So long, middle class

NY Post ^ | August 1, 2010 | MICHAEL T. SNYDER

[Scanian]

The 25 statistics below prove that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate.

Why? Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing rules, regulations and taxes that make it even more difficult to conduct business here. What has developed is a situation where the people at the top are doing quite well, while the average family barely gets by. Entitlement programs are expanding at unprecedented rates, but it is the people in the middle — who shoulder the costs of these programs, while their salaries stagnate — who are being squeezed in a sea of depressing statistics . . .

[napscoordinator]

The Middle Class is the group that makes the average amount of money for America. For example, the average wage is 48,000 nation wide so anyone making 48,000 is middle class.....statistically it would be anyone from 36,000 to 60,000 as middle class. I still think there are a good amount of middle class in the United States. This is more doom and gloom that they pulled on President Bush all the time. Does anyone remember that? It used to piss us off all the time.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

The middle class isn’t going to naturally self destruct.

It’s like anything else, it responds to the forces it runs into with the hopes/goal of survival. And right now, the most powerful force the american middle class is running into is government who has targetted them for existance.

Had the middle class been responding to natural economic forces for all these years instead of the oppressive tax/regulatory regime, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

------------This is more doom and gloom that they pulled on President Bush all the time. Does anyone remember that? It used to piss us off all the time.-------------

There's a huge difference between "gravitas" and this:

==========Entitlement programs are expanding at unprecedented rates, but it is the people in the middle - who shoulder the costs of these programs, while their salaries stagnate - who are being squeezed============

When the media PR Agents pulled it's talking points stunts, that was as artificial as the economic rules the government has imposed on us.

[library user]

1. According to a 2009 poll, 61% of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49% in 2008 and 43% in 2007.

2. 36% of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.

Eh, how can the percentage in #2 be lower than in #1. #2 has to be higher than 61%, one would think. Doesn't add up alert.

[Richard from IL]

The middle class, and churches in general, are a hindrance to revolutionary change. That is why radicals like Obama want to eliminate them.

[Soul of the South]

A healthy republic requires a strong, well educated, and economically independent middle class. A strong middle class makes it very difficult for a one party totalitarian state to thrive.

The middle class has been under attack by the elites for over 40 years. The education system has been intentionally dumbed down. The assault on our culture and values has eroded love of country. The “free trade” movement has resulted in the outsourcing of many middle class blue collar jobs. Expansion of government and government programs has the purpose of trapping lower middle class members into dependency on the government. Subsidies and special treatment for mega corporations allied with government has come at the expense of small businesses owned by members of the middle class. Family farms are crushed by regulation and subsidies to the mega farming producers.

The solution is smaller government and end to collusion between big, subsidized business and big government. Perhaps it is time to break up the goliath corporations to put more competition into the economy. The corporate takeovers and mergers of the last 20 years have resulted in waves of downsizings and elimination of middle class jobs. Are we better off?

[B-Chan]

The author's definition of "middle class" is incorrect.

• The middle class is the bourgeois class, made up of those who earn income from their own enterprise. Small business owners, shopkeepers, professionals (e.g. physicians), artists, traders, the self-employed — anyone who does not draw a wage from an employer.

• The working glass (aka the proletarian class) are those people who work for wages — who have no source of income other than the trading of their labor for pay.

• And the upper class (the capitalist class) comprises those whose income comes entirely from the property they own — real property (houses, factories, etc.) investments (stocks, bonds, funds, dividends, etc.) or intellectual property (trademarks, copyrights, etc.)

As G.K. Chesterton once observed, "If capitalism means private property, I am capitalist. If capitalism means capital, everybody is capitalist. But if capitalism means this particular condition of capital, only paid out to the mass in the form of wages, then it does mean something, even if it ought to mean something else.

"The truth is that what we call Capitalism ought to be called Proletarianism. The point of it is not that some people have capital, but that most people only have wages because they do not have capital."(The Outline of Sanity, London, Methuen and Co., pp. 108, 151, 148).

[Sooth2222]

Last line of the Post article: "Michael T. Snyder blogs at theeconomiccollapseblog.com"

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

He sounds pretty much like a typical "doom and gloomer". I don't know where to start with his article. Apples and -- not oranges -- apples and pebbles. The national median age was 36.7 years as of 2007. They aren't going to be retiring for another 30 years. OF COURSE they don't have much saved up for retirement!

[CORedneck]

The democrats rather you work as a working class member, that is, work for a large corporation rather than have an independent business. Therefore, you are easier to control and stomp on through management if you cause “trouble”.

> • The middle class is the bourgeois class, made up of those who earn income from their own enterprise. Small business owners, shopkeepers, professionals (e.g. physicians), artists, traders, the self-employed — anyone who does not draw a wage from an employer.

> • The working glass (aka the proletarian class) are those people who work for wages — who have no source of income other than the trading of their labor for pay.

> • And the upper class (the capitalist class) comprises those whose income comes entirely from the property they own — real property (houses, factories, etc.) investments (stocks, bonds, funds, dividends, etc.) or intellectual property (trademarks, copyrights, etc.)

[Bryanw92]

>>Eh, how can the percentage in #2 be lower than in #1. #2 has to be higher than 61%, one would think. Doesn’t add up alert.

You could automatically put money into a 401k and still live paycheck-to-paycheck.

[Amberdawn]

American workers are the most expensive in the world? I think not, unless this writer has never been to Europe.

[RayChuang88]

And you wonder why the Tea Party movement sprung up in March 2009—one thing they feared was that increasing government regulations and increased taxes would literally destroy the economy of the USA. We could have a poltiical bloodbath on November 2, 2010 at the rate things are going....

[BobP]

The middle class has been under attack by the elites for over 40 years.

When administration officials, and the President talk about stimulating the economy you have to wonder that if it were a Broadway production would it be classified as a comedy or a tragedy.

Small business creates 80 percent of the jobs in America. Who owns small businesses? The successful people Democrats love to demonize.

Obama, the king and master of nothing, kills America financially and when the economy realizes some growth again, those waiting to get rehired as managers and engineers start to find they have to work two jobs as cashiers and janitors.

These liberals are going to friggin' sing and dance along, all the way, as they dance off a cliff.

WAKE UP AMERICA!

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[randita]

IMO, the bourgeois and proletarian labels should be switched because there’s nothing bourgeois or privileged about being self-employed and seeing your income take a 50% haircut over the past two years to where you’re barely making ends meet. All while watching the proletarian common class (i.e. government workers, union workers) enjoying increases in salaries and benefits while the so-called bourgeois class is making do with much, much less.

[hondo1951]

As long as workers in China and India earn $1.00 an hour, with no EPA, OSHA, DEP the middle class is screwed.

[hondo1951]

As long as workers in China and India earn $1.00 an hour, with no EPA, OSHA, DEP the middle class is screwed.

[george76]

[kabumpo]

thank you — a much-need and appreciated clarification.

[CORedneck]

Your welcome :)

Based on experience. I have been in the corporate world for a long time ! I played my “cards” very well to where I was in my mid-30’s when I became debt free and this includes no mortgage on the house. The company I use to work for, one of the managers I worked for was a very “blue” liberal democrat. He found out I paid off my house and he was asking how I did it and he had a lot of snide remarks about how some people “don’t know their place”, etc.

He made some thin-veiled threats a few time and it p!$$edhim off that I would not buckle under them or “kowtow” to him. That made him very mad ! He enjoyed his power trips and I wouldn’t play his games. That made him livid !

> thank you — a much-need and appreciated clarification.