Saving Capitalism Page #3

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The poor were not doing well at all.

I thought we could

actually reverse that direction.

I spent a lot of time all over America,

and what I got back from people

was a lot of the skepticism and cynicism

and the beginnings of the anger

that has really emerged full force

in 2016.

It was just beginning then.

A pleasure to introduce

Secretary Reich to the Show Me state,

and to mid-Missouri.

Thank you for being here.

As Tim said...

I'm...

This started out as a book tour.

You know? I've done a lot of books.

I've written a lot of books.

I've tried to help people understand

what's really going on.

I don't want to just

go out to book stores.

I really want to talk to people

about their lives.

Yes, that's true!

That's great.

My name is Darvin Bentlage

and I'm a farmer.

And...

There are other names

they use for me, but...

I just mainly go by "farmer"

and "cattle man."

The family farm has been around

for 80 years.

You're kind of raised into it, you know?

I jumped on my first tractor

when I was ten years old.

I could barely reach the pedals.

It's a lot of hard work.

Our margin of profits are way down,

you know?

Farm income this year

has been predicted to drop 50%.

Well, excuse me.

Nothing I buy has dropped 50%.

I don't think anything

in the grocery store has dropped 50%.

I have a son who would kind of like

to come back on the farm.

There's nothing that I would want more

than to sell my home and move down here.

The fiscal part of it is pretty rough.

What kind of profit margins

are you pulling in a year?

Oh, the profit margins, yeah.

It varies, but...

The total deal, you know...

I make around...

Um...

The year before was like $320,000.

-You spent...

- $300.

$300, so, in my mind,

your profit margin...

would have been $20,000.

Correct?

Yeah.

There is a vicious cycle that has set in.

The American economy today

is almost twice as large

as it was in 1980.

But the median wage has gone nowhere.

If fact, if anything,

most Americans' wages,

adjusted for inflation, have declined.

So where did all the money go?

It went upward.

In 2014,

corporate profits before taxes

reached their highest share

of the total economy

in at least 85 years.

Meanwhile, the percentage of the economy

going to people's wages

has dropped dramatically.

Hidden inside the rules of the market,

money flows upwards -

out of the pockets of average Americans,

and into the profits of major industries,

executives

and shareholders.

The vicious cycle is that,

as income and wealth go to the top,

so does political power.

And here is where it gets interesting,

because as political power

goes to the top,

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