I think the problem is defined better by culture than by income. Think about the guys down at the local coffee shop bitching about paying taxes and voting in favor of propositions that cripple the economy of their own state. Then they whine about bad roads, too few cops, too few firefighters, too long a wait at the emergency room, disappointing performance of schools, etc.

What they're bitching about is that the lunch turned out not to be free after all. They persist in a permanent state of cognitive dissonance, thinking they can enjoy all the privileges of free citizens without actually having to do their fair share in paying for them. What makes this possible is essentially greed. The same greed and the same divorce from reality of the Wall Street CEOs.

Different in scale, but similar in substance.

I agree with the video in that our country needs fundamental reform down entire spectrum. Our economy is made by the rich for the rich and as long as greed by a few overpowers our standard of living, we will never truly have freedom even though we are force fed to think we are free.

Pjacobs, your basic point is sound; but, for the record, the facilities charge restaurant prices per meal, but they actually are just cafeterias. The war profiteers were given a no-bid contract to run those cafeterias. And they refuse to report the number of meals they serve for the total cost they submit. (Trade secret, they insist.)

Naomi Klein (and I'm sure others) have written about the way citizens around the world (at least the western world) are taking to the streets to protest the way collusion between politicians and plutocrats are destroying us. I especially like Klein's mentioning that the citizens of Iceland were pounding pots and pans outside government buildings but also throwing things. Tomatoes? Eggs? Predictable. But she says one person went home to grab a container of yogurt to throw.

How many aircraft carriers (named after republicans) do we need? And why do we even need Halliburton? The troops in WWII didn't have restaurants at their disposal.

Cut the pork! . . . . . Dammit!

Like I said I am not optimistic. In 1999 on a debate on a community TV station in South Florida I argued that if the US, continue to cut taxes on the wealthy, Continue to NOT have a clear path for industrialization, Continue to NOT have Universal health care and on top of that voted for GW we had a recipe for disaster.
Economist Jeffrey Sachs talked about that today on how congress had reached a deal by cutting Education and health care, these two are paramount. Well the money that was passed today will addressed these things very timidly, but not enough to move forward and the people of this country in their infinite ignorance will start to fall through the cracks, like never before.

Not optimistic.