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That article is too general to say that the Middle and Lower classes are not growing.
It is? Consider this paragraph from that article:
Quote:
Let's do some detective work. Controlling for inflation, in 1967, 8 percent of households had an annual income of $75,000 and up; in 2003, more than 26 percent did. In 1967, 17 percent of households had a $50,000 to $75,000 income; in 2003, it was 18 percent. In 1967, 22 percent of households were in the $35,000 to $50,000 income group; by 2003, it had fallen to 15 percent. During the same period, the $15,000 to $35,000 category fell from 31 percent to 25 percent, and the under $15,000 category fell from 21 percent to 16 percent. The only reasonable conclusion from this evidence is that if the middle class is disappearing, it's doing so by swelling the ranks of the upper classes.
The under-15k, 15-35k, and 35-50k groups all shrank over the last 40 years. The 50-75k group got slightly bigger. The 75k-and-up group more than tripled in size. It's pretty darn clear from this paragraph that the growth in the upper classes is because the lower classes are shrinking. Most would consider this a great improvement.
Economies are always changing. Before China, it was Japan who we feared was taking all of our manufacturing. Before that, it was Hong Kong and Taiwan.
China is already starting to feel growing pains. As their economy grows, so does the pressure on wages. They are already starting to move some manufacturing to Vietnam. The next China might be Indonesia, India, etc. Labor jobs move where labor is cheapest. And most of those jobs are unskilled.
Look at the Barbie doll. She's an assemblage of parts mostly made in Asia. It's someone's job every day to plug her head with hair - is that a middle class job? Barbie costs very little to make, but once back in the US is sold for a decent sum - enough to make millions for Mattel, toy stores, distributors, accessory industries, etc. Mattel is a 7 billion dollar company directly employing thousands of well paid people and indirectly supporting law firms, financial service companies, PR and ad agencies, etc. not to mention those who also make money off their products.
The hair pluggers, lip painters and leg assemblers probably don't make squat, but that doesn't mean we've lost decent jobs to China in the lifecycle of just that one product. The same can be said across thousands of products and brands.
I'd love to own Starbucks, valued at $14 Billion. A lot of people here make a lot of money from Starbucks, from employees to distributors to partners, realtors and all of the other support companies. We never really lost bean gathering jobs to offshore concerns as we've never really had a domestic coffee bean growing industry. This just illustrates how an American company can thrive and create jobs and wealth here even though their core product is produced overseas.
We have a huge and diverse economy that is ever changing and every growing. We've also got amazing creativity and ingenuity, always creating new economies. Look at the internet. 20 years ago the vast majority of people had never heard of it but I don't think most of us could now imagine a world without it. Look at how many jobs and companies have been spawned from that. The bottom line is that the economy is always in motion. It creates new jobs and industries, and some of those jobs will be done in cheaper countries. But if we still control the main product, distribute and sell it - we'll be fine.
I sorry with this so called money the US has, I don't see how they will be fine with the dollar losing daily in it's value?
There are plenty of very good middle class jobs out there if you get an education. For a brief period of time in the United States (about 30 years or so) you could do quite well just by graduating highschool and going to work in a factory somewhere. That was an abnormal time and won't be coming back.
So basically, learn a skill or trade that someone else cannot learn to do in a couple weeks and you will do fine. If you have no skills, training or motivation then you will work crummy jobs your whole life and be paid accordingly.
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How can US be find ?
