Middle Class of Teh America Shrinking?



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?
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I don't know but hard working cheap labor sure does make my life a million times easier, that's for sure.
 
Most of those stats either don't mean anything or are directly related to the "financial crisis".

Look at numbers for some of those things from 1910-2010 and you'll see huge leaps and bounds in both directions (Note that they only give back a few years to five at the maximum for most stats).

Everything goes in cycles and you shouldn't be surpirsied, through extremely tough times for most Americans, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

...Is there an underlying trend? Sure, we're lazier as a society, taxes are going up and the future of the country is uncertain.

But to say the middle class is drastically shrinking is a major mistake.

EDIT: Also you need to take in to account that minorities reproduce at a rate nearly double what whites do. Survey the typical middle class people and they aren't going any where... but what is rising is the poor having 10 kids and increasing the amount of poor children (21% allegedly) in America.
 
but what is rising is the poor having 10 kids and increasing the amount of poor children (21% allegedly) in America.
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Condoms aren't cheap, but they're cheap enough. I hate people like that. "Oh, we're gonna have as many children as God want's us to have" - That doesn't mean that you shouldn't control yourselves. That's like someone saying "I'll die when God says it's my time" then they go and jump off a bridge and take a thousand Tylenol capsules.
 
sapphirescales said:
Condoms aren't cheap, but they're cheap enough. I hate people like that. "Oh, we're gonna have as many children as God want's us to have" - That doesn't mean that you shouldn't control yourselves. That's like someone saying "I'll die when God says it's my time" then they go and jump off a bridge and take a thousand Tylenol capsules.
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This is not why.

People have kids who are already on welfare so that they can get a check from the government each month for each kid they have.
 
Rexibit said:
This is not why.

People have kids who are already on welfare so that they can get a check from the government each month for each kid they have.
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I would say that this is a false statement. I do not believe that welfare recipients are that calculating. They do not wake up in the morning and think, "How can I get more of that government money?"

People in that situation just don't care about long-term consequences. They are completely driven by short-term desires. They have sex because it feels good. They eat McDonald's because they can afford it and it tastes good. They take that bike that's sitting there because they want it. They shoot that guy who shot their friend last week because revenge feels good. They draw their sign on that guy's garage because it feels good.

If you took any incentive for welfare recipients to have more kids out of the equation, you would still see about the same amount of kids.
 
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"What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much."

This article is so fucking full of fail. Most Americans have some skills, many even have some education. Somehow industrialization and automatization didn't kill our jobs but globalization will??? What a crock of shit.

We need to stop saying "oh globalization is fucking everything up" and stop the protectionist mentality. Globalization means I can get a Virtual Assistant for $2 an hour and so can everybody else. Globalization means china is developing a middle class. Globalization means there are a lot more people with a lot more money to buy our crap.

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Nothing in the top 5 requires more than a bachelor's degree. I'm tired of the whining.
 
titanium777 said:
I see the prevalence of the upper class rising and lower class sinking. God bless America.
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Most wealth in this country is self-perpetuating inherited wealth - everyone went to the same schools, goes to the same country clubs, marries the same chicks they courted at Vassar, Wellesley, Barnard, etc.


All those free-market-extremists like to believe in this "just leave the market alone" pipe dream but that's just a mirage fed to the masses to keep them grasping for straws.

We need to invest in public schools that train kids in the sciences, technologies, languages (so they can do business with global trading partners) and the like. Some of these unions need to be mandating to invest their dues into retooling their members for jobs that are still relevant so those people can compete.

Fact is, the fastest growing economies (China anyone?) still practice some form of economic patriotism while balancing sound capitalistic strategies to keep entrepreneurs motivated and to spur intervention.....

Human beings tend to replicate the situation they were born into. Just look at the annual list of billionaires (extreme outliers here) and you have some evidence.

I am certainly a believer in international labor arbitrage (pretty good at it) and allowing business owners to benefit from their risk-taking but we need to reinvest in our society like other countries do or risk falling way way behind....
 
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riddarhusetgal said:
All those free-market-extremists like to believe in this "just leave the market alone" pipe dream but that's just a mirage fed to the masses to keep them grasping for straws.
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or many of us think that messing with the market is what has allowed for the creation of the monopolies that are now so detrimental.
 
conv3rsion said:
or many of us think that messing with the market is what has allowed for the creation of the monopolies that are now so detrimental.
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The market is comprised of humans
Humans are imperfect
Therefore, markets are imperfect...

Simple syllogistic logic. Do I prefer capitalism to socialism? HELL TO THE YEAH!!

The hell if I spent countless weekends split testing optin boxes or landing pages so that someone who did 1/10th of the work gets paid the same - as is the case with far left socialism...

But the very notion in my humble opinion that markets are "perfect" and will "always" work seem childishly farcical in my humble opinion.

Show me one fact that disproves ^^ syllogistic logical argument and I will gladly turn the page.

I'd rather be rich (emotionally, financially, spiritually) than right any day....
 
Furthermore, if markets were perfect, wealth would flow -at all times - to those who produced the most value, best manage their individual risk-reward utilities curves, etc (not to get to technical).

I know in my heart that some opportunities have come my way not because of hard work or talent but because of who my parents are, people I went to school with, blah blah blah...

Go ahead and call me a bleeding heart liberal for wanting to change that aspect of society, I am fine with that....
 
"• 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.....

Ect"

All of this shit is self inflicted, proves nothing imo.
 
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