Comments on: The NYT Introduces a Series on Middle Class Decline

By: Sorscher

Sorscher — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:57:25 +0000

If we say “full employment,” that will become a catch phrase. Jared said it differently in his post in Dec 2011 http://tinyurl.com/95v93sk – bargaining power in the labor market.

Bargaining power would also include the political backdrop, which is more or less invisible when we speak about full employment.

Jared sets a standard of proof regarding causality. “What changed,” about the time inequality started to broaden? And has that mechanism remained in force, since then?

Many time records of inequality show a break in slope around 1975, plus or minus a few years. Jared’s blue line, above, is a case in point.

I mark that point in time as the end of the New Deal/Great Society political climate, and the beginning of the trickle-down/supply side/Reaganomics me-first-screw-you political regime that continues to this day.

What changed around the mid-70′s and have remained in place since then? The substantial shift in public policy to more trust in unregulated markets, compliance to the interests of the top 1%, and less interest in raising standards of living generally.

By: JimZ

JimZ — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 21:34:02 +0000

NYT would do well by viewing Elizabeth Warren’s Berkeley talk from 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

By: Kenyon Wells

Kenyon Wells — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 15:07:03 +0000

The “middle class” of which pundits and politicians wax lyrical and with which less bellicose citizens identify themselves has been a myth since some time in the late 1950’s when that first person, a bit weary of saving for this, saving for that; bored with driving a 4 year old automobile that he owned out right and making payments on an affordable but, perhaps, less than roomy home turned on his first television set and discovered, the as yet unknown pleasures available to him in the land of credit consumerism. “Keeping up with the Jones’” was no longer just a catch phrase, it was a possibility. “Where do I sign up?”, Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class wondered. Well, in a short time, the answer was they could sign up anywhere. Payment books, credit card statements, and “beneficial” finance institutions replaced the savings passbook, the piggy bank and the mattress. Saving for a rainy day became passé. Maybe it was never going to rain again! Our mythic middle class, the creation of post World War II prosperity , common purpose and personal self-restraint sailed into the fog of avarice, acquisition and usury to emerge as a debtor class that sustains its place in that mythical middle class by borrowing and a survivor class that lays its claim to middle class membership by making ends meet. One gets along, the other gets by. Neither prospers.

By: PeonInChief

PeonInChief — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 14:39:46 +0000

I’ve often said that, should I ever become middle class, someone should put me out of my misery. Is there anyone who doesn’t want a home and secure retirement, college for their children, and a vacation (with or without family)? And many who don’t really want a car know they can’t get along without one.

As for hard work and saving, I once laughed at a piece on NPR, which tried to suggest that having middle class people around would show the value of hard work. The working class person who was supposed to be suitably impressed by the middle class neighbors was a home health worker. I think it likely that she knows a great deal more about hard work than middle class office workers. She also knows that hard work doesn’t pay very much.

If middle class people want to reduce inequality, they first need to understand that they aren’t special after all.

By: Bud Meyers

Bud Meyers — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 10:40:20 +0000

EASY TAX FIX:

Tax the millionaires and billionaires for capital gains income (earned from stocks, dividends, SWAG investments, carried interest, etc.) as ordinary wages, and also tax capital gains income for Medicare and Social Security, while removing the $110,000 “cap” for Social Security taxes; and then create a 0.5 percent tax on stock trades over $1,000.

The Republicans and the banker Andrew Mellon created the preferential tax treatment of capital gains for the wealthy back in 1921, and this should be repealed. That way, the actual marginal tax brackets could be left as they are, the rich would be taxed like everyone else, and we could fund government, fix our infrastructure, and pay off our debt without cutting defense or Social Security.

We could also hire more auditors to go after tax evaders, bringing in more revenue.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 05:00:15 +0000

There is a nice graph on Wikipedia showing the median income versus GDP per capita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gdp_versus_household_income.png).

Looking at that graph it becomes obvious that income inequality has dramatically increased – all that extra GDP had to go somewhere!