Summary Of Aftershock

In our society today, there is a huge divide between the wealthy and the impoverished. The richest individuals of the population make the majority of money being earned today. Some have proposed that there should be a more equitable system put in place to even out the distribution of money in our economy. This would ensure there are no extremely poor or lavishly wealthy individuals. But is such a system even realistic to implement in the United States? The U.S. is just not a nation of people who are willing to make significant monetary sacrifices for others because of some attitude like “we’re all in it together.” American citizens view themselves independently of each other economically. Though we may always be united in times of crisis and despair, we are a very individualistic society when it comes to earning money. In Aftershock, author Robert Reich supports the position of a more efficient system of economics that would more evenly distribute money across the different economic classes. He
Unfortunately, the problem is that these same companies have lobbyists that more or less legally bribe our politicians. What incentive is there for politicians (other than doing the “right thing of course) to bite the hand that’s feeding them? It takes vast amounts of money to run political campaigns and politicians get this money from corporations and interest groups making donations. For example, the 2012 presidential election hit the $2 billion mark to give an idea of the type of money involved (Reilly). In order for legislation to be passed to close loopholes on big business, lobbying must first be done away with. This system has been in place for quite some time, and there is less than a little momentum in Congress to change it. This seems to be another unrealistic idea by Robert