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Middle class faces extinction
The News-Press ^
| June 15, 2003
| JANE R. JOHNSON, N. Fort Myers
Posted on 06/15/2003 2:09:25 PM PDT by Willie Green
Edited on 05/07/2004 6:06:46 PM PDT by Jim Robinson.
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To: KCmark
When the people complain they have no bread ---don't tell them just to eat cake McDonalds.More likely, they'll be working there. Actually, I think Mickey D's is one of the largest employers in america, whats the number, something like 1 in 8 people either does or has worked for them?
81
posted on
06/15/2003 5:00:58 PM PDT
by
Sonny M
("oderint dum metuant")
To: Sonny M
Out of curiosity, where overseas did they send them? It makes no sense to send them to europe. I wish I knew how to link to that thread. It showed up on FR a couple of months ago. If memory serves, they were sending some to jobs Europe and the rest to Asia. India was not mentioned specifically, and I don't know if they were the recipient of that much largesse. Software yes. Financial analysis, who knows? Beyond that, I don't know which Asian country would have workers with the requisite skill, and be willing to work for the attendant slave wages.
To: Willie Green
This is one of the most poorly-written editorials I have ever read.
I agree there is a problem, but this editorial allows a typical person to dismiss it.
83
posted on
06/15/2003 5:07:15 PM PDT
by
Lazamataz
(POLICE TAGLINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE TAGLINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE TAGLINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE TAGLINE D)
To: Willie Green
*****When people are unemployed, they have no buying power.
Bullsh!t. Like many, I've been there. I found alternative, temporary means to take care of myself while unemployed. You just have to see what you can do for yourself; not what the gov't can do for you.
*****Eventually, there will not be a middle class.
Doubtful.
*****The rich, who have never been in that situation, don´t care about the poor.
I know several people who started with nothing and built themselves up, over time. The idea that the rich have always been rich is an untruth that only a liberal could spout.
To: FITZ
The source of that capital is the banks ---where other middle class people have invested a portion of their left-over pay. You are apparently out of touch with where venture capital actually comes from. It isn't the banks; they only loan spending money for huge established enterprises. Most of the venture capital come from ad hoc groups of very wealthy individuals, not from the banks. The banks are not part of the dynamo of new enterprise and innovation; "risk" isn't in their vocabulary unless preceded by "no" or "low". Wealthy people fund all the small and medium businesses that become Big Businesses.
Whatever gave you the idea that banks actually fund business? Have you ever tried to get a bank to loan you $10 million to capitalize $100 million in contracts when you are only worth $20 million? Puh-lease. Wealthy people will step up to the plate every time, banks require you to have already made the money before they'll let you borrow it (that "collateral" thing). Apples and oranges. Banks and VC serve two entirely different functions in big business.
85
posted on
06/15/2003 5:07:51 PM PDT
by
tortoise
(Dance, little monkey! Dance!)
To: Sonny M
Out of curiosity, where overseas did they send them? It makes no sense to send them to europe.There is a current management fad to send tech jobs overseas. Once the product comes back, and it is crap product, the fad will be dead.
86
posted on
06/15/2003 5:08:35 PM PDT
by
Lazamataz
(POLICE TAGLINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE TAGLINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE TAGLINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE TAGLINE D)
To: Sonny M
"More likely, they'll be working there. Actually, I think Mickey D's is one of the largest employers in america, whats the number, something like 1 in 8 people either does or has worked for them?"
Yeah, of course most of these people get upwardly mobile jobs in the number 1 employer in the USA, the government...
87
posted on
06/15/2003 5:09:41 PM PDT
by
Veracious Poet
(A sucker is born every minute)
To: evilC
I hope your daughter enjoys her future career as a maid.
88
posted on
06/15/2003 5:12:35 PM PDT
by
XBob
To: evilC
I hope your son enjoys his career as a gardener. Perhaps you can hire him, now, to show him what he has to look forward to.
89
posted on
06/15/2003 5:14:13 PM PDT
by
XBob
To: Veracious Poet
Yeah, of course most of these people get upwardly mobile jobs in the number 1 employer in the USA, the government...That might be an overly broad generalization. They are one of the largest employers of High School and college students and senior citizens in the United States. Most of the kids who work there are usually just looking for extra money or are saving up to purchase something, want summer money etc.
McDonalds is more like the next job the paper boy got after he got older.
90
posted on
06/15/2003 5:15:28 PM PDT
by
Sonny M
("oderint dum metuant")
To: tuna_battle_slight_return
The idea that the rich have always been rich is an untruth that only a liberal could spout. Indeed. The statistics in the US are something like 90+% of the very wealthy at any one time in the US did not have any "family money" or inheritance to prop them up. In other words, virtually all the very wealthy in the US are completely self-made, statistically.
91
posted on
06/15/2003 5:16:08 PM PDT
by
tortoise
(Dance, little monkey! Dance!)
To: Euro-American Scum
Merrill Lynch has announced that it will send the lion's share of its financial analysis jobs overseas. Their comment was "If it can be done in front of a computer terminal, it can be done overseas." "Charming", but true. Now is the time to eliminate foreign aid in all forms, or 90% of them just to pay for our own medical care and concerns here.
One advantage of universal heath care would be that small businesses wouldn't have to assume the costs, and people could move from one job to a better one without jeopardizing their families.
92
posted on
06/15/2003 5:16:26 PM PDT
by
Dec31,1999
(Iranian Freedom fighters need our support now more than ever.)
To: Sonny M
What Adam Smith meant by Free Trade was modern
nations like England and France dropping
their barries between them.
He did not mean lets drop all our barries
so a slave nation like China can use slave
labor to drive our manufacturing industries
out of business.
In order to maintain a working free market
you have to restrict trade form slave nations
China, just like to protect the market you
must forbid fraud. Its alll part of the Rule
of Law needed to keeps markets working.
Free Enterprise is about Freedom with Responsiblity
that is Liberty, not dog eat dog law of the jungle
which would ultimately destroy the workings of markets.
We are not talking about holding back progress,
we are not talking about industries going away
because their products have been replaced by others
due not inventions or improved technology.
To: tortoise
In other words, virtually all the very wealthy in the US are completely self-made, statistically. That's all very well and good. But what about the rest of us "poor" slobs?
94
posted on
06/15/2003 5:19:14 PM PDT
by
Dec31,1999
(Iranian Freedom fighters need our support now more than ever.)
To: KCmark
LOL!!
95
posted on
06/15/2003 5:19:40 PM PDT
by
FITZ
To: Dec31,1999
One advantage of universal heath care would be that small businesses wouldn't have to assume the costs, and people could move from one job to a better one without jeopardizing their families. Maybe. But there has yet to be a socialized heath care system that didn't suffer in the quality of its care. Where medical care is concerned, you truly get what you pay for (as I will soon discover when I get the privilige of picking up a COBRA premium.)
To: ThreadKiller
ping.
97
posted on
06/15/2003 5:23:22 PM PDT
by
Dec31,1999
(Iranian Freedom fighters need our support now more than ever.)
To: Dec31,1999
That's all very well and good. But what about the rest of us "poor" slobs? Your life is your concern, not mine nor the governments. Personal responsibility and all that. It is a sorry individual that can't get by reasonably well in the US. Too many people want all the benefits without any of the effort, or at the very least want to be able to dictate what level of effort should be required to get those benefits.
98
posted on
06/15/2003 5:23:34 PM PDT
by
tortoise
(Dance, little monkey! Dance!)
To: tortoise
The statistics in the US are something like 90+% of the very wealthy at any one time in the US did not have any "family money" or inheritance to prop them up. In other words, virtually all the very wealthy in the US are completely self-made, statistically. Which is why the US needs a middle class and why the middle class made the US the richest country by far. All countries have those idle rich who inherit ---we have them too ---sort of the aristocrats ---they can work if they feel like it --but they don't have to. Then we have the self-made wealthy who worked their way up ---sometimes all the way from the bottom ---but they require a middle class in order to do that. I know people who retired from bank president jobs who said they started out as errand boy and worked their way up and studied along the way. That's what middle class is all about --- in countries like Mexico, you can work as hard as you like if you're poor and you're not going anywhere ---unless of course you go to the US where there's a middle class.
99
posted on
06/15/2003 5:23:43 PM PDT
by
FITZ
To: Pukin Dog
"It is not important whether or not rich people care about anyone else. It is totally irrelavant. One rich person pays the taxes that fund the services provided to poor people at the rate of over 200 to 1."
not true.......
its called Social Security.....when you richies reach the $80,000 bracket you do not pay anymore....
so, in essence, the poorer and the middling classes pay as great a proportion of their income to pay for social services as do the rich....
and as far as all this "charity" that the "rich" toss around......if you read at all you will find that the American "rich" are abysmal in donating to true charities....
in fact, the biggest contributors to charity/church/civic groups etc are the working people and the middle class people.....PROPORTIONATLY of course....
But you do have that class of "rich" folk who donate with an eye for personal benefit....or tax deduction when they need it...ala Ted Turner...who "donated" a bunch of his land surrounding his ranch in Montana to the Nature Conservancy...
..to what end?.
..well, he gets a great deduction , can prohibit any neighbors from building on his "donation" and he looks so great to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and others.......
100
posted on
06/15/2003 5:24:37 PM PDT
by
cherry
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