The U.S. Government's Program of Welfare for the Wealthy *

Abstract

It is important that macromarketers understand how income and wealth inequality affect the way people think, live, and die. It is also important that they understand the source(s) of that inequality. This paper discusses how the power elite and the rich used the law to strategically withhold from the bottom 99 percent of the population the wealth generated in the post-World War II economy. This included more than a dozen specific stealth activities the U.S. government enacted from 1970 to 2010, although only a few are highlighted in this commentary. These activities created a Program of Welfare for the Wealthy that worked against the general welfare of the American people. We refer to these as stealth activities because much of what happens in government occurs behind the scenes, in the dark.