Dying middle class spells disaster

[ddstory]

Fewer Americans today (as a share of the total population) are part of the middle class than at any time since WW2. As serious a threat as that is, what's worse is the HUGE number of middle class families who are one bad day away from poverty:

76 million Americans are struggling financially or just getting by

"Some 46% of adults say they can't

Comments

[luzribeiro]

My prediction? This will fall on deaf years as well, just like that other debate on gun laws. There'll be some fierce equivocation, and a number of excuses being drawn out of some bodily orifices. Chances are the Constitution will be evoked at some point. All in all, it's a quagmire situation, and lots of people have assumed the head-in-sand position - and basically you're wasting your efforts.

[mahnmut]

How dare you call for class warfare, you bloody pinko commie!

[oportet]

$100,000 a year....that's pretty much $400 for a day of work - how the hell do they not have 1 day put back?

[ddstory]

You tell me - you're American.

[garote]

That leads to another question: Is it really "put back" if you're using it to service debt?

Rent in a booming place is more expensive, living with strangers is more expensive, needless travel is expensive, a white-collar education is expensive, and mortgages are massively expensive. It's all too easy to get into debt while pursuing success, then spend the back half of your life fighting the debt instead of saving for retirement.

Or, conversely, it's all too easy to get into debt while deferring your own success, in order to give your children a decent start at life. Then as you age, you protect them by "going down with the ship". (My own father was an example of this, until his kids intervened later in life to rearrange his finances.)

[kikzan]

It's an evidence of bad governance: monopolists are not judged

[ddstory]

It's more than just bad governance. It's a cultural and structural problem.

[kikzan]

Not. It's only and only bad governance. Criminal monopolists are not condemned.

[ddstory]

Condemnation has nothing to do with it. It's in the American culture to give precedence to private (and by extension: corporate) interest over public interest.

Besides, for good or for bad, a government is constrained by the Constitution to amend that.

The problem is much deeper than you imagine.

[dreamville_bg]

Thanks Hillary!