Originally Posted By skinnerbox Here's the beginning of an excellent article by Elizabeth Warren; the remainder can be found at this link: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/america-without-a-middle_b_377829.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...829.html</a> "Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it? Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street. Families have survived the ups and downs of economic booms and busts for a long time, but the fall-behind during the busts has gotten worse while the surge-ahead during the booms has stalled out. In the boom of the 1960s, for example, median family income jumped by 33% (adjusted for inflation). But the boom of the 2000s resulted in an almost-imperceptible 1.6% increase for the typical family. While Wall Street executives and others who owned lots of stock celebrated how good the recovery was for them, middle class families were left empty-handed. The crisis facing the middle class started more than a generation ago. Even as productivity rose, the wages of the average fully-employed male have been flat since the 1970s." There's a chart at the link showing the ever-widening gap between productivity and compensation, which began to widen in the mid-seventies. Americans are working harder than ever, but compensation for that work continues to flatline, while executive compensation continues to increase disproportionately. The middle class is dying. Jobs continue to be outsourced to other countries, but not to save companies from going under or to remove red ink from the balance sheets. Most of the companies offshoring jobs, like Disney, are doing so to keep the bottom lines hyper-inflated for purposes of shareholder approval and, more importantly, executive compensation in the form of bonuses and stock options. Our nation is losing its strong middle class so that the already wealthy upper class can become even more insanely wealthy. These corporate leaders and Wall St investment brokers are never satisfied with what they have; they always want more, more, more. So what if the middle class of the country is destroyed in the process? Why should the rich care? It's not THEIR home being foreclosed, it's not THEIR credit rating going into the toilet because of medical bills they cannot pay, it's not THEIR retirement savings disappearing to pay for basic necessities like food and shelter when the unemployment benefits run out and no one will hire you because you're over 50. They've got THEIR millions... tough cookies if you don't have yours, right? Every man, woman, and child is on his/her own. Survival of the fittest. Social Darwinism and all that jazz. That's what America is all about. This is the greedy arse attitude that is destroying the middle class. This is the greedy arse attitude that keeps us from turning the recession around and reversing our record unemployment. This is the greedy arse attitude that the GOP and Blue Dog politicians should be ashamed of, but are not. They're doing everything they can to shoot down the stimulus and legislation that would give real help to the working class of this nation, such as credit card and health care reform. They only care about the greedy arse upper class in this country that contributes big bucks to their campaign coffers at the expense of their constituents and the middle class lifestyle they've allowed the corporatists to destroy. This is the greedy arse attitude that is destroying our country. And I'm ashamed of any and all politicians from all parties that side with their campaign contributing corporate masters, who promote the dismantling of the middle class through their unethical and immoral business practices. Simply put, I do not see this turning around without serious campaign finance reform. And I don't see that happening in my lifetime. We. Are. Screwed.
Originally Posted By pecos bill I agree completely. I know people who are working for less money than I made after graduating high school 30+ years ago. When you really sit down and contemplate the reality, it is overwhelming.
Originally Posted By ChurroMonster What happens when the middle class disappears? Hint: read up on the French Revolution. It'll all work out in the end.
Originally Posted By DAR <<They're doing everything they can to shoot down the stimulus >> Except I'm trying to think of anything that the stimulus has really helped?
Originally Posted By DAR Of course it could have been worse. But it's like we're using a band-aid to heal a cut to a major artery.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox The stimulus is akin to triage on the battlefield. Sometimes a pressure bandage on a major wound buys just enough time for a transfer to a MASH unit where surgery can sufficiently repair the damage and stop the hemorrhaging, and save the soldier's life. In other words... we have a small window of time to keep the damage from worsening if we act quickly. Question is, will we act quickly enough? With the GOP's continued partisan obstructionism in the Senate, I seriously doubt it.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>And you know this how? Could have been much worse without it.<< The jury is still out on whether or not it's much worse.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << Of course it could have been worse. But it's like we're using a band-aid to heal a cut to a major artery. >> And your prescription to fix the economy would be?
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<The middle class is dying.>> I know so many people on the edge of the abyss that it's scary. A coworker's husband has been out of work for a long time and they're running out of savings to make ends meet. The savings were from the equity on a house they sold two years ago, and wasn't that much to begin with.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "I'd cut everyone's taxes. Everyone's" Nope. The public funding sinks, and despite what many say, no amount of "cutting waste" will make up any real difference.
Originally Posted By mawnck The 70% tax bracket should return. Not because it would produce revenue, but because it discourages companies from shoveling all their money into the executives' money pits rather than investing it in the company.
Originally Posted By dshyates But at 70% what would poor CEOs like Iger do? He only made $30,600,000 last year. That is only 1,000,000 X what I made.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Here's an interesting article advocating raising taxes from an old supply sider: <a href="http://moneyfeatures.blogs.money.cnn.com/2009/10/22/tax-cuts-and-medicare-could-kill-the-economy/" target="_blank">http://moneyfeatures.blogs.mon...economy/</a> "DF: What do we do once we're out of this crisis? BB: The longer-term problem is the aging of society and uncontrolled entitlements. I'm afraid that when we reach the point where everybody finally recognizes that we need fiscal tightening, it'll be impossible to cut spending because it'll all be going to the old people, who command a lot of votes, and who will veto any big cuts. That leaves us with one and only one alternative, which is to raise taxes. The common conservative view today is that all tax increases are equally bad. I honestly feel that conservatives would rather default on the debt than raise taxes. But there are better and worse ways of raising taxes. What we need a is value-added tax. It's a consumption tax that has very little negative effect on incentives, meaning that you can raise a lot of revenue at relatively low economic cost. But conservatives have the attitude that's the worst possible tax precisely because of its virtues. They think that if we make it too easy for the government to raise revenues, then they'll raise too much revenue, and the next thing you know we'll be like Europe. It's just total [expletive deleted] nonsense. Have these people ever been to Europe? The people there are not exactly living in abject poverty and slavery. DF: It seems much more likely that the Obama administration will raise taxes on the rich. BB: Not raising taxes is simply not an option. If the Republicans refuse to put any tax increase on the table, the Democrats will to raise taxes in the way that suits them: They'll raise the capital gains tax, they'll raise corporate taxes, they'll raise taxes on the so-called rich. The only thing that can forestall that is if you put a better tax on the table."
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I'd cut everyone's taxes. Everyone's*** How much less than the current 15% do you think the uber-wealthy should be paying, DAR? 10%? 5%?
Originally Posted By mawnck >>How much less than the current 15% do you think the uber-wealthy should be paying, DAR? 10%? 5%?<< Maybe WE should be giving THEM money! Oh wait .....
Originally Posted By andyll <<I'd cut everyone's taxes. Everyone's>> Bush cut my taxes 3 times. I was better off under Clinton when my taxes were higher. I was getting much bigger raises every year. Last year the high gas prices and huge jump in my health care easily ate up my meager raise and the $600 bush gave me. This year my premiums went up another 10% and there was no raise. My disposable income has gone down 3 years in a row and will likely be down again this year. If you want jobs get credit to small/medium companies and cut their taxes. Use anit-trust or higher tax rates to break up big companies. The huge amount of mergers has bleed jobs for a decade.
