Bye Bye Middle Class.

Mr. Peepers

Senior Member
Aug 11, 2009
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Brooklyn, NY
These statistics are truly sobering.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,SPY,MCD,WMT,XRT,DIA
 
If you want a middle class, ,then you want to support capitalism. Socialism always leads to haves and have nots. And the have nots always end up dead after a while.
 
If you want a middle class, ,then you want to support capitalism.

No, you support managed capitalism with protections in place for consumers. "Free" trade and deregulation is what got us into this mess. If you keep funnelling more and more of the wealth up to 5% of the population, you are going to need more and more social programs just to keep people alive. I don't understand why you corporatists don't see this.
 
I think the government, well, the radicals in charge now anyway, want everyone dependent on them. They want to completely wipe out the public sector, and yes, they're doing it, right now. It may not kick in until after obama has been kicked to the curb, and in 2012 people will be saying, "when did this happen?" Well, it's happening right now, and nobody is paying attention... except for the few that care that frequent political boards like this.

Were in deep trouble as a country. The directions obama and his minions have led us is down a path to certain destruction. We need to turn the ship around, and November better be when we start.
 
I think the government, well, the radicals in charge now anyway, want everyone dependent on them. They want to completely wipe out the public sector, and yes, they're doing it, right now. It may not kick in until after obama has been kicked to the curb, and in 2012 people will be saying, "when did this happen?" Well, it's happening right now, and nobody is paying attention... except for the few that care that frequent political boards like this.

Were in deep trouble as a country. The directions obama and his minions have led us is down a path to certain destruction. We need to turn the ship around, and November better be when we start.

O and company seem to be on the same road as the previous administrations.

Or haven't you noticed that, yet?
 
the u.s. middle class is being wiped out here's the stats to prove it: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

The globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades.

Here are the statistics to prove it:
• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans. (Hmmm, I wonder why??)
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.
 
The globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades.
Any positive proof that alleged "free trade" is to blame?

Clicked on the link and can find none.
 
If you want a middle class, ,then you want to support capitalism.

No, you support managed capitalism with protections in place for consumers. "Free" trade and deregulation is what got us into this mess. If you keep funnelling more and more of the wealth up to 5% of the population, you are going to need more and more social programs just to keep people alive. I don't understand why you corporatists don't see this.
There's absolutely zero evidence in that linked dreck to prove the case that free trade is to blame...Just another ignorant populist blog screed.

If anyone is for strictly managed trade, it's goofballs like you.
 
Any positive proof that alleged "free trade" is to blame?

Clicked on the link and can find none.

Isn't the free movement of labor between countries an element of free trade?

Doesn't the fact that corporations send jobs overseas to exploit cheap labor have a negative effect on our economy?
 
The globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades.
Any positive proof that alleged "free trade" is to blame?

Clicked on the link and can find none.

This is why the right loves Carly Fiorina. She moves 18,000 American jobs to China where striking workers just doubled their wages at a plant where they are NOW making $293 a MONTH and they call that "free trade". Because those American workers now have plenty of FREE time.

You see, between the right and the left, there is a different view of "free trade".

The left wants to protect American citizens against "exploitation". They right feels if you can't "exploit" the middle class, then it's NOT "free trade".

I hear this long drawn out grunt and see this huge movement. Then I realize that once again, the right wing has shit on the American middle class. Some don't like it. But the right wing base falls on their knees and begs, "Give me more".
 

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