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Milkman · 26-08-2009, 11:11 AM

An article below about the American Middle-Class. Dr. Elizabeth Warren started studying this topic a long time ago. 1970 is considered a critical year - this is the year when the Middle Class started slipping enough for it to be empirically observed, and studied.

This was, 39 years ago.

Link & Entire:
http://informedcitizens.wordpress.co...iered-society/

Quote:

Americans, particularly ones from the middle class, need to realize that there are no core entitlements imparted by their government representatives, nor any other sources. They have none and should adjust their expectations accordingly.

If the U.S. populace somehow imagines that its members are viewed any differently than any other populations across the world that are used to produce maximal profits for the top economic class, there’s a rude awakening in store ahead. Further, most legislators simply do not care whether middle and lower class interests are or aren’t well served as long as they, themselves, can somehow make out well in the times ahead.

Besides, why should any Americans feel that they deserve to be treated more favorably by the transnational moneyed elites and their government backers than their counterparts across the rest of the world? As A. H. Bill reminds: “The richest 225 people in the world today control more wealth than the poorest 2.5 billion people. And… the three richest people in the world control more wealth than the poorest 48 nations.”

Occasionally someone making a staggering amount of money in a crooked sort of way might raise a few officials’ eyebrows or induce a mild reprimand. In addition, he might, occasionally, be singled out as the token fall guy so as to be made into a warning example as was Bernie Madoff. Most of the time, though, no action is usually undertaken to correct the situation when directors of major companies carry out activities that are, obviously, right on or over the edge of fraudulent practices.......

Please see above link to read the whole piece. I think this piece is just more evidence of something most of us already know but don't want to come to grips with, and that is the likely death of the American middle class, IMO. I have shown proof positive the evidence of this with charts like this..

Link & Entire: See above.

FlyFree · 26-08-2009, 12:33 PM

The middle class has been under increasing pressure for decades, cannot see it recovering. Just another major destabilizing factor for the coming decades. They were the buffer between the rich and the increasingly angry poor, who have grown weary of the bullshit empty promise of improved conditions to keep them quiet and slaving away.

Sort of a macro revolution building worldwide. Food, water and land shortages because of overpopulation, climate change and it's displacement pressures, degradation of environment will amplify and expedite the process.

The pressure cooker is close to exploding. There will of course be attempts to handle it, and force will be the only way. Interesting times.

crippen · 26-08-2009, 12:37 PM

It is happening in the U.K. also. They are slowly losing their income and the government are taxing them to the hilt.The pips are squeaking!

Dan · 26-08-2009, 04:38 PM

1970 was also the year oil production peaked in the US and a year before it abandoned the gold standard. These might not be unrelated but I don't understand economics well enough to see how they fit together.

I think the middle classes everywhere will contract enormously in size in the coming years. Most of them will fall back into the proletariat, a few will manage to clamber up into the level of the elite. The current social set up which 'developed' countries enjoy, with a vast middle class and relatively small underclass is a historical anomaly which is only maintained by the huge energy throughputs we get from burning fossil fuels. If you take away the fossil fuels, you take away the surplus energy which supports a non-productive class, the middle classes. And I don't think there's much doubt that one way or another, fossil fuels are going to disappear from the system, starting in the pretty near future.

Milkman · 01-11-2009, 09:58 PM

Sourced from this blogger FerFal, this is an opinion by the author of this article.

I see this happening to the middle class. Do you?

I'm referring to the job market and job opportunities.

Link inside the quotes at the top of the article.

Quote:

Economic Collapse Permanently Destroys Middle Class Jobs

Oct 29th, 2009
By David Calderwood
Whiskey and Gunpowder

Many people write of the imminent destruction of the U.S. middle class (of which I consider myself a member) but few have explained specifically how this occurs. Understanding the mechanism seems important if I hope to avoid the fate of most of my peers.

An insight on this question came from an unexpected quarter.

A gentleman by the name of Fernando Aguirre, who posts on Internet forums and his blog as FerFAL, has written voluminously about his experiences as an Argentine citizen during and after the economic cataclysm that wracked his country in 2001. I first found a long forum post, and then a Google search of “FerFAL” revealed a larger web presence, including a recently published book.

Mr. Aguierre shares his thoughts on all sorts of related subjects, from food storage to guns to politics (he appears to really like Rep. Ron Paul). I personally found a great deal of value among what I’ve seen so far.

One brief passage struck me, however, because it related to the mechanism by which middle-class people become poor during an economic meltdown. The mechanism may be obvious, but it is important to see how theory actually worked in the real world.

Mr. Aguierre shares (in “Part IV”) how, while studying architecture following the 2001 crisis, a social studies teacher illustrated Argentina’s middle class’ slide into poverty. Quoting the teacher from memory, Mr. Aguierre writes,

“[Those in the] middle class suddenly discover that they are overqualified for the jobs they can find and have to settle for anything they can obtain, therefore unemployment sky rockets: too much to offer, too little demand. You see they prepare, study for a job they are not going to get. You kids, you are studying Architecture because you simply wish to do so. Only 3 or 4 percent of you will actually find a job related to architecture.”

We all sat there, letting it all sink in. After a few months, it all proved to be true. Even the amount of students that dropped out of college increased to at least 50%. They either [saw] no point in studying something that would not make much of a difference in their future salaries, had no money to keep themselves in college, or simply had to drop college to work and support their families.

This reads like a premonition.

The USA’s middle-class includes lots of people whose careers rest on higher education and specialized certification. While plumbers, electricians, factory employees and truck drivers typically are among the middle-class, most of those populating suburbia are accountants, middle managers, sales people, financial consultants, teachers, nurses, writers, etc. In other words, as manufacturing and now building activity contract, more of the middle class is made up of the college-educated in white-collar careers.

Factor in our current economic pickle and it’s easy to see the most likely path ahead.

With the economic expansion built on mass optimism and debt rolling over, conditions are now fertile for questioning the college degree system as jobs for the college-educated evaporate en masse. The ability of technology to replace white-collar jobs is widespread, and an increasing need to cut costs is finally driving its use, just as changing economic (and regulatory) conditions also drive the replacement of manpower with robotics in the factory.

Across the economy, the need to cut employment costs (not just payroll, but payroll taxes and benefits) is resulting in mass layoffs of sales people and white-collar office staff. When one considers how much work can be replaced now by accounting software, electronic sales presentations, flatter organizational structures, and “news persons” filing reports for free on the Internet via blogs, it is obvious that vast numbers of middle-class Americans teeter on the precipice of unemployability, not just unemployment.

When the “unique” skill sets that commanded $50,000 to $100,000 (or more) annual salaries turn out to be in vast oversupply, the only course left is to compete with those with neither a college degree nor technical education for jobs that can’t support a middle-class lifestyle.

Hands-on service occupations like nursing and medicine are also far from safe. At the end of the day, it is productivity that pays for such work to be done, and when vast numbers of people cannot find economically productive work, economic reality will land on these occupations, too.

When the economic tide goes out, all boats sink into the mud.

Too many people were goaded into illusory occupations by tax subsidies for higher education, government (rather than market) demand, and other distortions like the credit-without-prior-production of the central bank. Political pandering and central planning replaced the natural balance of an economy growing organically through the honest signals of the price system.

As long as there was enough optimism and ignorance to sustain the illusion, the distortions only grew larger.

Though the ignorance largely remains, there’s no more blind denial left to sustain the burden of all that wasted effort. If your job disappears, it may not come back.

This time it really is different. The final stages of that blind denial included fiscal imprudence that bordered on insanity. The mirage economy can’t return until after the pendulum has swung its full travel to the other side of the arc. That path leads through the valley of a crushing economic depression, one that will radically and permanently alter the lives of middle-class Americans who are almost universally unaccustomed to hardship.

Regards,
David Calderwood

David Calderwood is a businessman, artist and author of the novel Revolutionary Language, which was selected January 2000 Freedom Book of the Month at Free-Market.net.

Muadib · 01-11-2009, 10:20 PM

^ Nice find MM... Very eloquently and succinctly summarizes what is on the horizon...

Milkman · 06-12-2009, 11:12 PM

Another article on the American Middle-Class: globalization's biggest loser:

This article has positives.

Note* This article is 3 years old, but more relevant today, than ever.

Quote:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...439766,00.html

A Superpower in Decline
october 26, 2006

America's Middle Class Has Become Globalization's Loser

By Gabor Steingart
At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States is still a superpower. But it's a superpower facing competition from beyond its borders as well as internal difficulties. Its lower and middle classes are turning out to be the losers of globalization.

Editor's Note: The following essay has been excerpted from the German best-seller "World War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity" by SPIEGEL editor Gabor Steingart. SPIEGEL ONLINE is publishing a series of daily excerpts from the book.

There are essentially three exclusive characteristics whose simultaneous development have served as the foundations of the United States's success up until now -- and they only appear in this particular combination in America. They are not only the country's biggest strengths, but also its greatest weaknesses. It's worth scrutinizing them more closely.

REUTERS

New York City: A constant replenishment of daring in America

First, nowhere in the world can you find such a high concentration of optimism and daring. America is the country that strives hardest for what is new -- not just since yesterday (like Eastern Europeans) and not just for the last three decades (like the Chinese); rather from the very instant settlers began arriving. Unabashed curiosity seems to be hardwired into the nation's genetic code.

The steady influx of the adventurous and hard-working -- which helped increase the country's labor force by about 44 million people since 1980 alone and continues today -- ensures a constant replenishment of daring. After all, it's not just the additional people that make the difference. The mere addition of 17 million people into Germany following reunification in 1990 – newcomers more concerned with preserving their guaranteed rights than with making the extraordinary effort necessary for success – did nothing to foster the kind of daring you see in the United States. Indeed, the result was exactly the opposite, and it has been a painful lesson for Germany.

Second, the United States is radically global. Its very origins -- in the rebellious citizens from every country in the world who assembled on the territory that is now the United States -- mark its people as true children of the world. Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt calls the founding fathers of the United States a "vital elite," one that continues to pass down its genes to this very day. Their language is dominant, having marginalized Spanish and French during the second half of the past century. Their everyday culture -- from the T-shirt and rock 'n' roll to e-mail -- has peacefully colonized half the world. And from the very beginning, US corporations were eager to venture abroad in order to trade and set up production sites in other countries. Multinational corporations may not have been a US invention, but they became its specialty.

Third, the United States is the only nation on earth that can do business globally in its own currency. Indeed, the dollar has established itself as the world's currency. Whoever wants to own it has to purchase it in the United States. All important decisions about the quantity of cash that circulates or the setting of interest rates are made within the nation's borders, which guarantees a maximum degree of national independence. It's American blood that flows through the veins of the global economy. Almost half of all business deals are closed using dollars as the currency, and two-thirds of all currency reserves are held in dollars. Charles de Gaulle, who was president of France after World War II, admired this "exorbitant privilege" even then.

The trial of strength
But there is a flip side to the coin. First, Americans are so optimistic that they often blur the line between optimism and naivete. Public, private and corporate debt far exceeds any previously known dimensions. Forever piously trusting in a future rosier than the present, millions of households are borrowing so much money that they end up endangering the very future they're looking forward to. The lower and middle classes have practically given up on putting aside any savings. They're going into the 21st century like a poverty-stricken, Third World family, living from hand to mouth without any financial reserves whatsoever.

Second, globalization is striking back. The United States has promoted the worldwide exchange of commodities like no other nation, and the result is that their local industry has begun to be eroded. Some production sectors -- such as the furniture industry, consumer electronics, many automobile part suppliers, and now computer manufacturers -- have left the country for good. In the recent past, free trade has primarily benefited the very rival states that are now mounting an economic offensive on the United States -- and which have cut off a large slice of America’s global market share for themselves.

Third, the dollar doesn't just strengthen the United States; it also makes it vulnerable. The government has pumped its currency into the world economy so vigorously that the dollar can now be brought to the point of collapse by external forces – such as those in Beijing, for example. Former US President Bill Clinton spoke of a "strategic partnership." Current President George W. Bush would later speak of a "strategic rivalry." They meant the same thing. There's a form of dependence that obliges economic actors to cooperate in normal times. But when times change, there is the temptation to engage in a show of strength.

Delinked from prosperity Make no mistake about it: at the start of the new century, the United States is still a superpower. But it is a superpower that faces tough competition from outside and difficulties within. The feedback effects involved in globalization are especially intense for the US economy -- so much so that large parts of the US workforce are now standing with their backs against the wall.

The rise of Asia has only led to a relative decline of the US national economy. At least so far. But for many blue- and white-collar workers, this decline is already absolute because they have less of everything than they used to. They possess less money, they are shown less respect in society and their chances for climbing up the social ladder have deteriorated dramatically. They're the losers in the world war for wealth. But while that may be their fate, they cannot be faulted for it. And it's certainly not a private affair. Every nation has to face uncomfortable questions when an ever-larger part of its citizenry is delinked from the nation's overall wealth. This is all the more true of a society that has made the pursuit of happiness a fundamental right.

On Oct. 28, 1998, the US Congress established a commission that brought together highly respected experts to examine the effects of the country's trade deficit and the withering away of industrial labor. Donald Rumsfeld, the current US defense secretary, then-US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Anne Krueger, the number two at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Lester Thurow provided their assessment of the situation at the behest of the president.

Things were going swimmingly for the Americans until the end of the 1970s, the commission report concluded. Family incomes grew virtually at the same rate in all sections of the population during the first three decades after World War II, with those of the poor growing slightly faster. The lowest fifth of US society saw a 120 percent increase in incomes, the second fifth 101 percent, the third 107 percent, the fourth 114 percent and the fifth 94 percent. It was as if the American dream had manifested itself in statistics.

But then the trend reversed, and not just in the United States. Japan had awakened, and global trade had shifted directions. Capitalists left their home turf and went looking for suitable locations to invest in. Direct investment abroad – which had been more or less in harmony with exports until then – rose dramatically.

Until then, investment abroad had served mainly to boost the export of German, US or French products. But then factories themselves began to be relocated, mainly to cut manufacturing costs. Production for the world market became increasingly global itself, which led to a redistribution of capital and labor. Global production increased by a solid 100 percent between 1985 and 1995. But direct investment abroad increased by 400 percent during the same time period. Capital's new mobility began to make the other factor of production, labor, restless, too.

Producing all over the world
The new jobs were created elsewhere, which had to have an effect on family income in the United States. Within the next two decades, the income of the lowest fifth sank by 1.4 percent. The second fifth still managed to gain by 6.2 percent, the third by 11.1 percent and the fourth by 19 percent. At the tip of the pyramid – where the promoters and planners of globalization reside, and those who profit most from it – income gains climbed by 42 percent.

The US national economy clearly bears the signs of this break with its golden age, when the country produced prosperity for almost everyone. Until the 1970s, the productive core of the country burned with such a fiery light that it illuminated the entire world. The United States provided dollars and products for everyone. The American empire's nuclear power helped in the reconstruction of war-torn Europe and Japan. The United States was the world's greatest net exporter and greatest creditor for four decades. Everything went just the way the economy textbooks said it should: The world's wealthiest nation pumped money and products into the poorer states. The United States used the energy from its own productive core to make other countries glow or at least glimmer. It was indisputably the world's center of power, a source of energy that radiated out in all directions.

US capital was at home everywhere in the world, even without military backing. Many experienced this state of affairs as a blessing, some as a curse. Either way, it was good business for the United States: At the peak of its economic power, the West's leading nation disposed of assets abroad whose net value amounted to 13 percent of its GNP. To put it differently: The country's productive core had expanded so dramatically that it opened up branches and subsidiaries all over the world.

What remains
This undoubtedly superior United States doesn’t exist anymore. As a center of power, it is still more powerful than others, but for some years now that energy has been flowing in the opposite direction. Today, Asian, Latin American and European nations are also playing a role in the United States's productive core. The world's greatest exporter became its greatest importer. The most important creditor became the most important debtor. Today, foreigners dispose of assets in the United States with a net value of $2.5 trillion, or 21 percent of gross domestic product. Nine percent of shares, 17 percent of corporate bonds and 24 percent of government bonds are held by foreigners.

Neither laziness nor the obvious American penchant for consumerism can be blamed for this changed reality in America. US industry -- or at least what little is left of it -- is responsible. In the span of only a few decades, US industry has shrunken to half what it once was. It makes up only 17 percent of the country’s GDP, compared to 26 percent in Europe.
Every important national economy in the world now exports products to the United States without purchasing an equivalent amount of US goods in return. The US trade deficit with China was about $200 billion dollars in 2005; it was a solid $80 billion with Japan; and more than $120 billion with Europe. The United States can't even achieve a surplus in its trade with less developed national economies like those of Ukraine and Russia.

Everyday, container-laden ships arrive in the United States – and after they unload their wares at American ports, many return home empty.

Those looking for something good to say about the superpower won't find it in the trade balance. The growing imbalance can't be attributed to natural resources or the import of parts for manufacturing firms. Oil imports, for example, don't make as significant a difference to the trade balance as is often assumed: They account for only $160 billion dollars, a comparably small sum. Instead, it's the top products of a developed national economy that the United States is importing from everywhere in the world – cars, computers, TV sets, game consoles – without being able to sell as many of its own products on the world market.

Link at top.

phomsanuk · 07-12-2009, 12:02 AM

one of the reasons for the demise of the middle class is the fact that computers/robots and other advances do that type of work.

Muadib · 07-12-2009, 12:13 AM

What middle class??? All I see are working poor who are trying to stay ahead of ever increasing interest costs and inflation due to being over-extended financially...

Jet Gorgon · 07-12-2009, 03:32 AM

This is very evident in Canada and I also apportion some blame to unions, which tout job security, higher-than-avg wages and benefits, but pigeon-hole folks into their boring jobs at set wages. People are terrified to change work and do something they would enjoy or be able to use their brains at, because they would lose their pensions.
In other areas, few get ahead either, just trying to save a bit for retirement and if their earnings skip across the line into a higher tax bracket, they make less than before.
Taxes are so high people give up hope of ever achieving anything other than the mundane -- getting an HDTV or a new car. Really sad.
And, union jobs are no longer guaranteed. After sucking the companies dry, they are now trying to "help" the cos survive so they maintain their jobs. Union workers would scream if they knew how much their leaders made.

blackgang · 07-12-2009, 07:31 AM

There is no middle class any more, Only Rich or Poor., either you is or you ain't,, and not to many is rich.

Panda · 07-12-2009, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

if their earnings skip across the line into a higher tax bracket, they make less than before.
.

What a load of BS!

Muadib · 07-12-2009, 08:14 AM

^ Technically, she is correct...

If a person's taxable earnings are just over the limit moving from one bracket to the next, the increase in tax % can drive up your taxes to where your actual after-tax income is less...

As an example, if a single person in the US earns less than $33,950 per year, their income tax rate is 15%...

If that same person earns $33,951 per year, their tax rate jumps to 25%...

$33,951 X 25% = $8,487.75 - Net take home pay = $25,463.25
$33,950 X 15% = $5,092.50 - Net take home pay = $28,857.50

** In the US, this is just your federal tax liability... Additional taxes include Social Security, Medicare and State income taxes... Then add in school taxes, property taxes, utility taxes, health care, 401K contribution and a person's take home shrinks rapidly...

blackgang · 07-12-2009, 08:34 AM

I was working in the yard for Western Pacific Dredging and Piledriving back in 76, I have worked for them in the yard and field at dififferent times over the years and we always drank in the same saloon while working there.
At this time we were working 5- 10 hr shifts per week, and if I worked 4- 10's and an 8 and went to the saloon, I took home $18.00 more a week than if I worked the other 2 hrs.at time and a half rate.
Good thing I was just working back in the states for a short while.

sabang · 07-12-2009, 08:37 AM

the richest 1% of the American population owns as much as the combined wealth of the bottom 90%.

Warren Buffett has an estimated net worth of $62 billion (2008), ranked one of the richest men in the world. Yet his taxable income is $46 million (2006), about 0.1% of his net worth. And his tax rate is the below-average 17.7% (2006).

Distribution of wealth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diminishing Middle class. I wonder why?

The US tax sytem is perhaps the most inequitable in the world- except for those countries (such as Thailand) where paying your tax obligations is, as a certain Leona Helmsley (hideous bitch) once said "for small people".

How can you describe a tax system where a billionaire will normally pay less of his earnings in tax- plus his 'wealth' is not taxed at all- than a middle class person earning $100,000 per year, as fair? You can't, plain and simple. This in a country where Executive salaries are already many times those of other equally affluent nations. It really sucks.

sabang · 07-12-2009, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muadib

As an example, if a single person in the US earns less than $33,950 per year, their income tax rate is 15%...

If that same person earns $33,951 per year, their tax rate jumps to 25%...

Surely that means your tax rate rises only on those earnings above the $33,950 bracket though?
If not, that really sucks.

Muadib · 07-12-2009, 08:44 AM

^ Oops... You are most correct... Been a while since I've had to complete a Fed 941 Payroll Tax form...

Milkman · 07-12-2009, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackgang

I was working in the yard for Western Pacific Dredging and Piledriving back in 76, I have worked for them in the yard and field at dififferent times over the years and we always drank in the same saloon while working there.
At this time we were working 5- 10 hr shifts per week, and if I worked 4- 10's and an 8 and went to the saloon, I took home $18.00 more a week than if I worked the other 2 hrs.at time and a half rate.
Good thing I was just working back in the states for a short while.

Good contributions to this thread.

Blackgang, you hit a very important point.

I noticed this in 1996. I was doing a construction job for some travel pay. The Summers were very busy.

Sometimes we'd work an 8 hour day or more on a Saturday. All Over-time, and 1.5X the pay rate.

But once we worked over-time a large chunk was taken out of my paycheck. I didn't take out the calculator then, as I was younger. But I should have. I noticed how a larger proportion was taken out than if working a regular 40 hour week.

I and the other workers knew, that working a full day on Saturday for 1.5X the regular pay rate was not even worth it.

sabang · 07-12-2009, 09:06 AM

According to Business Week, the average CEO of a major corporation made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay in 1980.
By 1990 that had almost doubled to 85 times.
In 2000, the average CEO salary reached an unbelievable 531 times that of the average hourly worker.

CEOs Are Overpaid

From the same article -

The AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch site gives people a lot of information about what they consider "the excessive salaries, bonuses and perks of the CEOs of major corporations". The site features a calculator that shows how your salary increase over the past five years compares to that of a CEO. They also give you tools to "take action to stop runaway CEO pay."
2009 Executive PayWatch

America kind of prides itself on it's self image as a country where you have Opportunity, but you have to 'take care of Yourself'. OK then - maybe the Middle class had better take that lesson to heart, and start taking better care of itself. I put it to you, plain and simple, that you are being ripped off.

Panda · 07-12-2009, 09:14 AM

^^ Are you trying to say that your whole pay got taxed at the higher rate if you worked enough to go into the higher tax bracket? If thats true the US working class must be dumber than I thought to put up with such a scam.

07-12-2009, 08:14 AM	#13 (permalink)
Muadib If ya can't take the heat Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: HELL Posts: 3,749	^ Technically, she is correct... If a person's taxable earnings are just over the limit moving from one bracket to the next, the increase in tax % can drive up your taxes to where your actual after-tax income is less... As an example, if a single person in the US earns less than $33,950 per year, their income tax rate is 15%... If that same person earns $33,951 per year, their tax rate jumps to 25%... $33,951 X 25% = $8,487.75 - Net take home pay = $25,463.25 $33,950 X 15% = $5,092.50 - Net take home pay = $28,857.50 ** In the US, this is just your federal tax liability... Additional taxes include Social Security, Medicare and State income taxes... Then add in school taxes, property taxes, utility taxes, health care, 401K contribution and a person's take home shrinks rapidly... __________________ Give a man a match, and he'll be warm for a minute, but set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. Last edited by Muadib : 07-12-2009 at 08:32 AM.

07-12-2009, 08:34 AM	#14 (permalink)
blackgang Thailand Travel Forum Last Online: Today 08:01 PM Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Phetchabun city Posts: 14,875	I was working in the yard for Western Pacific Dredging and Piledriving back in 76, I have worked for them in the yard and field at dififferent times over the years and we always drank in the same saloon while working there. At this time we were working 5- 10 hr shifts per week, and if I worked 4- 10's and an 8 and went to the saloon, I took home $18.00 more a week than if I worked the other 2 hrs.at time and a half rate. Good thing I was just working back in the states for a short while. __________________ To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

07-12-2009, 08:37 AM	#15 (permalink)
sabang Go ask Alice Last Online: Today 08:02 PM Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: where the streets have no name Posts: 12,383	the richest 1% of the American population owns as much as the combined wealth of the bottom 90%. Warren Buffett has an estimated net worth of $62 billion (2008), ranked one of the richest men in the world. Yet his taxable income is $46 million (2006), about 0.1% of his net worth. And his tax rate is the below-average 17.7% (2006). Distribution of wealth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Diminishing Middle class. I wonder why? The US tax sytem is perhaps the most inequitable in the world- except for those countries (such as Thailand) where paying your tax obligations is, as a certain Leona Helmsley (hideous bitch) once said "for small people". How can you describe a tax system where a billionaire will normally pay less of his earnings in tax- plus his 'wealth' is not taxed at all- than a middle class person earning $100,000 per year, as fair? You can't, plain and simple. This in a country where Executive salaries are already many times those of other equally affluent nations. It really sucks. __________________ Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Last edited by sabang : 07-12-2009 at 08:59 AM.

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26-08-2009, 12:33 PM	#2 (permalink)
FlyFree Ban Phe Last Online: 07-02-2010 05:42 PM Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 614	The middle class has been under increasing pressure for decades, cannot see it recovering. Just another major destabilizing factor for the coming decades. They were the buffer between the rich and the increasingly angry poor, who have grown weary of the bullshit empty promise of improved conditions to keep them quiet and slaving away. Sort of a macro revolution building worldwide. Food, water and land shortages because of overpopulation, climate change and it's displacement pressures, degradation of environment will amplify and expedite the process. The pressure cooker is close to exploding. There will of course be attempts to handle it, and force will be the only way. Interesting times.

26-08-2009, 12:37 PM	#3 (permalink)
crippen Thailand Expat Last Online: Today 08:10 PM Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Korat Posts: 2,195	It is happening in the U.K. also. They are slowly losing their income and the government are taxing them to the hilt.The pips are squeaking!

26-08-2009, 04:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
Dan Thailand Expat Last Online: 02-02-2010 06:13 PM Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 1,028	1970 was also the year oil production peaked in the US and a year before it abandoned the gold standard. These might not be unrelated but I don't understand economics well enough to see how they fit together. I think the middle classes everywhere will contract enormously in size in the coming years. Most of them will fall back into the proletariat, a few will manage to clamber up into the level of the elite. The current social set up which 'developed' countries enjoy, with a vast middle class and relatively small underclass is a historical anomaly which is only maintained by the huge energy throughputs we get from burning fossil fuels. If you take away the fossil fuels, you take away the surplus energy which supports a non-productive class, the middle classes. And I don't think there's much doubt that one way or another, fossil fuels are going to disappear from the system, starting in the pretty near future.

01-11-2009, 10:20 PM	#6 (permalink)
Muadib If ya can't take the heat Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: HELL Posts: 3,749	^ Nice find MM... Very eloquently and succinctly summarizes what is on the horizon...

07-12-2009, 12:02 AM	#8 (permalink)
phomsanuk Kata Beach Last Online: Today 01:36 AM Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 29	one of the reasons for the demise of the middle class is the fact that computers/robots and other advances do that type of work.

07-12-2009, 12:13 AM	#9 (permalink)
Muadib If ya can't take the heat Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: HELL Posts: 3,749	What middle class??? All I see are working poor who are trying to stay ahead of ever increasing interest costs and inflation due to being over-extended financially...

07-12-2009, 03:32 AM	#10 (permalink)
Jet Gorgon Take No Prisoners Barbie Last Online: Today 04:08 PM Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Near Libbies Posts: 13,039	This is very evident in Canada and I also apportion some blame to unions, which tout job security, higher-than-avg wages and benefits, but pigeon-hole folks into their boring jobs at set wages. People are terrified to change work and do something they would enjoy or be able to use their brains at, because they would lose their pensions. In other areas, few get ahead either, just trying to save a bit for retirement and if their earnings skip across the line into a higher tax bracket, they make less than before. Taxes are so high people give up hope of ever achieving anything other than the mundane -- getting an HDTV or a new car. Really sad. And, union jobs are no longer guaranteed. After sucking the companies dry, they are now trying to "help" the cos survive so they maintain their jobs. Union workers would scream if they knew how much their leaders made.

07-12-2009, 07:31 AM	#11 (permalink)
blackgang Thailand Travel Forum Last Online: Today 08:01 PM Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Phetchabun city Posts: 14,875	There is no middle class any more, Only Rich or Poor., either you is or you ain't,, and not to many is rich.

07-12-2009, 08:44 AM	#17 (permalink)
Muadib If ya can't take the heat Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: HELL Posts: 3,749	^ Oops... You are most correct... Been a while since I've had to complete a Fed 941 Payroll Tax form...

07-12-2009, 09:06 AM	#19 (permalink)
sabang Go ask Alice Last Online: Today 08:02 PM Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: where the streets have no name Posts: 12,383	According to Business Week, the average CEO of a major corporation made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay in 1980. By 1990 that had almost doubled to 85 times. In 2000, the average CEO salary reached an unbelievable 531 times that of the average hourly worker. CEOs Are Overpaid From the same article - The AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch site gives people a lot of information about what they consider "the excessive salaries, bonuses and perks of the CEOs of major corporations". The site features a calculator that shows how your salary increase over the past five years compares to that of a CEO. They also give you tools to "take action to stop runaway CEO pay." 2009 Executive PayWatch America kind of prides itself on it's self image as a country where you have Opportunity, but you have to 'take care of Yourself'. OK then - maybe the Middle class had better take that lesson to heart, and start taking better care of itself. I put it to you, plain and simple, that you are being ripped off.

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07-12-2009, 09:14 AM	#20 (permalink)
Panda I am in Jail Last Online: Today 07:06 PM Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 5,475	^^ Are you trying to say that your whole pay got taxed at the higher rate if you worked enough to go into the higher tax bracket? If thats true the US working class must be dumber than I thought to put up with such a scam.