October 28, 2006

Goodbye American middle class - we'll sure miss ya!

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Globalization mean standards of living will rise very quickly in some countries, and they will fall in others. The farm boy in China who goes from making $500 a year to $800 a month is on cloud nine. The UAW schlub in Detroit who loses his $30/hr line job and puts on an orange apron for $8.50/hr isn't so happy.

Is there an easy answer? No.

Anonymous said...

The US Midwest will 20 years from now be seen as globalization's big loser, as will the US and home prices in the US

Anonymous said...

globalization isnt the issue. The middle class is dissappearing due to Federal reserve policies/fiat currencie/inflation



housing costs out of reach is prime example of dissappearing middle class.



this issue it not that housing has increased in vale relative to you paycheck.


the issue is that your paycheck is worth LESS in real dollars relative to housing


since it now takes twice the income to buy a house(and food, and insurance, and tuition) as it did 6 years ago all that means really is that your labor is worth half of what it was 6 years ago.

Anonymous said...

if you chart a houses value relative to US currency it will look like a bubble.


If you chart the price of a house relative to gold,silver,tuition,food,energy you will see that we are not in a bubble at all. the only bubble in America is the purchasing power of your savings and net worth of your labor

Bill said...

If you chart the price of a house relative to gold,silver,tuition,food,energy you will see that we are not in a bubble at all. the only bubble in America is the purchasing power of your savings and net worth of your labor.

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Yup us middleclass type folk call that " Keeping the man down"

Anonymous said...

I operate a business that sells to the U.S. government and its major contractors (Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, etc.). I'm raising my prices 20% on January 1st, and that's on top of a 10% increase last January.

All's fair in love and inflation!

Anonymous said...

Why does Lou Dobbs waste his time time talking to this buffoon! These are serious issues and this asshole makes light of it, no wonder the middle class is not recognized in this country. The talk show host makes millions, so what does he care about working class americans.

Anonymous said...

"Is there an easy answer? No."

Uhhh.. yes. The answer is end globalization and to hell with people like you who are nothing but apologists for the corporations. You schmuck!

Bill said...

apologists for the corporations

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Ahh yes corporate america, the real american dream.
The rest are just expandable.

Anonymous said...

we are in a middle class bubble not a housing bubble


the middle class bubble is deflating and skyrocketing housing prices are a symptom.

Anonymous said...

Look as far a mfging jobs, we're done. That game is longer over and China won it decisively. They even bitch-slapped Mexico around so that all the jobs that left the US for south of the Rio Grande are now being re-estabished outside Shanghai. The US might be pissed, but China just ate Mexico's lunch..

The answer is evolution.
Invest heavily in education and prepare yourself for the IP and service-based economy.

Bill said...

prepare yourself for the IP and service-based economy.

----I could not agree more, but!, remember china is also a super power, with many weapons at their disposal, one electromagnetic pulse (EMP) could render your IP based economy useless, should we decide to invade Iran..of topic yes but possible.

Anonymous said...

The middle class supports the government, taxation, foreign wars, regulation, and gun control. I hope the middle class loses everything in the housing collapse. To hell with the middle class.

I want to see soccer moms selling themselves to pay the rent.

blogger said...

the middle class didn't see what was truly happening to them, and actually thought they were doing just fine, simply because they were swimming in housing bubble loot

well, now they're swimming in debt, living in a depreciating house they can't afford, and it's gonna hit some of 'em over the head right quick

Anonymous said...

"Uhhh.. yes. The answer is end globalization and to hell with people like you who are nothing but apologists for the corporations."

And how, exactly, do we go about "ending" globalization? You all whine about the "big corporations" when the truth is 99.7% of them have less than 500 employees. About 70% of corporations in the U.S. have less than ten employees.

So sure, lets end globalization, and while we're at it, shut down the internet. cancel all hurricanes, and pass a law banning earthquakes. Yep, it's that easy.

Sorry Bubba, pickles can't change back into cucumbers.

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:07:14, Great comment!

Anonymous said...

And how, exactly, do we go about "ending" globalization? You all whine about the "big corporations" when the truth is 99.7% of them have less than 500 employees. About 70% of corporations in the U.S. have less than ten employees.

A complete lie! Looks like you get your statistics from the Bush institute for the revision of reality.

So sure, lets end globalization, and while we're at it, shut down the internet. cancel all hurricanes, and pass a law banning earthquakes. Yep, it's that easy.

Idiot! You do it by taxing the shit out of businesses that outsource jobs to India and put our own out of work just so the CEOs can make millions. The best part of high taxation would be that it would piss the hell out of corporate apologists like you!

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:39:38
Anon 5:07:14, Great comment!

Anon 6:39:38 is really Anon 5:07:14 responding to himself in an effort to make it look like he has supporters. How pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Supporters of taxation (and government) are enemies of mine.

Anonymous said...

"Idiot! You do it by taxing the shit out of businesses that outsource jobs to India and put our own out of work just so the CEOs can make millions. The best part of high taxation would be that it would piss the hell out of corporate apologists like you!"

Let's see, if we tax something that means we end up getting less of it. OK, so shortages and much higher prices for the middle class buyers are your solution to globalization and evil corporations?

And BTW genius, corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do. Why don't you just quit this tap dancing and cut to the chase? It would be much simpler and far more honest if people like you would tell us they advocate total government confiscation of wealth. Then reaaalllly smart guys like you could run things and we'd finally have Utopia.

FlyingMonkeyWarrior said...

total government confiscation of wealth.
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you forgot and redistribution of said wealth.

And as for Global competition of the USD and the Euro, all I can say is NAFTA, CAFTA and the Amero.

Have a nice day.

Anonymous said...

The farm boy in China who goes from making $500 a year to $800 a month is on cloud nine.

There're NO farmboys in china getting that much. $300 is a well-paid job in MANUFACTURING there. ;)

Gives some food to dwelling on what the median will be at the final 'flat world' state. 8-(' ))

Anonymous said...

The US midwest can produce food without irrigation. That region will not be a loser unless a very bad drought hits the US, again.

Think about this - there is the capability to make enough food to feed 8B people, and the current world population is 6B. If global warming is real and drought hits hard, there may be a reduction in world population because of starvation. Things would be very rough during that shakeout.

Anonymous said...

Look as far a mfging jobs, we're done. That game is longer over and China won it decisively. They even bitch-slapped Mexico around so that all the jobs that left the US for south of the Rio Grande are now being re-estabished outside Shanghai. The US might be pissed, but China just ate Mexico's lunch..

The answer is evolution.
Invest heavily in education and prepare yourself for the IP and service-based economy.

--------------------------

Those jobs are already well on their way to India (and elsewhere). "Knowledge workers" are even easier to offshore than manufacturing jobs.

Anonymous said...

prepare yourself for the IP and service-based economy.

----I could not agree more, but!, remember china is also a super power, with many weapons at their disposal, one electromagnetic pulse (EMP) could render your IP based economy useless, should we decide to invade Iran..of topic yes but possible.

-----------------------

I doubt China would risk a nuclear war. They're already winning, why rock the boat? There is no point "ruling" over a charred cinder of a planet.

Anonymous said...

keith said...
the middle class didn't see what was truly happening to them, and actually thought they were doing just fine, simply because they were swimming in housing bubble loot

well, now they're swimming in debt, living in a depreciating house they can't afford, and it's gonna hit some of 'em over the head right quick

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From "ownershipt society" to OWE-nership society (indentured servitude).

Anonymous said...

...Let's see, if we tax something that means we end up getting less of it....

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Exactly, so let's start by taxing CEO "compensation" much more heavily. Then tax imports, especially imports from currency manipulators like China.