Again......clap, clap, clap, clap..... Agree with you 100%. People who complain about not being able to make in this country, are not going to make in any country anyway. The US is a dream paradise for those willing to go the extra mile....work hard and save money..... Success in this country abounds everywhere....
The number of these careers is rapidly decreasing and that's what the article and this discussion is all about. The middle class has not changed in the last 10 years, it's not any more or less lazy, smart, productive or entrepreneurial than before but the number of opportunities has drastically shrunk, entire industries are leaving the country and are not being replaced with new better industries. One has to be blind not to see that this is what's happening, one has to be quite short sighted not to realize that it's a very bad thing for the middle class and for the country.
The one that is shortsighted is you imo. As nature clearly demonstrates, if you take a group, any living group, and you isolated from the world as you are proclaiming we do with our economy or certain industries, the end result is that at the end when this group is confronted to the world outside chances of them surviving are very small because they have not learned how to adapt to new environments. Is the path easy? Of course not, are there always going to be painful adjustments? Of course. But that is better than trying to hide the inevitable. Why do you think all other economic systems have failed ? This country is so rich and well developed, only because it has let the weak vanish and the strong survive. It's a law of nature......and no socialist or protectionism ideology has been able or will be able to fix the problem.
I am not sure what exactly you're trying to say. Are you saying that losing the middle class is a good thing or that it's unavoidable and inevitable and should not therefore be a concern? You want us to remove all [economic] borders and "confront" the world. The world does not have a middle class, salary/rate arbitrage will very quickly make sure that the US does not have a middle class either. If you believe that losing the middle class can be avoided your post certainly has zero specifics regarding what exactly 200 mln working americans can do if american companies prefer to hire 200 mln chinese and indian workers willing to do the same job for $2hr. You don't realistically expect all 200 mln middle class americans to become entrepreneurs, do you?
I have heard many times the term: "Competition is good" Well, from personal experience I can say this term is good except when it is you the one affected by it, like it has affected me on several occasions in my life. But I have not sat there licking my wounds asking, but how can this be possible? Why isn't there a law preventing people from doing what I do for less money ? It's painful but realistic and inevitable. The 200 mln people you refer to are adjusting to their environment and they will succeed just as they have in the last 200 years. Protecting these people from the outside world is what Communism did very well and the end result is obvious.....
Americans have it too easy and have constantly been overpaid for their work. Globalization has allowed companies to correct this market inbalance. People who are willing to break the law and become illegal immigrants in order to work in our country should tell you that we do indeed offer higher paying wealth jobs than most other countries. I graduated from my grad program with 100k+ in student loans. I did not stress this in the least because I was confident in myself about the true value of my education which I still maintain was offered at a bargain. Frankly I'm getting a little sick and tired of this growing middle-class laziness which one expects entitlement to a high-paying salary job for life. Some middle class people are also the biggest hypocrites that I know. They love to say that the poor people in our country do not get the help they deserve. But then point to the rich who already pay a much larger percentage of their income in taxes. If the middle class loved thy poor so much, then they should be paying the same marginal tax rate as the rich. Or donate money to their local charity. I believe on the other hand the poor should pay no taxes at all. Not even SS's 14%, Medicare, or EI. Everyone else should pay a flat marginal rate. My rational is that the poor do not contribute significantly to general revenues anyway and by cutting all the taxes the poor pay (including hidden taxes) they would be more likly to work harder and maybe even no longer be poor. Maybe something like the first $20k a person earns is untaxed and each dollar above that will be taxed at 30%.
A few thoughts. I've lived in the same Chicago neighborhood for nearly half a century. I've seen so many changes between my parents generation, people my age, and those young up and comers. A couple of generations ago, being middle class meant working in a factory at a union wage or retail sales (believe it or not but I remember when being a car salesman was a GREAT job). People lived humbly. Middle class meant living in a walk-up apartment or a new fangled ranch house.There were few multi-car households, moms and kids took the "L' downtown, women rarely worked, kids went to public schools, and consumerism was restricted to necessities. Back then there wasn't a lot of inexpensive Asian made made goods. A winter coat or a pair of shoes could cost a days wages. Now no body seems to marry early. Middle class Yuppies live alone in fancy rehabbed spaces, drive BMW's, waste $4 a day on coffee, talk on cell phones, pay extra for cable TV, internet service, and aspire toward McMansions. Perhaps Hollywood and our own increased value of self has made everyone want to be an extra from the lifestyles of Entertainment Tonight. Certainly a twenty year bull market in hard assets, coupled with until recently low inflation (the two have 100% serial correlation) has also been a cause of aspiration yet ultimate angst among these bourgeois without a cause.. Many things were intrinsically undervalued. Insurance and energy for sure. Look how many people spend 600K for a home but freak out that it cost $$$ to heat and insure it. Who here casts the first stone? We buy Jap/Euro cars, buy Chinese DVD players, wear Malaysian golf shirts, all purchased at a substantial discount from the sweat that our neighbors would demand in wages, we are ALL guilty. Yet we live MUCH better because of globalism than our forebears did. I guess we have to live our own way and not worry about classes. We come into this world alone, we leave it alone and collectivism will never eliminate that ultimate sense of isolationism that's intrinsic to an increasingly agnostic West.
^well written. I know to get where I did today I had to lay off on the non-necessities. Wal-Mart and Target for shopping. Winn-Dixie instead of Publix for groceries. KIA instead of Mercedes Benz for transportation (for a long time it was actually public transit). Dirt cheap condo instead of McMansion for housing. Basically live on a 30k a year salary despite making 70k. A few years down the road and you'll be suprised how easy wealth can be accumulated.
70K is not a lot of money but still a pretty good salary for a guy like you. Anyway, I hope you understand that there is a guy in India with the same education, qualifications and background as yours willing to do your job for $5 hr. One way or another your company will eventually fire you and hire him and the next job you'll be able to find will pay 50K. And even that discount is not going to be enough for your next employer to keep you, they will still prefer to hire indian engineers until they're able to pay you the same low rate they pay them. And even if your job is not oursourceable and you think you're immune - think again. The increased competition for a smaller number of available jobs in this country will still force you to lower your salary requirements. It's not realistic to expect to be making 70K because you job can't be outsourced if others in similar but outsourseable professions are making 30K. Market will very quickly correct this imbalance.
But guys, you make the erroneous assumption that everyone stays static. That is not human nature. If this stream is "fished out" one then moves to another stream with more fish. It would be interesting to see statistics on how many people 20 years after college graduation are still in the field of their major. More of the "middle class" are hit by lightening each year than migrate to another country, LOL.. Get real. I agree we need to take a hard look at the "poor" in this country. Those on the bottom need to be cared for. BUT, and this is the rub. Who and how do we decide the "bottom"? A person making $10,000 a year in Louisiana is different than in NY. Living in New Orleans, even poor, is a pretty good lifestyle for a lot of those folks. They live in small close knit neighborhoods, similar to other cities 100 years ago. Everybody knows you and your family. They are poor but not homeless. That is a big difference. Take a guy working for Chevron refinery in Port Arthur. Makes about $60,000 a year. Wife is schoolteacher at $45K. They buy house in 1985 for $75,000 (3BR/2BA) have added on. Both drive relative new cars/truck. Pay cash. Take 3 cruises a year. Has $350,000 in 401K plus her retirement from school district. Both kids went to Lamar University in Beaumont. Hunts and fishes all the time. Plays bridge, high school athletics etc etc. They live a very nice comfortable lifestyle within their means. There are simply millions of these types of people in America. No way in HELL is Patel going to do this job, LOL. Farmers were trading futures on crops before you could spell "daytrader", by the way. New Orleans Cotton Exchange was a flourishing business when Wall Street was still outside in the street. I assume most of the posters are not Americans and do not live here. The size and depth of this country is simply beyond their capabilities of thought. Middle class is doing just fine, thank you. SteveD