America: No more economic foundation left; the Middle class of decades past is history

I just found this article. It quite simply is the most in your face reality of where the United States stands in the world. The United States has no foundation for a sustainable economic recovery as it relates to how most Americans have lived over the last several decades. Stick a fork in it; IT'S DONE. The youngest generation coming out of high school WILL NOT even have the chance at a true middle class lifestyle like even the previous generation had, which is a significantly lower standard of living than the baby boomers (in inflation adjusted real terms). We became a culture that values nothing but material possessions, being able to eat as much as you can, and the while being able to live this lifestyle because we as a country have military bases and aircraft carriers far and wide and we'll bomb you into the stone age if you dare mess with our beloved US dollar.

I love my country, and I'm tired of people saying I'm a traitor for pointing these REALITIES out. The US was set up to fail like this by a corrupt military industrial complex and banking cartel that has produced the wealthiest humans in history; all at the expense of the masses.

Live BELOW your means, don't buy useless crap you don't need, eat good food (it's cheap if you don't buy lots of junk food), and most of all, take on as little debt as you can. If every person in the United States did that, it would do more than anything to starve the power elites. They got this way by hoodwinking the masses into thinking they have to have the latest gadgets and the biggest houses, and to buy all of it with DEBT.

We fancy ourselves indebted middle-class, but this mirage is quickly evaporating. Most of us are indebted slaves. Banks conjure money out of thin air to enslave most of us for life. We must go into debt to buy a house, a car or go to school. Many of us go into debt just to eat. Like you, you and you, I will carry my #ty credit score to a mass paupers’ grave, with my hearse a U-Haul. There is a renewed emphasis on going to college as a means to success, but in this economy, a degree will likely only impoverish you further, since you will be in hock to the banksters even as you work a job completely unrelated to your dubious education. If you can even get a job, that is. Joining winos and bag ladies with smudgy and off-target makeup will be legions of useless scholars.

Like individual Americans, America also spends more than it earns, a situation made possible only because this is an empire with military bases worldwide and war ships off every shore. We are an extortion racket the world is trying to shake off, and when that happens, our living standards will truly plummet. Many Americans like to depict themselves as the oppressed 99%, but from the world’s perspective, we are an insufferable 5% that are milking the world dry when not bombing it into submission. As long as we partake in the ill-gotten fruit of empire, we are complicit in its crimes. We! Are! The 5% that will pulverize you if we don’t get our ways!

www.commondreams.org...

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We became a culture that values nothing but material possessions, being able to eat as much as you can, and the while being able to live this lifestyle because we as a country have military bases and aircraft carriers far and wide and we'll bomb you into the stone age if you dare mess with our beloved US dollar.

I hugely agree with that Mate

I stated in another thread that anything that could have a negative impact in any way to American lifestyle becomes a national security threat - a threat to the American way of life
And a lot of the time that's what it boils down too
Preserving the American way of life
But then looking at it anther way - American standards are falling - European standards are falling ect ect yet many nations are getting better - is there UN underlying theory of redistributed wealth going on ???
Which means America has to take a cut - a big cut
Because we can't all catch up to you using the methods you did
Because many of them are wrong in many ways if not illegal now
But from the outside looking in it always boils down to preserving the American way of life
If the cost of gas goes up - its a threat
Someone doesn't want to trade in dollars - its a threat
Someone makes stuff for cheaper than you - it's a threat
Someone develops a tech you don't like - its a threat
Someone trades with someone you don't like , what you trading....it's a threat
Someone messes with your oil supply - its a threat
Someone too big - they are a threat
Someone who has different ideaology - their a threat
And the list goes on and on
So Baisicly EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IS A THREAT
even it's own people
Not against your constitution, not against your land not even against your very life
But against the American way of life

I conced I have spent a little time in the us where I'll admit I was loved by the locals I met
But I have spent the rest of my life living and traveling everywhere else
You can't really blame many for disliking the states
All they get exposed to is your media movies magazines and shows
They watch fox international, see 24 and jersey shore, even dynasty and Dallas
They look and think what a bunch of to**ers they have it soo good and I'm living here in a bloody mud hut with my goats , pumping oil growing plants and crops - mineing matterials - that eventually ends up on american shelves - YOU'VE GOT TO REMEMBER THIS IS WHAT THE WORLD SEES - its what you've been showing us for 60 years perhaps they should just be happy their goats aren't better than yours - coz that could be a threat !

Thomas Jefferson warned America...

en.wikipedia.org...

President Eisenhower warned of the impending 'military, industrial, congressional complex'...


History shows many of those in our government issued stearn warnings regarding the taking over of America for personal profit by a few thru financial and political influence.

Originally posted by OldCurmudgeon


Thomas Jefferson warned America...

en.wikipedia.org...

President Eisenhower warned of the impending 'military, industrial, congressional complex'...

edit on 26-2-2012 by OldCurmudgeon because: Add to post

History shows many of those in our government issued stearn warnings regarding the taking over of America for personal profit by a few thru financial and political influence.

edit on 26-2-2012 by OldCurmudgeon because: Edit to add personal opinion.

And now, they're considered terrorists.

Originally posted by OldCurmudgeon


Thomas Jefferson warned America...

en.wikipedia.org...

President Eisenhower warned of the impending 'military, industrial, congressional complex'...

edit on 26-2-2012 by OldCurmudgeon because: Add to post

History shows many of those in our government issued stearn warnings regarding the taking over of America for personal profit by a few thru financial and political influence.

edit on 26-2-2012 by OldCurmudgeon because: Edit to add personal opinion.

But they don't teach that in "school"

America: No more economic foundation left; the Middle class of decades past is history

Our middle class foundation for employment is now in China. Today, what we call the middle class no longer builds cars or works ship yards or steel mills... they say 'Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order?' a few hundred times per day.

Originally posted by redoubt

America: No more economic foundation left; the Middle class of decades past is history

Our middle class foundation for employment is now in China. Today, what we call the middle class no longer builds cars or works ship yards or steel mills... they say 'Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order?' a few hundred times per day.

So correct redoubt... our middle class went from having the chance to find a reasonable paying job, capable of supporting a family, buying a new American made car (if the business had not been shipped overseas), purchasing a modest family home and putting a child or two thru college so as to become more successful than the parents yet the middle class has been forced to steal jobs from their kids at McDonalds which offer $7 per hour and 20 hours per week.

All a part of the wealthy elite, trade agreements and world trade.

I suppose, given the failure called 'world trade', we should tear down all the homes and infrastructure, build huts from bambo or mud and drain our sewage down the street in open trenches.

Originally posted by OldCurmudgeon

Originally posted by redoubt

America: No more economic foundation left; the Middle class of decades past is history

Our middle class foundation for employment is now in China. Today, what we call the middle class no longer builds cars or works ship yards or steel mills... they say 'Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order?' a few hundred times per day.

So correct redoubt... our middle class went from having the chance to find a reasonable paying job, capable of supporting a family, buying a new American made car (if the business had not been shipped overseas), purchasing a modest family home and putting a child or two thru college so as to become more successful than the parents yet the middle class has been forced to steal jobs from their kids at McDonalds which offer $7 per hour and 20 hours per week.

All a part of the wealthy elite, trade agreements and world trade.

I suppose, given the failure called 'world trade', we should tear down all the homes and infrastructure, build huts from bambo or mud and drain our sewage down the street in open trenches.

If your "middle class cars" were still being built 100% in the USA, no one could afford them.

The reason that no one is manufacturing in USA anymore is due to labour cost. You can have an American made television, but it will cost you $5000. Or you can have the same tv made in China and it will cost $500.

If Americans had to buy American, no one would be able to afford anything. The reason you all have your iPhones, iPads, SUVs, etc is Chinese manufacturing, plain and simple.

Originally posted by babybunnies

Originally posted by OldCurmudgeon

Originally posted by redoubt

America: No more economic foundation left; the Middle class of decades past is history

Our middle class foundation for employment is now in China. Today, what we call the middle class no longer builds cars or works ship yards or steel mills... they say 'Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order?' a few hundred times per day.

So correct redoubt... our middle class went from having the chance to find a reasonable paying job, capable of supporting a family, buying a new American made car (if the business had not been shipped overseas), purchasing a modest family home and putting a child or two thru college so as to become more successful than the parents yet the middle class has been forced to steal jobs from their kids at McDonalds which offer $7 per hour and 20 hours per week.

All a part of the wealthy elite, trade agreements and world trade.

I suppose, given the failure called 'world trade', we should tear down all the homes and infrastructure, build huts from bambo or mud and drain our sewage down the street in open trenches.

If your "middle class cars" were still being built 100% in the USA, no one could afford them.

The reason that no one is manufacturing in USA anymore is due to labour cost. You can have an American made television, but it will cost you $5000. Or you can have the same tv made in China and it will cost $500.

If Americans had to buy American, no one would be able to afford anything. The reason you all have your iPhones, iPads, SUVs, etc is Chinese manufacturing, plain and simple.

You are correct, to a point babybunnies... but your answer also presents quite an untennable proposition as America can now import all that stuff to buy for less employing slave labor in another country totally based on cheap wages yet millions here in the US don't have jobs or money to purchase the items.

Possibly good business for China, but I don't see how when hundreds want to jump off the roof of their building because they are working in little more than a sweat shop.

Neither process works babybunnies and thus creates a lose - lose scenerio.

America, with few exceptions now manufactures little to employ the masses that can be sold to other countries.

IF world trade is to make 'any sense', and I have yet any truth to it's success, then America must have jobs for the majority of the citizens who 'need' and wants to work and they must pay enough on which to live.

Regardless of opinion, the fact is whether you rent or own a house or apartment, you must pay the utilities, a large part of Americans must have an automobile to get to work (and trust me the average car in the average spot in American is like a $4,500 get me there and back) even without health insurance you still must have health care, you must buy food, you must buy imported sweat shop clothing to work, you must have food for lunch, etc. and it goes on and on... oh yea, to buy that cheap Chinese TV, you must now have at least basic cable TV, ir you can afford a TV and these cost NEVER go down even when wages are lowered.

Flipping burgets at $7 per hour at 40 HPW (and most don't get 40 HPW) barely pays enough in gross dollars to exceed the current poverty level and at which point if you are eligable for any social aid, guess what, now you lose it....
Even if there are two people working at that level of pay it allows them to do little more than scrape by without health care and many other necessities of life, not to mention you don't even get the occasional night out at a McDonalds or get to go to a movie. And just forget having chlildren.

And the myth which is the social programs are so blow out of proportion by disinfo as to surpass star trek in imagination.

So it is still a lose, lose scenerio for Americans and only before world trade were there adequate jobs with adequate pay for most in America.

Our government allowed our corporations to ship our jobs overseas leaving us with little if no industry at a time when the American workforce was at a peak.

Here's another problem even if some products are "made" in America the pieces are made in China

Originally posted by starwarsisreal
Here's another problem even if some products are "made" in America the pieces are made in China

Hey Starwarsisreal... I agree... but you know what... right now I'd take millions of job for American's here in the US assembling imported parts into products to sell in the US...