America Without a Middle Class

This was written a couple days ago, if you can look beyond the article venue and review the substance of the piece, I think you'll find this as interesting and thought provoking as I do. We should all be not only concerned with the current state of affairs, we also need to remain aware of our collective situation.

This woman has, I believe, not only nailed it, but she also brakes it down in a very easy to understand method.

Now, if you see this thread as another excuse to bash Obama or Bush, neither of whom being singularly responsible for where we are now, then please just grow up and go elsewhere.

Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it?

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.

Pundits talk about "populist rage" as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class. But they have it wrong. Families understand with crystalline clarity that the rules they have played by are not the same rules that govern Wall Street. They understand that no American family is "too big to fail." They recognize that business models have shifted and that big banks are pulling out all the stops to squeeze families and boost revenues. They understand that their economic security is under assault and that leaving consumer debt effectively unregulated does not work.

If you don't click on the source and read the entire article, then you are missing a very good and informative article.

Source Article

I am sorry, but the article states things most of us have known for the last 30 years.

Pay, since the 70s has not kept up with TRUE inflation. Not the made up crap the gov feeds us day in and day out.

Here, another article on that same link page.

Explain to me their total idiocy to quote this.

WASHINGTON — The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 10 percent in November as employers cut the smallest number of jobs since the recession began. The...

Did we not, just lose more jobs? Oh, but the Unemployment rate has gone down.

Must be more of the FAIRY TALE LAND numbers our fracking gov keeps spouting every time they open their damn mouths.

Rate of COL adjustment to pay for government. Set at a minimum of 50% above the stated inflation rate.

Rate at which gov has increased the amount of people getting handouts and the number of employee's of the federal gov over the last 30 years. Probably about a 165% increase over those last 30 years.

I WONDER IF THEIR IS A FRACKING CORRELATION THEIR!

No, cannot be. Let us make government EVEN bigger. That will help.

It is a planned destruction of America. PLANNED BY BOTH PARTIES.

reply to post by Rhetoric


The middle class in America is just an out growth of Puritanism and Calvinism. Thugs who have made their money the easy way are the first people to think the descendants of the Puritans and Calvins will in poverty become easy down to earth thugs. I think the middle class will go back to their Puritanical roots. People who drink wine and beer can soon expect dirty looks. The suffering of the newly impoverished is shameful (Yes ,they need our help), but the bankers will wake up in a few years surrounded by mean penny pinching Puritans. This is not what they want.

[edit on 4-12-2009 by eradown]

Good find - star and flag from me.

Yes - this has been a trend for many years and it crosses across several admins of both parties.

The only political statment I could make on it is that both parties are guilty letting this trend continue. For all the talk on both sides of stopping it - it continues.

Interesting as the US middle class continues to shrink our government and businesses have helped foster the rise of the middle class in other countries.

If you extend this trend globally over a long timeline then - the middle classes in those countries will eventually start to fall. As production costs and wages rise businesses will begin to move jobs to other countries for cost savings. Leading to the same thing as shown in the article. Unless the cycle is broken or balanced in someway it will continue to move from country to country until out of countries. It could then start over - or just be left with two basic classes. The "haves" and "have nots" across the world.