Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes -- that's the plan Stan. Obama is doing all he can to destroy the middle class. Taxes are one big way he's destroying the middle class, and impossible national debt that will never be repaid.
Thank you for being 100% wrong, as shown by this column today, since 1980, the top 1%'s income has grown by 300% while the bottom 99% has remained stagnant. Obama's policies over the last four years has only regained about 6% from the top 1%. (So, your claim that Obama has made it worse for the middle class is just not true.) Instead of claiming that Obama is a radical redistributor and should be stopped, we need more of the same, the way FDR grew the middle class through social programs and higher taxes on wealth.
Quote:
What about inequality? On that front, sad to say, the Big Deal falls very far short of the New Deal. Like F.D.R., Mr. Obama took office in a nation marked by huge disparities in income and wealth. But where the New Deal had a revolutionary impact, empowering workers and creating a middle-class society that lasted for 40 years, the Big Deal has been limited to equalizing policies at the margin.
That said, health reform will provide substantial aid to the bottom half of the income distribution, paid for largely through new taxes targeted on the top 1 percent, and the “fiscal cliff” deal further raises taxes on the affluent. Over all, 1-percenters will see their after-tax income fall around 6 percent; for the top tenth of a percent, the hit rises to around 9 percent. This will reverse only a fraction of the huge upward redistribution that has taken place since 1980, but it’s not trivial.
...
Now, none of what I’ve just said should be taken as grounds for progressive complacency. The plutocrats may have lost a round, but their wealth and the influence it gives them in a money-driven political system remain. Meanwhile, the deficit scolds (largely financed by those same plutocrats) are still trying to bully Mr. Obama into slashing social programs.
Pretty much. Those middle classers are having to work longer and harder at trying to keep their heads above water, some work more than one job just maintain their households. Many haven't been able to do that though, some have lost the full time jobs, homes, cars, families have split up, but there has been a glimmer of improvement in recent months, signs the economy is getting slightly better.
Hmmm. It seems you don't identify with the middle class. Would that put you above them or below them? There are several people on C-D who claim to be millionaires, would you be one of them?
It's the opposite. You'll find liberal social democracies where the middle class is strong. It's because you need a big and wealthy number of people before you can have a big democratically elected government to eat away their riches. In a way the middle class has spelled its own doom.
To understand the context of where America has gone economically as it relates to the middle class, the below link should be a must read:
... let me start this blog off with a chart that’s central to how I think about the big picture, the underlying story of what’s really going on in this country. The chart shows the share of the richest 10 percent of the American population in total income – an indicator that closely tracks many other measures of economic inequality – over the past 90 years, as estimated by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. I’ve added labels indicating four key periods. These are:
As far as we can tell, income remained about as unequally distributed as it had been the late 19th century – or as it is today. Public policy did little to limit extremes of wealth and poverty, mainly because the political dominance of the elite remained intact; the politics of the era, in which working Americans were divided by racial, religious, and cultural issues, have recognizable parallels with modern politics.
...
The middle-class society I grew up in didn’t evolve gradually or automatically. It was created, in a remarkably short period of time, by FDR and the New Deal. As the chart shows, income inequality declined drastically from the late 1930s to the mid 1940s, with the rich losing ground while working Americans saw unprecedented gains.
...
Since the late 1970s the America I knew has unraveled. We’re no longer a middle-class society, in which the benefits of economic growth are widely shared: between 1979 and 2005 the real income of the median household rose only 13 percent, but the income of the richest 0.1% of Americans rose 296 percent.
I'm not following you. Plenty of Western industrialized European countries middle class have been doing great for Decades and will continue to embarrass the US in terms of how they treat their citizens for many more decades.
Middle class in many of those places doesn't have the same standard of living we have in US. They might have a small apartment and one putt-putt car and think that's fine as long as big daddy government is there to make the decisions for them.
No you are factually wrong. The height of the middle class was under Nixon ( a coincidence ) and it's been declining ever since due to right wing policy on taxation of the rich, attacks on unions, and workers rights.
No, you're wrong. Everybody knows the middle class is disappearing thanks to government debt, because gov't debt is sacrosanct, it is the be all and end all of all existence. If only we cut the budget by 100% and cut taxes for the rich to 0% will we have the most prosperous society on Earth!
Hyperbole aside, what is middle class in America? The family that can afford to live in a $250,000+ house, drive 2 $30,000+ cars/trucks, or the family that needs to use credit cards in order to afford to live in that $250k+ house and 2 $30k+ cars? My guess is the latter is more common than the former
Mass middle class and purer varieties of capitalism just don't mix. Mass middle class in USA is a fluke bastard child of the red scare and WWII. Its utility is over. Plebeians are pussified and dumbed down by talk radio outlets (blaming poorest of the poor for eating everybody' cake, naturally), USSR is no more. Middle class will be always around, but it will be anything but mass. Managerial caste, small business owners, top layers of the professionals. These will remain middle class. Everybody else will be listening Rush blaming welfare queens for their $10/hr no benefits jobs.
If working mass doesn't fight owning class tooth and claw, they would take everything but minimum levels of substance away. That's inner logic of capitalism. Why pay more to somebody who's 100% dependent and not dangerous?
Last edited by RememberMee; 01-21-2013 at 09:07 AM..
Hyperbole aside, what is middle class in America? The family that can afford to live in a $250,000+ house, drive 2 $30,000+ cars/trucks, or the family that needs to use credit cards in order to afford to live in that $250k+ house and 2 $30k+ cars? My guess is the latter is more common than the former
Anyone who gets into debt to live above their means is an idiot.
Anyone who gets into debt to live above their means is an idiot.
Then there are millions and millions of idiots out there.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
