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So, What After The Middle Class Is Gone?
Posted by jrmellem • 7/11/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: conspiracy, Economy, finance, recession, survival, victims
Is that being done by design does anyone think? And what do you think would be the ramifications? Ok, I'm starting to use big words and scaring myself now.
User Comments
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Uhh... The middle class is still around, and will be forever.-
dbowles. actually it's shrinking fast. This experiment, aka our society, is just that. And the experiement does not seem to be working out to well lately.
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If the middle class goes away the economic structure we have now will completely collapse, and you will have only rich (small percentage) and only poor (large portion of the population).
The economic structure will then turn into a fascist state whereby money determines the dictator and politics has no power. In otherwords, we're f**ked.
Is it done by design? Not really - but it's the inevitable outcome of the system we have. Every century or so (give or take a few decades) we see a dramatic increase in poverty, and a decrease in middle class status. When that happens, the economy collapses, because there aren't enough people with enough money to sustain the economy. If it's allowed to continue on and the middle class continues to decrease (while poverty levels rise - which is always the case) we will simply not have enough purchasing power to sustain ourselves. -
It's been that way before... it's called feudalism, and people who try to recreate it are called feudalists (at least in my blog)-
I ♥ you, gnome and all
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- it's called feudalism
Indeed it is and BTW I'm feeling that ♥ too lol
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*blushes*
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Here is a blog post about the encroaching Feudalism
jeffersonsmammoth.blogspot.com/2009/06/king-numbers-new-clothes.html
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By design? Noooooooh. When the unconstitutionnal privately held Federal Reserve put a debt based money system in place in 1913, in which inflation increases mechanically at a geometric rate (ceteris paribus), they didn't necessarily realize the end result would be a general impoverishment (to quote Ludwig von Mises) - only that they would collect all the chips -
I am not certain what the difference is between the middle class and the working classes - income level? educational qualification? size of home? white collar Vs blue collar careers?
Two things remain critical. As long as
a] the government pays for ALL educational and health costs out of consolidated revenue, and
b] we ensure that ALL our children all stay in school until they get tertiary education relevant to their career hopes......
I don't suppose it matters whether we call ourselves middle class or not.
If families had to pay out of the family budget to "buy" either education or health care, as happens in some third world countries, then income would matter desperately. But fortunately we don't (I am only speaking of British Commonwealth and European countries here).
Totally free education and totally free health care are the basis for a workable society for all families, regardless of so-called class.-
If families had to pay out of the family budget to "buy" either education or health care, as happens in some third world countries, then income would matter desperately. But fortunately we don't (I am only speaking of British Commonwealth and European countries here).
That's very true. Income doesn't really matter for now. However, it will start to matter once inflation kicks in. This system works until the government runs out of real money and means to create credit. The government runs out of money when he people who make money are no longer there and hence they're not getting taxes. These people go away when they are no longer making a profit and go bankrupt. Inflation means the same government that provides the resources has to provide the means to attain them and you're back to feudalism where nobody owns their own means of production.
Going bankrupt is not a problem if you have a good support system in place (like you do in America). Going bankrupt becomes a problem when the government bails out businesses who go bankrupt. In my view, it was a grave mistake to try and bail out General Motors. There are very few businesses that were bailed out by governments that ended up making ends meet on their own afterwards. At the end of the day, you leave government with the choice of either nationalising businesses like that completely, or leaving them in the hands of people who run businesses the way the government wants them run.
Speaking from a South African perspective, we have what is called parastatals, which are corporations funded by a partnership between government and private industry (for example Eskom, our only energy provider, and the SABC, our public broadcaster). Sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice these companies need their boards fired and re-hired every few years and there's plenty of mismanagement because government protects its interests in those ventures and the private guys use the government as cash cows. There is no market to regulate the practices of these guys because competition is artificially kept out of the loop.
Coincidentally, both Eskom and the SABC needed government bailouts which proved to be ineffective and now they need to up their rates to make ends meet. Income is beginning to matter. If your middle class is gone, you begin to see what real poverty is like. The way to retain a middle class is to help people run and own their own small businesses and allowing them to grow into larger businesses. You do this by providing tax breaks and education to people who want to start their own thing, not by taxing the rich to feed the poor.
Totally free education and totally free health care are the basis for a workable society for all families, regardless of so-called class.
There is no free education nor free health care. There can never be for as long as someone has to provide education and health care. Those are services, which are commodities, which have to be worth something to someone. As long as they are worth something to someone, it is not unreasonable to charge a fee for them. If they were free, they'd be worthless.
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Is that being done by design does anyone think?
Yes, without a doubt. Any government tries to be the biggest fish in the pond. That is why you get the right to bear arms, but you aren't allowed to stockpile ammunition in case the government wants to take you out.
It is also, coincidentally, the purpose of taxes. Taxes originated as a means for the King to ensure that his potential competitors are crippled. This system hasn't changed much, except that from about the Industrial revolution people were allowed to own their own land and their own labour. The more power the government gets, the less middle class people will be there and the more power the big corporations will get artificially. Ultimately, it's a return to serfdom.-
I believe jrmellem's original question was about the reduction of the middle class and the awfulness of that loss.
My answer was that as long as the critical service needs (top class, universal health and education) are supplied by government out of consolidated revenue, it doesn't matter much whether we define ourselves as middle class or not. We will all have the same urgent health care and educational needs ..and we will all draw on consolidated revenue in the same way.
flamingpoodle, I think you are saying that the middle class is being reduced by very concept of government having more power. We are not at loggerheads here since our two positions are not at all overlapping. -
Hmmm, maybe it is not incidental the income tax was introduced in the US the exact same year the Federal Reserve's debt-based money system was put in place? That would make sense, so as to guarantee the payment of the geometrically increasing interest on an initial public debt which can never be reimbursed, given that all money is debt in such a system
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Yes Hels, I agree with what you are saying. Essentially the middle class can fall away entirely and nobody would notice provided that the government can keep on providing the necessary goods and services to maintain quality of life.
I'm just arguing that it is not possible for any monopoly, whether it is the government or a private venture, to provide the best possible services in the absence of competition. Sooner or later, such a venture would turn into an utility monster.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster
This is because it has to be worthwhile for someone to provide these services to the best of their ability without feeling like it's a sacrifice to the utility monster. Currently, this is not the case in South Africa, with our recent health care worker strike due to strenuous working conditions. It's a case of putting all your eggs in one basket.
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