We are not alone. Many of the nation’s most distinguished economists, scholars and public officials recognize the devastating impact of the nation’s extreme economic inequality. The causes and consequences of economic inequality in the United States are discussed in the videos below, which include, Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman, Harvard Law Professor and TARP overseer Elizabeth Warren (The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class), Former Secretary of Labor and prolific scholar Robert Reich (How Unequal can We Get Before We Snap), Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz(who asserts that economic inequality is a central cause of the current economic crisis and a central barrier to a meaningful recovery), and Senator Bernie Sanders.

 

 

Bill Moyers and the Plutocracy: Noted PBS journalist and American icon Bill Moyers examines how those at the top of our society have used their wealth and power to prevent reform. In the first set of interviews, Moyers speaks with leading MIT economist and former Chief International Monetary Fund economist, Simon Johnston, who compares the United States to a "banana republic" in an Atlantic magazine article titled The Quiet Coup

"But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity:elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them."

Earlier, Moyers discussed the power of the plutocracy and other damaging issues associated with economic inequality with investigative journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich:

 

In his first inaugural address at the height of the depression, Franklin Roosevelt declared that "This nation demands action and action now.  Roosevelt received his greatest applause when he said that if necessary he would ask Congress for all of the powers equivalent to a leader ina time of War. In the context of the times, this was effectively a threat by Roosevelt, that if Congress did not act he would seize all necessary power to effect change for th American people. The AEE was created  because we have lost faith that our leaders have this same commitment today?