Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents) (UK PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS Management / Business) - Softcover

"I think many of us recognize that for all but the wealthiest, life in America is getting increasingly hard. Screwed explores why, showing how this is no accidental process, but rather the product of conscious political choices, choices we can change with enough courage and commitment. Like all of Thom's great work, it helps show us the way forward."
--Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen and The Impossible Will Take a Little While

"Once again, Thom Hartmann hits the bull's eye with a much needed expose of the so-called 'free market.' Anyone concerned about the future of our nation needs to read Screwed now."
--Michael Toms, Founding President, New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network and author of A Time For Choices: Deep Dialogues for Deep Democracy

"If we are going to live in a Democracy, we need to have a healthy middle class. Thom Hartmann shows us how the 'cons' have wronged this country, and tells us what needs to be done to reclaim what it is to be American."
-- Eric Utne, Founder, Utne magazine

"Thom Hartmann's book explains in simple language and with concrete research the details of the Neo-con's war against the American middle class. It proves what many have intuited and serves to remind us that without a healthy, employed, and vital middle class, America is no more than the richest Third World country on the planet."
-- Peter Coyote, Actor and author of Sleeping Where I Fall

"The powers that be are running roughshod over the powers that OUGHT to be. Hartmann tells us what went wrong -- and what you and I can do to help set American right again."
--Jim Hightower, National Radio Commentator, Writer, Public Speaker, and author of the bestselling Thieves in High Places

"Hartmann speaks with the straight talking clarity and brilliance of a modern day Tom Paine as he exposes the intentional and systematic destruction of America's middle class by an alliance of political con artists and outlines a program to restore it. This is Hartmann at his best. Essential reading for those interested in restoring the institution that made America the envy of the world."
--David C. Korten, author of The Great Turning and When Corporations Rule the World

The American middle class is on its deathbed. People who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. If you're not a CEO, you're probably screwed. As Air America Radio Host, Thom Hartmann shows, this death is no accident. Like the Founding Fathers, patriots such as Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower knew that economic opportunity and democracy go hand-in-hand. They believed in maximizing the public good and they worked tirelessly to build the strongest middle class the world has ever seen. But now, under the guise of "freeing the market," conservative and corporate forces are waging a covert war against the middle class, dismantling policies like Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, and fair labor laws - the very safeguards that foster economic opportunity and citizen engagement.The result is an economic system designed to line the pockets of the super-rich, the impending extinction of the middle class, and a very real, very dangerous threat to democracy itself. Hartmann shows that it's not too late to return to the America that our founders envisioned. Democracy requires a fair playing field.

It will survive only if "We", the people stand up, speak out, and reclaim our democratic birthright. This updated and expanded paperback edition will contain new information on reframing the immigration debate, what the results of the 2006 midterm elections mean for the middle class, and showing how the middle class is paying dearly for our dependence on "cheap" oil.