22 stats that middleclass is shrinking.

[in*10*se]

I thought it was an interesting read.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker...CD,WMT,XRT,DIA

http://www.businessinsider.com/22-st...f-the-people-1


The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

Here are the statistics to prove it:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Giant Sucking Sound

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are "less attractive" than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States.

So corporations are moving operations out of the U.S. at breathtaking speed. Since the U.S. government does not penalize them for doing so, there really is no incentive for them to stay.

What has developed is a situation where the people at the top are doing quite well, while most Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to make it. There are now about six unemployed Americans for every new job opening in the United States, and the number of "chronically unemployed" is absolutely soaring. There simply are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.

Many of those who are able to get jobs are finding that they are making less money than they used to. In fact, an increasingly large percentage of Americans are working at low wage retail and service jobs.

But you can't raise a family on what you make flipping burgers at McDonald's or on what you bring in from greeting customers down at the local Wal-Mart.

The truth is that the middle class in America is dying -- and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.

[Mckenzie]

BUT FREE MARKETS ALWAYS FIND A PRICE!!!!

Show that to a Repub / Conservative and I'm sure that is the argument they will respond with.

I find it funny how the have's have no compassion or comprehension of this and the detrimental effect it will have on society as a whole. As long as they have their $$ and cars and houses then life is grand I suppose.

Read Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein for more on this.

[Crymson]

^^

I find it funny how the have's have no compassion or comprehension of this and the detrimental effect it will have on society as a whole. As long as they have their $$ and cars and houses then life is grand I suppose.

What's even funnier, is how the rabid conservative have-nots have been brainwashed into fervently defending the very institutions that keep them toothless and living in trailer park sqaulor. As long as they have their Nascar, budweiser and are allowed to hate blacks and muslims, they're fine.

[Mckenzie]

Originally posted by Crymson
^^

What's even funnier, is how the rabid conservative have-nots have been brainwashed into fervently defending the very institutions that keep them toothless and living in trailer park sqaulor. As long as they have their Nascar, budweiser and are allowed to hate blacks and muslims, they're fine.

I've actually never thought of it that way but that is pretty dead on and ironic too. I wonder what it would take for them to understand they are being hoodwinked. Actually...it would likely be impossible in most cases.

[Antonito]

Originally posted by Crymson
^^

What's even funnier, is how the rabid conservative have-nots have been brainwashed into fervently defending the very institutions that keep them toothless and living in trailer park sqaulor. As long as they have their Nascar, budweiser and are allowed to hate blacks and muslims, they're fine.

Yeah this is even worse. I can at least understand rich peoples motivations for wanting to remain rich. But to hear someone that's pulling in maybe $30k a year screaming about how workers rights are the downfall of society and bleeding heart liberals are pussies for wanting liveable wages and benefits....

Before I paid attention to politics I always assumed unions were a conservative/right wing/republican thing. The blue collar American family rhetoric seems like something that would include organisations which work to guarantee a high standard of living for those who work. Oh how wrong I was.

I hope I won't see it in my lifetime, but there will be a bit of schadenfreude when technology allows pretty much every job imagineable to be performed by overseas workers, and those that are so dead set against protecting the poor become poor themselves. Right now the middle class people that rage against workers rights simply say "well, those factory workers should have gotten better jobs". However as we speak engineering, research and IT jobs are already being shipped over seas. Even construction, which everyone says is safe because you can't ship buildings overseas is seeing exactly that: The hospital I'm working on had every bathroom (450 units, about 20% of the work) constructed out of country and shipped in modular format. This also ignores the growing usage of foreign workers on temporary visas.

Even those that realise the end is near of the golden days of putting in an honest days work to get an honest days pay are often sidetracked by red herrings. Major corporations cutting jobs and giving them to illegal immigrants? 'FUCKING IMMIGRANTS!' What about the corporation that just fucked you over? 'Hey what are you, a communist faggot? Corporations are the lifeblood of this country'

[Crymson]

The simple fact, is that in an overly capitalist society, there simply isn't enough to go around, once you strip off the top 5%'s 90% cut.

I mean, it's completetly predatory, carnivourous even. People on one hand, people complain about "overpopulation" but our entire economy is based on the fact that "it will always grow" aka, you need more f'ing people toiling in the sugar mines and spending their cheddar on bling.

Fact of the matter is that, Europe and mabey Canada have figured out a system of quais socialism that works but not entirely.

It's the struggle between Capital VS Labour. In the 1800's, Capital had all the power. Workers had no rights, no body made any money, it was essential slavery, like indentured servitude. You had no choice but to toil until you tied.

Early 1900's people started to smarten up. Workers unionized, collective bargaining began, strikes happened. The power shifted back towards Labour.

FFWD to post second war, the middle class was strong based on the unions, a strong industrial nation, and the post war rebuilding that needed to happen. But then the banks started pressureing people to "buy their own homes" which was the first shot in Capitals war to take the power back from Labour. Because, homeowners don't strike. Then we get information technology, reliable global transportation, and world wide communication and Globalization. Which FIRMLY puts the last nail in Labours coffin this time around.

Not really sure how Labour's going to take things back. But the US seems to have swing too wide in both directions and it'll take a massive swing to rebalance, rather than the european model of being fairly socialist (Eropena CEO's still only earn 10-30 times that of their lower paid employee), well regulated banking systems.

Unfortunatley, I dare say that the US will require near collapse to right the situation. Because very shortly, the US is going to be a two class society, and the poor are going to eventually become very pissed off. Of course there is always the scary, but possible, dystopian future where the elite's of america have figured out how the placate the very poor JUUUUUST enough that they won't revolt.

[Feruk]

On top of that, nothing's going to change. Instead of citizens standing up for themselves and voting for candidates that could improve their lifestyle, they are bombarded by the media with non-issues.

Looking at the USA, real issues aren't even addressed. The second last election was a struggle over ideology about gay marriage, abortions, and who was going to win a war overseas. The last election was about "change", a word that was never once defined. Sure the economy was discussed briefly, but I never saw any sort of plan to get workers back to work.

Candidates "debated" on national TV, but all the questions were pre-screened by their staff (otherwise they refused to appear), and all the answers prepared. People were excited to hear what a candidate thought of abortion because the media taught them it was important. With such a big bombardment on the voting populace, did anyone even stop to realize that their issues were not even being discussed?

[broken_legs]

Both liberals\Democrats and Conservatives\Republicans do the exact same things.

A "free market" is a market with rules. Everyone plays by the same rules without government intervention. That is sooooooooooo far from what we have right now. The rules change constantly, and usually giving more rights to corporations and banks because they lobby the government. See Corporations are now considered to hav emore rights than a person in the US

in a free market there is price discovery - The problem is that democrats and conservatives BOTH get lobbied by special interest and pass bills that make the playing field unfair for the rich and powerful.

Thats it

Thats all

The system is broken. You can argue about liberal vs conservative or capitalism vs socialism all day long, vote whomever you want into office, it's not going to change a damn thing as long as you have special interest lobbying and bribing government.

The same can be said about Unions - in principle I believe that workers can get together, and form unions to bargain for fair wages and treatment. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is that like all special interests - Unions go and LOBBY THE GOVERNMENT and get special treatment. See GM/Chrysler bailouts x 2 (because government needs union votes) it's just welfare for union workers. Auto Union workers get paid to sit at home on what is essentially tax payer money (bailout money to Gm/Chrysler)

Unions in their current form are also a broken system.

[themack89]

^-- This post is winning post.

I don't debate about this kind of stuff really, but just wanted to throw this out there.

Not all rich people are evil!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38556042/ns/us_news-giving/

[Antonito]

Originally posted by broken_legs
A "free market" is a market with rules. Everyone plays by the same rules without government intervention.

Interesting. What would these rules be, and who would they be enforced by?

[Q-TIP]

Originally posted by themack89
^-- This post is winning post.

I don't debate about this kind of stuff really, but just wanted to throw this out there.

Not all rich people are evil!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38556042/ns/us_news-giving/

While rich people are not evil, calculating maybe, but not evil...this publicity stunt holds little to no meaning to anyone but bragging rights for the billionaires.

Think about it, these men simply CANNOT spend their wealth. It isn't a matter of not wanting to, but it is actually a very difficult undertaking to spend a couple billion dollars. Not only that but I highly suspect that they have no mortgage payments, no car payments, the food they consume has such an insignificant cost that it doesn't even phase them. The men have literally BILLIONS of dollars, that means THOUSANDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Now say an individual with 5 billion dollars gives away 4 billion dollars. That person still has 1 billion dollars in assets. Say 500 Million of that is liquid. Also assume a return on investment of around 6%. They are making on investments alone $30 Million a year. Trust me, giving away that $4 Billion was not a hardship and they probably won't even notice it, nor will it change their lifestyle or standard of living. Hell, they'll probably STILL buy that Island they always wanted.

The fact that so many people are so impressed by this gesture shows me that the end goal worked. They want us to feel like they are generous and caring because they hate hearing negative publicity about themselves. That being said they took the easiest possible route to accomplish that goal. Had they put any effort into it they could have used the funds to lobby government to more strictly regulate labour delegation to 3rd world economies. They could have established overseas factories that paid workers at North American rates (5 Billion dollars is enough to pay 3000 people $40,000 per year for 41 years) to drive up labour costs overseas while still helping low-income workers in foreign countries.

These may be nice rich people, but they have done nobody any favours.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by themack89
^-- This post is winning post.

I don't debate about this kind of stuff really, but just wanted to throw this out there.

Not all rich people are evil!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38556042/ns/us_news-giving/

Quick, hide your $$$ here before Obama tax you to death!

[broken_legs]

Originally posted by Antonito
Interesting. What would these rules be, and who would they be enforced by?

The rules can be whatever you want. You can regulate the shit out of a market and it's still free. As long as the rules are known and the playing field is even you have a free market. Market participants are free to participate within the system under the known rules.

Capitalists aren't happy when the rules are not know or they change. They aren't happy when the government suddenly says - were going to regulate this now, and limit this, or subsidize that. Thats market interference, thats what we have.

We have a centrally planned economy in the US controlled by politicos and the federal reserve. It's the farthest thing from a free market.

Special interest steers the market and gets favours and special access and powers. It's a 2-3-4-5 tiered market where money buys you access and advantages over other participants. Furthermore, there is no true price discovery because the government is constantly meddling and propping up assets, forcing other entities to sell assets and artificially setting asset prices. You can never have true discovery when there is an unlimited backstop or the hand of government forcing sales at predetermined prices.

In a market free of government manipulation and intervention there would be natural price discovery.

Originally posted by Q-TIP


These may be nice rich people, but they have done nobody any favours.

The other take is, by giving out billions of dollars that they have amassed they are actually helping themselves get richer. All that money was sitting in a bank account not in the economy. That is deflationary. By giving it out to people to spend, they are increasing the velocity of that money.

Also, seeing rockafeller on there, I'm sure all of these very wealthy people know that the money they are giving out is actually worthless. I'm sure they have a nice stack of gold and real assets to fall back on when the currency is printed into hyperinflation soon.

[liquid1010]

Originally posted by Q-TIP


. They could have established overseas factories that paid workers at North American rates (5 Billion dollars is enough to pay 3000 people $40,000 per year for 41 years) to drive up labour costs overseas while still helping low-income workers in foreign countries.
.

I don't necessarily disagree with your post - but that idea is simply not possible. Every region has distinct price levels associated with it - those price levels determine wages, etc. If I walked into Bangladesh and started a factory paying $25/hr, there would be riots to be able to work there. Doctors, Lawyers, skilled trades workers, would all leave their existing jobs to gain employment in the factory - leaving the local society in absolute chaos...... The bottom of the barrel would be even worse off....

[Sugarphreak]

...

[Q-TIP]

Originally posted by liquid1010


I don't necessarily disagree with your post - but that idea is simply not possible. Every region has distinct price levels associated with it - those price levels determine wages, etc. If I walked into Bangladesh and started a factory paying $25/hr, there would be riots to be able to work there. Doctors, Lawyers, skilled trades workers, would all leave their existing jobs to gain employment in the factory - leaving the local society in absolute chaos...... The bottom of the barrel would be even worse off....

I was simply illustrating a point that there are any number of ways that these individuals could have "helped" the rest of humanity in a less selfish way. With that amount of money it would be possible to have some significant influence with the powers-that-be.

[Godfuader]

Interesting article. The wife and I are finishing Grad school next summer in NYC, and it should be very interesting to go through job searching, salary negotiations, jumping in the housing market, etc. Can't say I am looking forward to it.