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Trouble ahead for the American middle class
Free Republic | may 16, 2006 | jim shirreffs

Posted on 05/16/2006 9:05:47 AM PDT by jpsb

I have for many years now, been warning of the age old battle between the super rich and the middle class. Only in the usa during the 19th and 20th century, did the middle class win that battle. During the 19th and 20th century in the usa the power of the super wealthy was curtailed. Government enacted laws that protected the middle class and encouraged exspandsion of the middle class.

Anti-trust laws prevented the super rich from gaining control over entire industries. Today these laws are ignored. Labor laws enabled workers to bargain for a living wage. Today these laws are ignored. Trade laws protected American manurfacturs and labor from unfair foreign competition. Today these laws are ignored.

The super wealthy gained control of the government via lobbyists arguing corporate interests over middle class interests.

Also interesting to note that the poor class always sides with the super rich, since the super rich give the poor bread and circus.

Why do the super always fear the middle class? Because a middle class can threaten the interests of the rich. A middle class that has it own means of generating wealth is not dependent on the rich, it's a wild card that might very well sack the rich.

Ever wonder why the wealth generating machines of the usa (manufacturing) are being moved overseas? Wonder no more, the rich want to break the back of the American middle class by taking away the middle classes ability to generate wealth. Ever wonder why the rich want to flood the usa with uneducated poor from totarian nations? Wonder one more, these people will be the hammer that will enforce the policies the rich (government) want enforced. Publicly objects to government policies like bilingualism or immigration or entitlements for the poor and you will get your ass kicked by the "new" Americans.

This is what is happening, the global monied elites do not give a damn about the usa or it citizens. The global monied elite in control of our government see the uppity American middle class and it quaint Constitution as a threat. We that believe in the Constitution, G*d and the rule of Constitutional law are about to be made extinct so that the world will be a safe place for the elite families of the world and thier coporate/government servants.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: classwarfare; communism; comrade; democratplaybook; envy; jealousy; karlmarx; populistidiocy; stupidvanity; votebolshevik; workersunite; yerdrunk; zot
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My thoughts after hearing the Presidents last night.
1 posted on 05/16/2006 9:05:47 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: Admin Moderator
Dyslexia strikes again, could you fix the title please?
2 posted on 05/16/2006 9:07:42 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: jpsb

well the immigration bill they are pushing would have 100 million immigrants come to the US over the next 20 years.

If thats not a middle class buster, I don't know what is.


3 posted on 05/16/2006 9:08:00 AM PDT by Proud_USA_Republican (We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. - Hillary Clinton)
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To: jpsb

Very thoughtful.


4 posted on 05/16/2006 9:09:00 AM PDT by WhiteGuy ("Every Generation needs a new revolution" - Jefferson)
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To: Proud_USA_Republican
"If thats not a middle class buster, I don't know what is. "

It will be the final nail in coffin.

5 posted on 05/16/2006 9:09:10 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: jpsb
You have not seen "super wealthy" until you research the robber barons of the 19th and 20th century. Some actually bailed out the US Treasury.

As for the rest of your socialist drivel - economic opportunity and personal freedom is what drove the middle class to prosper in America. Adding socialist programs only destroys the middle class.
6 posted on 05/16/2006 9:09:32 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - They want to die for Islam, and we want to kill them.)
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To: jpsb

Specifically what anti-trust, labor, and trade laws are being ignored?


7 posted on 05/16/2006 9:09:59 AM PDT by oblomov (Join the FR Folding@Home Team (#36120) keyword: folding@home)
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To: Willie Green; Wolfie; ex-snook; Jhoffa_; FITZ; arete; FreedomPoster; Red Jones; Pyro7480; ...

Bump


8 posted on 05/16/2006 9:10:43 AM PDT by A. Pole (GWB believes that "guest worker" program will satisfy economy needs for cheap and plentiful labour.)
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To: jpsb
More populist idiocy (populism being the socialism of the truly braindead).

1. The middle class grew FASTER at the turn of the 19th Century (the era when you say "the rich" were all powerful) then they ever did before or since.

2. The real reason the federal income tax was passed was because the Southrons felt that the Yankees had "too much money." How they now regret this!

3. The era of "high payin' factory jobs" only lasted from the end of WWII (when management had no choice but to buy labor peace) until the early 1970s, and was a phenomomenon limited to the upper midwest and northeast. Sorry if you can no longer get a middle class salary just for "showing up" to polish screws!

You obviously learned history from McLiberal textbooks. Read Hayek work on the industrial revolution for a change! If you still feel as you do, there is a place for you in the Democratic Party with other class warriors and folks jealous of others success.

9 posted on 05/16/2006 9:10:48 AM PDT by Clemenza (If you don't trust the government to buy your groceries, why trust it to educate your children?)
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To: 2banana

JP Morgan bailed out the NYSE, not the US treasury.


10 posted on 05/16/2006 9:13:13 AM PDT by oblomov (Join the FR Folding@Home Team (#36120) keyword: folding@home)
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To: jpsb
Much as I hate to admit it, I think you are on to something.

There's only one reason rich people can logically vote democrat and it's not about compassion for the poor. It's because they've already protected their money and are bent on controlling the rich.

Why some middle class people support the democrats? Because they only think they are in that particular 'class' or are swallowing the propaganda of destructive altruism.

11 posted on 05/16/2006 9:16:13 AM PDT by Centurion2000 (The social contract is breaking down.)
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To: jpsb

I'm sorry, but I completely diagree with your premise that the rich want to break the middle class.

It is the middle class that makes the wealthy "super rich". Without our buying power, they have no profits. Sounds like sour grapes to me.


12 posted on 05/16/2006 9:17:20 AM PDT by Lunatic Fringe (http://ntxsolutions.com)
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To: oblomov

via merges, buyouts etc. Only a hand full of companies now "compete" in many industries. Take the oil industry as an example. Other example would be PC operating systems. Another example might be telecomminication, another example might be naval ship building. Another example might be entertainment, another examble might be broadcasting. etc, etc, etc,


13 posted on 05/16/2006 9:18:36 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: Lunatic Fringe

Please name a society other then the usa had a majority population of middle class citizens as opposed to working poor.


14 posted on 05/16/2006 9:20:48 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: oblomov
JP Morgan bailed out the NYSE, not the US treasury.

I think you are right but the point is the same - not even Bill Gates (the richest man in America) could bail out the NYSE today...

15 posted on 05/16/2006 9:20:50 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - They want to die for Islam, and we want to kill them.)
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To: jpsb
Ever wonder why the wealth generating machines of the usa (manufacturing) are being moved overseas?

There's no conspiracy - it's just simple market forces. Some people abroad make things cheaper than seems to be possible in the West. Net result: the West gets to buy neat stuff cheaper from Indians, Koreans and Chinese-based producers rather than buy expensive stuff from feather-bedded/subsidised internal producers.

16 posted on 05/16/2006 9:21:09 AM PDT by agere_contra
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To: jpsb

17 posted on 05/16/2006 9:22:17 AM PDT by pabianice
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To: Clemenza
explain why the ratio of ceo salaries to hourly workers has exploded over the last thirty years? the "super rich" has not been re-investing their wealth in america and americans. dr samual huntington explores the theme of the super rich behaving as globalists (vs nationalists) in his latest book: "who are we".
18 posted on 05/16/2006 9:24:25 AM PDT by thejokker
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To: jpsb
Uhg. Seems like class-warfare crap.

My spin:

The middle class is being eaten from below as they compete with the lower classes for goods and services paid for by Uncle Sucker.

And since they're paying the taxes to do this, they're just in a race against themselves.

As far as the loss of manufacturing goes, the lower-wage theory is mostly crap. It's very expensive to move resources and products 10,000 miles across the ocean and that negates many wage differences.

No. Manufacturing is being lost because American workers are simply too much trouble.

Workers overseas are willing and often just as able as American workers.

Oh, and they don't destroy your business through organized labor gouging. GM is learning that lesson.
19 posted on 05/16/2006 9:25:03 AM PDT by mc6809e
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To: jpsb

I can recall when they did the same thing in England.

Breaking the middle class is essential to making us into a third world country for the gain of socialism.


20 posted on 05/16/2006 9:25:53 AM PDT by Spirited
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To: jpsb

21 posted on 05/16/2006 9:27:19 AM PDT by Lunatic Fringe (http://ntxsolutions.com)
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To: thejokker
explain why the ratio of ceo salaries to hourly workers has exploded over the last thirty years?

Easy. Because they get to decide how much money the companies pay various employees, including themselves.

COEs are employees with the combination to the safe. Just what do you expect them to do?

22 posted on 05/16/2006 9:28:07 AM PDT by mc6809e
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To: Spirited

This author can't spell worth a damn!


23 posted on 05/16/2006 9:31:24 AM PDT by bicyclerepair (Moonbats are everywhere!)
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To: thejokker
the "super rich" has not been re-investing their wealth in america and americans.

NO! they've just been stashing their billions under their mattress!

Investment takes many forms. Stocks, capital growth, bonds, even just leaving money in the bank.

24 posted on 05/16/2006 9:31:27 AM PDT by Lunatic Fringe (http://ntxsolutions.com)
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To: oblomov

what??????????you want this guy to quote FACTS!!!!! get real, the dude is an idiot....


25 posted on 05/16/2006 9:32:51 AM PDT by joe fonebone (Time to bring back tar and feathering.)
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To: oblomov
Specifically what anti-trust, labor, and trade laws are being ignored?

Pretty much anything to do with health care provider contracting. The cost of health care is killing the middle class and its all government generated in one way or another.

26 posted on 05/16/2006 9:34:30 AM PDT by Rippin
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To: Clemenza
The real reason the federal income tax was passed was because the Southrons felt that the Yankees had "too much money.

I thought the 16th Amendment was passed because of a bluff raised by "Progressive" Republican congressmen, a bluff that Teddy Roosevelt seized on and advanced until it was ratified.

27 posted on 05/16/2006 9:34:36 AM PDT by IronJack
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To: Lunatic Fringe

Never saw that pic before but it is a cool graphic, thanks for posting it.


28 posted on 05/16/2006 9:34:47 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: jpsb

Complete hogwash.

Manufacturing jobs are being moved overseas simply because the labor costs are significantly less. Labor unions have stopped representing the long-term interest of workers...to the point that union labor is overpriced and mis-represented.

Illegals are taking jobs at $8/hr with no benefits that were formerly union jobs at $17/hr with full benefits, the unions wish to PROTECT illegal aliens, not prohibit them.

Yet you don't hear the union leadership screaming for greater controls on illegal immigrants, do you?


29 posted on 05/16/2006 9:34:55 AM PDT by kidd
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To: thejokker
Oh PUH-LEEZE. You make it sound like those "fat cats" (I can picture the Thomas Nast Cartoon of the guy with the gold watch ) are "hoarding" their money without investing it! What do you think, they take their money and send all of it overseas or go home and roll around in it like Uncle Scrooge from the old Donald Duck cartoons?

Who's business is it how much a certain person makes? He who shoulders the most responsability gets the most compensation, and should be free to invest as he chooses. THAT is the American way, and always has been.

As for Huntington, he was once a great political scientist who has become a bitter old man.

30 posted on 05/16/2006 9:36:51 AM PDT by Clemenza (If you don't trust the government to buy your groceries, why trust it to educate your children?)
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To: jpsb

An awful lot of people have gotten "rich" or at least wealthy depending upon your standards for "rich," via the services industry.

I don't see a link between manufacturing and the middle class other than in another era.


31 posted on 05/16/2006 9:38:07 AM PDT by Fruitbat
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To: Lunatic Fringe
I'm sorry, but I completely diagree with your premise that the rich want to break the middle class. It is the middle class that makes the wealthy "super rich". Without our buying power, they have no profits. Sounds like sour grapes to me.

Furthermore, if it's one thing that an oligarch despises, it's real competition. They see the middle class as a far bigger personal threat than the poor.

32 posted on 05/16/2006 9:38:14 AM PDT by jpl (Victorious warriors win first, then go to war; defeated warriors go to war first, then seek to win.)
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To: kidd
"Manufacturing jobs are being moved overseas simply because the labor costs are significantly less"

That is true, but why are the products producted by the factories formerly located in the usa allowed into our market without a correction for the wage advantage gain by thier new location.

33 posted on 05/16/2006 9:39:07 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: jpsb
Only in the usa during the 19th and 20th century, did the middle class win that battle.

I'll take this one step further . . . the USA in the 19th and 20th centuries is one of the few cases in human history where something called "the middle class" even existed at all.

34 posted on 05/16/2006 9:40:54 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: Toddsterpatriot; Mase; expat_panama; nopardons
I was wondering where to post this nice little bar graph I found.

Source: The Heritage Foundation, Job Numbers Show a Strong Economic Recovery

35 posted on 05/16/2006 9:41:02 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: mc6809e
Manufacturing is being lost because American workers are simply too much trouble. Workers overseas are willing

Workers overseas are cheaper because their cost (and standard) of living is lower. This difference was compensated by the tariffs until the "free" trade craze became the dogma.

36 posted on 05/16/2006 9:41:03 AM PDT by A. Pole (GWB believes that "guest worker" program will satisfy economy needs for cheap and plentiful labour.)
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To: jpsb
Why do the super always fear the middle class?


Superman fears nothing.

My thoughts after hearing the Presidents last night.

You heard more than one?

37 posted on 05/16/2006 9:41:22 AM PDT by humblegunner (If you're gonna die, die with your boots on.)
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To: jpsb

I see. So you thought you'd share them with us. How nice.

If that idea ever comes to you again, I really, really suggest that you check the spelling and grammar in your word before posting it.

That said, you are incorrect in everything you said. Are you tired of being in the middle class? Then fire up your own business and get out of the middle class. You can do that here in the USA (not usa), you know.

Whining that the middle class has been beaten down is the mark of someone who has not examined our society very closely. Everywhere you look, there are middle class folks who have taken up the challenge and have become successful entrepreneurs.

Go thou and do likewise, but do use your spell checker.


38 posted on 05/16/2006 9:41:23 AM PDT by MineralMan (non-evangelical atheist)
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To: Fruitbat
"I don't see a link between manufacturing and the middle class other than in another era."

It is my understanding that many millions in Asia are becomming wealthy via manurfacturing. Am I mistaken?

39 posted on 05/16/2006 9:41:47 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: jpsb
..Ever wonder why the wealth generating machines of the usa (manufacturing) are being moved overseas?..

Cheap labor and favorable tax laws would be a heck of a lot better guess than some rehash of a Rockafeller/Rothschild/English Monarchy conspiracy.

Wonder no more, the rich want to break the back of the American middle class by taking away the middle classes ability to generate wealth..

By creating a global middle class?

40 posted on 05/16/2006 9:44:38 AM PDT by Jack of all Trades (Liberalism: replacing backbones with wishbones.)
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To: jpsb
"Ever wonder why the rich want to flood the usa with uneducated poor from totarian nations?"

Hmm... tot-arian nations would be those that are run by infants?
41 posted on 05/16/2006 9:44:40 AM PDT by ketelone
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To: jpsb
It's worth noting that these industries in which "only a handful of companies compete" are actually among the least profitable industries in the U.S.

One of the defining characteristics of the U.S. over the last 50-60 years is that small companies generally offer far better growth potential than large ones.

42 posted on 05/16/2006 9:44:58 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: jpsb

Shiny side out, shiny side out - the tinfoil hat should be shiny side out...


43 posted on 05/16/2006 9:46:27 AM PDT by talleyman (Kerry & the Surrender-Donkey Treasoncrats - trashing the troops for 40 years.)
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To: Centurion2000
The Republican Party is the party of the middle class not, as the Democrats would have it, "the party of the rich."

The richest senators are Democrats, the owners of newspapers are Democrats, and Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and other limo liberals are Democrats. Limo liberals definitely do use the Democratic Party to wield the poor (defined as anyone who is willing to be patronized as "poor" by rich Democrats) against the middle class.


44 posted on 05/16/2006 9:47:44 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: Alberta's Child
Most societies had a small middle class. It was mainly the professionals that the wealthy needed. Doctors, lawyers, priests, etc, and merchants in societies that allow merchants.However these (merchants) were purged from time to time should they gain to much wealth.
45 posted on 05/16/2006 9:48:10 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: Rippin
The cost of health care is killing the middle class . . .

This is really a myth. What is "killing the middle class" is that our expectations for health care far exceed our ability to pay for it.

46 posted on 05/16/2006 9:48:39 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: jpsb

Very interesting and truthful.

In researching history, one thing that pops out at me is that the various "red" revolutions, from France to Russia to Spain, all came from the dissatisfied upper crust and lower class, and often went against the middle class.

Similar trends are shaping up here.


47 posted on 05/16/2006 9:50:59 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: Lunatic Fringe

Haven't you heard? Since Chicago outlawed goose pate, the super rich are eating the livers of middle class children.


48 posted on 05/16/2006 9:53:54 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Why are protectionists so bad at math?)
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To: A. Pole
Workers overseas are cheaper because their cost (and standard) of living is lower.

In other words, they gouge the American public much less than American workers.

49 posted on 05/16/2006 9:54:15 AM PDT by mc6809e
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To: Alberta's Child
This is really a myth. What is "killing the middle class" is that our expectations for health care far exceed our ability to pay for it.

O.K., how about the way we pay for health care is damaging competitiveness and depressing wages and discouraging entrepreneurism, and discouraging legal hires, and causing the middle class to be dissatisfied with decent wages when they have no health benefits. It will soon be close to 20% of GDP. Too much.

50 posted on 05/16/2006 9:54:42 AM PDT by Rippin
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