American Middle Class is Disappearing

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Here is in interesting article I found: The Middle Class in America is Radically Shrinking. Here are the Stats to Prove it.

There are definitely some shocking numbers in there. The author even goes so far as to say that there may not be a middle class in America in the future.

I think where the US went wrong is with education. I'm not sure what the high school graduation rate in this country is, but I know it's pretty abysmal (around 70% I think). Every kid should at least be graduating high school, anything less than that unacceptable. That's because with the global economy and cheap labor, it seems like the only way we'll stay afloat is by just being smarter than everyone else.
 
Where we went wrong is primarily 30 years of Reagan tax and trade policy.

Its instructive to understand how a middle class emerges in the first place. The middle class is not a natural thing to have. The natural state of the market is for everyone to be the equivalent of serfs except for a few at the very top.

How you can get to a middle class:

1) You can have some sort of event that kills a lot of people, particularly in the working class/poor, which forces the price of labor to go up. Ex: The Plague -> Renaissance

2) Your country can find (steal) a ton of resources from other nations/places. Ex: The looting of the Americas by the Europeans -> Enlightenment

3) Progressive taxation, and other "big government" policies, particularly those that protect labor, domestic trade and the commons. Ex: The 1940's to 1980, also known as the Golden Age of the middle class - where the top marginal tax rate was between 91% and 71%, and we still enforced the protectionist trade tariffs that we've had from the founding of our nation until Reagan.
 
This relationship is a direct result, as DMK notes, of economic policies since Reagan.

Our political discourse is shaped by the wealthy and the defense of the wealthy by those who subscribe to the "the outcomes of capitalism are good because they're the outcomes of capitalism" tautology. We spend so much time talking about the estate tax (that's "DEATH TAX" for you dipshits that only read conservative tripe), a tax which effects maybe 8,000 families per year.

It's time to go back to pre-Reagan levels of taxation.

EDIT: Timely op-ed from Bernie Sanders: http://www.thenation.com/article/37889/no-oligarchy

And while the Great Wall Street Recession has devastated the middle class, the truth is that working families have been experiencing a decline for decades. During the Bush years alone, from 2000-2008, median family income dropped by nearly $2,200 and millions lost their health insurance. Today, because of stagnating wages and higher costs for basic necessities, the average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. The average American today is underpaid, overworked and stressed out as to what the future will bring for his or her children. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.

...

The 400 richest families in America, who saw their wealth increase by some $400 billion during the Bush years, have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth. Four hundred families! During the last fifteen years, while these enormously rich people became much richer their effective tax rates were slashed almost in half. While the highest-paid 400 Americans had an average income of $345 million in 2007, as a result of Bush tax policy they now pay an effective tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest on record.
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Somehow we're still forced to accept the notion that we should cut taxes for the rich and let the jobs and the money trickle down.
 
It's not just the middle class, it's started eroding into the white collar sector as well.

I tell you America is a country where the rich cut up the slices of the cake and we fight over the crumbs that drop to the floor for their amusement.
 
Yeah I never got how people thought trickle down economics would do anything other than further increase the gap between the average working family and the rich at the top of the corporate ladder.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but it seems pretty inevitable that such a scheme will result in the top few percent hording money, jobs going overseas to cheap labor so they can horde more money etc. etc.

I also wish I remember the source, but there was an article I read a year or two back about how trickle down doesn't work as the rich (uber-rich) don't spend money in ways that benefit the economy at the blue collar or small business level. i.e. Spending money on fine dining, designer clothes, expensive jewelry, travel to other countries, imported sports cars, yachts etc. does little to help the middle class or create middle-class (or even working class) jobs in the US.

You need a sizable and strong middle class as those are the people shopping at local stores, shopping at big box stores which employee a large number of people, eating a mom and pop restaurants etc. etc.
 
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[quote name='dmaul1114']Yeah I never got how people thought trickle down economics would do anything other than further increase the gap between the average working family and the rich at the top of the corporate ladder.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but it seems pretty inevitable that such a scheme will result in the top few percent hording money, jobs going overseas to cheap labor so they can horde more money etc. etc.[/QUOTE]

Then again you're a college professor. I doubt that there are many in the general population who are a fifth as smart as you are. It was only our voting system that kept the rich from catapaulting themselves to royalty. However since the masses always contain a large amount of dupes who are easily swayed, the rich have finally figured out how to get enough of them to vote against their own interests.

I always have to wonder about the politicians who help them in this endevor. Even taking into account the revolving door and speaker/fact-finding junkets, the money these politicians make seems like such a paltry sum to take for selling out the people you're supposed to represent. Guess Caribou Barbie figures she's due her 30 pieces of silver.
 
Couple of good op-eds I read over the past day or so:

Martin Wolf on the jingoistic romanticism that helps make the Republican fiscal ideology so popular, even if it is completely preposterous (not just theoretically, but empirically over the past 30 years): http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exchange/2010/07/25/the-political-genius-of-supply-side-economics/

From Feb 2010: Ultra-liberal marxist socialist anarcho-syndicalist Bruce Bartlett on why Republicans who advocate for a federal default (paging the Paulistinians and thrustbucket types on these forums) are intellectually misguided and incredibly naive: http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1509/another-dumb-right-wing-idea-default-debt
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Yeah I never got how people thought trickle down economics would do anything other than further increase the gap between the average working family and the rich at the top of the corporate ladder.[/QUOTE]

Rich people want to make more money. Businesses can make substantially more profit than a stock or savings account.

IF there are large tariffs, rich people will be forced to create businesses in this country.

Coupled with corporate welfare for things such as agricultural products, "richers" can provide a double whammy to the American worker of both creating a business overseas and reducing need for farmers in foreign countries so that said businesses have a huge supply of cheap labor.

50 years ago, trickle down economics was a sound way to expand the economy.

Today, it expands the global economy.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Yeah I never got how people thought trickle down economics would do anything other than further increase the gap between the average working family and the rich at the top of the corporate ladder.[/quote]

I don't think all that many people who push it actually believe it.

I also wish I remember the source, but there was an article I read a year or two back about how trickle down doesn't work as the rich (uber-rich) don't spend money's in ways that benefit the economy at the blue collar or small business level. i.e. Spending money on fine dining, designer clothes, expensive jewelry, travel to other countries, imported sports cars, yachts etc. does little to help the middle class or create middle-class (or even working class) jobs in the US.
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Yep, even if it was some iron clad law there would be also be a point where the law of diminishing returns took effect. Yes the super rich buy yachts putting people to work buying, they might get a second one maybe one even larger than before but eventually it gets to where there is no point to making sure that they have more spending money.

You need a sizable and strong middle class as those are the people shopping at local stores, shopping at big box stores which employee a large number of people, eating a mom and pop restaurants etc. etc.
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+1, we don't have an industrial policy in this country excepting the military of course.
 
There are groups like WhileRomeBurns.org that are uniting common people to fight the rich. No single individual can do much but millions of us together can realistically fight for change. UNITE AS ONE AGAINST THE COMMON ENEMY!!!
 
The article myke posted...

fuck, it sums it up perfectly.

The world we live in now is a result of the right's "Two Santa" bullshit.
 
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[quote name='jazy']There are groups like WhileRomeBurns.org that are uniting common people to fight the rich. No single individual can do much but millions of us together can realistically fight for change. UNITE AS ONE AGAINST THE COMMON ENEMY!!![/QUOTE]

http://www.whileromeburns.org

Link it, man. Link it.
 
[In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector
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I remember all the "smart" people on this board arguing against it being true.
 
[quote name='camoor']Then again you're a college professor. I doubt that there are many in the general population who are a fifth as smart as you are. [/QUOTE]

*** note: This post is not meant to be an insult to dmaul114 by any means. ***

I've known a few college professors that were brilliant people... but also a few that made dogshit look smart ( they suckered their way to tenure ). Most fall somewhere in the middle. Same goes for lawyers and doctors. Just because people have titles or jobs doesn't make them the most brilliant people on the planet.
 
No offense taken, and I'd agree. As the amount of education required for a job goes up, the fewer idiots you get in that field. But every field has it's idiots for sure as getting degrees is more a matter of time and work ethic than intelligence. I mean you can't be flat out STUPID and get through comp exams and dissertations etc., but you don't have to be brilliant either.
 
[quote name='Knoell']I remember all the "smart" people on this board arguing against it being true.[/QUOTE]

What are your thoughts on government workers having health insurance? Is that fair?
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']No offense taken, and I'd agree. As the amount of education required for a job goes up, the fewer idiots you get in that field. But every field has it's idiots for sure as getting degrees is more a matter of time and work ethic than intelligence. I mean you can't be flat out STUPID and get through comp exams and dissertations etc., but you don't have to be brilliant either.[/QUOTE]

An organism can be highly specialized and have the appearance of superiority. Remove it from its niche and it fails quickly.

EDIT: whileromeburns seems like an empty website.
 
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[quote name='Afflicted']*** note: This post is not meant to be an insult to dmaul114 by any means. ***

I've known a few college professors that were brilliant people... but also a few that made dogshit look smart ( they suckered their way to tenure ). Most fall somewhere in the middle. Same goes for lawyers and doctors. Just because people have titles or jobs doesn't make them the most brilliant people on the planet.[/QUOTE]

Maybe. However let's just say I doubt you find a sizable percentage of college professors in the tea party crowd.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']An organism can be highly specialized and have the appearance of superiority. Remove it from its niche and it fails quickly.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that's kind of the better to be an expert at one thing than a jack of all trades, master of none type of thing IMO.

Very few people are true geniuses who can excel at everything, so the real key for most of us is to find something we enjoy doing and become experts at it! :D
 
[quote name='camoor']Maybe. However let's just say I doubt you find a sizable percentage of college professors in the tea party crowd.[/QUOTE]

But that would have little to do with intelligence which was what your original post was getting at.

You won't find a sizable percentage of college professors in any type of conservative movement as academia skews sharply to the the left.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']But that would have little to do with intelligence which was what your original post was getting at.

You won't find a sizable percentage of college professors in any type of conservative movement as academia skews sharply to the the left.[/QUOTE]

I was really just talking about how I respect dmaul's opinion, and IMO he represents the ideal of the college professor. To be honest I have no idea about what specifically motivates the political leanings of college professors but I always suspected that their intelligence played a role. I'm also sure that in canvasing the intelligence of professors you would probably hit the outliers noted by afflicted (I'd be curious to see if they were concentrated in the theology and business departments, but I digress).

I believe this quote sums up my feelings quite succinctly:

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
- John Stuart Mill
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My theory on why academia skews left--as a social science guy (so maybe not applicable to the hard sciences where I'm not sure if it skews as heavily to the left)--is that it's a self selection thing.

We bust ass, work long hours, and the pay isn't great compared to the private sector. That type of career doesn't really sound like something up the alley of a free market, capitalism loving (maximize profit!) conservative right? I think it's just a career that tends to draw more left thinking people who aren't driven by money and are more likely to thus support entitlement programs, public health care and all that goes along with higher taxes etc.

As for the quote--got to think about urban areas. The poor, un-educated populations in urban areas vote heavily democrat. Rural areas the uneducated poor skew to the right. Idiots aren't exclusive to either side of the political spectrum.
 
I have a very different theory on why academics shift left, one that has little to do with labor.

Areas of high population density are more liberal, which must include people that came there from other places. I believe this is the case because people in those places are exposed to, not only more ideas, but an exchange/dialogue of ideas that conservatism just cant survive - scrutiny destroys it.

Academia is an accelerated form of this - interchange of ideas and scrutiny.

I would submit to you that small family farms (those that are left anyway) involve mind numbingly difficult work and long hours, for little more than food on the table for your family.
 
I'm not sure about that. Many top universities are in college towns in rural states. Many academics come from rural areas. I grew up in a town of like 5,000 people in WV. I was very liberal from high school (when I started reading and following news and politics) on.

I think it's more something about the type of people drawn to the profession than anything to do with intelligence, urbanity etc. I get the notion that colleges are a melting pot that are kind of like cities, and that the diversity could possibly change people, but I think most people are locked into liberal or conservative views by the time they hit college as how one's raised tends to set their views. Not many people completely flip ideologically after age 18.
 
Code: 
          Far Left	 Liberal	 Moderate	 Conservative	 Far Right
First-year students (1999)	 1.6%	 23.3%	 47.8%	 26.0%	 1.3%
Seniors (2003)	                 3.6%	 29.1%	 42.8%   23.6%	 0.9%
18-24 year old cohort in U.S.	 5.3%	 28.7%	 38.3%	 23.4%	 2.1%

You might be right. While there is a change, it is low, and college students are already different than the baseline.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Idiots aren't exclusive to either side of the political spectrum.[/QUOTE]

IE: Nancy Pelosi and Michael Steele.
 
Now admittedly I haven't followed Nancy Peolosi that well, but I haven't heard her say a lot of stupid shit. I think Joe Biden might be a bit more appropriate of a match to Michael Steele. Comparing Hillary Clinton to Sarah Palin in idiocy is just insane.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']As for the quote--got to think about urban areas. The poor, un-educated populations in urban areas vote heavily democrat. Rural areas the uneducated poor skew to the right. Idiots aren't exclusive to either side of the political spectrum.[/QUOTE]

Uneducated is not the same as stupid.

Plently of people don't know the periodic table, but it takes a special kind of ignorance to vote against the best interests of yourself and your community.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Not many people completely flip ideologically after age 18.[/QUOTE]

Is that a fact or an anecdote. I have quite a few friends who have flipped after 18, sometimes more then once.
 
[quote name='camoor']Is that a fact or an anecdote. I have quite a few friends who have flipped after 18, sometimes more then once.[/QUOTE]

that's a scary thought since you barely know anything about life outside of highschool culture
 
One thing that always pisses me off is that I never see anyone arguing how fucking stupid the middle class is and that they are essentially hastening their own demise.

While many of the statistics point to the fact that taxes, globalization and other policies are doing a lot of damage to the middle class, other statistics should prove that the middle class is also fucking themselves over. For instance the article talks about the number of Americans saving for retirement and also mentions that most Americans have $10,000 or less in their retirement account. My wife is only 25 and her retirement savings is sitting right around that $10,000 mark and we continue to add several hundred to it every month......and this is with her loosing $500 in the market in the last several months. Meanwhile the amount we have in the bank is enough to put the down payment on our first home and still have money left over to have 6-12 months worth of cash to pay our bills in an emergency in the bank.

The problem is that Americans are just fucking stupid and do not save or make the right choices in their life anymore. Everyone loves to whine that the rich is killing the middle class, but no one likes to look at the facts that most people in the middle class have a TV if not an HDTV in every room, 2+ cars and still go on vacation. Americans live pay check to pay check not because we are so cash strapped from our bills....but because we spend like drunken sailors.

So again yes many of the statistics are worrying, yes it pisses me off that the top 1-10% constantly controls more wealth and that jobs are being consistently shipped over seas....but it pisses me off just as much that my wife is saddled with $30,000 worth of school loans because her parents did not save for her education all while probably bitching and moaning that they could not afford to despite driving nice cars, living in a nice house and going on vacation pretty much yearly. It is far past time Americans learned to stop blaming everyone else and actually took a hard look in the mirror and realized they are as much to blame as anyone else....it is time to give up some creature comforts to invest in our own and our childrens future...it is time to recall delayed gratification and "making due" with what we have vs needed to upgrade our phones every few freaking months.

Edit - And before anyone thinks we must be some kind of rich people and we are making $100,000s and complaining about the middle class it just aint true. My wife makes under $40k a year and I receive between $600 and $800 government assistance(which I will be losing entirely in a month or so when we get legally married)for disability. We live on less then $50k a year which puts us squarely middle class....we just have been smart and paid down our debts, saved money, lived minimally for a few years and get this....planned on not having kids till we are at least 30 vs feeling the need to stupidly have a whole brood before financially ready!
 
[quote name='mykevermin']where can one find these 'statistics' you've been citing?[/QUOTE]

They are in the link the original poster brought up. Regardless of if you want to call them statistics or something else all of this should be common sense. You look around and you see more and more money going to the top few percent, you see more and more people on food stamps and you see more and more people making less and less(or people starting out making less and less). These are all bad things and yes common sense says much of it is from wealth being funneled to the top few %....I am all for changing that. However, I really have little sympathy for many of the middle class complaining because much of their situation has been brought on by themselves. Just look here at cheapassgamer at all the people clamoring to buy the newest game, look at other message boards and see people scoff at the concept of owning anything other then an iphone, razor or other trendy new phone. Will you deny that Americans are spending more and more while saving less and less and that this could have some coloration to all these statistics, facts, nuggets of truthiness or whatever you wish to call them that the OPs link brought up?

As I said before I love using my own family as an example. My parents nearly lost their house and were living on food stamps and other government assistance for several years. My mom blames it all on losing her job suddenly and the fact that my dad can no longer work since his body gave out after 20+ years hanging dry wall. Meanwhile I can recall being 13 and telling my mom we were spending too much on stupid stuff, that she was taking too much time off of work and that I was sick of having our lights turned off. Even as a fucking kid I knew that my family was not using money effectively. When my mom went to mortgage the house for the second time when I was about 17 I begged her not to....by the time I was 18 I had given up on my family. I knew my dad was going to break himself doing hard labor, I knew my mom would be the first person on the chopping block when it came time to make cuts because of all the time they took off...and I knew my family would lose our house because of their stupid spending.

Same thing can be done with my wifes family. I have heard them complain about their own debt and how they could not pay for their daughters wedding or schooling because of how hard times are. Meanwhile they have the biggest freaking HDTV(and they bought it when it was cutting edge tech that rant them like $6k-$8k) I have ever seen in their over sized house, TVs in every other room in the house and 2 new cars in the garage. As I type this they are on Vacation in Virginia...as they have been every year for the last 10-15 years. Are you telling me that two people making $70k+ a year that have all these nice things could not have skipped the vacation every other year, the HDTV and made due with 2 older cars and created savings funds for their 3 kids college years? Are you telling me that they really need to have new phones with texting for all 4 family members? They constantly tease us for being so out of date for calling them and tell us "come on it only runs an extra $20 a month to get texting). When you take that $20 and add in the $20 for internet service over 12 months you have an extra house payment.....or a nice little start for their youngest college fund.....but they cannot see that. THAT right there is as much to blame for why the middle class is dying as anything else.

*apologizes for dissertation length post/rant*
 
[quote name='Knoell']I remember all the "smart" people on this board arguing against it being true.[/QUOTE]
The problem is that federal wages have risen while private sector wages remain stagnant.

If you're going to be outraged, be outraged at the lack of tariffs protecting American wages, and the tax policies benefiting instead of punishing companies sending jobs overseas.

I want to see the 90% tax bracket return.
 
*bows down to MSI Magnus*

I have to wonder how my own parents are doing. When I had to spend like nearly $7,000 a year and a half ago for a major unexpected expense, my mom asked me how much money I had saved because I may have needed financial help, and she was like "what?" when I told her. I thought the amount I had saved was 100% normal.
 
[quote name='Quillion']The problem is that federal wages have risen while private sector wages remain stagnant.[/QUOTE]

But that isn't fair. Federal wages should be stagnant, too. Benefits should be removed as well.
 
[quote name='Chuplayer']*bows down to MSI Magnus*

I have to wonder how my own parents are doing. When I had to spend like nearly $7,000 a year and a half ago for a major unexpected expense, my mom asked me how much money I had saved because I may have needed financial help, and she was like "what?" when I told her. I thought the amount I had saved was 100% normal.[/QUOTE]

It just makes you want to go sad and crazy doesn't it? I have had to lend my parents money numerous times, the worst of which was a few years ago when I completely took care of Christmas for my little brother.....my mom could not afford to buy him anything and was going crazy between letting the bills skip again and not giving him anything for Christmas. Even though we do not believe in/Celebrate Christmas me and my wife drove the hour + to visit them and bought him a few hundred bucks worth of stuff and gave it to my mom to help her save face.

The worst part is that me and you are not the norm....most people just repeat their parents mistakes. When I meet my wife she was in debt and spending in the stupidest of ways(cash advances and keeping 2 maxed Credit cards). Everyone told her not to date me because I was unemployed and receiving government assistance. I was a loser that would drag her down. Meanwhile first thing I did was lend her the little money I had saved to get her out of debt and then get her putting money into a retirement savings as well as her bank account. 5 years later she is buying her first home which we plan to have paid off in 4-7 years vs the 30 most people take. Her sister is already in debt up to her eyeballs and her brother while only 16 is not working but spends everything. My one brother is 11 so you can not call him yet...but he certainly spends everything he gets. My other brother is 22 and in craptons of debt because not only does he spend everything he makes but he also keeps getting injured and going to the hospital but he refuses to get insurance...because he cant "afford it". My wifes cousin is the same, constantly in the hospital but has no insurance...but she has a phone she spent a few hundred on and every person on her phone has their own ring tone. This is just the way Americans see things....I can not afford insurance but I can afford the motorcycle that I keep getting injured on.....or an expensive phone with $100s worth of useless digital crap.
 
[quote name='camoor']Uneducated is not the same as stupid.

Plently of people don't know the periodic table, but it takes a special kind of ignorance to vote against the best interests of yourself and your community.[/QUOTE]

We covered that in another thread. I can respect people who stick by their principles and say "I know policy X would help my family in the short term, but it would drive up the national debt and I'm not willing to support that and I wouldn't want to pay the higher taxes if I was better off."

While I disagree with their stance, I can respect that. Holding beliefs supporting only policies that benefit you isn't a very noble stance either.

Now of course the ideal is being educated and informed and supporting policies you think are for the greater good and not having principles rooted in ideology of course.

So in terms of political stances etc. and how I respect them I'd rank them:

1. Supporting what brings the greatest good to the greatest number, even if it doesn't fit your ideology or doesn't maximize your own well being (i.e. you'll pay higher taxes to help others).

2. Having a strong ideology and sticking to it even if it doesn't maximize your own well being--i.e. rejecting support of policies that would help you but go against your beliefs.

3. Having no stance and just voting for/supporting whats best for you and yours with no concern for the greater good or consistent beliefs.

A good example of number 3 is that old saying that everyone starts liberal and becomes conservative when they get older and have money. That kind of shit is despicable--support social programming etc. when you're a poor college kid paying little to no taxes, then flip flop when you're older and worrying about retirement etc. So yeah, I don't put a lot of stake on supporting things that benefit you.

The ultimate goal is the greatest good for the greatest number--not just when it benefits you.

[quote name='camoor']Is that a fact or an anecdote. I have quite a few friends who have flipped after 18, sometimes more then once.[/QUOTE]

Both. DMK posted some numbers showing there isn't much change from freshman to senior year of college and I've seen other such studies though have no links handy. Just things I recall from poli sci classes back in the day etc.

I'd say most of the change is people who paid little attention to news/politics before college and thus didn't have firm beliefs. With the huge presence of the media in our lives today, I think that's probably a much smaller percentage of high school graduating classes than in the past where you had to read the newspaper or watch the evening news to be exposed to political news.
 
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Actually I keep reading articles that state people are saving more money now than in quite a long time. Granted they probably should have before now, but better late than never.
 
[quote name='jazy']There are groups like WhileRomeBurns.org that are uniting common people to fight the rich. No single individual can do much but millions of us together can realistically fight for change. UNITE AS ONE AGAINST THE COMMON ENEMY!!![/QUOTE]

Fight against the rich? are you fucking kidding me? Some people have no sense of basic economics. In your mind, rich people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. are ruining your life. They have billions of dollars and you have a few thousand and you would have more if only they didn't exist or were as poor as you. Do you realize how stupid this is? There isn't a limited amount of wealth. It is continually being created. Just like the computers they've improved, wealth isn't just in $$s but also improvement in quality of life. You get a computer, they make some money, thousands of people get paid and everyone is much better off. But all you can think about is stealing their money in some mass redistribution of wealth.

Some people just don't think....Learn economics and read (just not any communist pamphlets)
 
[quote name='tivo']Fight against the rich? are you fucking kidding me? Some people have no sense of basic economics. In your mind, rich people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. are ruining your life. [/QUOTE]

I have an issue when rich people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. make the choice to ship jobs overseas or lay people off when they could easily take a pay cut to keep these people working. Bill Gates could give away 1 Billion dollars a year for the rest of his life and still die a multi-billionaire. That's a problem when people are losing their jobs or not being paid a decent wage while the super rich get richer. You can talk about basic economics all you want but in order for our economy to exist and flourish, the more people that have good paying jobs means the more $$ people pour into the economy which in turn keeps the machine running.

The rich have been systematically destroying the middle class for over 30 years. It's a problem regardless of whether you want to admit it or not.
 
[quote name='onetrackmind']I have an issue when rich people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. make the choice to ship jobs overseas or lay people off when they could easily take a pay cut to keep these people working. Bill Gates could give away 1 Billion dollars a year for the rest of his life and still die a multi-billionaire. That's a problem when people are losing their jobs or not being paid a decent wage while the super rich get richer. You can talk about basic economics all you want but in order for our economy to exist and flourish, the more people that have good paying jobs means the more $$ people pour into the economy which in turn keeps the machine running.

The rich have been systematically destroying the middle class for over 30 years. It's a problem regardless of whether you want to admit it or not.[/QUOTE]

Either T Boon Pickens(sp?)or Warren Buffet(Can not recall which it was)once said in an interview that they used to be against the idea of high taxes on the rich but do not mind it as much now because the rich no longer believe in America. He talked about how back in the day millionaires in America were proud to be American and they wanted to better their own lives first and foremost but at the same time better the lives of millions of Americans at the same time. He talked about the difference in the amount that rich people both make and give now compared to then. He talked about how they saw investments in their business as investments in America.

This has always stuck with me and I just wish I could recall exactly which of the two it was. I think the truth is that many of the rich back in the day obviously did not care, but I think there probably is some truth that rings to it. I think it is likely that back in the day there were many more Americans in the top percentile that cared for this country and did see its citizens as brethren. I think you would be hard pressed now to find any rich American that cares at the end of the day if his money is making the lives of other Americans better....at the end of the day all he would care about is exactly how much he is worth per second.

It all seems really hypocritical to me. I mean to live in America but be content to run the country into the ground just to make a few unneeded million extra. I hear conservatives all the time chanting love it or leave it....maybe this should go for how you spend your money too. If you want to ship everyones jobs over seas to save a buck but then refuse to pay higher taxes to help the citizens of the country you live in and are screwing....you should then have to go live in the country you are shipping jobs to.
 
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