The economic situation has deteriorated over the last three decades. The middle class is on its way to extinction.
The responsibility in the Western Countries lies mostly on four powerful groups:
- The greedy sharks:
Are those whose greed drives them beyond limits. They could be individuals, groups, corporations or institutions. Their main goal is to make larger profits no matter what. They manage to find ways to save on taxes. They influence legislators into changing laws in favors their businesses. For that purpose, they lobby and finance political campaigns.
- The unions:
Originally emerged to defend employees and workers rights. With time they grew in power and became selfish. Through the years they claimed, a step at a time, more and more benefits for the unionized workers they represented. They put more pressure on employers going from a strike to another… Up to a point where industries in highly competitive markets could not bear the extra costs involved to continue their operations.
- The legislators:
People elect legislators to serve their respective constituencies. Torn between the lobbying of the greedy sharks and the unions pressures, the legislators end up satisfying the demands of both powers neglecting the needs of the rest of the population.
- The government
Pressured to balance their budget, the government main target becomes to collecting more taxes. For better control of taxpayers, the government machine grows beyond borders. No efforts are spared to create new ways to scrutinize the smallest of the transactions even if this involved stepping on grey areas. Armies of inspectors were unleashed to criminalize small businesses pushing them to declare bankruptcy.
Conclusion:
It is a no-brainer that:
- Big corporations can:
- Make bigger profits.
- Pay fewer taxes.
- Drive small businesses out of their markets.
- Small businesses are doomed to fail in a market where:
- Large corporations with bigger edge cannot be pushed out of business.
- Legislations are made to measure in favor of the mighty players.
- Governments are in pursuit of more taxes they cannot afford to pay.
- Unions are divided into two categories:
- The governmental, para governmental and construction unions are still in full power. Their demands being always on the rise.
- Industry unions: remain in power until the specific market segments are wrestled away by competing open markets.
bachirvision 
can not agree more thank you for saying outloud what many can not say because they are caught in between.
Well, this is a very interesting division of power among the four groups named. It appears as a very innocent and simplistic exposé but has a lot of hidden avenues to explore. I am not sure I would agree with all the conclusions, but it is certainly thought-provoking.
The question that remains unanswered is the following: What about the rest of the population? The silent majority? What levers do they have?
The real follow up question that this piece raises is whether democracy exists or not? Is the elected legislative body behaving truly in the interest of those who elected them?
This essay suggests that the answer is a NO. Or at least is very far from a YES.
And then of course, what needs to be pondered is what can be done to shift the balance towards the YES. I hope that it will be the topic of a future piece.
I highly appreciate your comment. The biggest problem with the silent majority is that we do not know what we want.
The problem with the masses is that most of time they are driven by their emotions and not by their mind!
They lose their focus on the real issues and concentrate instead their efforts on a matter that does not change much to their future.
That’s why you find sometimes that in the real world, what we call democracy is not serving the interest of the people by bringing to power the suitable individuals!