Does the middle class have a future?

[HereWeGoAgain]

You're missing the point.
Too many people pay nothing into the system so they dont give a rats ass about gov spending.

MORE RIGHT WING NONSENSE. Shocking

Liberals getting their political views from a comedian ....typical.

And cons get their economic advice from entertainers who lead the GOP party, like Rush, Beck and Hannity, all barely made it out of high school. Go figure

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

 

[BluesLegend]

Just relax libs I will always need someone to cut my lawn, you can't outsource that to China.

 

[Roadrunner]

MORE RIGHT WING NONSENSE. Shocking

Liberals getting their political views from a comedian ....typical.

And cons get their economic advice from entertainers who lead the GOP party, like Rush, Beck and Hannity, all barely made it out of high school. Go figure

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

The key to a happy life is tuning your expectations to your income.

 

[Dad2three]

The middle class fell for the lie that domestic tranquillity could be ensure by providing bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being taxed sufficiently to pay for it.

The middle class killed itself; it is in its death throes now.

Ain't the Great Society wonderful?

You're close, but not quite there. The middle class fed and clothed itself with bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being sufficiently taxed. They took their fatty share, bought a few houses, and have since been retiring and living off rents, telling the next generation that they're good for nothing lazy idiots who need to learn how to work harder if they can't afford to live 5 in a house. All while calling for the same programs that provided them bread and circuses to be cut, so that they can continue to be insufficiently taxed.

What programs would those be? Never used one myself.

Dubya's tax cuts and wars will be responsible for hal

f the debt by 2020. Use any of that?

So you want to blame our current debt on a republican tax cut?
You might want to check some more "recent"
history.

Sure, let's go through POLICY that created that recent debt PLEASE? Please do your best

 

[Dad2three]

Liberals getting their political views from a comedian ....typical.

And cons get their economic advice from entertainers who lead the GOP party, like Rush, Beck and Hannity, all barely made it out of high school. Go figure

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

The key to a happy life is tuning your expectations to your income.

Conservatives at least have that correct, as their policies have been pushing down wages for 40+ years. They can't wait till the US looks like other third world nations they adore!

 

[Dad2three]

MORE RIGHT WING NONSENSE. Shocking

Liberals getting their political views from a comedian ....typical.

And cons get their economic advice from entertainers who lead the GOP party, like Rush, Beck and Hannity, all barely made it out of high school. Go figure

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

Sure Bubba, sure. Another internet millionaire right?

 

[Roadrunner]

The middle class fell for the lie that domestic tranquillity could be ensure by providing bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being taxed sufficiently to pay for it.

The middle class killed itself; it is in its death throes now.

Ain't the Great Society wonderful?

You're close, but not quite there. The middle class fed and clothed itself with bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being sufficiently taxed. They took their fatty share, bought a few houses, and have since been retiring and living off rents, telling the next generation that they're good for nothing lazy idiots who need to learn how to work harder if they can't afford to live 5 in a house. All while calling for the same programs that provided them bread and circuses to be cut, so that they can continue to be insufficiently taxed.

What programs would those be? Never used one myself.

Dubya's tax cuts and wars will be responsible for hal

f the debt by 2020. Use any of that?

So you want to blame our current debt on a republican tax cut?
You might want to check some more "recent"
history.

Sure, let's go through POLICY that created that recent debt PLEASE? Please do your best

I already did.

The middle class fell for demagoguery, and refused to pay its fair share of the entitlements that kept the ghettos quit for most of the last 40 years.

Ferguson proved that strategy has run its course.

Only difference, now we have fat people rioting, not skinny people.

BTW why aren't you at work, with three kids to feed?

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Liberals getting their political views from a comedian ....typical.

And cons get their economic advice from entertainers who lead the GOP party, like Rush, Beck and Hannity, all barely made it out of high school. Go figure

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

The key to a happy life is tuning your expectations to your income.

And the ability to realize that if your income doesnt meet your expectations,you need to work a little harder,not ask for a handout.

 

[SwimExpert]

The middle class fell for the lie that domestic tranquillity could be ensure by providing bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being taxed sufficiently to pay for it.

The middle class killed itself; it is in its death throes now.

Ain't the Great Society wonderful?

You're close, but not quite there. The middle class fed and clothed itself with bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being sufficiently taxed. They took their fatty share, bought a few houses, and have since been retiring and living off rents, telling the next generation that they're good for nothing lazy idiots who need to learn how to work harder if they can't afford to live 5 in a house. All while calling for the same programs that provided them bread and circuses to be cut, so that they can continue to be insufficiently taxed.

I did not ever imply the self-centered bastards learned their lessons; Obama did get re-elected, and they clamor for Hillary next despite all her crookedness and lies.

Not much changed.

I have a house I could rent out, but, I refuse to because I consider it immoral.

I will sell it or leave it empty, but never rent it.

Hmmm, I guess that's your choice, though I don't understand it. Not sure what's immoral about it. But your house, your decision.

My point was simply to highlight the fact that much of what you describe takes place along generational divides, and tends to be based on world views developed in the vacuumous ego-centrism of disparate comparisons across the timeline.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Liberals getting their political views from a comedian ....typical.

And cons get their economic advice from entertainers who lead the GOP party, like Rush, Beck and Hannity, all barely made it out of high school. Go figure

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

Sure Bubba, sure. Another internet millionaire right?

You go ahead and think what you want if it makes you feel better.

 

[kiwiman127]

Middle America is being squeezed out of existence. WE pay for the tax shelters for the wealthy. WE pay for corporate bailouts. WE pay for bailouts to save Wallstreet, who turns their back on middle America when their profits are huge.

All the while the GOP defends the wealthy in their shafting of the tax system and the GOP defends multinational corporations as they shirk paying their fair share of taxes. The Repub party is in business for the rich guys and the low information poor, many of whom are in the south.

Tell me again how many Wall streeters are in the current administration. You're a freaking idiot if you think your party is pure in the matter.

Who made out well under Obama?

The 1%, and the 47%.

In the middle is the fucked over class.

Ain't hope and change wonderful?

This downturn for the middle class has been going downwards for decades. It's not a brand new thing. Many decision made by presidents and congress have and are now contributing to the further weakening of the middle class.
Now I know that Salon is left leaning, but this discussion lead me to search for articles about the history of the decline of the American Middle Class. It leans slightly left in my opinion. A "hero" in his article is Richard Nixon's leadership. The "villains", is the leadership of all following presidents (Republican and Democrat). Here are excerpts:
RIP, the middle class: 1946-2013
<snip>
The shrinking of the middle class is not a failure of capitalism. It’s a failure of government. Capitalism has been doing exactly what it was designed to do: concentrating wealth in the ownership class, while providing the mass of workers with just enough wages to feed, house and clothe themselves. Young people who graduate from college to $9.80 an hour jobs as sales clerks or data processors are giving up on the concept of employment as a vehicle for improving their financial fortunes: In a recent survey, 24 percent defined the American dream as “not being in debt.” They’re not trying to get ahead. They’re just trying to get to zero.
<snip>
The last president who had a plan for protecting American workers from the vicissitudes of the global economy was Richard Nixon, who was in office when foreign steel and foreign cars began seriously competing with domestic products. The most farsighted politician of his generation, Nixon realized that America’s economic hegemony was coming to an end, and was determined to cushion the decline by a) preventing foreign manufacturers from overrunning our markets and b) teaching Americans to live within their new limits. When the United States began running a trade deficit, Nixon tried to reverse the trend with a 10 percent tariff on imported products. After the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo suddenly increased the price of gasoline from 36 cents to 53 cents a gallon (and just as suddenly increased the demand for fuel-efficient German and Japanese cars), Nixon lowered the speed limit to 55 miles an hour and introduced the Corporate Average Fuel Economy law, which gave automakers until 1985 to double their fleetwide fuel efficiency to 27.5 miles per gallon.
Had Nixon survived Watergate, he might have set the nation on a course that emphasized government regulation of the economy, and trade protection as a response to globalism. We might also have preserved more of the manufacturing base necessary for a strong middle class. But his successors dismantled that vision, beginning with Jimmy Carter, an economically conservative Southern planter. Nixon’s answer to inflation had been wage and price controls, an intrusion into the free market that would be unimaginable today. Carter deregulated the airline, rail and trucking industries, hoping that competition would result in lower prices. It didn’t, but it gave the newly liberated companies more leverage against their unions. When inflation nonetheless reached 14 percent, Carter’s hand-picked Federal Reserve Board chairman, Paul Volcker, responded by tightening the money supply, raising interest rates so high that Americans could not afford loans for cars or houses. Ronald Reagan also chose low prices over employment, refusing to free up money until inflation declined. Car sales hit a 20-year low. In the fall of 1982, the national unemployment rate was 10.8 percent, the highest since the Great Depression. Walter Mondale accused Reagan of turning the Midwest into “a rust bowl” – a term reformulated to Rust Belt. Buffalo, Cleveland, Flint and Detroit still haven’t recovered. Neither has the middle class.
“You can’t grow an economy, grow a middle class, without making things, producing stuff,” says Mike Stout, a steelworker who lost his job when Pennsylvania’s Homestead Works closed in 1986. “It’s just impossible. I haven’t seen it anywhere.”
RIP the middle class 1946-2013 - Salon.com

Clearly, taking ideological politics out of the equation is the right and objective way to intellectually approach this subject. Pointing fingers only tells half of the story.

 

[SwimExpert]

What programs would those be? Never used one myself.

This program.

 

[Roadrunner]

The middle class fell for the lie that domestic tranquillity could be ensure by providing bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being taxed sufficiently to pay for it.

The middle class killed itself; it is in its death throes now.

Ain't the Great Society wonderful?

You're close, but not quite there. The middle class fed and clothed itself with bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being sufficiently taxed. They took their fatty share, bought a few houses, and have since been retiring and living off rents, telling the next generation that they're good for nothing lazy idiots who need to learn how to work harder if they can't afford to live 5 in a house. All while calling for the same programs that provided them bread and circuses to be cut, so that they can continue to be insufficiently taxed.

I did not ever imply the self-centered bastards learned their lessons; Obama did get re-elected, and they clamor for Hillary next despite all her crookedness and lies.

Not much changed.

I have a house I could rent out, but, I refuse to because I consider it immoral.

I will sell it or leave it empty, but never rent it.

Hmmm, I guess that's your choice, though I don't understand it. Not sure what's immoral about it. But your house, your decision.

My point was simply to highlight the fact that much of what you describe takes place along generational divides, and tends to be based on world views developed in the vacuumous ego-centrism of disparate comparisons across the timeline.

Maybe just exploitive, not immoral.

I hate paying interest too, and when I loan money to friends or family, I never charge interest.

 

[Roadrunner]

Middle America is being squeezed out of existence. WE pay for the tax shelters for the wealthy. WE pay for corporate bailouts. WE pay for bailouts to save Wallstreet, who turns their back on middle America when their profits are huge.

All the while the GOP defends the wealthy in their shafting of the tax system and the GOP defends multinational corporations as they shirk paying their fair share of taxes. The Repub party is in business for the rich guys and the low information poor, many of whom are in the south.

Tell me again how many Wall streeters are in the current administration. You're a freaking idiot if you think your party is pure in the matter.

Who made out well under Obama?

The 1%, and the 47%.

In the middle is the fucked over class.

Ain't hope and change wonderful?

This downturn for the middle class has been going downwards for decades. It's not a brand new thing. Many decision made by presidents and congress have and are now contributing to the further weakening of the middle class.
Now I know that Salon is left leaning, but this discussion lead me to search for articles about the history of the decline of the American Middle Class. It leans slightly left in my opinion. A "hero" in his article is Richard Nixon's leadership. The "villains", is the leadership of all following presidents (Republican and Democrat). Here are excerpts:
RIP, the middle class: 1946-2013
<snip>
The shrinking of the middle class is not a failure of capitalism. It’s a failure of government. Capitalism has been doing exactly what it was designed to do: concentrating wealth in the ownership class, while providing the mass of workers with just enough wages to feed, house and clothe themselves. Young people who graduate from college to $9.80 an hour jobs as sales clerks or data processors are giving up on the concept of employment as a vehicle for improving their financial fortunes: In a recent survey, 24 percent defined the American dream as “not being in debt.” They’re not trying to get ahead. They’re just trying to get to zero.
<snip>
The last president who had a plan for protecting American workers from the vicissitudes of the global economy was Richard Nixon, who was in office when foreign steel and foreign cars began seriously competing with domestic products. The most farsighted politician of his generation, Nixon realized that America’s economic hegemony was coming to an end, and was determined to cushion the decline by a) preventing foreign manufacturers from overrunning our markets and b) teaching Americans to live within their new limits. When the United States began running a trade deficit, Nixon tried to reverse the trend with a 10 percent tariff on imported products. After the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo suddenly increased the price of gasoline from 36 cents to 53 cents a gallon (and just as suddenly increased the demand for fuel-efficient German and Japanese cars), Nixon lowered the speed limit to 55 miles an hour and introduced the Corporate Average Fuel Economy law, which gave automakers until 1985 to double their fleetwide fuel efficiency to 27.5 miles per gallon.
Had Nixon survived Watergate, he might have set the nation on a course that emphasized government regulation of the economy, and trade protection as a response to globalism. We might also have preserved more of the manufacturing base necessary for a strong middle class. But his successors dismantled that vision, beginning with Jimmy Carter, an economically conservative Southern planter. Nixon’s answer to inflation had been wage and price controls, an intrusion into the free market that would be unimaginable today. Carter deregulated the airline, rail and trucking industries, hoping that competition would result in lower prices. It didn’t, but it gave the newly liberated companies more leverage against their unions. When inflation nonetheless reached 14 percent, Carter’s hand-picked Federal Reserve Board chairman, Paul Volcker, responded by tightening the money supply, raising interest rates so high that Americans could not afford loans for cars or houses. Ronald Reagan also chose low prices over employment, refusing to free up money until inflation declined. Car sales hit a 20-year low. In the fall of 1982, the national unemployment rate was 10.8 percent, the highest since the Great Depression. Walter Mondale accused Reagan of turning the Midwest into “a rust bowl” – a term reformulated to Rust Belt. Buffalo, Cleveland, Flint and Detroit still haven’t recovered. Neither has the middle class.
“You can’t grow an economy, grow a middle class, without making things, producing stuff,” says Mike Stout, a steelworker who lost his job when Pennsylvania’s Homestead Works closed in 1986. “It’s just impossible. I haven’t seen it anywhere.”
RIP the middle class 1946-2013 - Salon.com

Clearly, taking ideological politics out of the equation is the right and objective way to intellectually approach this subject. Pointing fingers only tells half of the story.

Downturn for middle class started with LBJ's Great Society, decades ago, as you point out.

I am sure you know I didn't read that entire post though.

I am here for fun, not tedious mental labor.

 

[Dad2three]

You're close, but not quite there. The middle class fed and clothed itself with bread and circuses to the masses on borrowed money without being sufficiently taxed. They took their fatty share, bought a few houses, and have since been retiring and living off rents, telling the next generation that they're good for nothing lazy idiots who need to learn how to work harder if they can't afford to live 5 in a house. All while calling for the same programs that provided them bread and circuses to be cut, so that they can continue to be insufficiently taxed.

What programs would those be? Never used one myself.

Dubya's tax cuts and wars will be responsible for hal

f the debt by 2020. Use any of that?

So you want to blame our current debt on a republican tax cut?
You might want to check some more "recent"
history.

Sure, let's go through POLICY that created that recent debt PLEASE? Please do your best

I already did.

The middle class fell for demagoguery, and refused to pay its fair share of the entitlements that kept the ghettos quit for most of the last 40 years.

Ferguson proved that strategy has run its course.

Only difference, now we have fat people rioting, not skinny people.

BTW why aren't you at work, with three kids to feed?

Another right winger without honesty. Shocking

As the conservatives pushed "trickle down".

"The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it." Thomas Jefferson

In 1980 the top 1% earned 8.5% of total income. In 2007 they earned 23%.

In 1980 the bottom 90% earned 68% of total income. In 2007 they earned 53%.

Summary of Latest Federal Income Tax Data Tax Foundation

GOV'T POLICY MATTERS !!!

Keynes wrote "The End of Laissez Faire" in 1926. He was correct then, and his insight remains more valid than any economics that conservative Libertarians propound ad infinitum and ad nauseum. Laissez Faire is nothing more than a childish Christmas wish of no substance; just hope and myth, and smoke and mirrors. Fails every time we try even the tiniest bit.



PLEASE give me ONE policy conservatives have EVER been on the correct side of history on in the US PLEASE?

 

[Dad2three]

And cons get their economic advice from entertainers who lead the GOP party, like Rush, Beck and Hannity, all barely made it out of high school. Go figure

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

The key to a happy life is tuning your expectations to your income.

And the ability to realize that if your income doesnt meet your expectations,you need to work a little harder,not ask for a handout.

Oh right, sorry, it's the "work" that's missing NOT wages or income *shaking head*


Conservatives simplistic minds

If you are rich it is because of your merits. If you are poor its because of your faults.

 

[Dad2three]

And cons get their economic advice from entertainers who lead the GOP party, like Rush, Beck and Hannity, all barely made it out of high school. Go figure

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

Sure Bubba, sure. Another internet millionaire right?

You go ahead and think what you want if it makes you feel better.

We have a political party and *news* channel that caters to people who live in Black-n-White World. Even though nearly all societies have some socialist aspects to them, Faux News and Republicans like to spotlight individual things and label them and anyone who supports them as "socialist."

Most of Faux News viewers are non-1%er retirees, which means they are lapping up most of the socialism the US offers its citizens: social security and Medicare.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

The key to a happy life is tuning your expectations to your income.

And the ability to realize that if your income doesnt meet your expectations,you need to work a little harder,not ask for a handout.

Oh right, sorry, it's the "work" that's missing NOT wages or income *shaking head*


Conservatives simplistic minds

If you are rich it is because of your merits. If you are poor its because of your faults.

Never had a problem finding a job in my entire life.
Of course I live in Texas so thats no surprise.
Maybe liberal states should take notes.

 

[Dad2three]

Middle America is being squeezed out of existence. WE pay for the tax shelters for the wealthy. WE pay for corporate bailouts. WE pay for bailouts to save Wallstreet, who turns their back on middle America when their profits are huge.

All the while the GOP defends the wealthy in their shafting of the tax system and the GOP defends multinational corporations as they shirk paying their fair share of taxes. The Repub party is in business for the rich guys and the low information poor, many of whom are in the south.

Tell me again how many Wall streeters are in the current administration. You're a freaking idiot if you think your party is pure in the matter.

Who made out well under Obama?

The 1%, and the 47%.

In the middle is the fucked over class.

Ain't hope and change wonderful?

This downturn for the middle class has been going downwards for decades. It's not a brand new thing. Many decision made by presidents and congress have and are now contributing to the further weakening of the middle class.
Now I know that Salon is left leaning, but this discussion lead me to search for articles about the history of the decline of the American Middle Class. It leans slightly left in my opinion. A "hero" in his article is Richard Nixon's leadership. The "villains", is the leadership of all following presidents (Republican and Democrat). Here are excerpts:
RIP, the middle class: 1946-2013
<snip>
The shrinking of the middle class is not a failure of capitalism. It’s a failure of government. Capitalism has been doing exactly what it was designed to do: concentrating wealth in the ownership class, while providing the mass of workers with just enough wages to feed, house and clothe themselves. Young people who graduate from college to $9.80 an hour jobs as sales clerks or data processors are giving up on the concept of employment as a vehicle for improving their financial fortunes: In a recent survey, 24 percent defined the American dream as “not being in debt.” They’re not trying to get ahead. They’re just trying to get to zero.
<snip>
The last president who had a plan for protecting American workers from the vicissitudes of the global economy was Richard Nixon, who was in office when foreign steel and foreign cars began seriously competing with domestic products. The most farsighted politician of his generation, Nixon realized that America’s economic hegemony was coming to an end, and was determined to cushion the decline by a) preventing foreign manufacturers from overrunning our markets and b) teaching Americans to live within their new limits. When the United States began running a trade deficit, Nixon tried to reverse the trend with a 10 percent tariff on imported products. After the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo suddenly increased the price of gasoline from 36 cents to 53 cents a gallon (and just as suddenly increased the demand for fuel-efficient German and Japanese cars), Nixon lowered the speed limit to 55 miles an hour and introduced the Corporate Average Fuel Economy law, which gave automakers until 1985 to double their fleetwide fuel efficiency to 27.5 miles per gallon.
Had Nixon survived Watergate, he might have set the nation on a course that emphasized government regulation of the economy, and trade protection as a response to globalism. We might also have preserved more of the manufacturing base necessary for a strong middle class. But his successors dismantled that vision, beginning with Jimmy Carter, an economically conservative Southern planter. Nixon’s answer to inflation had been wage and price controls, an intrusion into the free market that would be unimaginable today. Carter deregulated the airline, rail and trucking industries, hoping that competition would result in lower prices. It didn’t, but it gave the newly liberated companies more leverage against their unions. When inflation nonetheless reached 14 percent, Carter’s hand-picked Federal Reserve Board chairman, Paul Volcker, responded by tightening the money supply, raising interest rates so high that Americans could not afford loans for cars or houses. Ronald Reagan also chose low prices over employment, refusing to free up money until inflation declined. Car sales hit a 20-year low. In the fall of 1982, the national unemployment rate was 10.8 percent, the highest since the Great Depression. Walter Mondale accused Reagan of turning the Midwest into “a rust bowl” – a term reformulated to Rust Belt. Buffalo, Cleveland, Flint and Detroit still haven’t recovered. Neither has the middle class.
“You can’t grow an economy, grow a middle class, without making things, producing stuff,” says Mike Stout, a steelworker who lost his job when Pennsylvania’s Homestead Works closed in 1986. “It’s just impossible. I haven’t seen it anywhere.”
RIP the middle class 1946-2013 - Salon.com

Clearly, taking ideological politics out of the equation is the right and objective way to intellectually approach this subject. Pointing fingers only tells half of the story.

Andrew Mellon had a few distinctly progressive ideas. Of particular note, he suggested taxing "earned" income from wages and salaries more lightly that "unearned" income from investments. As he argued:


The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or from investments is beyond question. In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man's life and it descends to his heirs.

Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mental and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.



Tax History Project -- The Republican Roots of New Deal Tax Policy

"How many times do you have to get hit over the head before you figure out who's hitting you?" - President Harry Truman

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

I dont need anyones advice on how to make money.
And the funny thing is? The advice given by those entertaining radio host fits the path I took and I have no complaints.
Sounds to me like you're listening to the wrong advice.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America Wealth Income and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated


Neo-Liberalism/Conservatives is/has destroyed the American Economy in favor of the so called "Job Creator"... In reality are "Job Exporters"...


Republicans only seem to have one solution to any problem - make life harder for those on the bottom.

Maybe your whining doesnt resonate with me since I dont have money problems.

Sure Bubba, sure. Another internet millionaire right?

You go ahead and think what you want if it makes you feel better.

We have a political party and *news* channel that caters to people who live in Black-n-White World. Even though nearly all societies have some socialist aspects to them, Faux News and Republicans like to spotlight individual things and label them and anyone who supports them as "socialist."

Most of Faux News viewers are non-1%er retirees, which means they are lapping up most of the socialism the US offers its citizens: social security and Medicare.

So which news channel do crying liberals watch?