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Living Large [Drew Carey on America's Middle Class]
Reason.TV ^ | unknown | Narrated by Drew Carey

Posted on 02/06/2008 2:51:01 AM PST by LowCountryJoe

To hear the Lou Dobbses and Bill O'Reillys of the world--not to mention politicians ranging from Ron Paul to Hillary Clinton--the middle class of America (however you define that term) has never had it so tough. Between credit squeezes, out-of-control immigration, rising costs of education and health care and everything else, it's all darkness out there for those of us who are neither millionaires nor welfare cases, right?

In "Living Large," Drew Carey and reason.tv examine the plight of the American middle class. What do they find?

http://reason.tv/video/show/61.html


TOPICS: Breaking News; Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: drewcarey; middleclass; reasontv
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To: ByDesign
Another thing that doesn't get mentioned is two worker households. "Middle class" families *do* have more money these days. But that comes from households where both adults work. Back in the day, being middle class meant dad worked and mom was a housewife. Now being "middle class" means both family members work ridiculous hours and have a long commute.

From a personal perspective my father made around $12000 a year in the 60's. A new car cost $2000, so 1/6th of a years gross wages. A 3 bedroom house in New England cost $16000 or so so 1 and a third times your wages.

Compare that to today. A new car can run you $15,000(1/4 of a 63000 gross 1960's dollars to 2003) an equivalent house in New England will run you at least $200,000 if not more(3.15 times wages).

So if you compare apples to apples(a single earner middle class family) the middle class is *much* worse off in terms of real buying power. Yes the reason article is right that there is more functionality and proportionally higher quality, but would you rather pay a little more than a year's wages for a nice house or *3 times* that for more or less the same thing?
21 posted on 02/06/2008 4:45:14 AM PST by ketsu
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To: ketsu

Things were just so much better when the wife stayed at home and washed clothes by hand in a 1000 sq. ft. house with no air-conditioning, and all she had to worry about was whether the kids came down with polio.


22 posted on 02/06/2008 4:59:47 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: ketsu

Both adults working? But how can that be since all of our jobs have been lost to slave labor?


23 posted on 02/06/2008 5:03:05 AM PST by LowCountryJoe (Do class-warfare and disdain of laissez-faire have their places in today's GOP?)
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To: AfterManyASummer

Yep, and the economic data really teases out all the unhealthiness.


24 posted on 02/06/2008 5:05:16 AM PST by LowCountryJoe (Do class-warfare and disdain of laissez-faire have their places in today's GOP?)
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To: 1rudeboy
Things were just so much better when the wife stayed at home and washed clothes by hand in a 1000 sq. ft. house with no air-conditioning, and all she had to worry about was whether the kids came down with polio.
You would have been seriously poor in the '60s to not have air conditioning and hand wash clothes. We're talking about the middle class here snoogums, not the unwashed masses.
25 posted on 02/06/2008 5:06:13 AM PST by ketsu
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To: LowCountryJoe
Both adults working? But how can that be since all of our jobs have been lost to slave labor?
Middle class jobs haven't declined *that* much. At least compared to manufacturing(as an aside, been to detroit lately? *shiver*). What they have become is unstable and managers have started to expect Japanese working hours(quick poll, how many people here are 7/11's? 7 am to work, 11pm home).
26 posted on 02/06/2008 5:08:46 AM PST by ketsu
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To: ketsu

Re: “Middle class” families *do* have more money these days. But that comes from households where both adults work.

Two points:

1) That makes for an apples to oranges comparison.

2) Most households would NOT have two inclomes if they were not needed.

Many people on FR are delusional if they they think everything is rosy for the vast portion of people in the USA. Families are hurting.....and I am sure this would be the daily mantra here if a “D” was in office instead of an “R”.


27 posted on 02/06/2008 5:08:59 AM PST by Red in Blue PA (Truth : Liberals :: Kryptonite : Superman)
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To: Red in Blue PA

Ding ding ding. You talk sense my friend.


28 posted on 02/06/2008 5:12:58 AM PST by ketsu
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To: MuttTheHoople
ping for later. This looks like a good one.
29 posted on 02/06/2008 5:16:14 AM PST by beef (Who Killed Kennewick Man?)
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To: Red in Blue PA
Amen fellow 'red' stater here in PA. We never saw that huge real estate bubble (at least in the west and rural parts of the Commonwealth); stifling taxes (did you see Fast Eddie's plan to give away 1.6 billion from the 'Rainy Day Fund' to the 'working poor' to jump start the state's economy?) We have the 'D' in charge (on all levels here in PA) and things aren't pretty.
30 posted on 02/06/2008 5:19:04 AM PST by PennsylvaniaMom (I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them. Jane Austen.)
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To: RipSawyer
“Good clip, but it could have been accented with a few more relevant statistics, not comparisons with living standards 105 years ago, but 20 or 30.”

Agree. But, I think one has to go back to the 60’s (40 to 50 yr’s ago) to start with the root cause. Beginning in the 60’s, a sense of entitlement began to foment within our youth that they should be granted all the creature comforts of life, regardless of ability to afford them. This is the era when the culture of purchasing by credit began. During this era Visa and MC cards literally passed out unsolicited. Many people used them without even knowing that their purchases must eventually be paid for. And, sadly, this culture has grown and grown. Now, people, regardless of their ability to pay, finance via sub-prime mortgages homes they can not afford, lease cars that they are upside down on from the get go. Buy on credit all sorts of toys such as big screen tv’s, bass boats, etc. And, while loading up on all of these items, never bother to secure medical and dental coverage for themselves or their family. Naturally, they leave these less desirable obligations to be paid by others. And so it goes...

31 posted on 02/06/2008 5:24:11 AM PST by snoringbear (')
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To: ketsu; 1rudeboy; All
We had AC, a big house, a travel trailer, a large boat, all the food and drink we could consume but, we still hung the wash out to dry.

One thing we weren’t was WASTEFUL OR IN EXTREME DEBT. (unlike most of us today)

32 posted on 02/06/2008 5:26:07 AM PST by wolfcreek (Powers that be will lie like Clintons and spend like drunken McCains to push their Globalist agenda.)
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To: Red in Blue PA

Did you watch the full video?


33 posted on 02/06/2008 5:26:37 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: ByDesign
Amusing, but how much of that “stuff” was bought with refi’s on their equity? Most of the people I know with toys like that bought it all on credit and with equity that is being burned rapidly with falling home prices.

Also, notice where they went. Castaic lake in LA county. Not Ohio, or central Illinois or Tennessee. Or, anywhere else where the real world is.

34 posted on 02/06/2008 5:27:28 AM PST by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote!)
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To: beef

Ketsu is spot on. Real income levels are falling for the middle class and they are just working harder (same thing occurs with idiotic physicians who work harder the less you pay them). Meanwhile wealth is being super concentrated in financial services and anyone who recieves compensation denominated by the financial services industry. Why?? Currency confiscation and real wealth redestribution to financial service industry by the unconstitutional chief agent of impoversation - The Federal Reserve Board (est. 1913 by the commie Woodrow Wilson at the behest of his J.P. Morgan).


35 posted on 02/06/2008 5:28:05 AM PST by Nickh
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To: ketsu

Reality is two incomes have become necessary BECAUSE people want more and live high but scale back living high and believe it or not a family can live on one decent income.

It’s called “Acting your wage” and living within your means.

As the video said, “It’s not the cost of living, it’s the cost of living high.”


36 posted on 02/06/2008 5:28:09 AM PST by marychesnutfan
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To: raybbr

How dare Drew Carey support his argument! Where’s Pat Buchanan? Where’s the Fairness Doctrine?


37 posted on 02/06/2008 5:31:03 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: Nickh

One of the central assumptions to the “incomes are stagnating” argument is the denial of income mobility. The reality is that folks are moving from the middle class into the high class, and being replaced by folks moving from the low class in to the middle class . . . creating the illusion of stagnation.


38 posted on 02/06/2008 5:35:03 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: ketsu

You posted: You would have been seriously poor in the ‘60s to not have air conditioning and hand wash clothes. We’re talking about the middle class here snoogums, not the unwashed masses.
***
I don’t know how “seriously” we were poor in the 60’s, but we didn’t have air conditioning until the mid 70s, and that was a window unit that cooled the bottom floor of the house we lived in. My mother did do some hand washing of clothes in the 60’s, or else went to the laundrymat. We were lower middle class, or maybe upper lower class, I guess.

There are very few poor in this country, and perhaps none, based on world-wide standards. If the measure is in comparison with the well-to-do, there will always be poor.


39 posted on 02/06/2008 5:36:28 AM PST by NCLaw441
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To: NCLaw441

I didn’t feel like spending the morning looking up statistics about a/c, but the last time I did (maybe a year or so ago), I think I remember that a/c crossed the 50% (of homes) threshold during the 60’s. In other words, it was still considered a luxury during that period.


40 posted on 02/06/2008 5:40:24 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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