[Willie Green]

Related thread: House bill will be introduced to repeal NAFTA agreement

[Henrietta]

"The rich, who have never been in that situation, don´t care about the poor."

Why should they? Millions of their tax dollars are forcibly confiscated every year to care for the poor.

By the way, I guess you forgot the rich like Andrew Carnegie, who gave millions of dollars away to build libraries and colleges to educate the poor and the middle class.

Class envy?

[FITZ]

The middle class is the only thing that keeps the people from having revolutions and supporting coups. The elite may believe things will be easy when they're surrounded by a cheap servant class and many others who are poverty stricken and have nothing -- but the elite haven't been studying history, they never heard of the French Revolution which wasn't really all that long ago. When the people complain they have no bread ---don't tell them just to eat cake.

[slohand]

Why would the CEO's what the people that buy the products they make not to have the money to buy them? Maybe they want people in third world countrys to be able to afford to buy? Is the answer to EU the united north america or maybe united americas.

[joesnuffy]

slave and convict labor are great little bottom line cutters
the greenies helped to sink america as well....

[evilC]

I can not believe that any serious news paper would print this tripe, .... even in the opinion section.

It reads like some high school kid trying to be "rad".

They only want more money. After they have their homes, yachts and cars, they don´t buy more, only accumulate money.

Actually the "rich" are the ones more likely to spend their money on services, the kind that create jobs for others.

Someone once described the difference between the middle class and working class thus; that the working class paint other peoples houses during the week to earn money, the middle class paint their own house at the weekend to save money.

Most middle class families would not dream of having a maid, a gardener or a pool-man. They almost certainly won't have a decorator, personal trainer and won't hire an architect when doing some work on their house. Middle class people don't hire accountants (other then the simplest of year end tax preparation), financial advisors and lawyers. Yet the "rich" create just these kind of opportunities for others. Granted they do not do this out of the goodness of their heart, but see if the accountant, trainer, maid and pool-man care.

The middle class had struggle to buy a home and try to get it paid for.

With taxes taking 40% of their income, no wonder they struggle! They now pay more in taxes the housing, food, clothing and transportation combined. 75% of their local property tax and 40% of their state taxes go to pay for the government schools that would prefer to avoid.

They are not in competition to see how much money they can accumulate; only try to climb the ladder to a better job so that their families might have a better life.

Of course a "better job" generally means one that pays better, <sarcasm>so I guess they are just money grubbers like the rich after all.</sarcasm>

[ricpic]

The greatest need of small businesses and especially start up ventures is capital. The source of that capital is "the rich." The thing that discourages the rich from providing start up or venture capital is the high capital gains tax which discourages them from taking what is after all a gamble on someone elses idea and industry. Let's not forget that hundreds if not thousands of ventures that started in someone's garage ended up as corporations employing tens of thousands of workers. It's all well and good to sound the class warfare trumpet. But it's only when you make it worthwhile for the rich to gamble their surplus capital that you have a growing economy. Cut the capital gains tax to zero and watch the economy explode!

[liberalnot]

willie green faces extinction.

[Pukin Dog]

The rich, who have never been in that situation, don´t care about the poor. They only want more money. After they have their homes, yachts and cars, they don´t buy more, only accumulate money.

This is the basic class-envy lie that is at the heart of the argument. It is complete and utter nonsense, based upon the thought of what middle class people would do if they were rich. Just who is it that supplies the bulk of charitable dollars? Taking from the rich only results in more pain for the poor.

The rich do more purchasing than any 20 members of the middle class. They replace cars and homes more often on average, and are responsible for many jobs involving imports that the middle class could never support. The rich also purchase higher margin items, which support lower prices on other items for middle class consumers. For example; airlines would be charging a much higher average price for seats, if not for the offset margin for Business and First class seats. Is that what we want?

It is a cliche to ask, but how many people got their last job from a poor person? Everyone knows that if you raise the minimum wage, you increase unemployment, because business costs are always passed down to the consumer. By restricting trade, you essentially do the same thing. Lower COGS(costs of goods and services) allow companies to ultimatly either employ more people, or avoid employing fewer people. If anyone thinks that repealing NAFTA will do anything to improve employment levels, I have a bridge to sell them.

A good example would be Boeing; who may be building their new 7E7 aircraft from an entirely new company/conglomerate with Airlines owning an equity share. Who is to say that if they are unable to get the cost/tax structure needed to turn a profit, that this company will be based in the US? Boeing could build their new plane completely on foreign soil, and there would be nothing anyone could do about it.

NAFTA conserves more jobs then are lost, and the class-envy argument is specious.

[palmer]

First people need to accept some blame themselves. Do they really think that those cheaper imports are going to have the same quality as American-made, particularly in the materials used? Do they really need a new imported TV when they could buy a really good pair of American-made shoes instead? Do they understand that by sending $9 to China instead of $12 to Minnesota, their $3 savings is more than offset by the loss of $12 in ripple effect in the Minnesota economy?

We need to stop griping about politicians and accept some responsibility,

[RAY]

It appears one day we may not have a "middle class", as we know it today. What will the country be like then? Will it be either similar to a third world society or to a European socialist country where it seems no one is either rich or poor?

Additionally, what happens when the present "minority" (a mixture of "nonwhite", I guess) becomes the majority and vote as a block, what will they do with their country?

What a challenge for the on coming US citizens – keeping the best of the USA in an ever changing demographics of the homeland and a "smaller world".

[LaMudBug]

"Write your congressmen to change things soon or they won´t be re-elected"

Can you be more specific what things need to be changed soon? I need something specific to tell my congressman otherwise he might relegate my email to the kook mail pile that comes from the illerate and the socialists.

I hope you are not either of the above.

Have a good day while you are waiting for the "Great Change"

[PISANO]

If the RICH are all people making 50k a year or MORE, [as the Gimmies repeatedly remind us], then there is a vibrant and healthy middle class making 25-50k a year. The POOR, those who are making around 500 per week and less seems to be staying about the same. All in all MORE are getting rich and the Middle and Poor are staying about the same.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Monorail will save the middle class.

[JoeSchem]

The worst thing that the politicians have done to this country was to sign NAFTA.

Who cares about NAFTA, when all the Mexicans you could ever want to work for you are already here in the United States?

I'm far more concerned about the Mexican invasion, which is keeping our official unemployment rate at six percent while the economy recovers. Figure it out, boys and girls, to talk about NAFTA while illegal immigration is going on is like talking about the common cold while SARS and AIDS are epidemic.

And illegal immigration is an issue that neither Ross Perot nor Ralph Nader dare to touch with a ten foot Hispanolian. Will you discuss it, Willie Green, or are you still in that early-1990s time warp where NAFTA is important and people can survive in Bakersfield without speaking Spanish?

[Dec31,1999]

If "health insurance" costs are not curbed by using free market strategies, the middle class will, in deed, become extinct. HMO costs are skyrocketing, and unless they are brought under control, people are going to vote for universal health care.

You heard it here first, so don't say you weren't warned.

[Lazamataz]

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.

[tuna_battle_slight_return]

*****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.

[discostu]

If I had a dollar for everytime I've heard some dipstick claim the middle class is disappearing I wouldn't be in the middle class anymore.

This line has been paranoid idiocy for 40 years, it's a fallback column for doomcriers that can't think of anything else this month.

[liberallarry]

I don't see how a global economy can be stopped. The last real attempt to do so pretty much caused the Great Depression.

The transition is going to cause a lot of pain - particularly to the American middle and lower classes. They're going to see their life-style degraded and income slashed while workers in other countries benefit. Those with capital will do what they always do - invest it wherever and whenever they think they can preserve or increase it.

What worries me is that the Luddites may ultimately be proven right. Fewer and fewer people - especially uneducated and unskilled people - are needed to produce goods and provide services.

[Weimdog]

NAFTA's not the problem, China is.

Read your labels.