Berkeley Professor and former U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Robert Reich has put together a good, short 2 minute 15 second video that explains a large part of what’s happened to the economy over the last 30 years.

In summary, Reich connects five “dots”:

1. The economy has doubled since 1980 but wages have been flat.  So where did the money go?
2. All the gains have gone to the super rich.   And…
3. With money goes political power.  Taxes on the super rich have been slashed, government revenues have fallen, leading to…
4. Huge budget deficits. The middle class gets agitated.  To balance budgets, governments slash spending and set middle class to fighting amongst itself…
5. Middle class is divided.  It fights for scraps.  When borrowing ability dries up, spending slows and can’t return…
6. We get an anemic recover.

He explains it better (and draws neat pictures, too), but that’s the jist of it.  I would add more such as how the financial industry gained such power in Washington and pushed an ideological but economically flawed agenda of deregulation that led to the monumental but avoidable financial crises in 2007-2009.  But Reich gets the basics right.