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Why America’s middle class is lost
Washington Post ^ | December 12, 2014 | Jim Tankersley

Posted on 12/13/2014 6:44:02 AM PST by C19fan

One day in 1967, Bob Thompson sprayed foam on a hunk of metal in a cavernous factory south of Los Angeles. And then another day, not too long after, he sat at a long wood bar with a black-and-white television hanging over it, and he watched that hunk of metal land a man on the moon.

On July 20, 1969 — the day of the landing — Thompson sipped his Budweiser and thought about all the people who had ever stared at that moon. Kings and queens and Jesus Christ himself. He marveled at how when it came time to reach it, the job started in Downey. The bartender wept.

On a warm day, almost a half-century later, Thompson curled his mouth beneath a white beard and talked about the bar that fell to make way for a freeway, the space-age factory that closed down and the town that is still waiting for its next great economic rocket, its new starship to the middle class.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: class; middle
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To: Alberta's Child

Yes, that is my idea. The “middle class” strikes me as being “unnatural”. “Middle class” as most people here think of it.


61 posted on 12/13/2014 9:49:30 AM PST by AceMineral (One day men will beg for chains.)
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To: GeronL
The middle class took America to the moon. Then something went horribly wrong.

People started actually believing what they wrote in the Washington Post, NY Times, and Rolling Stone!

62 posted on 12/13/2014 10:01:46 AM PST by gr8eman (Bill Carson...meet Arch Stanton!)
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To: oust the louse

The ability these days to accrue massive debt has masked many of the problems of the middle class. Until the bill finally comes due. 3/4 of people today are financially illiterate. The further you move away from the depression era generations, the worse it gets.


63 posted on 12/13/2014 10:26:52 AM PST by headstamp 2
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To: WilliamIII
“the middle class is being destroyed by the leftists on purpose” Don’t blame the Democrats. Blame the Democrats and the Republicans. Ross Perot warned us and we didn’t listen. The GOP has been enthusiastically supporting sending manufacturing overseas, for a couple of decades. And look how GOP is standing up to Obama on amnesty for low-wage illegal immigrants here at home (they AREN’T standing up to him!). Don’t blame the Democrats. Blame the Democrats and the Republicans. Ross Perot warned us and we didn’t listen.

Agreed - the term "Leftist" doesn't necessarily apply to only those who present as Democrats...

If the Republicans aren't as actively trying to destroy the Nation, they are at least complicit. Either way, we're pretty much screwed unless the People speak and act in a way to scare them into Constitutional Compliance...they won't do it of their own accord - CALL/EMAIL/WRITE your representatives often to let them know what you expect.

64 posted on 12/13/2014 11:53:47 AM PST by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: Dr. Ursus

And yet, Apple products are quite expensive.


65 posted on 12/13/2014 12:16:57 PM PST by 353FMG
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To: central_va
The "War on Poverty" defeated the middle class.
LBJ had two slogans - “Great Society” and “War on Poverty.”

The first thing to know is what Thomas Paine pointed out, in Common Sense about “society,”:

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . .

It follows that for a candidate for head of government to promise a great society is not a promise but a threat. Even a democratic republic will not even be as good as the society it exists to protect; any government which, notwithstanding that fact, undertakes to improve society (which is actually its better) will be even worse.

A WWI French general critiqued his fellow general by saying, “One does not battle materiel with men, but with materiel.” The historical fact of the “War on Poverty” is that poverty is not a mere matter of materiel but also of spirit, what a Frenchman would call élan. A negative spirit cannot be defeated with materiel, it has to be defeated with hope and love. Hope and love will well up in society if not hindered by government, but government is a blunt instrument and cannot itself produce hope and love in one place without inhibiting it somewhere else.

The spirit nature of poverty can be easily understood by anyone who knows that today’s “poor” in America are, in general, not any more worried about their daily bread than the “middle class” of fifty years ago was. And also by the fact that the statistics “show” that pro rata there is as much poverty now as before the W.O.P. - because the government subsidies to the “poor” are systematically excluded from the statistics showing how “poor” people are. What could be clearer, than that the government cannot “defeat poverty” if it fraternizes with the enemy in this way? No matter how much might be added to government subsidies the poor will still be “poor” according to statistics which do not count that government money.

Another way to see it is to realize the scope of material progress over the generations. An American secretary in 2000 was as well off, by realistic measures, as Queen Victoria had been. In relative terms Victoria (1819-1901) was unable to travel and had primitive health care for herself and her family.

Thus we see that American society has reduced poverty of materiel dramatically - and that in its “War on Poverty” government has a tended actually to promote the spirit of poverty.

The Democrat Party is funded from above the middle class, and derives a majority of its vote from below it. This can be seen in the red-blue map, where the bluest counties are the inner cities, and the tony suburbs are not far behind. The middle class thus has a critical need for its own party to defend its interests against the Democrats. The Republican Party predominantly gets its vote from the middle class - but, if we are to judge by their Speaker of the House, seems to be a bit too enamored of upper-class money to be fully committed to the middle class.


66 posted on 12/13/2014 1:05:51 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: jsanders2001

Demoralized them with continued attacks against their religious beliefs, their patriotism, their ideologies

Forced people to kneel at the altar of faggotry...


He has no power beyond what we surrender to him in these areas of mind and soul. I am no less patriotic, no less a constitutionalist, no less a Christian and no more accepting of homo behavior than I ever have been.

The weak minded, or the mindless followers who need a human leader, surrender their souls to stinky Obama and his regressives. Grubers surrender to his darkness. They’ll pay.


67 posted on 12/13/2014 3:17:20 PM PST by SaraJohnson
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To: oust the louse

No disagreement there


68 posted on 12/14/2014 4:18:56 PM PST by redangus
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To: GeronL

No, but we can’t ignore the fact that the world today is not very friendly to the less educated blue collar types who became solidly middle class working good paying factory jobs.


69 posted on 12/14/2014 4:22:57 PM PST by redangus
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