Why Aren't We Having a Middle Class Revolt?
 

I've been asking myself the same question.

I think the author raises some valid points, but I would add that the Plutocrats have managed via their right wing propaganda machine to successfully divide the public by convincing a large percentage of them that they are being screwed not by them, but by "those people".

I think this graphic demonstrates it quite well.

http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/z...publican-1.jpg

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...age=1#bookmark

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more here

Because the Republicans have the middle class feeling guilty for what they've done to the rich.

Until this changes, the gap will continue to grow.

Dave

Because the Middle Class is no longer the election deciding class: it doesn't matter if we do revolt. :(

This middle class person is too busy working her butt off for a revolt.

Lol! This one too.:D

Yes, this was my immediate response.

Good point.

The charismatic leaders with a good plan are pretty nonexistent also. The average Joe (me included) has no idea how to implement and finance that type of movement, If the right person/people would/could start a promising movement, I think they might actually get pretty strong support.

The agitators of past eras were influenced heavily by sociali$ts and communists from Europe.

the people coming in now are rightists, anti sociali$ts, fascists even.

Because right now your life is still to cushy.
When your willing to go out of the house with the mindset that your willing to die thats when.

When a country starts uprisings it's generally around 50% of the population out of work. With high inflation and food shortages, people just can't buy food.

This has been happening all over the world and will continue. Arab spring, Greece, Ukraine the list goes on and on. The 50% unemployment with the youth always seems to contribute to it. Don't worry the US is getting very close.

http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/z...publican-1.jpg

The photo is funny to me because I look at it as the worker can vote Dem or Rep it doesn't matter. And the one holding the money bag is the Bankster and they don't vote for anybody. They control the system and who gets voted in, the politician can stay if the do there bidding.

As California is having a sever drought and the rest of the breadbasket is freezing think about this older survey.

Provisions Shortage Sparked Arab Spring
http://aheadoftheherd.com/Newsletter...rab-Spring.htm

“Social unrest may reflect a variety of factors such as poverty, unemployment, and social injustice. Despite the many possible contributing factors, the timing of violent protests in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011 as well as earlier riots in 2008 coincides with large peaks in global food prices.” M. Lagi, K.Z. Bertrand and Y. Bar-Yam, "The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East" New England Complex Systems Institute

Population growth and increasing demand for food supplies go hand in hand. Unfortunately yield increases have generally leveled off and supply is barely keeping up with demand. The fact is, that today, we’re one poor harvest, one Black Swan event away from a food supply catastrophe and a repeat of the food shortages that caused the Arab Spring. These facts should be on everyone’s radar screen. Are they on yours?

Just a thought, and obviously it would likely never happen.
What if legislation was passed that tied the top salary earner in a corporation to the bottom salary earner.

To clarify, what if the top paid ceo or salary earner at walmart could only make 100x what the very bottom earner made. So, we have a person who makes maybe $8k a year, and the CEO could only make $800k? I think our middle class would come back. It would behoove the CEO's to pay their employees better. Just a crazy thought I had. I'd bett the Ceo would try to get the bottom paid earners up to 100k. I also bet there would not be a walmart employee making less than $25k a year after this happened.

Yes, 3 meals from revolution. Otherwise, we've got it too good, just enough to be complacent.

Pete

The middle class in the US which started it by the way.

Is not getting crushed by employers and what the other guy earns.

But by monetary policies, interest rates, salaries not keeping up with inflation.

Over regulation of goods and service pushes the production cost higher.

When you lose the purchasing power of your currency is that the employer's fault.

When you put your earn currency into the banking system, and it loses value it really doesn't matter what the employer pays.

It's a snowball - earn more currency- You and the employer get taxed more- The banks steel more- goods and services cost more.

PS: not saying all companies/corporations are fair.

Agreed. Lowering and eliminating business taxes took away the incentive, and let's face it, corporate CEO's and company owners don't seem to feel like they have any moral obligation to their workers any more. IE: the pay as low as they can get away with regardless of impact.

Yet corporations are making record profits..... :rolleyes:

And it appears to be a clear correlation between low wages and high corporate profits. Corporate CEO's are far more concerned about shareholder wealth than employee earnings (for better or worse).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/.../01/Image2.jpg

In a report released earlier this month, Goldman Sachs chief U.S. chief economist Jan Hatzius noted that the strength in corporate profits is “directly related to the weakness in hourly wages.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...y-wont-listen/

Do you really believe what you just posted? I think you need to run a few basic numbers based on YOUR example given.
Use the tables the IRS putts out for tax rates..........

Unless of course you think the left has figured out a way to manipulate the laws of mathematics and thus make them lie as well. Then I guess you might be right, maybe.:rolleyes:

I'm watching this change take place right before my eyes. The new tactic is to lower starting salaries, because that's the easiest way to make a cut, then start running more senior employees off the job, where ever they can. Reduced wages through attrition, basically.

Dave

When it's your job to show the big bosses increased efficiencies and a continuously improving bottom line, and no matter what you do equipment or system-wise you just can't seem to pull it off, all that's left is the employees.

And, in todays atmosphere of weak to non-existent union activity, and a workforce that has come to think standing up to the boss makes you a whiner, or whatever.................There is no push back.

I keep wondering how much longer that can last.

Dave

That would be an excellent idea.

Here's some interesting historical data.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3184623.html

Economics 101, supply and demand, the more volume of a commodity the less it cost.
The supply of workers has overwhelmed the demands of production.
When a business produces more at a lower operating cost it's profit. Which is the whole premiss to running a business.

The gripe should be the purchasing power of the currency one earns. Anybody can double there currency denomination but the inflation just dilutes it to were the quality of life is stagnant or backwards.

This is the hidden tax that the majority does not look at. This subject would be mute if everyone's earnings had the purchasing power of of thirty years ago. How about interest earned for your dollars saved goes back to around 8 percent again.

Once again, REALLY???
I suggest you go back an read 19th history of the US worker. Look up Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and so on. If a corporation can enslave you to make their money, they will, Period. No such BS as supply and demand. The only time this even remotely cam close to true, was when the Unions were strongest and the middle class was at its peak. It is when the middle class is strong, when they earn a good wage, then and only then would we have purchasing power. When we are paid peanuts, the CEO's are paid some 200x the average worker, then we have nothing but slave labor.

They needed monopolies to wield that degree of power.

Pete

Oligarchy and Plutocracy work just as well. So, it's more difficult for an individual or corporation to build a monopoly, now. So what? Well heeled entities with common interests can now load up SuperPacs and exert influence that way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4624001.html

"Later Saturday, Christie arrived at the Palm Beach home of Jose Pepe Fanjul Jr., executive vice president of Florida Crystals, one of the nation's largest sugar producers.

Another fundraiser was set to take place at the Fort Lauderdale home of Bill Rubin, the president of a lobbying firm and a longtime friend of Scott's.

On Sunday, Christie was scheduled to attend fundraisers in Palm Beach and meet with major financial supporters at a gathering organized by Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, who urged the governor to consider a late entry into the 2012 presidential race. The event, which was first reported by The Washington Post, will allow some of Christie's longtime supporters to huddle following the governor's sweeping re-election in November."

'Governor Christie, if we support you can we has tax free status and slave labor?':rolleyes:

Dave

If the Banking Institutions can enslave you they will. They have!!!

Come on I know all about that time period but perhaps you could try and look into the Moneychangers, the Banksters. They control all Corporations, Politicians and Counties all by the monetary system.

All I have been trying to say is look at the head of the beast and not the arms.

There is some good documentaries (award winning) that are great intro to exactly what I am saying.

The Money Masters,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=EeIM-4hJO44

The Secret of Oz - Winner, Best Docu of 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=swkq2E8mswI

I am not sure the multibillion dollar conglomerates of today are really much different than the monopolies back then, at least not in the power they wield.

I am just shooting my mouth off right now, I haven't done the homework, so I could be way off......., and not just mentally.;)

I'll look these over. I need to ask, how does a bank "enslaving us", connect to wages earned by the middle class. I thought that was what we were talking about/??

Well because the question of the thread was.
Why Aren't We Having a Middle Class Revolt?
It's brought up because of the quality of life of all, let alone the middle class is suffering. Which I agree with.
When a country is going down the tubes and you can't eat thats when.

But History tells us why! and where not the only society in time that has gone through this.

It's all about the money supply and who controls it. When privet banks do it we are slaves to them. The currency is loaned with interest to the government /us, only debt is incurred and not wealth.

When the government issue currency with out interest and controls the supply, the country prospers. and generates wealth.

If we do what the bankers want us to do were not bothering them looting the country. They want a divided society fighting over politics and paying them no attention. We are doing just that it's the rich,it's the poor,it's the dems, it's the tee baggers lol

If you like history you will like the vids. Money masters is quite long but goes through the whole history of monetary systems from the beginning. It's kind of funny listening to issues 200 years ago that we are dealing with today. This game has been played many times in history. But has also been stopped many times by many countries and then the leaches come back to start over.

How does that relate to the middle class worker, the poor, the rich, the government and yes corporations? If you and your country are not smothered in debt we are able to keep more of our earned money. Goods and services are cheaper and your saved wealth does not evaporate with inflation. There would be a lot less starving people in this world with one little step. And we can do it without any changes to the law. The government issues there own currency spending it into circulation paying off the national debt.

Is Jesse Ventura in either of those videos? :rolleyes: Who gave them an award?

This I followed and understood. Thank you for the lucid response. I am not sure I agree with all of it, but I am definitely going to spend some time on it. I have another video, "Money as Debt". It also touches on the points you have made.
I think, and I'd bet I am right, the banks and the top 1% money makers/corporations/CEO's/Charimans of the Boards, are one and the same folks.

ha ha ha I always say, Banksters Corporations and Governments are all one and the same. The media is there mouthpiece.

Thats why looking to politics doesn't change anything. But the head of the beast is the Monetary System run by the banks controlling the outcome and all below.

I just think Americans time would be better spent tackling the culprit not each other. We have a mouth pieces now with the net.

Good observations. The problem for the workers is structural, and the solution must be structural.

And the 'whole premise of running a business,' as you say, may not be optimum. Unless Scrooge had it right, before the hauntings.

Not always. It depends on the elasticity of the supply/demand relationship. A pretty easy argument can be made that labor costs don't follow the traditional supply/demand model. For example, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay has grown 10-20 fold in the past 40 years. Has the supply of prospective CEO's diminished by a factor of 10-20 in these years? Does a company need a good CEO 20 times as much as they did 40 years ago?

http://cdn.billmoyers.com/wp-content...worker-pay.png

Well looking at the chart one can see the 08 crash. Were as layoffs occurred and the majority was the lower level worker. CEO's remand to still run the business.

Around 09 even those CEO's were losing their jobs do to failed businesses. As stimulus and bailouts happend companies were trying to hire the best CEO's they could find. High demand and low supply of CEO's gave the bargaining power to them. All the while there was still more workers to jobs ratio which keeps the lower level workers salaries down. This is seen at the end of the chart, today.

Are they worth it, thats the businesses decision.

What is more telling of the chart is the fast and high escalation of salaries in USD. This in fact shows the devaluation of the USD compared to labor and cost of living. It shows true inflation from 94 and up.

Looking at a metals chart or any other commodity we can see the same effect. The commodities did not change their value or volume. But when weighed against the USD or any other currency it appeared there value increased. The commodities value did not increase but the currency lost value.


Here is a silver chart and shows the same direction as the salaries chart.

One has to ask when seeing these. Are we to believe we live in a 2% per year inflation? And our wages are based on it?

Well it must be true because the Federal Reserve say it is....


http://www.tradingeconomics.com/char...01&d2=20141231


Looking at the silver chart know this, our banking system is severely battling to keep the silver price suppres. Otherwise it will show the true devaluation of the dollar. As it stands now 4 pre 1964 quarter a dollars face value is worth about $20.00 in melt value under there suppression.

Because the ruling class has found the perfect mix of electronic toys and ample foods to keep us apathetic.

They won fair and square.

"The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment."
http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-...d&t=1391782568

If the stats were calculated the same way they were in 1980 inflation would be over 9%. Got to keep it under 2% to keep those S.S. COLA raises down though.
http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-cpi.gif?hl=ad&t=

Ya Samm

This stuff goes over their heads, besides it misses their agenda.

Yeh, it goes over my head alright. :rolleyes:

It's more like "if the data doesn't agree with your agenda, use manipulated data."

I have show time and again were the government is manipulating and misleading data.

Follow it finn, good luck.