America's rotting empire: Billionaires galore and a crumbling infrastructure

More proof we're in rapid decline: Not a single U.S. city currently ranks among the world's most livable

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Thursday, May 8, 2014 08:00 AM EST
CJ Werleman, AlterNet
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"The game is rigged," writes Senator Elizabeth Warren in her new book A Fighting Chance. It's rigged because the rich and their lobbyists have rigged the rules of the game to their favor. The rules are reflected in a tax code and bankruptcy laws that have seen the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich in U.S. history.
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The result?
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America has the most billionaires in the world, but not a single U.S. city ranks among the world's most livable cities. Not a single U.S. airport is among the top 100 airports in the world. Our bridges, road and rail are falling apart, and our middle class is being guttered out thanks to three decades of stagnant wages, while the top 1 percent enjoys 95 percent of all economic gains.
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A rigged tax code and a bloated military budget are starving the federal and state governments of the revenue it needs to invest in infrastructure, which means today America looks increasingly like a second rate nation, and now new data shows America's intellectual resources are also in decline.[...]
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