Shorting the Middle Class

Arianna Huffington has, for about ten years now, been a tenacious advocate for the middle-class and against the financial shenangans of Wall Street.  (She converted from being a Newt Gingrich ally in the late 90s.)  This is why she has kept up a constant drumbeat about the need for fundamental financial reform on her website, The Huffington Post.  In a recent story, she writes passionately about this topic:

The press is all abuzz with news of the SEC suing Goldman Sachs for fraud. While this is certainly big news in itself, even more important is what it says about what the financial elite has been doing to America for the last 30 years: shorting the middle class.

The SEC's action is a perfect moment for us to look at the bigger picture of how the American people were sold on the promise of never-ending prosperity while Wall Street was overseeing a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the richest Americans.

The results have been devastating: a disappearing middle class, a precipitous drop in economic and social mobility, and ultimately, the undermining of the foundation of our democracy.