Tag: Middle Class

It’s Tax Cuts Time Again!

Trump has been on a losing streak now for 9 months….he tells us all about his accomplishments in the last 9 months….oh good.,…what are they?

NO fucked up health care.  Close enough to a shooting war with N. Korea.  Pissed off most of our allies (which we will need when he succeeds in a shooting war).  Our State Department is run like Sesame Street.  He has fucked the environment for a generation.

And now after 30 years Trump gets to screw the Middle Class with this lame trickle down bullshit that has not worked since forever.

Ever noticed when you are gonna get screwed it is always to help the Middle Class?

Well sports fans as usual a good screwing is coming…..even The American Conservative sees it…why cannot you?

Can we define the middle class in practical terms? To be sure, there are probably as many sociological definitions of the middle class as there are commentators seeking definitions. So let’s set aside the socio-swamp of beliefs, values, and taxonomies of class in favor of a definition with measurable thresholds.

Many commentators attempt to define the middle class by income, and people tend to self-report that they belong to the middle class based on income. The self-evident way to define the middle class by income is to set aside the top 10 percent (households earning $145,000 or more) and those defined as poor by the U.S. Census Bureau (households making less than $25,000), roughly 25 percent of all households.

Source: Are You Really Middle Class? | The American Conservative

Nothing your president and Congress is about to do will do anything to change this downward slide.

But that’s okay….he, Trump, will finally have a win that he can thump his chest about and you can continue your drive to the poor house.

Ain’t American politics grand?

Who Or What Killed The Middle Class?

The Middle Class has been disappearing for decades but what or who is to blame?

Easy answer….Reagan or better yet Reaganomics…..

It death spiral began with Reagan’s dash to slice taxes on the rich and it has continued ever since……

There’s nothing “normal” about having a middle class. Having a middle class is a choice that a society has to make, and it’s a choice we need to make again in this generation, if we want to stop the destruction of the remnants of the last generation’s middle class.

Despite what you might read in the Wall Street Journal or see on Fox News, capitalism is not an economic system that produces a middle class. In fact, if left to its own devices, capitalism tends towards vast levels of inequality and monopoly. The natural and most stable state of capitalism actually looks a lot like the Victorian England depicted in Charles Dickens’ novels.

At the top there is a very small class of superrich. Below them, there is a slightly larger, but still very small, “middle” class of professionals and mercantilists – doctor, lawyers, shop-owners – who help keep things running for the superrich and supply the working poor with their needs. And at the very bottom there is the great mass of people – typically over 90 percent of the population – who make up the working poor. They have no wealth – in fact they’re typically in debt most of their lives – and can barely survive on what little money they make.

Source: Reaganomics killed America’s middle class – Salon.com

The Dems have taken up the mantle of the Middle Class and so far they have failed miserably……but yet they keep trying the same failed policies that they have come to champion…..and there is NO end in sight…..

The Democrats don’t have a “white working-class problem.” They have a “working-class problem,” which progressives have been reluctant to address honestly or boldly. The fact is that Democrats have lost support with all working-class voters across the electorate, including the Rising American Electorate of minorities, unmarried women, and millennials. This decline contributed mightily to the Democrats’ losses in the states and Congress and to the election of Donald Trump.

Source: The Democrats’ ‘Working-Class Problem’ Is Worse Than We Think | Alternet

There is a slight chance that this situation can be reversed…..but the Dems are playing the same cards as they always play…..and they lose.

Sadly we are seeing the final days of the Middle Class….and few seem to care.

The American Dual Economy

For decades there has been a growing inequality here in the US…..the old saying….”the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”…..is not just a cute slogan but a grown situation….

There has been some good research on this phenom…….

I describe the American economy in the twenty-first century as a dual economy in the spirit of W. Arthur Lewis. Similar to the subsistence and capitalist economies characterized by Lewis, I distinguish a low-wage sector and a FTE (Finance, Technology, and Electronics) sector. The transition from the low-wage to the FTE sector is through education, which is becoming increasingly difficult for members of the low-wage sector because the FTE sector has largely abandoned the American tradition of quality public schools and universities. Policy debates about public education and other policies that serve the low-wage sector often characterize members of the low-wage sector as black even though the low-wage sector is largely white. This model of a modern dual economy explains difficulties in many current policy debates, including education, healthcare, criminal justice, infrastructure and household debts.

If you would like to see where this research has gone then open the pdf and read the rest of the study…..

Source: Microsoft Word – Temin paper final.docx – delivery.php

More on the author of this paper……

In the America of haves and have-nots, fewer folks are “movin’ on up” like George Jefferson of the classic sitcom. In a new paper for the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Peter Temin, MIT economist and economic historian, breaks down how it happened and where we’re headed with a powerful model first used by West Indian economist W. Arthur Lewis, the only person of African descent to win a Nobel Prize in economics. Dual economies are common in less developed countries, but Temin argues that America has now diverged into a top thirty percent, where children receive excellent educations and grow up to work in sectors like finance, technology and electronics industries (FTE)— and then there’s the rest, the low-wage folks who live paycheck to paycheck and whose kids have little hope of joining the lucky ones at the top. Temin explains what drives the dual economy, what race has to do with it, how children are hurt, and why our political system can’t seem to fix anything. *This post originally appeared on the blog for the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Source: There are two Americas entirely: How the U.S. became a “dual economy” — and what can be done to reverse it – Salon.com

Read the research and then tell me what you think needs to be done to find an equilibrium…..

My thought is that the “People’s Budget” would be that equilibrium…..as long as we will have yet another budget debate then why not look for a better answer to the growing problems of this country?

Source: FINAL FY16 Peoples Budget.pdf

I am sure there will those that dismiss this out of hand simply because in comes from progressives….that is moronic…..if it helps the people of this country it is worth a look and a debate…..

 

What’s Killing the American Middle Class?

For decades I have been watching the middle class slowly disappear…..for me it was most pronounced with the election of Bill Clinton and the leadership of the DLC……I admit it has been in decline before he was elected but with that election the downward spiral became more pronounced…..NAFTA was a horrible idea for the working class of the US and yet we are doing similar agreements almost every administration……

So the question should be…..What is killing the American middle class?

Richard Eskow: Americans work more hours than citizens of any Western European country, a burden that keeps them away from their families, friends, and personal activities.

A new study by the Pew Research Center spurred a rash of headlines last week about “the dying middle class.” But the word “dying” might be more appropriate if we were watching the regrettable but inevitable effects of natural forces at work. We’re not. We’re seeing the fruits of deliberate action – and sometimes of deliberate inaction – at the highest levels of power.

The great American middle was never large enough, even at its height. It always excluded too many people – sometimes, shamefully, merely for their skin color. And now, instead of growing and becoming more inclusive, it’s fading away instead.

It’s true that the middle class is dying, but not from natural causes. It’s being killed. What – and, for that matter, who – is responsible for its slow death?

Source: What’s Killing the American Middle Class? – LA Progressive

Sadly I do not see the situation improving much no matter who is elected….but as usual we Americans will soldier on and make others rich…..it is the American way.

Can Hil Really Do It?

I have not been a supporter of anyone in the Clinton family since the election of Bubba Clinton as president…..I think that his policies did more damage than good during his time in the White House and now I am being asked to vote for yet another Clinton…..do not think it is in the cards….fool me once is on me and I refuse to be sucker punched twice…..

I tried to get on her campaign website and found that I could only go there if I give them my email….sadly that will NOT HAPPEN!  I did find a site that would let me access her plans, as they are……

I have heard her speeches about the middle and lower classes needing a boost up and there is where I want to comment……

Her plans are as follows from the site of her campaign (the one that I could access)

  • Give working families a raise, and tax relief that helps them manage rising costs.
  • Create good-paying jobs and get pay rising by investing in infrastructure, clean energy, and scientific and medical research to strengthen our economy and growth.
  • Close corporate tax loopholes and make the most fortunate pay their fair share.

Hillary believes the defining economic challenge of our time is raising incomes for hardworking Americans.

Too many families are working harder and harder, but still not getting ahead. Our country is standing again, but we’re not yet running the way we should be. From her first day in office to the last, Hillary Clinton will fight for you and for more take-home pay so you can get ahead and stay ahead.

Hillary understands that in order to raise incomes, we need strong growth, fair growth, and long-term growth. And she has a plan to get us there.

These are lofty ideals….but will she hold her hubby’s ideals up as an example?

I hope the Hell not…..this graph will show just how effective Bill’s deal was……

If you do not like that graph…how about another?

No matter how you want to cut it the middle class declined in the Clinton years and has not recovered to the point that the middle class can survive……

As you can see income for the poor was flat lined and the income for the middle class declined especially from 1992 to 2000….the magic time of the Clinton presidency…..is this what we working stuffs have to look forward to with a Hillary prez?

You vote for whom you want…..but if you want the middle class to survive then I would suggest that Clinton is not the way.

 

Is The Middle Class The Key?

Time for another break from all this darn research…….

2016 will be an interesting election…..we have al sorts of candidates, none of whom I see as good for the country……we have those that spread fear and loathing and those that have a variation of hope and some that feel they deserve to win….all in all a group of politicians…..not a group of statesmen…….NOTHING good will come out of this election…..as far as I can see.

We have the angry white people….the angry black people…..the angry Latinos….all in all a whole bunch of angry people….of all those people who could whole the key to winning the election?

There are many that think the disappearing middle class could possibly hoild the key to this election……

Source: Working-Class Voters Hold Key to 2016

I have heard people ask why would this class hold the key?

An easy answer that these people see their way of life disappearing and looks like forever…….

In 1971, the middle class made up 61% of the US population. That figure has now plummeted to just below half, and analysts are worried about the breakdown of what the Los Angeles Times calls “a pillar of the US economy.” A Pew Research Center report released Wednesday culled data from the Census Bureau, Labor Department, and Federal Reserve to determine that 120.8 American adults are in middle-class households, while 121.3 million are in the lower- or upper-class tiers. Pew defined middle class as any household making two-thirds to twice the overall median income; for a family of three, that range is $42,000 to $126,000. What’s led to what Pew calls a “thinning in the middle and bulking up at the edges”: more low-skilled immigrants to bolster the lower class, and more women in the workforce and increased college enrollment on the upper end.

All of the tiers suffered during and after the Great Recession, but the middle class saw the financial gains it had reaped over the last quarter-century virtually wiped out: The median wealth of a middle-class household in 1983 was $95,879, a number that rose to $161,050 by 2007. But after the recession, median wealth for this group was back down to $98,000 in 2010 and remained at that number until at least 2013, the Pew report notes. A recent Gallup poll also shows that people’s perceptions are in line with what the Pew report shows: In 2008, 63% of Americans identified as being part of the middle class, while the poll given this spring shows that number has dropped to 51%.

Then there are those angry at everything and these people are drawn, like a moth to a flame, to Trump……

My problem with him is his falsehoods and NO one seems to mind that he lies almost constantly….they are afraid and he hits all the right buttons of a fearful group…..

Source: Trump’s Untruths Woo Working-Class White Voters | Al Jazeera America

If the middle class is truly the key….it will be interesting to see which way they break in 2016…..will lies and one liners be all it takes to be elected…..

What Middle Class? | The American Conservative

Since the end of world War 2 the industrial engine of the US has been on the backs of the middle class…..everyone. politicians that is, wants to embrace the middle class and speaks to them at every outing……but in the last couple of decades this system has been slowly strangling the middle class out of existence……

I am concerned that once the middle class is eliminated then the political elites will take complete control and we know where that will lead…..we are already flirting with a very ugly political ideology……and the path we are on today will lead to the extinction of the middle class once and for all…..

I read this article in the American Conservative and found it an interesting piece with some excellent insights…..check it out and then tell me what you think….

Everyone loves the middle class. Everyone claims to be middle-class—some to put a gloss on their sketchy escutcheons, others to dodge chastisement for their awkward riches.

Source: What Middle Class? | The American Conservative

Is the Middle Class doomed?  Is there hope it can be saved?  If so, then who will save it?

Return Of The Middle Class?

With election coming there has been lots of talk and promises about the Middle Class……lots of promises on just how to fix the problem and renew the Middle Class…….

Each party has its plan……none of which will go very far to restoring the lots clout of the Middle Class…..

So the obvious question would be…….can the Middle Class ever return?

Some say NO…….and this article explains why such a statement is made……

 

The American middle class isn’t coming back — it’s going to die with the Baby Boomers – Salon.com.

Trade This For That

I wish this post was some sort of sports analogy but it is not…..instead it is my opinion on the newest trade agreement that is making the rounds in the media……the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA)……or is it the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)?

Confused?  Don’t worry about it….all you need to know is that it is mostly lies covered by slogans and one liners……

This smells a lot like the con job fed Americans by the Clinton group (the DLC) back in the 90’s…..you may remember it as NAFTA…….where North American countries inked a deal to trade without heavy tariffs and such……and it was sold as a boom for the middle class…..that it would strengthen and make the middle class more secure…..

And how did that work out for the middle class?

It sucked!

“Free trade” agreements may not be intended to cause class warfare, but they have had the effect of further enriching the wealthiest in our country while driving many previously middle class citizens into subsistence-level service jobs. These agreements weren’t put into place by an outcry from a  public begging for more trade, and they certainly haven’t been maintained because of it.

Now with the new one…..the Third Way, which is a group that defines itself as independent of the two parties is pushing the new agreement as a way to strengthen the middle class and added security…….basically a ‘centrist’ group…….

From their press release…….

Third Way partnered with former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairs today to urge fellow members of the Democratic Party to support granting President Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) for a new trade deal to strengthen the middle class and ensure America’s safety and security.

“Third Way is proud to work with these Democratic Party chiefs to promote the benefits of a pro-export agenda that will move America forward,” said Jim Kessler, Senior Vice President for Policy at Third Way. “These Democratic leaders know that modern trade deals create blue collar middle-class jobs because the data is clear. In our recent study, we analyzed all 17 trade deals since NAFTA to see if they improved the U.S. balance of trade in the blue collar goods sector. They did. The U.S. balance of trade in goods improved by more than $30 billion on average every year because post-NAFTA trade deals were negotiated with higher standards. With TPA, there is substantial opportunity to further contribute to America’s economic growth at a time of global economic stagnation.”

“Increasing America’s exports is the best way to create well-paying middle class jobs,” said Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA), one of the former DNC chairs who signed the letter. “During my time as Governor we tripled our exports in 8 years, helping Pennsylvania become the 9th fastest job creating state in the Union in 2010.”

All their bright scenarios sound reminiscent of the crap they fed Americans in the begging with NAFTA…..none of which came true……as usual they are empty promises from the wealthy to sell BS to the public.

Speaking of empty promises…..back in 2008 candidates Clinton and Obama both stated that if elected they would re-negotiate NAFTA……I’m still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.

These agreement do work wonders but not for the middle class…….the middle class since NAFTA has been stagnant and in some cases declining because of these agreements……and yet there are more and more of them and the middle class continues to be eroded away…….the only Americans profiting from these agreements are the wealthy importers/exporters.

No where will this or any other pending trade agreement to strengthen the middle class or make it more secure.  So far the term “middle class” is a lie to promote a situation that generate more wealth from those at the top.

Pro middle class slogans does nothing to help……….maybe Americans should stop reacting positively to dog whistle slogans and start demanding that the middle class becomes truly important again.  Or lose it forever!

Whatcha think?

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Man Of The People

There are not many in Washington that I would give the time of day……my two faves are Eliz.. Warren and Bernie Sanders……I have been a fan of Sanders since his days in state politics in Vermont……he has consistently been a person of the people…..there have been others that I respected their time in DC but not many…..

Sanders has always been a proponent of the poor and the middle class……he has been vocal and demanding….few in DC would listen and even fewer would have his back when it came to the nut cutting……

He and Warren are making a dynamite one two punch…….the Left is very fortunate to have these two people as their spokesperson…….Sen. Warren let the Congress have it over the latest government funding bill…..she withheld NO punches.

Remember 2008….I know it is a sore subject that few want to revisit……but to solve the problem from ever happening again there was a call to break up the big banks and eliminate the “too big too fail” syndrome where the taxpayer had to cover them for their bad business practices…….Sanders is trying again to do the right thing for the country with his 12 point plan………

Sanders detailed a 12-point economic program to,

– Invest in our crumbling infrastructure with a major program to create jobs by rebuilding roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants, airports, railroads and schools.

– Transform energy systems away from fossil fuels to create jobs while beginning to reverse global warming and make the planet habitable for future generations.

– Develop new economic models to support workers in the United States instead of giving tax breaks to corporations which ship jobs to low-wage countries overseas.

– Make it easier for workers to join unions and bargain for higher wages and benefits.

– Raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour so no one who works 40 hours a week will live in poverty.

– Provide equal pay for women workers who now make 78 percent of what male counterparts make.

– Reform trade policies that have shuttered more than 60,000 factories and cost more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs.

– Make college affordable and provide affordable child care to restore America’s competitive edge compared to other nations.

– Break up big banks. The six largest banks now have assets equivalent to 61 percent of our gross domestic product, over $9.8 trillion. They underwrite more than half the mortgages in the country and issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards.

– Join the rest of the industrialized world with a Medicare-for-all health care system that provides better care at less cost.

– Expand Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and nutrition programs.

– Reform the tax code based on wage earners’ ability to pay and eliminate loopholes that let profitable corporations stash profits overseas and pay no U.S. federal income taxes.

I have NO problem with his plan…..which is unusual for I seldom find a plan coming out of the Senate that I agree with…….Americans need to get informed and back Sanders plan…….another 2008 is only a tick away from happening again…….

Because of the collective ignorance of the American people will ensure that we will face another economic crash…..and this one may not be as easy to repair as the last…….

Keep your head in the sand and you will make it possible for more suffering of the American people……I know most could care less about their fellow Americans and that is why we are doomed to keep making the same mistake time and time again……..