Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/07/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]This topic has come up before, IIRC. The middle-class squeeze started early in the Reagan years, shortly after the middle-class committed Hara-kiri by voting in Reagan and his ilk, against its own self-interests. The children and grand-children of those voters are the ones who will feel the full impact of the current trend. This squeeze has continued unabated ever since, even the Democrats, Clinton and Obama, not have made any serious efforts to reverse the trend, there's no money - campaign donations while in office, and cushy speaking engagements and or directorships after - to be made by standing up for the middle class. In light of recent political developments I don't see the orchestrated decline of the middle class ending until a good chunk -if not all - of the New Deal has been reversed. The economic data are grim. Since the 1970s the US economy has grown at a real rate of two point three percent, give or take a fraction. Productivity too has improved significantly. Yet median wages have not grown at anything like the rate of growth of the economy or productivity. Data indicates that for those making under 70k per annum real wages have actually stagnated. Clearly the middle class has not received its share of the wealth created by economic growth. So where has the wealth created by this economic growth gone? Up the food chain, that's where. Clearly, we are no longer living in an economy where benefits of growth trickle-down; rather we are living in an economy where economic gains gush up to the already well to do. Social policies undercutting the poor and the middle class have made the pain only worse. Here are some interesting graphs: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts a few minutes on the web will produce dozens more, all showing the same trends. One can go on and on, but strictly speaking this ought to be discussed on the Lug Forum. It has always puzzled me why so many members of this list are not on the LUG Forum. Regards, Akhil ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Saganich" <csaganich at gmail.com> To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org> Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 11:27 PM Subject: Re: [Leica] Steinbeck and Lange >I think that the middle class has been redefined and no one had the guts to > inform us. None of the people encountered are, IMO, middle class. Rather > they are working (now non-working) poor. One of the distinctions between > MC > and WP is availability of resources from the previous generation and > education, to name two. WP have none, nothing to fall back on, while to > be > middle class suggests there are some non-governmental safety nets > available > and some education, Masters these days, BA or BS is like a GED in 1984 and > mostly useless. This, of course, doesn't even start to address the > employment racism, bias, and discrimination in the good'ol USA. Too be > classified as MC your income should have been at least 70,000 prior to > unemployment and you should have at least a Master degree in something, > else > your were just working poor one paycheck away from homelessness. > CS > > On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 9:14 PM, Jim Nichols > <jhnichols at lighttube.net>wrote: > >> Doesn't seem to matter to our officials in DC.................. >> >> Jim Nichols >> Tullahoma, TN USA >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tina Manley" <images at comporium.net> >> To: "lug" <lug at leica-users.org> >> Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 7:31 PM >> Subject: [Leica] Steinbeck and Lange >> >> >> >> LUG: >>> >>> Scary stuff: >>> >>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/**world-us-canada-14296682<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14296682> >>> >>> Tina >>> >>> -- >>> Tina Manley, ASMP >>> www.tinamanley.com