The Decline Of The Middle Class Is Causing Even More Economic Damage Than Realized

[ABikerSailor]

Decline of unions definitely hurt workers....wages, benefits, decline in response. There's nothing a worker has in their corner now and a strong work ethic gets a person kicked in the throat. The company has all the power. Neither candidate cares for the middle class which I believe is defined at about 120 thousand Healy household income. Anything lower is poor.

Nahh.. 120k ain't shit once you have it. You really need between 700-900k per year to live right. Of course, when everyone is making that, it will need to double or triple every few years to keep up with inflation.

Guess nobody in the military lives right, because they will never see that kind of money while serving, even if they make it all the way to the highest rank of the enlisted which is E9.

If they have a college degree, and manage to come in as an officer, they still won't make it to 700k per year.

Me? I retired as an E-6 over 20 years and was only making 36,000/yr my last year in.

Ah... well, we all just get a protest sign and demand it... right? I mean, that's what works! We start whining and moaning about it and keep demanding it on message boards, beating people down who oppose it, accusing them of being racists and bigots, destroy opposition on all levels, get some politicians on board through our activism and hey.... we can make this happen!

I'm simply making the point that $100k a year is chump change once you have it. You'd be surprised just how quickly you would blow through that and then you look around and here's this guy over here making a million dollars a year... it's not FAIR. So forget about $100k being a reasonable living... let's go for $700k... or $900k... or why not just say $1mil? Why not man?

I guess you missed the point of the post. You said that 125,000/yr ain't squat and to live right, you had to make 700 to 900 thousand/yr.

I simply told you that nobody in the military is living right if that is what you consider enough to live right, because the majority of the military earns less than 50,000/year. And, while you consider less than 100,000/yr to be chump change, most of the military manages to live a decent life on less than half of that.

Would I like it if our military was actually paid what they were worth? You bet. I personally believe that starting pay for the military should be what it is for police officers or better, because you sure as hell don't join the military for the pay.

I know. I served 20 years in the Navy.

 

[ScienceRocks]

The vast majority of this country make less then 50k per year. The rich take so fucking much that the numbers are slanted upwards, but the vast majority are quite poor.

Yet, you don't want to educate them
You don't want to enforce anti-trust to make the business environment better for small businesses.
And you don't think the workers should have unions.

 

[rdean]

The Decline Of The Middle Class Is Causing Even More Economic Damage Than Realized

The GOP has been owned by big business for decades. We told them what the Bush tax cuts and deregulation would do. And they went ahead and did it any way.

 

[FA_Q2]

You, along with most liberals, seem to think the "middle class" is a static group of people who exist in a bubble. and they remain in that group always. This is just plain ignorance and you should try to overcome it.

You see, people are constantly moving in and out of the "middle class" all the time. Poor people start doing better and bump up to "middle class" and upper middle class do better and bump up to wealthy. Some wealthy lose their fortunes and rejoin the middle and some in the middle fall on bad times and drop to the poor. It's constantly fluid and changing.

In many ways, the "middle class" is like a neighborhood. So let's take an old neighborhood in my hometown as an example. Close to where I was raised is Avondale. In the 60s, it was mostly middle class families, blue collar, mostly white. The homes were nice, the streets were clean, it was a pretty typical middle class American neighborhood.

In the mid-60s, white families began to move out to the suburbs and black families began to move in. The average family was lower income and the condition of the houses and streets began to decline. By 1980, it was a crime-infested place you wouldn't dare go at night and didn't like to be in the day. Now, in "bubble world" where everything remains the same, there could have been studies and articles about the drastic decline and damage to the neighborhood and all sorts of things could have been blamed. In reality, it was simply a matter of economics.

Jump ahead to 2000, young white hipsters, Asians and Latinos began buying and remodeling the dilapidated houses and fixing the place up. Now, Avondale is a thriving little hot spot. You see, things don't happen in a bubble, they happen in cycles and waves. The same is true with the middle class. As people become more wealthy and leave the middle class, poor people break in to the middle class. So you look at the middle class and it appears it's not doing as well as it was a decade or two ago, but that may be because many have moved on and upward.

View attachment 91586
Here is a graph that shows the changes we've experienced in the various income levels of families through the years. As you can see, the middle-income families are declining but where are they going? The lower-income families are relatively unchanged, maybe even slightly lower. It's clear, they are becoming part of the upper-income families. So is this a bad thing for the "middle class" or a good thing?

Holy shit. That was a long winded way of saying that the middle class is "declining" because those people are just moving into the "upper class" thus leaving fewer people in the "middle class" range.

Which is, without a doubt, one of the dumbest fucking things ever said. For the love of fucking god, would someone please remove this moron from the fucking ventilator. He's obviously too fucking stupid to breath on his own. No good is coming from the wasted electricity that's being spent on you.

You certainly did not post anything to the contrary.

How about you back those claims up?

 

[Boss]

I guess you missed the point of the post. You said that 125,000/yr ain't squat and to live right, you had to make 700 to 900 thousand/yr.

I simply told you that nobody in the military is living right if that is what you consider enough to live right, because the majority of the military earns less than 50,000/year. And, while you consider less than 100,000/yr to be chump change, most of the military manages to live a decent life on less than half of that.

Would I like it if our military was actually paid what they were worth? You bet. I personally believe that starting pay for the military should be what it is for police officers or better, because you sure as hell don't join the military for the pay.

I know. I served 20 years in the Navy.

Maybe it was you who missed the point. I can live off $10,000 a year. A lot of people can't because they don't know how to make do with very little. I may not be "living it up" on $10k but I won't starve. So, I know that if I can live off $10k, people can live off $7.50/hr. if they have to. The thing is,some people want to live a certain lifestyle and have certain amenities... and this may vary from person to person. So where do we draw this line and say "this is fair" and "that's not fair"? If we say $15 an hour, why not $25 an hour? If we say $100k per year, why not $700k per year?

Now, when you talk to some liberal about this, they start reeling off their list of things they think people should be able to provide for themselves... a home, a car, clothing, medicine, food, etc. But you don't have to have a home, you can live at the YMCA... you don't really need a car, they're costly and expensive with maintenance and tags, insurance and registration. You can buy good clothes at thrift stores. Every county has a free health clinic. Anyone can get food stamps or visit the food pantry.

What we have are a nation full of spoiled little pussies who think they are entitled to someone else's stuff or the fruits of someone else's labor. Someone else has wiped their butts for them all their lives and they just think society should keep that up. I think this entire little group needs desperately to learn some tough life lessons and the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Boss]

The vast majority of this country make less then 50k per year. The rich take so fucking much that the numbers are slanted upwards, but the vast majority are quite poor.

Yet, you don't want to educate them
You don't want to enforce anti-trust to make the business environment better for small businesses.
And you don't think the workers should have unions.

I don't give two shits what the rest of the country makes to be honest. It's not my problem. The rich need to take every fucking thing they can get and then sock it away in a security trust so you can't get your grubby little selfish hands on it. Get your ass out there and create your own damn wealth and stop expecting ME to take care of you... it's not my job.

I've already told you I don't have a problem with anti-trust laws and I do have a problem with corporatists buying influence in government. I want us to return to small limited government where there isn't any influence to buy. I don't give a shit if you want to form a union but don't come crying to me when the capitalist moves his production outside of the country because your union drove jobs away. It's what happens to greed in a free market system.

 

[SwimExpert]

You, along with most liberals, seem to think the "middle class" is a static group of people who exist in a bubble. and they remain in that group always. This is just plain ignorance and you should try to overcome it.

You see, people are constantly moving in and out of the "middle class" all the time. Poor people start doing better and bump up to "middle class" and upper middle class do better and bump up to wealthy. Some wealthy lose their fortunes and rejoin the middle and some in the middle fall on bad times and drop to the poor. It's constantly fluid and changing.

In many ways, the "middle class" is like a neighborhood. So let's take an old neighborhood in my hometown as an example. Close to where I was raised is Avondale. In the 60s, it was mostly middle class families, blue collar, mostly white. The homes were nice, the streets were clean, it was a pretty typical middle class American neighborhood.

In the mid-60s, white families began to move out to the suburbs and black families began to move in. The average family was lower income and the condition of the houses and streets began to decline. By 1980, it was a crime-infested place you wouldn't dare go at night and didn't like to be in the day. Now, in "bubble world" where everything remains the same, there could have been studies and articles about the drastic decline and damage to the neighborhood and all sorts of things could have been blamed. In reality, it was simply a matter of economics.

Jump ahead to 2000, young white hipsters, Asians and Latinos began buying and remodeling the dilapidated houses and fixing the place up. Now, Avondale is a thriving little hot spot. You see, things don't happen in a bubble, they happen in cycles and waves. The same is true with the middle class. As people become more wealthy and leave the middle class, poor people break in to the middle class. So you look at the middle class and it appears it's not doing as well as it was a decade or two ago, but that may be because many have moved on and upward.

View attachment 91586
Here is a graph that shows the changes we've experienced in the various income levels of families through the years. As you can see, the middle-income families are declining but where are they going? The lower-income families are relatively unchanged, maybe even slightly lower. It's clear, they are becoming part of the upper-income families. So is this a bad thing for the "middle class" or a good thing?

Holy shit. That was a long winded way of saying that the middle class is "declining" because those people are just moving into the "upper class" thus leaving fewer people in the "middle class" range.

Which is, without a doubt, one of the dumbest fucking things ever said. For the love of fucking god, would someone please remove this moron from the fucking ventilator. He's obviously too fucking stupid to breath on his own. No good is coming from the wasted electricity that's being spent on you.

You certainly did not post anything to the contrary.

How about you back those claims up?

Claims? I did not make any claims. The OP's conceptualization of the entire matter is patently absurd.

 

[FA_Q2]

You, along with most liberals, seem to think the "middle class" is a static group of people who exist in a bubble. and they remain in that group always. This is just plain ignorance and you should try to overcome it.

You see, people are constantly moving in and out of the "middle class" all the time. Poor people start doing better and bump up to "middle class" and upper middle class do better and bump up to wealthy. Some wealthy lose their fortunes and rejoin the middle and some in the middle fall on bad times and drop to the poor. It's constantly fluid and changing.

In many ways, the "middle class" is like a neighborhood. So let's take an old neighborhood in my hometown as an example. Close to where I was raised is Avondale. In the 60s, it was mostly middle class families, blue collar, mostly white. The homes were nice, the streets were clean, it was a pretty typical middle class American neighborhood.

In the mid-60s, white families began to move out to the suburbs and black families began to move in. The average family was lower income and the condition of the houses and streets began to decline. By 1980, it was a crime-infested place you wouldn't dare go at night and didn't like to be in the day. Now, in "bubble world" where everything remains the same, there could have been studies and articles about the drastic decline and damage to the neighborhood and all sorts of things could have been blamed. In reality, it was simply a matter of economics.

Jump ahead to 2000, young white hipsters, Asians and Latinos began buying and remodeling the dilapidated houses and fixing the place up. Now, Avondale is a thriving little hot spot. You see, things don't happen in a bubble, they happen in cycles and waves. The same is true with the middle class. As people become more wealthy and leave the middle class, poor people break in to the middle class. So you look at the middle class and it appears it's not doing as well as it was a decade or two ago, but that may be because many have moved on and upward.

View attachment 91586
Here is a graph that shows the changes we've experienced in the various income levels of families through the years. As you can see, the middle-income families are declining but where are they going? The lower-income families are relatively unchanged, maybe even slightly lower. It's clear, they are becoming part of the upper-income families. So is this a bad thing for the "middle class" or a good thing?

Holy shit. That was a long winded way of saying that the middle class is "declining" because those people are just moving into the "upper class" thus leaving fewer people in the "middle class" range.

Which is, without a doubt, one of the dumbest fucking things ever said. For the love of fucking god, would someone please remove this moron from the fucking ventilator. He's obviously too fucking stupid to breath on his own. No good is coming from the wasted electricity that's being spent on you.

You certainly did not post anything to the contrary.

How about you back those claims up?

Claims? I did not make any claims. The OP's conceptualization of the entire matter is patently absurd.

He claimed the middle class is disappearing because they are rising.

You flatly claimed that was absurd. Then you show nothing that shows it as absurd. You did make a claim.

 

[SwimExpert]

He claimed the middle class is disappearing because they are rising.

You flatly claimed that was absurd. Then you show nothing that shows it as absurd. You did make a claim.

Yes, it's absurd. It's the equivalent of saying that the middle of a train is disappearing because the order of train cars has been changed, and some of the middle cars have been moved forward, becoming part of the front of the train.

He equivocates the premise into an absurdity, to create a straw man. Boss is a fucking idiot, as usual. The "decline" of the middle class is not about who is in the middle. Nor is it Boss' bullshit suggestion that it's how many people are in the middle class.

 

[Boss]

He claimed the middle class is disappearing because they are rising.

You flatly claimed that was absurd. Then you show nothing that shows it as absurd. You did make a claim.

Yes, it's absurd. It's the equivalent of saying that the middle of a train is disappearing because the order of train cars has been changed, and some of the middle cars have been moved forward, becoming part of the front of the train.

He equivocates the premise into an absurdity, to create a straw man. Boss is a fucking idiot, as usual. The "decline" of the middle class is not about who is in the middle. Nor is it Boss' bullshit suggestion that it's how many people are in the middle class.

What an oddball analogy. No, personal family incomes are not like train cars. Don't they have some 9-piece jigsaw puzzles to keep you occupied? What's absurd is that I waste my precious time on Earth having any sort of discourse with morons of your caliber. I really should have my head examined for that because there are much more gratifying ways to spend my time.

There is no straw man here other than liberal whines about "the declining middle class". The facts show that while the so-called "middle class" (aka: middle-income families) have declined since 1967, they are becoming part of the "wealthy class" (aka: upper-income families). You can't knock the source because it's the US Census Bureau. So you are left with attacking me personally. This is what Liberals ALWAYS resort to... Like Linda Blair spewing split-pea soup on the priest dousing her with holy water! I know it burns and stings but the truth is going to do you good... we need to exorcise the demons of socialism from your body so you can join us in building our country back.

...The Power of Capitalism compels thee! ...The Power of Capitalism compels thee!

 

[SwimExpert]

He claimed the middle class is disappearing because they are rising.

You flatly claimed that was absurd. Then you show nothing that shows it as absurd. You did make a claim.

Yes, it's absurd. It's the equivalent of saying that the middle of a train is disappearing because the order of train cars has been changed, and some of the middle cars have been moved forward, becoming part of the front of the train.

He equivocates the premise into an absurdity, to create a straw man. Boss is a fucking idiot, as usual. The "decline" of the middle class is not about who is in the middle. Nor is it Boss' bullshit suggestion that it's how many people are in the middle class.

What an oddball analogy. No, personal family incomes are not like train cars. Don't they have some 9-piece jigsaw puzzles to keep you occupied? What's absurd is that I waste my precious time on Earth having any sort of discourse with morons of your caliber. I really should have my head examined for that because there are much more gratifying ways to spend my time.

There is no straw man here other than liberal whines about "the declining middle class". The facts show that while the so-called "middle class" (aka: middle-income families) have declined since 1967, they are becoming part of the "wealthy class" (aka: upper-income families). You can't knock the source because it's the US Census Bureau. So you are left with attacking me personally. This is what Liberals ALWAYS resort to... Like Linda Blair spewing split-pea soup on the priest dousing her with holy water! I know it burns and stings but the truth is going to do you good... we need to exorcise the demons of socialism from your body so you can join us in building our country back.

...The Power of Capitalism compels thee! ...The Power of Capitalism compels thee!

*yawn*

It's amazing how hard some people will work to be so fucking stupid.

 

[Disir]

The article at the link below concerns yet another study proving conservative economic policies designed to serve the exclusive wants of the very rich are destroying the middle class.



But there is no point explaining this to the right-wingers, they are convinced the Reagan “Trickle Down” has been great for everybody for the past four decades. Their confidence in Ronny’s“supply-side voodoo” has blinded them to the facts that the very rich are getting much, much richer while the rest of us lose financial ground each year.



Of course, in the demented and illogical minds of the right wing, the scapegoats responsible for all that is wrong with our economy are: the “welfare queens” Reagan told them of, regulations to protect our environment, regulations to protect working people, regulations to protect consumers, etc. To the clueless conservatives, these are the culprits hurting the middle class and causing the growing poverty. To the ignorant righties, the unbridled greed of the fat cats is good for all.



Evidence of the conservatives' typical idiocy will be seen in their responses to this OP and the article below.



The decline of the middle class is causing even more economic damage than we realized





.

Like outsourcing, offshoring and H1b visas....that the Democrats support. Destruction of the education system and USPS which the Democrats also supported or had a huge hand in.


It isn't rocket science folks.

 

[Boss]

*yawn*

It's amazing how hard some people will work to be so fucking stupid.

I wouldn't say that... it seems like you put no effort into it at all.