Big Lie: America Doesn't Have #1 Richest Middle-Class in the World...We're Ranked 27th!

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/americas-middle-class-27th-richest?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark



***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.

Wall Street is out of control. Once deregulation started 30 years ago, money has gushed to the top as Wall Street was free to find more and more unethical ways to fleece us.

Higher education puts our kids into debt. In most other countries higher education is practically tuition-free. Indebted students are not likely to accumulate wealth anytime soon.

[Romulox]

1. Thanks for posting this. I get so tired of the ignorant "richest country in the world!" schtick.

It's not just a lie, it's the BIG LIE.

[840high]

18. Yep

[valerief]

36. No, it isn't. It's the richest country in the world--for billionaires! nt

[tecelote]

44. We used to be before Reagan.

But, we stopped spending on education, we cut health care, veteran's benefits, we privatized prisons, etc. and the world started surpassing us. No one seemed to care so it has continued on.

[deutsey]

2. All going according to Reaganism's plan n/t

[ReRe]

45. Actually...

... all going according to Justice Lewis Powell's 1971 Memorandum. Read Hedrick Smith's Who Stole the American Dream?, pub 2012 by Random House. But yes, Reagan put the plan in overdrive.

[deutsey]

48. I agree

I'm well aware of the Powell Memo.

The Reagan "Revolution" (it was actually a massive right-wing reaction, imo) was the first major "success" of the strategy outlined in the memo.

[loudsue]

58. I'm so glad to see you bringing that up. It is TRULY the most insidious plot against the people

of this once-great nation that has ever transpired. It has been extremely successful. It is also the plot that allowed PNAC to even begin to insert itself into a workable political reality.

If only more people could be educated about what was done with the Powell Memorandum. It should be taught in schools in American History classes at every level.

[ReRe]

59. I mention it often...

... and mention Hedrick Smith's book in my sig line.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Wrong again.

America is exceptional, the shining city upon a hill. Or, at least, The Shining, with Dick Cheney as Jack.

Number 27 is number 1 if we say it is, because our math is exceptional. Like the rest of us.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. "The Shining, with Dick Cheney as Jack."

[valerief]

37. That's "acceptional". Our spelling is like our math. nt

[Heidi]

4. Kick, kick, kick!!!

Morning', sunshine!

[Omaha Steve]

5. I shared this with other groups

K&R!

Thanks for posting.

[Laelth]

6. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[DeSwiss]

7. K&R

Sumthin' fer nuthin'

"The main feature of capitalism is the seductive assertion that you can get something for nothing in this world. That you can manufacture wealth through money manipulation, and that it is OK to steal and hold captive the people's medium of exchange, then charge them out the ass for access. That you can do so with a clear conscience. Which you can, if you are the kind of sleazy prick who has inherited or stolen enough wealth to get into the game. Even so, to keep a rigged game going, you must keep the suckers believing they can, and eventually will, benefit from the game."

~ Joe Bageant, "Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball"

[riverbendviewgal]

12. more people on DU should read Joe Bageant

I read his books and blog and even emailed him AND he wrote back.
It was not a form reply but genuine and we had a few emails back and forth. I share a lot of his beliefs. I think many on DU would not like him. He saw things the way they were, not rosy glasses.

[DeSwiss]

23. Joe was our time's prophet.....

A redneck prophet and philosopher par excellence. And as you know, prophets are never accepted in their own country. Which is why I think he left America and went to Costa Rica for so long. And then his failing health made him come home.

- So he came home to die, but continued to call out the truth until the end.

''The petty right and the bumbling left find themselves unexpectedly meeting one another these days, as they navigate the craters of our bombed out economic landscape.

Were it not for the ideological war in progress (it's not a cultural war, no matter what the university pundits say, it's a capitalist state sponsored ideological war), they would probably form a powerful combined populist movement that would scare Washington right out of its silk shorts. Naturally, political strategists on both sides do everything possible to keep the rank and file from discovering the growing overlap of liberal and conservative thinking (or in some cases, nonthinking).

Not many working people on either side still believe that what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street, or that very much trickles down from Wall Street to our level. No matter how much money we sweat for, or borrow -- or Congress borrows in our name without ever asking us -- and throw at Wall Street, the money sticks up there on the fortieth floor.

Then it disappears into that bizarro funhouse mirror of the real economy, the virtual economy -- euphemistically called banking and investment and the market. Our market system of "investment" is based upon getting in at the right moment, grabbing other people's money, then getting out fast. Which pretty much describes the key elements a bank heist.''

~Joe Bageant, From Wall Street To Skank Street
Joe Bageant, (1946-2011)

[center]

[/center]

[ReRe]

46. Thanks for the...

... Nanci Griffith. And thanks for being you. And thanks for DU... a place to come to to be with like minds. I am so in the dumps over all that is happening in this world right now.

[BobbyBoring]

35. I grew up in the same town as Joe.

He was a few years older than me. Joe had the honor and distinction of being the first person busted for pot in our little town.

I miss his wit and view of the world!

[riverbendviewgal]

42. You are lucky to know him

and thanks for my big out loud for a day.

[eridani]

54. Joe on universal health care

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2004/09/karaoke_night_i.html

The fat lady sings, then drops dead. Dot's life has been every bit as hard as Patsy's. Harder because she has lived twice as long as Patsy Cline managed to. By the time my people hit 60 they look like a bunch of hypertensive red faced toads in a phlegm coughing contest. Fact is, we are even unhealthier than we look. Doctors tell us that we have blood in our cholesterol and the cops tell us there is alcohol in that blood. True to our class, Dottie is disabled by heart trouble, diabetes and several other diseases. Her blood pressure is so high the doctor at first thought the pressure device was broken. Insurance costs her as much as rent. Her old man makes $8.00 an hour washing cars at a dealership, and if everything goes just right they have about $55 a week for groceries, gas and everything else. But if an extra expense as small as $30 comes in, they compensate by not filling one of Dot's prescriptions -- or two or three of them -- in which case she gets sicker and sicker until they can afford the copay to refill the prescriptions again. At 59, these repeated lapses into vessel popping high blood pressure and diabetic surges pretty much guarantee that she won't collect Social Security for long after she reaches 63. If she reaches 63. One of these days it will truly be over when the fat lady sings.

Dot started working at 13. Married at 15. (Which is no big deal. Throw in "learned to pick a guitar at age six" and you would be describing half the Southerners in my social class and generation.) She has cleaned houses and waited tables and paid into Social Security all her life. But for the last three years Dottie has been unable to work because of her health. (Did I mention that she is slowly going blind to boot?) Dot's congestive heart problems are such she will barely get through two songs tonight before nearly passing out.

Yet the local Social Security administrators, cold Southern Calvinist hardasses who treat federal dollars as if they were entirely their own -- being responsible with the taxpayers' money -- have said repeatedly that Dot is capable of fulltime work. To which Dot once replied, "Work? Lady, I cain't walk nor half see. I cain't even get enough breath to sing a song. What the hell kinda work you think I can do? Be a tire stop in a parkin' lot?" Not one to be cowed by mere human misery, the administrator had Dot bawling her eyes out before she left that office. In fact, Dottie cries all the time now. Even so, she will sing one, maybe two songs tonight. Then she will get down off the stage with the aid of her cane and be helped into a car and be driven home.

Although my people seem to step on their own dicks (I couldn't think of a female metaphor) every time they get near polling place, it is not entirely because we are drunken inbreds, although it is a contributing factor. The truth is that Dottie would vote for any candidate, black, white, crippled, blind or crazy, that she thought would actually help her. I know because I have asked her if she would vote for a president who wanted a nationalized health care program?" "Vote for him? I'd go down on him!" Voter approval doesn't get much stronger than that.

But no candidate, Republican or Democrat, is going to offer nationalized health care, not the genuine article. Of course we expect the Republicans to be pricks, but the Democrats are no better. Guys like John Kerry think they can stay in Washington and BUY progress with the money they take from health care industry lobbyists buying off both parties with campaign contributions. John Kerry does not know anybody in Dottie's class. John Edwards claims to, but he's not very convincing to these people. As Dink puts it, "Neither one of 'em gets me hard." If Dot is lucky, a Democratic pollster might call her, take her political temperature over the phone to be fed into some computer. But that is about as much contact as our system is willing to have with a 300 pound diabetic woman with a small bird and a husband too depressed to get out of his TV chair other than to piss or stumble off to his car washing job.

[JDPriestly]

43. K&R.

[BlueJazz]

8. When I tell people that my second country (Australia) has a minimum wage of $16.88...

...they usually sat WHAT!! No way!

I say: I'm not trying to make you feel bad, just showing you how we're getting screwed... I live here also...
Also..when I had a kidney stone removed, (there).. my cost was $6.34

[Cooperstown]

14. Yes, and McDonalds and other international companies

still can exist and make a profit in Australia.

Thanks for pointing this out. Few Americans believe it unless they have traveled there.

[dickthegrouch]

30. AND the pharma companies still sell their wares there

What's so different about every other country in the world that medical costs vs expenses are so far out of alignment in the US?

In every other industry we are told that economies of scale can be obtained if more people buy something. Only in the US do more patients equal even higher (mis-labelled) costs.

Are the regulatory processes to be allowed to sell new drugs for human consumption so much different (less expensive) in other countries?
Is malpractice so much more rampant (expensive to insure against) in the US than other countries?

No-one has ever given me a good explanation of why a pill retailed for $0.25 in the UK needs to retail at $10.00 in the US.

[easychoice]

49. My Inhaler ...$1.67 Mexico

$59.00 Seattle
Can anyone explain that? Plain theft.

[malaise]

10. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

How dare you. Blame Obama or Putin... the latest villain.
Rec

[Overseas]

11. K&R. There it is. What we knew all along.

Here is what decades of deregulation and privatization have done to our country.

[Hotler]

13. USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!..........

HI Xchrom

[The Wizard]

15. They've gamed the system

Sliding into the Third world with the corporate titans greasing the skids to ensure cheap labor from the working class that translates into higher salaries and bonuses for them while they use their ill gotten gains to bribe Congress for favorable legislation. Carlin was right.

[DirkGently]

16. We share a lack of guaranteed maternity leave with ... Turkey?

Or was it Mexico? So many of our "best in the world" practices mirror one or the other of those countries.

[progressoid]

17. And we're supposed to cheer when the stock market does well.

[raouldukelives]

21. Well, for conservative Dems its cool. It is what they are all about.

It is where the split occurs between liberal and conservative Democrats. The ability to profit from the suffering of others and shrug and order a bottle of Merlot is just normal business life for them M-F 9-5. They care about social issues, just not ones that can affect anyone, especially themselves, monetarily.

Whereas someone burdened with a liberal conscience would see the works of Chicago economics, the torture and terror leveled against third world labor as well our labor at home, the ravages of pollution and climate change, the donations of time and money to the corporations they support finally going to groups like the Heritage Foundation who spread propaganda and disenfranchise and depress voter turnout and the idea would abhor them.

[tclambert]

19. We're 27! We're 27!

Are we officially a second-class country now?

[hunter]

41. Yes, but we've got our Bibles and Atomic Bombs.

God Bless America.

[Enthusiast]

20. Kicked and recommended!

[LittleGirl]

22. What's really sad is that that article is a year old. n/t

[polichick]

24. Where we are #1: gun sales and propaganda. USA! USA!

[taught_me_patience]

25. Median wealth is a terrible measure

unless you account for demographics, which, I'm pretty sure this chart doesn't.

[immoderate]

28. What number would work better?

Median accounts (somewhat) for distribution. Mean does not. Your preference?

--imm

[taught_me_patience]

31. Income

The problem with wealth is that it is primarily a function of age. Hence, you see Japan way up on that list because they have an aging population. America, has one of the highest birthrates of any OECD and we also have more immigrants coming into the country, which is probably skewing our demographics to younger than most of the countries on that list. It's probably the main driver of our lower wealth (though I'm not sure), but is a good thing, in the long run, for our economy.

[immoderate]

32. How does that show distribution?

--imm

[imthevicar]

55. I was going to comment.

But, Even though factual, it would be flagged as rude Insulting and Insensitive.

[Turbineguy]

26. But we do have the largest

lootable class.

[Kablooie]

27. We'll, at least it's better than being 28th.

[immoderate]

29. That's the problem. THERE IS NO 28th!!

--imm

[nxylas]

33. But poor people in America are still richer than poor people in Namibia

Some people actually consider that something to shout about.

[LongTomH]

34. Kevin Phillips warned us about this years ago.....

He wrote about both financialization and the increasing influence of the big rich starting back in the late 80s.

[Stuart G]

38. k and r, thanks for posting

[Phlem]

39. Kick this freaking thread for the truth!

Now we just need to show the numb skull conservative base the truth. Oh wait, they haven't a foothold in reality. And so it goes, the country's idiots will take the rest of us out.

[ErikJ]

40. America is becoming a Koch Brothers Banana Republic

Last edited Wed Jul 23, 2014, 04:39 PM - Edit history (1)

[defacto7]

47. I have a couple of arguments

but I'm not offering them because this is still a pretty good picture of how things are. In the end we just have glitz, debt and poverty. The upper part of that scale has much less glitz, debt and poverty... and a whole lot more peace of mind.

[mackerel]

50. Am I reading it right, that Australia is number 1?

[lunasun]

51. Belgium, Germany, Finland Italy countries with large centralized unions

.can't be better than USA!

[JohnnyRingo]

52. We see middle class now as just owning a smart phone.

I hear Barstool Republicans complain about people on welfare, seemingly unaware that they're only two paychecks away from being there themselves.

The middle class is the only one that we subdivide into about 10 different levels, but most of the people who work are just above the poverty line.

[merrily]

56. Fools should be complaining instead about huge corporations

that owe no taxes, companies that pollute water and air (which may also be companies that owe no taxes), etc.

Divide and conquer.

[JohnnyRingo]

60. I've sort of figured it out.

Believe me, complaining about the greedy poor isn't just republicans anymore. I've heard calls to end food subsidies to drug users who have tattoos from working dems as well. Their rationale is common: they believe spending money on such vices should disqualify them from taxpayer funded aid. I now reply to these people-who are usually very close to that subset of society-to ask if it's their experience that people always pay for drugs. I further ask if they think pretty girls pay for cocaine, or if someone hits them up for a dollar every time the joint gets to them. Body ink can be decades old and be done in someone's kitchen for free. Most of them look like they were anyway.

I've learned to relate to their views when the discussion goes that way. I explain that I understand that they get up and go to work at a job they hate every day and feel no better off than someone who relies on public assistance. They live indoors, drive a car, and have cable TV. They're right, they aren't any better off, but taking away sustenance from those who don't work does not improve their own personal situation. They'll still work to barely make ends meet and make no economic headway. I usually get a nod of agreement at this point.

I finish by revealing that their short sighted views against the needy have originally been proffered by those who want to deflect blame from themselves for the degradation of the American middle class. People don't earn a pittance because the poor take too much, it's because they themselves don't earn enough, and putting economic distance between themselves and the dirt poor doesn't improve their lives. The base problem is that people feel powerless to step up the social ladder these days, and they're right to feel so.

[merrily]

61. Not only that, but, for good or ill, Clinton ended "welfare as we know it."

It is no longer the program it once was. It's a pittance compared with the "military industrial complex," benefits to "job creators," etc.

I rarely get into the kinds of conversations DUers report. My entire extended family, with one lonely exception, is Democratic and I have always lived in blue states. At this point, I am not sure I would have the patience for those kinds of debates. Same damned points, over and over.

That's why I post at DU and not boards where Republicans are welcome. I don't mind debate about how far left we should go, but I am beyond over having Republicans assume I'm a Democrat because I want welfare, as opposed to I want to make sure it's there for those who need it because, well, I am not inhuman.

My father, a Democrat to the bone, worked every hour of overtime he could possibly get and would not even sign up for unemployment when he was eligible for it.

[smirkymonkey]

53. K&R!

[4dsc]

57. 30 years of failed conservative economic policies

I cannot say it enough for those who will listen. The failure of conservative economic policies lie at the heart of the problem the middle class are facing today and in the future.