General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBig Lie: America Doesn't Have #1 Richest Middle-Class in the World...We're Ranked 27th!
http://www.alternet.org/economy/americas-middle-class-27th-richestAmerica is the richest country on Earth. We have the most millionaires, the most billionaires and our wealthiest citizens have garnered more of the planet's riches than any other group in the world. We even have hedge fund managers who make in one hour as much as the average family makes in 21 years!
***SNIP
Why?
Here's a starter list:
We don't have real universal healthcare. We pay more and still have poorer health outcomes than all other industrialized countries. Should a serious illness strike, we also can become impoverished.
Weak labor laws undermine unions and give large corporations more power to keep wages and benefits down. Unions now represent less than 7 percent of all private sector workers, the lowest ever recorded.
Our minimum wage is pathetic, especially in comparison to other developed nations. (We're # 13.) Nobody can live decently on $7.25 an hour. Our poverty-level minimum wage puts downward pressure on the wages of all working people. And while we secure important victories for a few unpaid sick days, most other developed nations provide a month of guaranteed paid vacations as well as many paid sick days.
midnight
(26,624 posts)the poor deserve a hand out and should work to pull themselves up and then when they become rich they will be rewarded with a better life....
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)that the boots are nailed to the floor.
sorefeet
(1,241 posts)Brigid
(17,621 posts)Arkansas Granny
(31,540 posts)deutsey
(20,166 posts)when I was growing up. It wasn't a golden age or anything and there were plenty of problems the "counter-culture" movements created, but the prevailing assumptions at the time reflected a much different view of the rich and what America mean than we have today.
The conservative Reaction that began in the mid-'70s and culminated with Reagan changed all that. Through lies, propaganda, distortion, manipulation, and intimidation, the right has done a smashingly good job of destroying what made this country better than it is now.
midnight
(26,624 posts)deutsey
(20,166 posts)raccoon
(31,131 posts)deutsey
(20,166 posts)I grew up with a heroin addict who was very much a part of the countercultural zeitgeist.
It wasn't pleasant.
There were others, but I'm not able to list them now (I'm just doin a quick DU check-in). I'll try later when I have more time.
leftstreet
(36,119 posts)You mean 'illegal' drugs I take it
deutsey
(20,166 posts)deutsey
(20,166 posts)the counter-culture had become more of a style and commodity, a reason for self-indulgence, than a movement.
I believe it emerged as a necessary rejection of the uber conformity of the '50s. It was liberating, energizing and ignited one of the most creative (artistically, politically, and socially) times of positive upheaval in a very long time in America and around the world. That's the reason the right is so desperate in its compulsion to ridicule and even erase the positive gains made during that time. Read "Making of a Counter Culture" by Theodore Roszak for a good analysis of the origin of that era.
However, by 1979 the energy and cohesion of that time was collapsing, in my opinion. In many ways, the counter culture had become a victim of its own success and was being co-opted by corporations as style and commodity (Tony Hendra in "Going Too Far" gives a good look at how this happened to "boomer humor"...starting off with the taboo-breaking edginess of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and National Lampoon, and ending with Saturday Night Live's descent into mediocrity and shock entertainment).
It had become more self-indulgent rather than self-actualizing. The activism of the early '70s was dwindling by the late '70s. Drugs (the illegal ones) had come to be used by and large just like the old conformist society used booze and pills. I saw from my working class experience that people weren't smoking pot as some sort of liberating thing...they were doing it to get stoned at parties. They were also drinking lots of alcohol. Some, like the person I grew up with, got addicted to harder drugs.
So what I mean by the problems these good and necessary movements caused was that the New Left and social liberation types of the time were unable to sustain and build on what they started into a viable alternative to traditional/corporate culture. So they got absorbed by that culture and what remained collapsed into itself, leaving a void that Reagan and his ilk were only too happy to fill.
Finacialization
Where making money from money is more important than providing goods and services.
This is what we should be focused on changing.
byeya
(2,842 posts)Good information to have. Thanks.
Response to xchrom (Original post)
mother earth This message was self-deleted by its author.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)We on the Dem side of things should *never* be caught talking about things like average net worth or per capita income or even aggregate stats like GDP, which skew heavily toward the rich and mask the near-poverty conditions which are increasingly the reality for a majority of Americans.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)it leads to a handful of uber rich with everyone else in desperate straights. Reminds me of our last economic system - feudalism. It's very similar.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)Any connection?
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Trapitalism and Plutonomy can eat all the dicks. If life doesn't get fairer really damned soon, only the wealthy will have one. The rest of us will only exist at their behest.
mountain grammy
(26,666 posts)The "land of opportunity" is no more! Let's hear this news on the "news" every day. This is 30 years of Reagonomics. Guess morning is over.
whathehell
(29,103 posts)now has one of the smallest. I thought that was widely known, at least on this board.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,411 posts)It's about the median wealth. There's nothing in this about how broadly you define the sector in each country.
For what it's worth:
According to organisations like the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), it's someone who earns or spends $10 to $100 per day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22956470
So if your household income is above $36,500 per person, you are above middle class, internationally.
The paper which seems to have been taken as the basis for the definition is here: http://www.oecd.org/dev/44457738.pdf
It says (2009 figures):
USA: 230 million middle class
EU: 450 million
rest of North America: 108 million
rest of Europe (which I think includes Russia): 214 million
Japan: 125 million
Whole world: 1845 million
It points out:
range for what constitutes a middle class consumer is quite broad, so someone in the Chinese
middle class does not spend as much as someone in the US middle class. The data bear this out.
The North American middle class accounts for substantially more of global spending than its
population share, while the reverse is true of Asias middle class. The US is home to 12 per cent
of the worlds middle class in terms of absolute numbers of people, but it accounts for
USD4.4 trillion (21 per cent) of the USD21 trillion in global spending by middle class consumers.
The difference is because the US middle class is much wealthier than the average global middle
class consumer.
historylovr
(1,557 posts)nineteen50
(1,187 posts)loves poverty wages and our food stamp program.
TakeALeftTurn
(316 posts).
hunter
(38,349 posts)We're a developing nation with a huge military and a wealthy ruling elite.
There's always been a large underclass in the USA largely a consequence of racism, misogyny, authoritarianism, fundamentalism, political corruption and other repugnant national traits.
Our nation first achieved "wealth" by genocide and slavery, and in the modern world by our control of the international oil markets, often by military force, propaganda, sabotage, and financial or political disruption.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)but I can't argue with the rest of it. Interesting perspective, thank you.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)However, your other points are valid.
Quixote1818
(29,018 posts)what we made in the 1980's would be around $80,000 today. Hum, I wonder what happened in the 1980's that set the trend downward?