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The End of the American Middle Class; Is now a reality
Topic Started: Jul 25 2010, 07:28 PM (203 Views)
Big Boss
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http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,SPY,MCD,WMT,XRT,DIA

I've been saying "the end is near" for a few years now, but even I was taken aback by these latest stats. Its some scary shit.

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The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.


That essentially sums up the entire situation.

This isn't something anybody here can fluff off. You're not exempt from this. This affects YOU, personally. This is YOUR future, and its not looking good.

How can we compete? We're up against a huge job pool overseas that isn't demanding high wages and benefits- they simply want to feed their kids. Meanwhile, we're expected to keep consuming the goods these overseas workers produce for our American companies, even as it destroys us. Its absolute madness. This system is completely insane.

And yet, we're not in a position that I don't believe we can win by simply boycotting foreign-made goods. We're way beyond that. Pretty much everything needed to live a modern life is produced anywhere but America, and even the stuff that's put together here more than likely is assembled from parts made elsewhere.

We simply have to start examining every single aspect of our lives as consumers, and start going without what we don't absolutely need. We can't throw money around, not caring where it eventually winds up, because for generations now that's what has gotten us where we are today, and I believe its bound to end us.

While we've been bickering with each other about "our rights this, and our rights that", all of our money has been going to the top one percent in our country as they laugh at us. Its provided a very nice distraction while they guided us by the hand through a constant stream of advertisements to buy some bullshit we don't need.

Do you need a fucking iPhone, or any other device that lets you instantly connect to the internet on the go? Fuck no you don't. You won't be able to afford it much longer, anyways.

I mean, c'mon. Who can justify this sad figure of CEOs and the upper crust earning 300-500 bucks for every dollar we earn? I'm pretty fond of the idea of capitalism, but this is out of hand. But it only got out of hand because the American middle class allowed to in the first place.

At some point after WWII, we gradually stopped giving a damn about where our goods were coming from. We simply cared about the product itself. We stopped having a sense of pride in ourselves, which was our biggest secret weapon.

Look at Colt. The most recognizable name in firearms, who had over the last 150 years made some of the most innovative firearms right here in America under "the blue dome" in Hartford. Now, they exist as a shell of their former selves, in a plain industrial building, having been forced to leave their hollowed factory.

This happened because Colt became lazy about updating their products, while suffering a bitter dispute with their union-backed employees during the 1980s. For four years, Colt was at war with its own workers, all because the workers wanted more money, more benefits. They were willing to drive the company to the brink of nothing to get this. Well, they got it, but now Colt employs 1/5 of the number of employees from before that event. Great job, assholes! All of you!

One of the most iconic American brands now teeters on the brink, and its all due to American greed.

Look at GM and Chrysler. They took a government bailout last year to avoid going into bankruptcy because the assholes in charge down the street and across town from me were too busy collecting outrageous sums of money to care about managing their companies.

At the same time, Americans were also to blame for picking Japanese and foreign cars in the 70s and 80s, not because they were the best, but because they were cheaper. You fucking people sold us out! You sold us all out, and I WON'T sugar coat my words like some other pussies will. Have some national fucking pride. I hate you assholes. You did this to us! You did this to ME! You sacrificed MY future before I was even born so that you could drive a fucking Honda to save a few bucks.

I hate the baby boomers. I hate Generation X, and Y, and today's generation for keeping this sickening trend going. But sooner or later, the bill comes for all of this negligence and austerity. We're just now starting to see the first inklings of the tab, and we, and our children, and the next foreseeable generations are going to be stuck paying it off so that everyone before us could live The Dream. Fuck you. Fuck your dream. I don't have one now because YOU lived it for me.

You have no choice now. You have to start making choices and sacrifices and starting planning for the worst, because its happening right before our eyes. The majority of people don't seem too concerned, but let's just see how far they can be pushed. My guess is "not too far".
"I do believe...that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence."
~Mohandas K Ghandi
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Benjamin

Rich,

If I had to make an educated guess on when consumerism in America began to run rampant, it would be the 1950s. The United States (and Canada) was turning its economy from war production to consumer goods and everyone who saved up during WWII were now flush with cash. Somewhere in that time period the manufacturers likely seized on the relatively new medium of television to advertise their products as a lifestyle. Then suddenly a person's self-worth was based on the model of car he drove, the style of home he had, and what laundry detergent to use.

Though it's only a theory of mine, but I think the Oil Embargo of 1973 and the resulting shock to the West's economy only exacerbated the problem. That's when oil production in the United States peaked, and became dependent on Arabian oil to maintain this lifestyle. That's when we stopped caring where our products came from. Since then it got worse, especially in the 1980s when Gordon Gekko of "Wall Street" proclaimed that "Greed is Good." And now the chickens have come to roost in the 21st century.

As for me, I used to embrace this lifestyle but over the years I began to slowly see what was wrong with this picture. It took a couple heart palpitations to make me realize how eating at Burger King every fucking day was literally killing me. Now I'm watching less movies and playing less video games than I have in many years. I am not what I buy. Maybe it's because like you, I see the larger picture and I don't like it. Unfortunately, the collective consciousness of humanity is very nearsighted and won't even notice the problem until it's far too late.

I can only imagine how the American founding fathers would be aghast if they saw the present state of the nation they created 234 years ago. The biggest threat to the West is not hiding in a cave somewhere in Pakistan or climate change, it's us. Every single one of us.

Is it any wonder I usually choose to disengage from reality?
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