public at large won't do anything about it until things get *really* bad. The Occupy movement tried and fizzled out. It's hard to protest when you can't afford a day off work. It's even harder to protest to the point of civil disobedience when you still have food on the table and something left to lose.
In a way, the economic growth of the past (the kind which we all benefited from) has been our undoing and the victory of the elites; used to be that when the rich got too rich, the poor started starving to death en masse and rose up. Now, the poor are squeezed dry for as much as they're worth, but not quite to the point where they rise up in armed revolt because they no longer have bread. And so the poor grumble but otherwise stay complacent; hoping tomorrow will be different than today, because they can't afford to risk losing what they still have left.
Might also have something to do with the fact that only 7.3% of individuals who worked at least one week in 2013 (in the US) were in poverty, and only 2.7% of those who worked full time (35+ hours/week) year round (at least 50 weeks) were in poverty. Not exactly a large fraction of people to have huge sway in a democracy.