As the jobs that supported the middle class go to china, and other third world countries, what do we "really" expect?
That 20 year old guy working at gamestop or best buy today, might have worked in a shipyard, or factory 30 years ago. But the factories are gone, and with them our ability to create middle class jobs.
As I drive through Beaumont Texas, all I see are low wage jobs being created. Jobs that might pay 7 or 8 dollars an hour - not enough to support a family or buy a home.
The same thing is being repeated all over the nation. Not only has our society become disposable, so have our skills.
This is a good point. A few decades ago you could finish up high school, get some fairly crap but not super crap job working in a factory, enough money for a car, a few years down the line a house with higher pay, raise your family on it. Now with just high school you're selling me cups of coffee and where is that going to take you? You can't work your way up very easily if there's nowhere to go.
This society already is split heavily between the haves and have nots. The middle class has had a luxurious time (honestly, we have) in the middle, a huge percentage of the population living pretty fly. But the rich are getting rich and the rest of us are kind of slipping down the hill.
Some still think it's a land of opportunity. Relatively speaking, yes, but it should be much better. There are enough people who know they are getting a comparatively sore deal but they are too stupid unfortunately to know why. I do believe it's highly in part because of the politicians being owned by corporations, which are acting for their shareholders and do not give any damn at all for their workers.
It is more than a little worrying to me that we are now at record corporate profits--ever--and yet unemployment is still very high. It definitely supports the argument above about recovery and growth able to happen in spite of unemployment. But this shouldn't be a big surprise. With the lower-end jobs being outsourced it was inevitable that at some point it would be easier to pay a guy in mexico $2/hour or China $.80/hour to do what you used to have to pay $8-10 to a guy in the US to do. Communication is easy now and the internet allows much better management of far away resources, plus these countries are able to cater to it.
If you are the bottom of the ladder in the US right now things are f**king dire for you. Your future is grim economically, really grim.
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