https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/08/inequality-is-now-killing-middle-america-joseph-stiglitz

This evidence is hardly a shock to those of us studying inequality in America. The median income of a full-time male employee is lower than it was 40 years ago. Wages of male high school graduates have plummeted by some 19% in the period studied by Case and Deaton.

To stay above water, many Americans borrowed from banks at usurious interest rates. In 2005, President George W. Bush’s administration made it far more difficult for households to declare bankruptcy and write off debt. Then came the financial crisis, which cost millions of Americans their jobs and homes. When unemployment insurance, designed for short-term bouts of joblessness in a full-employment world, ran out, they were left to fend for themselves, with no safety net (beyond food stamps), while the government bailed out the banks that had caused the crisis.

The basic perquisites of a middle-class life were increasingly beyond the reach of a growing share of Americans. The Great Recession had shown their vulnerability. Those who had invested in the stock market saw much of their wealth wiped out; those who had put their money in safe government bonds saw retirement income diminish to near zero, as the Fed relentlessly drove down both short- and long-term interest rates. With college tuition soaring, the only way their children could get the education that would provide a modicum of hope was to borrow; but, with education loans virtually never dischargeable, student debt seemed even worse than other forms of debt.

There was no way that this mounting financial pressure could not have placed middle-class Americans and their families under greater stress. And it is not surprising that this has been reflected in higher rates of drug abuse, alcoholism, and suicide.

I was chief economist of the World Bank in the late 1990s, when we began to receive similarly depressing news from Russia. Our data showed that GDP had fallen some 30% since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But we weren’t confident in our measurements. Data showing that male life expectancy was declining, even as it was increasing in the rest of the world, confirmed the impression that things were not going very well in Russia, especially outside of the major cities.

See my sigline

This isn't du

More idiots looking at people's outcomes without considering what went into (or didn't) achieving them.

So... you can MAKE people equal, or you can TREAT them equally... but not both at the same time.

The left wants to MAKE people equal. That's gonna require some pretty appalling shit.

Income inequality is the libtard excuse for the poor being lazy.  

This is America.  You can have whatever the hell you want if you go out and work for it.   

Unlike the DU all topics are up for dialogue on ARF.

Inequality is a real issue with real consiquences, and will only get more serious with increased automation.

The difference is our answer vs theirs.

Is this a hit piece against personal accountability?

blah blah blah no one ever wants to point out that more people moved up the ladder than down it.

Looks that way.

So people must be held accountable while faceless corporations can do whatever they want?

aint no goddamn blue collar jobs no more that pay fuck all.

mexcans took the ones that were here and now they don't pay shit...

rest of em shipped off to fuckin china...

trump's sposed to be doing sumthing bout it....

MEH

What I see getting people in trouble is poor financial planning, spending too much, saving too little, buying things with no value, living for the moment and not taking advantage of tax deferred/advantaged savings plans.

The basic premise that America gets lazier while the super rich are deserving of their ever increasing share of wealth is a masterstroke of disinformation. Most people work hard for less.

We are already a functional Oligarchy, which was never the intent. Even now, paid operatives, ie., legislators, are working to force employees to allow employers to keep their overtime funds for a later disbursement as discretionary comp time, to be doled out at the employers leisure, if at all.  This is right in front of our noses.

Castigating the marginalized minority, of which many surely are to blame for their bad decisions, to justify a harder slog for all of us isn't helpful or logical.

Middle class is down 11%. 7% has moved to upper class while only 4% have moved down.



http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/

I really do not giaf about how the 1% lives or how much they make.

What matters is how much I make.

Worry about the poor, and why they are poor. Are public schools not preparing people for life? (Can a high school.graduate earn a living, without needing government assistance)

Do we subsidize 1 parent households? Stop doing that.

Focus on eliminating the need for public assistance, if that means the top 1% earn a gazillion dollars a year, who cares?

Absolutely. The context of my post was more about the op,s posting history and that extremely slanted article.

The left has all but declared war on "Middle America", and yet there is no end to these stupid fuckin articles about why the "middle class" is failing.

The topic of why the left is obsessed with classification of citizenship and economic status is for another thread.

Fix't

No.

Meth, heroin, and globalization are killing middle America. Outsourcing and most imports need to be ended, period, retroactively.

Let's just do the whole D plan and implement wealth disribution, that will solve everything.

end all welfare.

end all immigration.

tax the shit out of imports.

BAM. FIXED.

Russia's problems in the mid to late '90's were caused by George Soros short selling. He even bragged that he was the real communist after killing their banking....

News Flash: Corporations are comprised of people

Yep, zero convictions for the global financial crisis in 8 years of the Obama administration, and now he's getting $400,000 a week from.....the financial industry that got bailed out by Bush and went unpunished by Obama.  Eric Holder went to work for Citibank when he left office.

the tyranny of the minority

"bam fixed" would start with massive cuts to the size and scope of government. It's become a vacuum of tax dollars and control. That's the root problem.

does this study take into account the fact that most of the poor have a better lifestyle then the middle class dur to welfare.....

the cash value of food stamps, medicare section 8 tanf and ssdi easily exceeds the poverty line

I have no problem with fuck you, you did it to yourself.

I do have a problem with the same people having no problem stealing my money for the banks.

It should be fuck you across the board.

This. He also got in a shot about pervasive racism as evidenced by lower income.

And it spread big time during Obama's 8 years.


It's almost like socialism is designed to help the ruling class and give them monopolies. Imagine that.

There are powerful trends contributing to the slide of the middle class.  It's not all about lazy americans.

Financial trouble-- spending more than you earn-- is a different matter than simply earning less through no fault of your own.

Picture someone whose real earnings are down 8 percent in 15 years, while his healthcare costs are up by $10k during the same period.  He's still working his ass off.

This is a common situation today.

Pretty much this. But then that's what pop culture MTV etc. etc. has been saying to do for the last 2 decades soo... it's generation X's fault for not shutting that shit down. Me, I'm somewhere between the two... I used to say "awww fuck it what the hell" all to often. I do that a lot less now with a wife, 3 kids, house and car payments etc.

People are intentionally ignorant and self-destructive. Poor folks have poor habits, and generally, I don't feel sorry for them.

Bullshit lib article, sounds almost like some Bernie stuff.

Have a marketable education/trade, be smart with money and the American dream is not only obtainable but it's easy to obtain.

The tax burden is what's killing middle America.
The biggest source of inequality is the government.

In a capitalist economy mental torpor is not rewarded. Inequality is hitting those who have earned it.

For most of them it seems easier to whine about globalization, and pine for the days when tards who could not be bothered to improve themselves could raise a family on inflated union wages. In the global division of labor, that Indian gal who comes from a "third world shithole" is out-competing their lazy Superior Western asses. And all they can do is whine.  

Globalization is an inherent part of capitalism. If the torpor tards don't like it, hey, the left has been against it forever. Maybe they can join ANTIFA at their rallies and chum up.

Amen

OP is a liberal troll. Just search his posts. Waiting on the ban.

Government regulation and meddling has caused this.

Where were these articles during the Obama recovery?

No, globo-Marxists taking advantage of natural human inequality is killing Middle America.

It's a problem that is only going to get worse and we better figure something out soon or its going to get ugly.  

Who is hiring the tens of millions of illegal aliens?

Yea, my wife always asks how I could ever run a business if I hadn't been an accountant before. I have to file like 6 tax forms, there are 3 or 4 licenses needed to start a business, and the effective rate for most most business owners is 33%+, even if you don't make much, due to self employment taxes.

This is America is looking more like the USSR in regards to government control over business.

Isn't that funny that it all suddenly comes out of the wood work. Suddenly the middle-class is a problem. While all of Obama's policies crushed the middle clas, the media ignored it.

Similar to Obama's red line, the media finally admits what a disaster that was for our country, while they also try to trap Trump/Spicer into locking to a red line with every other question they ask.

The media is the enemy of this country.

His posts remind me of a banned pizza guy that had a similar posting style. Very similar.