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As I watch the economic events of the last few months and weeks unfold……. I am amazed that most Americans still have no idea why our nation is in a long-term downward spiral. Wall Street, predatory lending, plummeting house values, Ben Bernacki, bailouts, foreclosures, financial meltdowns. We throw around these new financial verbs as if they can explain away what happened to the American dream. Each day we sit in front of our computer monitors and TV sets, and watch the folks in charge tell us how they can fix everything. Then we go about our daily routines… trying to ignore the slow death of our way of life. We rationalize the changing world we see - telling ourselves little economic and social fables that get us through the day…. and keep us from screaming too much at night.
The current economic decline of our nation is the final chapter in a story that could be titled “The death of the American middle class”. That great social class that flourished for nearly 60 years. The stable middle class family life from a generation or two ago….. is now quickly becoming the polar opposite of the true day-to-day world most American middle class families exists in. Historians will almost certainly look back at the dismantling of the American middle class….as a textbook example of how to quickly bring a nation to it’s social and economic knees.
What happened? How did a nation of seemingly stable, working and middle class families fall off a financial cliff. This can best be explained like the spokes of a wheel leading to a central point. Several enormous and significant economic changes have occurred in American over the last 15 or 20 years. Not only did these changes occur all at once, but in a truly savage way - they became cumulative. The result is that America is now trapped in the eye of a social and economic super-storm.
SPOKE 1…..Skilled manufacturing jobs went overseas. Blame who you want (the greedy capitalists not happy making millions, union demands, corruption)…but the average man or woman from 1945 to 1985 could go to work for the GM, Ford, Kodak, or nameless others….and earn a decent pay to support a middle class life. By the late 1980’s and 1990’s…. American companies starting moving overseas in mass. The skilled manufacturing job was quickly vanishing across America forever.
When Reaganomics was implemented in the 1980’s…. it was deemed that what was good for the wealthy investor class…was good for all Americans. The main problem of course, was capitalists and investors - think like capitalists and investors….so that guy in Detroit making cars for $29 hour was replaced with a Indian or Chinese worker who would work for $3 an hour. The CEO’s made bigger bonuses, the company made more money, the shareholders were happy…..and the soul of America was sold out. Between 1984 and 2000 (according to Brookings) ……….15 million skilled manufacturing jobs in the United States vanished forever.
Of course, all the true financial gains went to the top. By 1988, when Reagan left office, the top 1 % of Americans (by income)…. controlled 50% of the nations wealth. Economically, the bottom and middle class saw little gain or started slipping by the early 1990’s.
The Middle Class Family starts to slip…..which leads to…..SPOKE 2…
SPOKE 2…..Family Debit/Credit Debit. As most middle and working class Americans were unable to sustain a life like their grandparents or parents before them…..they turned to credit. By the late 1980’s real wages (when adjusted to annual inflation) starting falling for the first time since the Great Depression. As skilled labor and automation moved to cheap overseas labor markets, the American capitalists could now raise the price of consumer products and goods…since no one bought anything in cash anymore anyway. It was great ( for awhile)….in a time of declining wages, massive movement of skilled jobs overseas….you could buy all you wanted ….and not have to pay until some distant point in time.
This of course led to SPOKE 3….
SPOKE 3…..Lending Deregulation. As Americas continued to consume on credit, and real wages kept falling…..the financial and lending game became ever more rigged in the favor of big business, banks, and the capitalists. Middle and working class families starting choking. Banks and credit card companies started shaking down middle and working class Americans with ever-higher fees, penalties, and unfair terms. Financial and banking lobbyists in Washington continued to buy their way into our Government. Americans started drowning in debit. Of course, the capitalistic wolves smelled blood - and told millions of Americans, they only way the could survive it all….was more credit and debit.
[B]THE LAST ACT...[/b]
Finally, millions of middle class American families put the only thing they ever owned in hock…..their homes. Worse, new home buyers - contending with falling wages, an ever increasing CPI, no down payment money, and home prices going through the roof because of all the “false equity” people had in homes…took on huge, high risk, and mostly unworkable mortgages that were sold to them by the ever more cunning… but morally bankrupt mortgage companies and banks.
Meanwhile….the capitalists and investors, flush with all this false money, could leverage those paper assets 60 to 1. They could play with trillions of dollars in mortgage-backed securties, stocks, 401-K’s and retirements accounts of Americans…produce no physical product….. and make untold billions, risk free!
And jobs, well who cares if don’t make anything here in America anymore.
The system lunged and staggered like an elephant shot thorough the heart with a cannon ball. It was only a matter of time before the whole system would fall - the only question was when and where.
WHY OBAMA? WHY NOW?
Think of the first Obama commercials a year and half ago when he was just one of six democratic candidates. Can he really understand what has happened to America…and why. What was this 47-year old man saying back then, before his message was lost trying to stop them from attacking him…first against Clinton, then against McCain….
#1 “stop giving tax break to companies that move American jobs overseas, and give them to compines that locate here in America” (he must have said this 100 times before he had to start defending himself on attack ads). Did McCain or Clinton mention this? Even once?
#2 “Relief for the middle and working class families”. McCain only started saying this when his poll numbers showed Obama was doing better with the middle class. Do you really think a man who has 7 homes and a wife worth $100,000,000 can “feel” the plight of middle and working class families?
#3. “ Stop the politics of fear and division”. Do you find it strange that we haven’t heard any increased chatter from the terrorists lately? Seriously, what terror threat level are we at, putty, bone…I forget. It seems awhile back whenever there was some controversy in the White House (the economy, the war)…our government sidetracked us and told us they were hearing increased chatter on the terrorist networks. No chatter lately…hmm ?
#4. “ Reunite with former friends in Europe, try to bridge relations with nations we are at odds with” Long time allies in Europe despise us now. Our list of enemies grows each year. Do we have enough bullets to kill off 75% of the world? I think not. We all want to show the world we won’t be bullied and pushed around, Obama agrees, but must we make war with every nation on earth? What happened to at least “trying to make peace” before we start another bloody war? We’re supposed to be the heroes, the defenders of those bullied, remember.
Today, I turned 45 years old….with all the joy and sadness that that brings to a free spirited person. However, 45 certinaly brings perspective. For the first time in my adult life I am fearful about my future…but even more fearful about the future of my 7-year-old son. I’m afraid that I am running out of time and money to protect him from a system that is now starting to enslave rather than lift up. The great and fair system we used to have in America…. is being ever more gamed against families and the middles class. The wealthy capitalists control more and more of our government and our future ever day. They control or jobs, our families, our medical treatment, even our life span.
Perhaps because he is close to my age…. I have this fleeting hope Obama sees America and the world the way it really is……and how to at least start to fix it. He may have to get into bed with them to change the system, he may have to burn the village to win the war….but at least he knows the system is falling apart. Then, try to imagine the view of a 72 year old man married to a millionaire, who has been part of Washington DC politics for 30 years.
Obama may be the last real chance at a new direction and philosophy in America - when American families are economically, socially, and culturally…marching off a cliff.
I see it more of the insanity of the wingnuts and moonbats.
Too many Dems want you to be able to stay of welfare forever and tax the rich out of existence. Nothing is my fault and Ill sue for 10 million for my own stupidity.
Too many Reps want no social safety net whatsoever because it is all socialism and "stealing from me" No banking/ financial regulation etc etc etc.
Can we just put them all in a Mad Max Thunderdome cage with a bunch of chainsaws? The last survivor coming out... Well just shoot him.
Obama is nothing new. He is LBJ + the Beatles. A liberal political rock star able to give an astonishingly good speech.
Net net probably not much better than Bush; probably wont get us stuck in another sand hell at least.
Ending secret ballots in unionization votes is a BAD idea. (employee free choice act)
Not supporting nuclear plants is a BAD idea. We need to start NOW, they dont spring up over night.
Not drilling our own coastlines while the Chinese slant drill into the same fields is a BAD idea.
The 307 billion dollar farm bill is an unbelievably BAD idea.
etc
I have found that logic and facts work far better than the right wing rhetoric. The OP said it very well and very accurately. Our ruling class Nero’s have fiddled away while the middle class burned.
GregW, you know that as soon as you said anything even a little off-message for the conservative crowd, they wrote you off and will attack you for the life of the thread. IMO, the issues we as Americans face now have to do with living on an unrealistic upward economic and material curve. This fantasy of the American Dream lasted for a few generations while we relentlessly exploited the natural resources around us and now the availability of those resources have crossed the line into greater and greater scarcity. We thought it was the natural way of things - upward growth and increasing comfort and leisure. While politicians are loathe to tell people hard times are coming, it is time they get used to the idea.
Obama may be the last real chance at a new direction and philosophy in America - when American families are economically, socially, and culturally…marching off a cliff.
It would appear that mainstream Americans have finally awakened to the shell game the GOP has been selling them for the past two decades. Can Obama reverse the downhill slide of the US middle class? I'm not convinced that he can. Maybe he can slow the descent, but heavy damage has already been inflicted. It may be too late for a true resurgence of widespread prosperity like we had in the 90s.
I hate to say this, but most of the original post is pure liberal drum beating.
No need to respond as logic and facts will not work in these situations.
Yep.. how about coming to the realization that BOTH parties got us to where we're at today, and a political figurehead (Obama) with no real power (or actual respect) in his party won't make a bit of difference.
Read Lou Dobb's "War on the Middle Class" - then reply to this thread.
As a middle class person I don't think we will be better off with Obama. I will be casting a McCain vote (wish it would have been Huckabee though).
Better change your mind. The chart below proves why. Also Obama wants to eliminate capital gains gains taxes for small businessmen. What so wrong with that?
doesn't it stop being a small business after it makes more than $250k?
Quote:
Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie
Better change your mind. The chart below proves why. Also Obama wants to eliminate capital gains gains taxes for small businessmen. What so wrong with that?
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