First they came for your paycheck. Then your house. What's next?

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:


Attack on the Middle Class!!
First they came for your paycheck. Then your house. What's next?

— By James K. Galbraith


THE REMARKABLE thing about the American middle class is that we still have one, given the job losses, housing bust, and 401(k) wipeout of the past three years—and considering that for 35 years, politicians (and the bankers who own them) have been hammering away at middle-class institutions. The assault began in the 1970s, when New York City's fiscal crisis and California's property-tax revolt marked the start of a long decline in public services. Next came the recession and anti-union policies of the early 1980s, whose whip's end hit the black working class especially hard. (Automakers have long been among the nation's largest private employers of African Americans. In the late '70s, one in every 50 African Americans in the workforce was employed in the industry.) Thanks to the UAW, the automakers provided good jobs and pensions for workers who, in many cases, had a high-school education at best. When Chrysler hit the ropes in 1979, Congress did pitch in with a $1.5 billion loan guarantee (I worked on that bill as an economist for the House banking committee), but the decade that followed still pummeled autoworkers—as they did all of American manufacturing.

The consequences are still unfolding. Total employment of manufacturing workers peaked in 1979, and three decades later, we're in the endgame. Jobs in the sector are down by about a third since 2000—some 6 million lost. Most of them will never be replaced. Nothing can stop the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and others from making shoes and ships and sealing wax at wages we can't compete with. And nothing will.

For a time in the 2000s, some of those job losses were offset by gains in the other hard-hat sector: construction. But the Great Recession put an end to that. Since 2007, a quarter of construction jobs have disappeared, more than 2 million in all—about as many as were lost in manufacturing, but from a much smaller base.

Those numbers tell of the next big middle-class tragedy—the housing bust. Homeownership was a great American success story. It rose for 60 years, peaking around 2004—and for most of those six decades it was an honest business, more or less. But in its last five years, the long boom was kept alive by the greatest financial swindle in world history. In the collapse that followed, an enormous amount of middle-class wealth was wiped out. Homes were once a source of pride, safety, and collateral. Now they're often a burden—and homebuilding is at lows not seen since World War II. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/galbraith-social-security-middle-class

[stray cat]

1. When do they come for our rental apartments....

[SharonAnn]

17. They're coming for our Social Security and Medicare. They already got our retirement and health ins

[laughingliberal]

20. That's next. nt

[Can of Whoop-ass]

21. What's next?

Your body parts.

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[Ghost Dog]

3. Well, in feudal times (not so long ago here in Spain),

here in Spain they speak of "el derecho de la pernada".

This "right" meant that the Lord of the Manor, and others of the "upper one percent" or so, could with impunity screw any female (or, I suppose, young male) of "lower" class within their domain that took their fancy. With legal impunity.

I'm sure many of your teabaggers, congressmen and senators and other rich bastards of all stripes, and your supreme court (what a joke) would be very happy with that).

[StandingInLeftField]

4. Shhhhh! Don't Give Them Any Ideas!!!

;)

[MedicalAdmin]

8. First of all they are already doing this

Second of all, of course they think about this. They are tired of having to buy slaves and hide them. They want to do it openly.

If you doubt me then google "modern slavery" and then tell me I am wrong. Monsters doesn't come close to describing what the 1% are.

[StandingInLeftField]

12. I'm sorry. That was my poor attempt at humor.

;(

[liberalmuse]

6. Hide yo wife, hide yo kids and hid yo husbands!!! n/t

[Ghost Dog]

13. I see y'all got the point. OK.

Now, go figure.

[liberalmuse]

5. Well, they're going to have to settle for...

our cardboard boxes and catfood. You can only milk the middle class for so long before the teat runs dry. Or gets pissed and revolts.

[MedicalAdmin]

7. Mankind will only be free ...

When the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

If I had to choose between getting pissed or revolt , I vote for bloody revolt and the end of the 1%, their families, friends, associates , and flunkies in business and political life. In other words I believe the world would be a much better place is the entire genetic mistakes that produced the 1% and their enablers were cut from the tree of humanity with a chainsaw.

But it's early and I haven't had my coffee yet.

[Dr.Phool]

11. Give them all nice French Revolution Severance Packages.

[ccinamon]

30. I feel like that sometimes too!

they are just evil....very evil....pharm co's should be finding a cure for the mental illness of "screw you, I figured out how to get mine, but I'm not going to give you the same opportunities I took advantage of" ....then everyone would be better off!

[Dr.Phool]

10. Yeah, but that cat has 300 million teats......

According to our illustrious Cat Food Commission chairman.

[madrchsod]

9. your life....

[eleny]

14. Your kids - for cheap labor

[Tutankhamun]

15. social security, medicare, public education, fire department, the internet (and therefore

free speech) as we know it. They're already trying.

[Uncle Joe]

16. If the for profit prison industry's moist dream; comes true, at some point, debtors' prison.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[koski]

24. well

http://www.startribune.com/local/95692619.html">They http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/06/jail-for-unpaid-debt-a-reality-in-six-states-strategic-default-pushback-watch.html">are working on it.

[felix_numinous]

18. They don't need us anymore

so why don't we all declare independence from the f*ckers. Have a major sit in and claim our pieces of the rock, the commons are being stolen from us by people who will poison it, it belongs to all the people who live on this Earth. We are all Earthlings.

[sulphurdunn]

19. Our middle class prosperity

was largely built upon victory in WWII and the Cold War that followed it. That's just a fact. Even if we could, it would be undesirable to resurrect that economic model. Therefore, the only valid question is: What do we do next? Whatever it is, we better get busy doing it pretty damn quick.

[jeff47]

23. Um....you sure you thought about this?

"Even if we could, it would be undesirable to resurrect that economic model."

Yes. Incredible growth and prosperity is a terrible, terrible thing to resurrect. Clearly we need to stick with the Reganomics we've been using for the last 30 years (minus Clinton) that have driven the economy into the ground repeatedly.

(:sarcasm: in case anybody didn't notice)

[sulphurdunn]

31. The model is predicated

upon unlimited growth, infinite resources, stunning waste along with the externalization of environmental and human cost. It is unsustainable and destructive. It has evolved to the point where it continues to accelerate its aforementioned flaws while exacerbating the decline in material prosperity for increasing numbers of "surplus people".

[jeff47]

34. Actually

The model is predicated on low income inequality, resulting in a large middle class with lots of purchasing power.

That doesn't require infinite resources, waste, nor environmental cost.

[Bette Noir]

25. No, it wasn't the wars that made us prosperous, but manufacturing.

It was cars and roads, as much as tanks and bombs. Outsourcing dooms us to poverty.

Ghost Dog upthread can fact check me on this, but part of my mental furniture is an outline of Spanish history, as it relates to the Americas. Spain took a lot of gold and silver out of the Americas, but it didn't stay in Spain. Wealthy Spaniards wanted the luxury goods that were made in Belgium and Holland, so that's where the gold and silver went. Northern Europe became wealthy, while Spain, except for a sliver at the top, remained poor.

[sulphurdunn]

32. The wars that created the

Pax Americana and are now destroying it made the factories hum and kept them humming until the moneyed aristocracy created by those wars sold the country out for cheap labor. The roads were built to move tanks as well as cars and trucks, all fueled with cheap petroleum, paid for with dollar denominated currency benchmarks and control of global finance that were the spoils of war.

[jeff47]

35. Nope

Postwar government spending went way down.

Postwar private spending skyrocketed, as a very, very large middle class developed. They used their new purchasing power to buy what used to be rich-only luxuries.

You are attempting to overlay our current economy on the postwar economy, but that won't work. They're drastically different. Just one example is in the postwar period, the cheap petroleum came from the US. Imported petroleum became the norm during the late 60's.

[sulphurdunn]

36. The US industrial base

expanded massively to fight WWII because of government spending. The war left the industrial capacity of the other industrial nations in ruins. The US found itself with massive overcapacity as military production tanked. That capacity was turned to the production of domestic goods, both for domestic consumption and for export, while the US government set about rebuilding the industries of our defeated foes and victorious allies. The Cold War increased production even more as government spending was directed back toward armaments. During this period corporate taxes averaged 40%. Top marginal income tax rates averaged 90%. The cheap petroleum that came from the US was cheap because it was subsidized with public dollars, just like imported oil is now. Government spending declined from 50 of GDP in 1945 to 30% by 1957 where it fluctuated about 5% until 2007.

That was the Cold War economy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the economic elites decided that cheap labor was a better deal than a middle class. The same capitalist class has decided that the federal percentage of GDP should increase and would be better spent on them through empire building than on you and me. That's all that's changed.

[laughingliberal]

22. K & R nt

[defendandprotect]

26. ALL the safety nets ... !!

[The Uncola]

27. There is an answer to this, however...

... it isn't nice or neat, nor does it involve sitting down and "negotiating" for that which is already ours. We are MANY, they are FEW. Do the math.

[fasttense]

28. Yeah, I have a tough time getting my head around the fact that a handful

of evil greedy people are able to control millions and millions of other people.

Why don't we get together and just say NO. If we all stopped working, paying immoral debt or just refused to follow immoral laws, they would never have enough prisons to hold us all.

[The Uncola]

29. I honestly don't...

... know that even that would do it. Passive disobedience may not be enough, I'm afraid, these scum bags are ruthless and as long as they are still breathing free air, the danger remains.

[felix_numinous]

33. Someone should update the monopoly game to the 21st century

it would basically be played the same, but the names need to be changed. Play it with some teabagger friends for fun sometime.