On 03/01/2011 11:15 AM, do.rflex wrote:
What Changed?http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/01/what-changed/
by John Cole
Here's an email that I think is worth publishing in full:
Hi John,
I am a long time Balloon Juice reader since before the days of THE
DFH'S WERE RIGHT! conversion. I occasionally post as
Cintibud but since I don't post often I'm afraid it
might just get lost in the noise if I posted this. However this is
something that I think is very important that younger folks like you
just might not realize – just how things have changed for the
middle class in the last 30 or so years. I think there are a ton of
folks close to my age who have a similar story but it just isn't
being examined.
I was born in 1955. My Father was never that well paid. He was a
college professor at a Catholic university in the days that lay
employees were expected to work for close to the same wages as the
religious order that ran the University – that is, squat. However,
consider:
My Mother didn't have to work outside the house. She stayed home and
raised 5 kids.
We lived in a nice house in a nice suburb – Kettering Ohio –
which could have been the setting for the Brady Bunch
All 5 kids went to Catholic (private) grade and High School
All 5 kids went to College (although my Father was a prof, we only got
a 50% discount at that private University, which made the tuition equal
to Ohio State or any other in-state school)
None of us had to take out a student loan to pay for college.
My parents NEVER refinanced their house.
We took a family vacation every Summer.
If you heard of a family doing all that today on one income, how much
would you guess the solo wage earner was making? Quite a bit more than
my Father's income, adjusted to today!
What changed? Did the US lose the cold war? Does Russia, China, Japan,
Europe tell us what we can or cannot do? Has our GDP been steadily
shrinking in that time? Productivity declining?
I'll leave the above questions as an exercise for the
reader to quote Mr. Wizard from many years ago, but you get the
point.
IMO, this decline of the middle class is never discussed
enough in personal terms, just as some hypothetical that doesn't
connect to folks under 50. People need to ask their parents or
grandparents how they lived back in the day.
Thanks, just wanted to get that rant off my chest.
Cintibud
What changed? How were our parents able to do it, but those our age and
younger are just treading water?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/01/what-changed/
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/01/what-changed/
The economy was last in balance around 1973. It became bloated and a
false economy created based on credit. People spent way too much on
houses, cars, trucks, etc. All of this due to the cheerleading of the
robber barons of Wall Street. Remember Dubya after 9-11 told people to
go shopping.
Our world is run by crooks. Don't believe it then watch Client 9 which
is about Eliot Spitzer who was going after the crooks on Wall Street
when he was forced out of office all because he had an affair with a
call girl. The crimes of big business dwarf that. Amazingly on the video
there are interviews with these Wall Street weasels whom Hollywood
central casting couldn't have done a better job finding crime boss
characters.
Netflixers can also watch it WI or rent the disk:
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Client_9_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Eliot_Spitzer/70137776
Concentrated wealth should be illegal. We need incentives but maybe only
for a few million dollar estate. Beyond that use taxes as a disincentive
against concentrated wealth. The world belongs to the people not a few
selfish money addicts.
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