Prairie Fire Journal

Wall Street bank JP Morgan Chase has reported profits of $3.3 billion for the last three months of 2009. That's almost a 400-percent increase in the bank's profits compared to a year ago.

In contrast, American workers saw their inflation-adjusted weekly wages fall 1.6 percent last year--the sharpest deline since 1990. The drop in average weekly earnings for nonsupervisory workers was the worst yearly performance since a 2.5 percent fall in 1990. Inflation-adjusted pay has sunk in five of the past seven years, underscoring the pressures households felt even before the recession. Over the past 10 years, inflation-adjusted wages grew at the lowest pace since the 1950s.

Workers (consumers) are getting squeezed between low wages and high debt. The Democrats have proven themselves to be utter failures in addressing the structural problems of the economy that got us to this point. The same system that got us into the current depression is still very much in place. The banks are raking in billions of dollars in profits from the massive debt incurred by consumers who are urged to spur on the economy by spending more, while getting paid less money.

The business and banking sectors of the economy are receiving the most help from the government, while the consumers who are the primary driving force of the economy continue to face high unemployment rates, declining wages, and record-high home foreclosures. And, while already buried under a mountain of debt, are being called upon to get the economy moving again. There's something wrong with this picture.

American workers need help. They need help getting through this period of high unemployment. They need help in keeping their homes. But most of all they need jobs that pay wages they can actually live on. But the Democrats have spent the past year shoveling money to the banks and merely tossing American workers a bone. They have been spineless in their approach to the problems American workers are facing.

Here's where America is at today. The bankers and corporations are getting richer. The workers are getting poorer. The stimulus package is a joke. Record home foreclosures continue. High unemployment continues. Credit card companies were given an entire year to raise interest rates to the stratosphere. Regulation of banks and speculators is still dysfunctional. The interests of the insurance companies has been put above the interests of people's health care. Is it any wonder that people are becoming increasingly unhappy with the Democrats?