The authors have the numbers to verify what one can sense all over Middle America. During the 80s, a self-confident American working class ("the middle class," Barlett and Steele call it, bowing to usage) was dismantled as a result of deliberate economic policy. Tax "cuts" transferred money to the rich, jobs were shipped overseas, deregulation gutted healthy industries, pensions disappeared while health costs sky-rocketed, and our political system was sold to corporate bidders. Barlett and Steele make this process intelligible, partly by attaching faces to it. They interview bankruptcy lawyers, who bill for the hours they spend flying coast-to-coast -- but also the hard-working Joes and Sallies shut out of factories the bankruptcy lawyers closed. An angry book that's difficult to brush off.
-- Steve Badrich
ISBN 0-8362-7001-0
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