[TheOtherHobbes]

This. There's been a massive shift of wealth away from the middle classes.

And college loans are just taxation by the back door - with the difference that instead of a graduate tax paid to the government, you pay a loan "tax" to the shareholders of the loan fund.

In fact, taxation is increasingly privatised. Instead of paying taxes to government you pay a profit-surcharge on almost everything. This goes to corporate shareholders but provides little or no returned value.

The result is that trillions of dollars are rotting uselessly in offshore tax havens, when they could have been invested in future economic development. And spending power has been suppressed, when it could have been driving the economy from the other end.

[plonh]

Dollars are illusory so they cannot rot. The government can always stimulate actual productivity by printing dollars to pass around.