Peter Schiff is wrong in ascribing the problem of these people to government. The elite in the US are entirely to blame for what has happened to the US economy for the past 40 years (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture#United_States_examples)
What happened is very simple, the rich promised politicians untold monies for their reelection campaigns as long as they vote for their interests while in office. If they still lose their reelection, they were promised a job as an employee or a lobbyist. Politicians sold their constituents down the river and voted against their best interests, American workers worked even harder and increased their productivity by 130% over those 40 years.
But that increase gained them nothing in income.
The gap that opened up between wages and productivity was a result of the hard work of the average worker, but almost all of the new wealth went to the elite. It was basically legalized theft.
The elite, through their bought politicians, simultaneously broke up unions while freezing wages. It all started with Reagan and never stopped. The US is a banana republic now.
The top 1/10 of 1%, or 0.1% have more wealth then the bottom 90%! This is from this week:
This of course cannot go on forever because rich people simply do not consume enough. Bill Gates does not eat more than 1,000 poor people each year, he does not buy as many clothes, appliances, consumer electronics, cars etc... The rich simply invest and save. They cannot generate the consumption necessary to dive an economy as large as US. If the bottom 90% have stagnant wages, real economic growth will keep falling behind projected growth.
