Why the middle class is failing

[dao cowboy]

I don't think there's much for the middle class in the future. There will still be people who have more power than peasants but less than the elite, but I don't think that will be measured by money.

I saw a thing on the Chinese English-language news station (those guys are F(*&ing good at propaganda) on a totally automated port. 9 workers. Where's the middle class? And outsourcing to Tata in India, etc.....

But most of what we think about the middle class today only got started when we really geared up consumerism. I mean, yeah, it kind of hurt us (small farms were a good institution, ask John Adams), but hey, it beat the Soviets....

 

[piezoe]

A couple of things. First, I did give a cause...monetary policy. Second, these people publishing research all have PhDs. They all understand correlation and probably took more math courses then everyone in your family combined. I actually went to grad school and have a Masters in Economics. I also took a lot of math courses. And so did my professors. You seem to enjoy talking down to these people as if they are writing high school term papers. I admit I take a fair amount of pot shots at academia but having been through grad school and seeing how much work and effort these people put into their discipline and research and considering they dedicate their entire lives to this type of research, I would give them a little more respect then you do. You seem to act like you are the only one that understands basic math concepts which I find laughable. What is it you do for a living Piezoe? Do you have any published research out there we can read? I'm not being condescending, my apologies if you are credentialed. I certainly would give you the benefit of the doubt if you had your PhD in economics and spent your life doing research in this area instead of cherry picking your favorite blogs or popular economic books as the foundation of your knowledge.

I think you would find this interesting even if you don't quite agree. This 1997 meeting of Soros and Krugman at the Council on Foreign Relations when the topic was "globalization" nicely summarizes my opinion on Globalization if you allow for a blend of Krugman's and Soros's viewpoints. www.youtube.com/watch?v=q35BYt5LFsM