Why the middle class is failing

The middle class has cars and houses, no?

We picture a marxist as a wild eyed bomb thrower maybe but nowadays Republicans will go along with economic schemes to quell the economic cycles [and it never works, it actually makes them worse] and help the poor [and it creates more poverty], etc.. so everybody is a marxist to some extent. The people that suck money out of the public sector only want a bigger public sector. They don't care if the borrowing leads to collapse. Currently the richest counties in the U.S. surround Washington D.C. so that tells us that if we build it they will come. It's difficult to tax people that can pay off politicians. The only people that can be taxed effectively are workers that get the payment confiscated from their paychecks before they even get paid. Corporations and small businesses can donate to a politician and get complete immunity from paying income taxes. I've read the actual tax codes, it's two yards of books on a shelf and every page has specific tax immunities for specific businesses on it. It's all written so that you can't pinpoint the business or the politician that wrote it... So the middle class is powerless to avoid taxation and some wealthy people allow themselves to be taxed and government is seen as the answer to everything. Government grows and saddles the workers with the costs and we wonder why the middle class keeps losing out year after year after year...
 
lovethetrade said:
It's as clear as day, I recommend doing some research on it. European countries with the most English speaking people have the highest standard of living per capita and best performing economies.

Here's a graph to get you started
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language_in_Europe#

Apparently in Norway, 90% speak English.

Look up best countries to live 2017. The Scandinavian countries usually fill the top spots and they have the most English speaking out of countries where English is a 2nd language.
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Yes, but is this causation or correlation?

A higher %age of the population speaks English in Cyprus than in Germany and yet... I am not quite convinced, although I think integration into the world economy is a factor.
 
Martinghoul said:
Yes, but is this causation or correlation?

A higher %age of the population speaks English in Cyprus than in Germany and yet... I am not quite convinced, although I think integration into the world economy is a factor.
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Cyprus may have other issues that are holding it back. Believe what you want to believe, I'm not a charity service. My time is valuable.
 
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Martinghoul said:
So the EU28 (soon to be EU27) debt/GDP fell to 83.3% in 2016 (Eurostat data as of 3Q 2016). Compare this to arnd 106% for US and arnd 150% for Japan. In fact, the only countries in Europe whose debt/GDP ratio is higher than that of the US are Greece, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus. Moreover, Europe's debt/GDP (and deficit/GDP) has been falling quite steadily from pretty much 2010 onwards, which cannot be said about a lot of other countries. Certainly not about US and Canada.
So how is Western Europe "borderline bankrupt"?
Many parts of the US are 30 years behind other parts of the US and other advanced Western nations. Same applies to the UK (have you ever been to Northern Ireland?). I don't really see how Europe is any different in that regard to other regions.
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Europe has been losing population since America was discovered. You cannot change that no matter how hard you stomp your feet. Your social systems have brought EU members to their knees. Eventually EU will fall apart under it's own weight. You all need to face the facts, historically you all never got along, a piece of paper isn't going to change that. It may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen evenutally.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/20/news/economy/europe-euro-survival/
 
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lovethetrade said:
...My time is valuable.
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I can see that...
lylec305 said:
Europe has been losing population since America was discovered. You cannot change that no matter how hard you stomp your feet. Your social systems have brought EU members to their knees. Eventually EU will fall apart under it's own weight. You all need to face the facts, historically you all never got along, a piece of paper isn't going to change that. It may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen evenutally.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/20/news/economy/europe-euro-survival/
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If you say so...
 
Martinghoul said:
I can see that...

If you say so...
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You're trolling dude. People are giving you valuable information and there's been no appreciation. Well done, you're on ignore.
 
piezoe said:
I find it difficult to believe that either Reagan or Thatcher was aware of the long range consequences of supply-side stimulus combined with removal of most of the progressiveness in U.S. tax structure. If you could find a link to a quote, I'd be much obliged.

There is strong evidence that the inordinate, exponential growth of wealth disparity in the U.S (there are some lesser parallels in the UK due to Thatcher) is due primarily to a compounding over time of two factors. 1. Drastic collapse of the upper tax brackets combined with a raising of the marginal rate in the lowest bracket (i.e., the country was, at one point approaching a flat income tax in which nearly all of the progressiveness in the marginal rate structure had been wrung out, and 2. Taxing unearned income at lower rates than earned.

There are other factors as well, but those two factors mentioned above are major ones. This exponential wealth disparity growth is something peculiar to the U.S., and to a less extent the UK. You will see it when you look at other developed countries but to a much less extent.

The normal state of affairs in capitalist countries is for wealth to slowly accumulate at the top end of the wealth distribution. This is because the return on capital is greater than the growth rate of economy. This usual trend is, however, greatly exaggerated in the U.S., due mainly to tax policy. (Globilization is not a significant factor in acceleration of wealth disparity, however, and may actually be a useful counter measure.)

Sound microeconomic arguments are sometimes made based on particular industries, such as the off shoring of assembly line jobs, and the domestic replacement of workers via automation with the consequence that there has been little wage growth in the face of inflation and, at the low end, wages have actually declined in constant dollars.

These microeconomic components are contributing proximate causes of wage malaise among the labor class, but they are not the primary causes of the declining fortunes of the lower half of the middle class. A macroeconomic perspective is needed.

___________________________
N.B. Marx was hugely wrong, but not about everything. The results of his dictum that capital drives out labor are seen in our late 20th and early 21st Century U.S. economy.
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It's not taxes. The rich don't pay taxes because for the most part, their wealth is not derived from wages but assets and asset growth. The monetary policies of the last several decades have inflated assets. The easy credit regime. Steve Jobs was worth billions at the time of his death. When he came back to AAPL, he took a salary of exactly $1 a year. The irony of course is he never paid taxes. Instead of a salary he got millions in AAPL stock options that grew exponentially. He never sold the stock so not even capital gains were generated.

On the flip side, where the poor are lacking in assets, they make up for in debt. They are "paying" interest on their debt. They pay rent. They lease. They borrow. It's a vicious cycle. Their debt burden continues to grow while the assets of the rich continue to grow. THIS is where the inequality is coming from. Can they escape? Not when it costs 150k to get an education. Not when you are drowning in debt. Hell they can't even afford to pay just the interest on their debt every month much less pay down the principle.

The fact of the matter is, the US has the most liquid, most deep, most complex capitalist system in the world. Anyone who can own assets, leverage assets, and borrow to cheap to attain these assets are going to go down the road to wealth. High salaries are not going to cut it. The irony of course is that our very President is the epitome of this. He never earned a salary in his life. His wealth came from the accumulation of assets and cheap debt compounded over time. And he used every trick in the system to bail himself out when the times got tough.

And another thing, you keep using the term globalization in terms of just labor but never mention globalization of capital. But keep believing what you want. It's a free country...for now.
 
lylec305 said:
That's correct but how do smaller shops affect the middleclass / masses? When's the last time you visited large IT installation such as a bank, insurance, or industrial, the majors still use offshore model.
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I can't speak for non pure tech firms, but in tech I can confirm my position is the norm currently. Certainly a complicated issue, but the most direct way is: go work at a tech company not a bank. If you are at a bank and you can code, your likely not doing IT anyways.
 
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