How the Middle Class in America Became Third World
Posted: Thursday, February 02, 2012
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
When Reagan and Greenspan stole the Social Security Trust Funds in the 80s and then gave the money to their wealthy friends, that began the demise of the middle class. But if you were one of the wealthy, it began an unprecedented shift of wealth from the workers to the manipulators; a period of wealthy welfare lasting to this day.
Reagan cut taxes for the rich from 70% to 28% and increased taxes on middle class, as he raised taxes 7 of 8 years hitting hardest the lower & middle class. He also tripled National Debt - his tax cuts for the wealthy left budget holes increasing then national debt from $900 Billion to $2.8 Trillion.
Unions were very strong when the middle class was strong in the 50s. One wage earner supported the family back then, and supported it well. Now it takes three or four in the family working multiple low paying jobs to make ends meet with a very reduced standard of living, while all the money of the fifties have gone to the top - Wall Street and large corporations.
As workers’ wages decline, their Social Security and Medicare contributions and benefits decline as well. This means that down the road, most workers will be broke. This is the Republican dream – the end of social safety nets and the end of high wages and benefits so that 2 or 3% of the population can control 95% of the wealth.
All of these lowered wages and benefits in America for poor and middle class Americans further line the pockets of corporations whose profits increase hourly.
Long before Reagan ran for President, he railed against any kind of government backed health care. Again, in the pockets of the AMA and the insurance companies, he knew that affordable health care would help nobody but the consumer, and Ronnie was all about the wealthy (key in “Reagan, Operation Coffee Cup” – an example of the Republicans original underhanded tactics that are still used today).
When Reagan and Greenspan looted the Social Security Fund, they also used the money to pay back all the rich military industrial complex donors who helped Reagan get elected, especially the ones from California.
The military then became a part of the budget that was never questioned, with a war here or a war there promoted by Republicans in order to keep the military indispensable in the eyes of Americans. Regardless that the cost of both the active military and retired military with free health care and 20 year retirements that in real money costs us 65% of our budget, Americans are sold on their “troops.” .
Reagan and Greenspan knew what they were doing. As the budget became strained with more and more money going to the rich and to the military, social programs were cut. In other words, government, a long time protector of the working people which in the past shielded them from abusive tactics by corporations, was weakening. Their undying goal was to get rid of Medicare and Social Security completely, which is still the Republican goal.
This became the drum beat of Republicans – get rid of big government. In other words, get rid of the people’s voices. And it worked. The theory of trickledown economics or supply side economics even fooled the democrats for a while as regulations were relaxed and the money flowed like a torrent to the top. But it was a house of cards built on credit and Wall Street gambling.
Forcing the poor and middle class in America to fall behind was not enough to satisfy the insatiable appetite for wealth, so ways were thought up to make money even off of the workers' decreased wages, and whose lifestyles were falling behind and whose incomes were becoming more and more detached from the upper class.
So, easy credit and high interest rates were made available by the bankers which gave the poor and middle classes a false sense of hope and security by artificially propping up their standard of living. Also, this ‘enjoy now and pay later’ scheme meant that the poor and middle class not only were making less and less in wages, now a large percentage of those wages were going to the banks in the form of interest payments, sometimes as high as 30% on credit cards.
And now, the coup d’état against the middle class: As the middle class took on thirty year mortgages (where all of the interest is conveniently paid up front first before principle), bankers wanted more money than that. What better way than to bundle mortgages and sell them? That’s a quick turn over and a quick buck. And what the heck, if it all backfires, the government would be forced to back up the bankers, not the public, because the banks could fail and bring down the entire financial house of cards.
Plus, the banks now get many of the houses back through foreclosure. It's a beautiful world for the wealthy.
So the middle class, not only losing any increase in wages and benefits for thirty years, lost up to 40% of their net worth that was invested in their homes, more if they were foreclosed.
This is the way it is going and not much can stop it. Middle class Americans are not organized so will sit back in their recliners not saying a word and watch their standard of living slowly erode. They believe the Republican lies - that it is all the greedy and lazy workers fault and unions killed America.
So, what will the result be?
For middle class Americans, it means no health care, which means that saving for retirement, college expenses, or owning a home is history merely because the out of pocket expenses for the first serious illness that comes along wipes out everything. Just the cost of drugs alone will break anyone, which can easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars PER ILLNESS because of pharmaceutical's influence in congress.
So where is the incentive for young people to work hard and get ahead? There will be none. Then, what will workers do? Will they sit around and bemoan their plight and blame it on themselves? Probably.
I hope so, because the alternative would be more than just a class warfare of words.
This Article has been viewed 521 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)One thing that I can see as an outside, e, is that there are so many more people than ever before who are informed about the reality of the rape of the middle class. What's that saying, out of the mud grows the lotus flower? Something like that. I know that much of the middle class is so heavily indoctrinated that they can't see what's being done to them, but not everybody is asleep. I hold onto that.Me too. Thanks Jennifer. Ii value your comments.
It's the New World Order - Democrats and Republicans are in it together. Any vote on any subject that helps the rich is usually a landslide.It's an uphill battle Kenny, isn't it? Like they say, money talks and bull shi_t walks. A lot of us poor and middle class are walking now, but I don't believe we are bull shi_t even though the Republicans think we are. If voting doesn't work anymore because money brainwashes the voter, then as I suggested in my article, we'll all sit back until we no longer have a chair. Then there will be hell to pay, if I know Americans.
The hell to pay theory I believe is the only option left to us because we're too far down that road to simply turn the car around. Just like other dictatorial regimes around the world that are having to be physically impeached so too will we I'm afraid. You can only put so much in an article to be sure but I think a major component of getting average Joe American to allow ourselves to be herded down this road was televangelism and the recruitment of the religious, mainly Christian, pulpit by big business/wealthy America and their propagandized assault on our mostly Christian nation, whom are conditioned to follow without proof and to believe what their interpreters of the word and what is good for them, that continues to fight the changing of the big business guard in unto this day. Without that support they would not, could not have so successfully destroyed our resistance to dictatorial repression/oppression.I would like to see an article by David on this subject! You're onto something.
OK e and David Levitt. Get together you guys! You both speak heavy heavy truths denuded of virulent language. Your stuff comes clear like rolling thunder. Your clarity is remarkable. I praise you (both).Boom? LOL
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.