Class Warfare....

[catnhatnh]

.... in the struggle to maintain myself in the middle class,I find myself drifting downward.I won't say if I blame someone else for this to any degree.How well off are DUer's?I've drifted below 30K and am fast dropping towards 20.....

[seito]

1. Well,

I went from over 40K to about 15K with no benefits. I decided that I wanted to be a teacher and not a soldier. I actually qualified for a poverty tax credit last year. Of course I could always go back into the Army....LOL!!!!!!

[EFerrari]

2. We're circus people, Cat, so I can't give you a reality check but

MendacityCentral has wrecked the economy, lost more jobs than we had to begin with, given every possible break to their cronies and tells us we have to belly up AND send our kids to die for Halliburton. Class warfare? Exactly right.

[catnhatnh]

4. My guess here is we represent a TRULY divergent...

...income scale (IE. Some of our brilliant bretheren rightly rake it in)with the nexus being a belief in democratic ideals,WHEREAS I subscribe to the theory that our opposition is just in it for the money...just curious for others takes...

[mhr]

3. Unemployed 54 Months - You Can Imagine Where I Am Headed

eom

[HawkerHurricane]

5. It's not class warfare.

Warfare is what happens when the other side shoots back.

This is more like 'class slaughter' or perhaps 'class genocide'.

[GetTheRightVote]

6. The rich certainly do not wish to see us get up to them are they

are no longer special people, they do not become rich if we start getting a bigger piece of the pie so they start pushing us back down the ladder of class success. I only wish more working class people would realize that every time they divide us they win and we lose. They want us all to be slave to them, come on and wake up working class Americans, they are not your friends, they are your masters.

[catnhatnh]

7. I guess that's kinda my point...

...with my Dad And Mom I had 14 sets of Aunts and Uncles...(over 70 first cousins) on the verge of breaking to the comfortable middle class...best guess...1 wealthy....3 well off...another 10 middle and 55+ struggling....I just get the sneaking feeling we are regressing and it makes me sad for my children...

[EFerrari]

13. Sure, I know what you mean. I've two grown sons and it seems

they struggle more than I had to.

But, theirs is a different struggle. And I'm still here and it ain't over <g>.

[skids]

8. I'm good for 2 years...

I'm actually one of the few unemployed people right now who voluntarily resigned. By hedging my bets, when the management started to try to take advantage of a bad economy to dick the workforce around, I was able to say "sorry, sucka" and step on out of there.

Admittedly, towards the end I had a nice 60K salary, so that made it easy to do, but even with that kind of salary, I put what I could in the bank rather than "living large", and didn't spend much at all on crap -- the only large items I bought were a washer, a dryer, and a Prius. OK, so I splurged on one home theater item. But I own a lot less junk than many people I know who make less money.

As a result, although I will probably take another job soon, I have no debt and I could theoretically tough things out on savings for a couple of years. If I can get my housemates to keep up on their share of the rent.

I would advise everyone here who is still above water to stop buying crap, pay down your debts, and then put something into savings. The corporate culture wants its workers in debt, because it makes them more pliable. An army fights on its stomach, so don't cheat your side or yourself -- earn and save. The stakes of the game are serious, serious enough to pass on that next DVD or concert ticket.

[Digit]

9. While you can, email the news stations and your elected officials

They happily report how things are so grand, it would be nice if people emailed them to let them know of what else is going on.
Let those know is lala land that things are not so rosey.

[catnhatnh]

10. Iwould love to have someone here...

...admit to a good income.My personal theory is that the best democrats (and a rare breed they are) are rich folks who realize how much more life/society have presented them with....A Roosevelt,Kennedy,even a Carter Democrat....Born with a silver spoon,yet realizing that others as deserving eat from public school "sporks"...I think Kerry is one...Comments?

[seito]

15. I agree

It is easy to be a Democrat when times are tough. It shows real humanity to be a true Democrat when you have it all. I would not call them the "Best Democrats" but it does reveal a certain strength of character. However, I have known people that did not have much but offered everything they had to those in need. That shows incredible strength of spirit also.

The thing I find most telling is the transformation. Does a person maintain their values as they cross class levels?

[Muzzle Tough]

11. My response

It's not how much money rich people have. Instead, it's how they got it.

Example #1. A rich guy from Texas gets admitted to an Ivy League school because his father went there before. Later, he gets millions of dollars in corporate welfare for his baseball team. He makes his money from his political connections, and it all comes at taxpayer expense. He also abuses his government connections to get military contracts for his friends.

Example #2. A guy gets an acting job starring in all 6 movies of the two greatest movie trilogies of all time. During the summers of 1977, 1980, and 1983, and also during the summers of 1981, 1984, and 1989, huge numbers of people choose to buy tickets to these movies. Large numbers of people enjoy these movies. Soon after the last of these 6 movies is released, many people consider these 6 movies to be their 6 favorite movies of all time. This actor develops millions of fans. He makes millions of people happy. And he becomes very wealthy from doing so.

It's obvious that the first guy doesn't deserve his money.

And it's obvious that the second guy does deserve his money.

So, it's not how much money they have. Instead, it's how they acquired that money.

Which is why I never went for that "class warfare" stuff.

Now my income, personally? Always has been lower middle class. Always had enough food. Never been homeless. Always had lots of books. Currently, I also have a nice CD and DVD collection, and a decent computer, too. I'm happy.

[catnhatnh]

14. Hmm...

....First Guy is obviously an IDIOT whereas the second guy is probably Harrison Ford or somesuch....Really part of this is about how large numbers do NOT equate to "happy"...I find So many valid viewpoints here...

[genieroze]

12. I'm afraid to say, I don't want people getting mad at me.

Let's just say, we are struggling not because of our pay but because we live in a highly taxed blue state and are supporting the red states. Now I hear * wants to really sock it to people by taking away their deductions for the state taxes we pay. Let me just say I pay as much in taxes as many of you earn. That's why I was so excited that Kerry said he wanted to lower taxes for people making under 200 grand. I don't understand how anyone making under that would vote for * because of gay people.

[EFerrari]

17. Smirk is a radical in drag, he's no conservative. Remember

when all you had to worry about was a little conservatism? This cabal spends like there's no tomorrow, have vastly enlarged government and are "privatizing" programs that just won't work that way for consumers, like Medical, SS, and so on. (Medicine doesn't work in that context.)

And most people just don't want to know about your "moral values". They want to keep everything on and try to help their kids. The rest is just propaganda.

Ever notice that the CNN & MSNBC crawl just endlessly repeats phrases right out of the Cabal's last memo? So, while the middle class vaporizes, they're doing it to pseudo-Christian platitudes. (Raving now. Stop, me.)

[seito]

18. Why would we get mad at you???

[EFerrari]

19. That's right! Why would we?

Our income level is out of choice: we are writers/entertainers. Other Dems in our families are very well off. And just as pissed off at how the middle is shrinking because they remember counting the slices of meatloaf before it was portioned at the table.

My mom owns a bunch of land. And at 77, she went to a run of f911 and registered citizens as they exited the theater. lol

I don't think anyone here has a problem if someone is making it.

[genieroze]

20. It's getting harder and harder, I told my husband if we are

struggling how are others eating? It really upset me that working people are getting the shaft. The price of energy, food, other utilities, keeps going up and up. I don't even want to talk about taxes as I'm waiting for a increase in that as well. I know one thing if * gets rids of deductions for property taxes, I'm selling. My sister lives in a red state and she pays a small fraction of what I pay and she has more property then I do. Where I live now has become unbearable with all the influx of people it's changing from suburbia to a small city. They even made it so you can build on smaller properties. I have lived here for seventeen years and I watch this place turn from a small little shore community to a hell hole.

[hfojvt]

21. I get a little irked at the "struggling" remark

I know that people can struggle at $100,000 incomes, but I have little sympathy for their struggles.
In August I had been working part-time for two years at about $12,000 per year. Then I got full-time hours and insurance and make about $23,000.
Remember that Bush kept saying that Kerry was going to have to increase everyone's taxes to pay for all his programs. Then in his acceptance speech, Bush gave a huge list of programs and it seemed like very little was said about their costs or where the money was going to come from.

[FredStembottom]

16. Frozen in place, then they won.

I work for an extremely famous multi-national service co. that froze our wages for 8 straight years during the Roaring 90's. We slid backward versus inflation. Then speed-ups and "incentive" programs (that magically _take away_ chunks of pay) were applied. The result is you get hurt or sick or dead working at such an extreme emergency pace for 55 hours a week - and that's just to stay even! Or you do like I just did and drop to part-time status just to recover your health!