We Are Winning the War on the Middle Class

The beginning of the economic tyranny we are seeing begin in the 1992 when President Bush, Mexican President Salinas, and Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney signed the NAFTA Treaty…concluding with the WTO Agreement in 1995. This created the war on the middle class, IMO, allowing outsourcing to become a common practice for the Top 500 corporations. Manufacturing was moved south of the border or overseas, creating a service economy and eventually the services moved overseas i.e. call centers…

The middleclass needs to think outside of the box and get creative…create and invent new products and services outside of corporate mainstream…taking away powers of the corporate elite. Remember, it’s the educated and the hard working middleclass that built Corporate America with its ideas and hard work…the can do attitude.

A new paradigm is needed to get us out of this economic travesty, which continues to unfold with devastating results.

Best,
rgs

Another good piece here from a more political perspective:

www.renewamerica.com...

From MSNBC on the same day, "Obama targets middle class with new aid plans." Well, give 'em credit for using an appropriate word — "target."

ABC News touted the President's "pivot" to the economy in declaring, "Obama vows more help for the middle class." I can hear the roar of the distant cannon getting louder.

On Politico, we read, "President Obama, Vice President Biden unveil middle-class agenda." The acrid smell of gunpowder fills my nostrils.

You know I hate to put it this way but perhaps it is a good thing that the American middle class has finally figured out how to do more with less!

When in lived in the United States one of the things that surprised me the most was how absolutely entitled to luxury items the middle class felt. In the Madison and Milwaukee metro areas of Wisconsin, which by far are not even nearly what would be called lavish areas of the US, there were McMansions popping up like weeds throughout the suburbs, almost every family had multiple cars, a television for every person or more and went shopping every chance they got.

Now my wife and I are quite well off, far above the median income. I am a research journalist for a major media outlet and she is in brand management for an aristocratic fashion house. However, we live in a 2-bedroom apartment, own one car which is a two-door hatchback, have one television and budget our shopping money as a percentage of our income.

The bottom line: we make more than we spend and do not have any substantial debt.

This is called living within our means and if the American middle class had done the same, many of the economic problems from the sub-prime crisis to spiraling credit-card debt would never have happened.

Now the government and corporations are not at all innocent in this. Real wages have stagnated or fallen and business has involved their employee's retirement funds in investments with the associated risks instead of pensions, but it's also time for the American middle class to admit that they too are also largely responsible for their own situation.

reply to post by ProjectJimmy


Very well said.

I see this this all the time as well. No one around me seems to understand the concept of living within their means. It seems that most Americans today are somehow instilled with a sense of entitlement. I have no idea where this comes from, but it is a giant problem. Ppl have gone haywire with their credit and they simply do not live in reality and buy according to their income. I would even go so far as to say that this is half of the problem along with big business destroying our economy. The middle class is destroying itself because it doesn't understand that it's ok to take the bus if you have to pay your mortgage or rent. It's ok to sell your car in order to pay your bills. WAKE UP AMERICA!!!! You aren't entitled to anything except a little humility. Stop spending and start realizing that you're only worth what your W2 says. Spend within that limit. It isn't hard.

I don't know if anyone here has ever heard this but...

A friend told me about 3 years ago that one day when he went to see his banker (the president of a small rural bank), he was left alone in the banker's office. He noticed a bool on the bankers desk with a title like "Meeting Minutes - Federal Reserve - Nov 2005" or something like that.

He began thumbing through the table of contents and found one of the action items entitled "Elimination of the Middle Class"!!!!

The banker came back in and nervously took the book back and placed it behind his desk.

Now, I believe my friend, but he could certainly have been mistaken.

Has anyone else EVER heard of anything like this?
Anyone have a banker in the family?