The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World.

[Engineer]

That giant sucking sound finally catching up with us.....we were warned.

Ship your good paying, wealth creating (and building) middle class jobs out and you get this. Government spending trying to pick up the slack...but not very well. Welcome to the McService McJob...would you like fries with that? Enjoy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/middle-class-steadily-eroding-just-013117051.html

In 2012, the top 5 percent of earners were responsible for 38 percent of domestic consumption, up from 28 percent in 1995, the researchers found.

Even more striking, the current recovery has been driven almost entirely by the upper crust, according to Mr. Fazzari and Mr. Cynamon. Since 2009, the year the recession ended, inflation-adjusted spending by this top echelon has risen 17 percent, compared with just 1 percent among the bottom 95 percent.

More broadly, about 90 percent of the overall increase in inflation-adjusted consumption between 2009 and 2012 was generated by the top 20 percent of households in terms of income, according to the study, which was sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a research group in New York.

The effects of this phenomenon are now rippling through one sector after another in the American economy, from retailers and restaurants to hotels, casinos and even appliance makers.

For example, luxury gambling properties like Wynn and the Venetian in Las Vegas are booming, drawing in more high rollers than regional casinos in Atlantic City, upstate New York and Connecticut, which attract a less affluent clientele who are not betting as much, said Steven Kent, an analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Among hotels, revenue per room in the high-end category, which includes brands like the Four Seasons and St. Regis, grew 7.5 percent in 2013, compared with a 4.1 percent gain for midscale properties like Best Western, according to Smith Travel Research.

While spending among the most affluent consumers has managed to propel the economy forward, the sharpening divide is worrying, Mr. Fazzari said.

“It’s going to be hard to maintain strong economic growth with such a large proportion of the population falling behind,” he said. “We might be able to muddle along — but can we really recover?”

 

[theeedude]

Walmart's unimpressive earnings are a prime example. They pay their "associates" peanuts, squeeze suppliers, well, their customers are squeezed too, so they don't have money to spend at Walmart.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Walmart's unimpressive earnings are a prime example. They pay their "associates" peanuts, squeeze suppliers, well, their customers are squeezed too, so they don't have money to spend at Walmart.

Aren't you the guy who doesn't mind illegals working the fields for horseshit wages so long as you can keep buying cheap vegetables?

 

[Texashiker]

We might be able to muddle along — but can we really recover

No, the economy will never fully recover without jobs to support the middle class.

While companies in china are hiring tens of thousands of people to manufacture new smart phones and tablets, we have a record number of people on welfare.

 

[theeedude]

Aren't you the guy who doesn't mind illegals working the fields for horseshit wages so long as you can keep buying cheap vegetables?

I said if you get buses full of rednecks to get out on the fields at 5am and pick vegetables till 5pm, I am fine with that too. But as things stand right now, we need illegals working those fields so Americans can eat healthy.

 

[Texashiker]

I said if you get buses full of rednecks

Rednecks?

Why you want to use a derogatory term? Are you saying you are too good to work a field?

 

[QuantumPion]

I said if you get buses full of rednecks to get out on the fields at 5am and pick vegetables till 5pm, I am fine with that too. But as things stand right now, we need illegals working those fields so Americans can eat healthy.

...wow. I am speechless. I guess that's just the nature of doublethink though. Genuinely believing you are fighting for the well being of the poor simultaneously while enslaving them.

 

[theeedude]

Rednecks?

Why you want to use a derogatory term? Are you saying you are too good to work a field?

Of course. But you are not, so get on the bus.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

That giant sucking sound finally catching up with us.....we were warned.

Ship your good paying, wealth creating (and building) middle class jobs out and you get this. Government spending trying to pick up the slack...but not very well. Welcome to the McService McJob...would you like fries with that? Enjoy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/middle-class-steadily-eroding-just-013117051.html

I read this article today. It was rather interesting and disturbing.

The main emphasis I took from it: Spending amongst "middle class" genre of citizens has plummeted, while spending amongst "high class" genre of restaurants has substantially increased.

While I can say I find that disturbing, they are making some horrible comparisons.... I mean, who the fuck does eat at Red Lobster or Olive Garden? :whiste:

No seriously, who does? I'm not snoody rich, but it doesn't take a complete moron to realize places like Carrabba's is 50x better than Olive Garden yet close to the same price range. Red Lobster is just silly and disgusting. Maybe I'm crazy, but I call places like Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's, BJ's Brewhouse, etc... to all be middle class restaurants.... and they are doing damn well.

 

[Texashiker]

Of course. But you are not, so get on the bus.

I will be thinking about you when I am picking my peas, beans, cucumbers, squash and okra this summer.

 

[theeedude]

...wow. I am speechless. I guess that's just the nature of doublethink though. Genuinely believing you are fighting for the well being of the poor simultaneously while enslaving them.

Who is being enslaved? Illegals have families to feed in Mexico. They want to work here. Americans have families to feed in America, they want cheap produce. Rednecks don't want to work in the fields.
Status quo is an outcome of people's wants, not forced labor.

 

[theeedude]

I will be thinking about you when I am picking my peas, beans, cucumbers, squash and okra this summer.

Good, hopefully you'll pick hard enough to replace illegal labor :biggrin:

 

[Texashiker]

Good, hopefully you'll pick hard enough to replace illegal labor :biggrin:

I dont grow enough to need illegal labor.

Even if I did grow enough, I would not use illegals.

 

[glenn1]

That giant sucking sound finally catching up with us.....we were warned.

Ship your good paying, wealth creating (and building) middle class jobs out and you get this. Government spending trying to pick up the slack...but not very well. Welcome to the McService McJob...would you like fries with that? Enjoy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/middle-class-steadily-eroding-just-013117051.html

Another complaint thread from the fedora-wearing champion of the friendzoned American worker. Who thinks Americans should get paid more than an equivalently productive worker from another country, presumably just because the American is a "nice guy."

 

[theeedude]

I dont grow enough to need illegal labor.

Even if I did grow enough, I would not use illegals.

And your crops would be rotting in the fields instead of feeding Americans.
Even if you don't give a sh!t about illegals' families who survive on remittances, you should at least be concerned that your fellow Americans won't be able to afford to eat healthy.

 

[theeedude]

Another complaint thread from the fedora-wearing champion of the friendzoned American worker. Who thinks Americans should get paid more than an equivalently productive worker from another country, presumably just because the American is a "nice guy."

If you want to pay Americans equivalent of third world labor, don't be surprised when they spend the equivalent of third world labor too, and we end up with a third world economy.

 

[glenn1]

If you want to pay Americans equivalent of third world labor, don't be surprised when they spend the equivalent of third world labor too, and we end up with a third world economy.

Oh noes, the dreaded "third world economy" prediction. Thank goodness we have social welfare programs to ensure the poor don't need to do without their first world luxuries. Else we might have the motivator of actual hardship in play, but by goodness we can't have that in this country.

 

[theeedude]

Oh noes, the dreaded "third world economy" prediction. Thank goodness we have social welfare programs to ensure the poor don't need to do without their first world luxuries. Else we might have the motivator of actual hardship in play, but by goodness we can't have that in this country.

So you think that insufficient hardship for the poor is the reason for the decline of the middle class.
Walmart is forecasting weaker sales because of food stamp cuts for the poor. That means more job cuts at Walmart, and more poor.

 

[Matt1970]

Who is being enslaved? Illegals have families to feed in Mexico. They want to work here. Americans have families to feed in America, they want cheap produce. Rednecks don't want to work in the fields.
Status quo is an outcome of people's wants, not forced labor.

Americans want cheap everything, which is why Walmart exists to begin with. Which is why we have the trade deficits we do and why all the good manufacturing jobs waved bye-bye to us slowly but surely over the past few decades.

 

[Engineer]

I read this article today. It was rather interesting and disturbing.

The main emphasis I took from it: Spending amongst "middle class" genre of citizens has plummeted, while spending amongst "high class" genre of restaurants has substantially increased.

While I can say I find that disturbing, they are making some horrible comparisons.... I mean, who the fuck does eat at Red Lobster or Olive Garden? :whiste:

No seriously, who does? I'm not snoody rich, but it doesn't take a complete moron to realize places like Carrabba's is 50x better than Olive Garden yet close to the same price range. Red Lobster is just silly and disgusting. Maybe I'm crazy, but I call places like Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's, BJ's Brewhouse, etc... to all be middle class restaurants.... and they are doing damn well.

I get what you're saying but I've read other articles where Walmart and others are saying the same (WalMart's focus on bringing manufacturing back is their understanding that they cannot increase sales (and might even lose them) if they don't get a growing middle class in this country).

 

[glenn1]

So you think that insufficient hardship for the poor is the reason for the decline of the middle class.
Walmart is forecasting weaker sales because of food stamp cuts for the poor. That means more job cuts at Walmart, and more poor.

No, I think the meteoric rise of the middle class in the period of roughly 1945-1970 was a fluke of circumstances not seen before or since, and not a realistic target rate for us to aspire to be repeatable in long-term steady state. We've since reverted to mean and instead the lower and middle class is dreaming that somehow they can hold onto that outperformance. But slapping a tariff on Chinese goods, rescinding NAFTA, or browbeating some poor schmo into buying a UAW made car isn't going to support wages that don't reflect the economic value the worker provides.

 

[Engineer]

Oh noes, the dreaded "third world economy" prediction. Thank goodness we have social welfare programs to ensure the poor don't need to do without their first world luxuries. Else we might have the motivator of actual hardship in play, but by goodness we can't have that in this country.

Well don't cry like a baby when Socialism grows like hell to cover those people. Remember, you're a champion of it.

 

[theeedude]

Americans want cheap everything, which is why Walmart exists to begin with. Which is why we have the trade deficits we do and why all the good manufacturing jobs waved bye-bye to us slowly but surely over the past few decades.

Sure. But until you decide to end free trade and labor arbitrage, we need to make sure Americans can afford to eat healthy.
I hope as a true conservative you believe in states being the laboratories of democracy. Well, let's see how the experiment of banning illegal labor is going in those states:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2-years-after-immigration-laws-ga-ala-stable-0

Georgia and Alabama were two of five states to pass tough crackdowns on illegal immigration in 2011, a year after Arizona made headlines for a hard-line immigration enforcement law that ended up being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Immediately after the laws were passed, farmers in both states complained that foreign workers who lived there had left and that the itinerant migrants who generally came through were staying away. American workers weren't stepping forward to perform the back-breaking work immigrants had done for years, and crops were rotting in the fields because of a lack of laborers, they said.

But then as courts began blocking significant elements of the law and some loopholes became apparent, some of the workers who had fled for fear of arrest and deportation returned. Others were drawn back by their longstanding ties to the communities.

So basically they had to be saved from their own stupidity by courts and loopholes, and it's still same immigrant labor picking those fields.

 

[theeedude]

No, I think the meteoric rise of the middle class in the period of roughly 1945-1970 was a fluke of circumstances not seen before or since, and not a realistic target rate for us to aspire to be repeatable in long-term steady state. We've since reverted to mean and instead the lower and middle class is dreaming that somehow they can hold onto that outperformance. But slapping a tariff on Chinese goods, rescinding NAFTA, or browbeating some poor schmo into buying a UAW made car isn't going to support wages that don't reflect the economic value the worker provides.

So American prosperity was a fluke, back to being a third world country we go.

 

[Engineer]

If you want to pay Americans equivalent of third world labor, don't be surprised when they spend the equivalent of third world labor too, and we end up with a third world economy.

And don't be surprised when the people start taking more and more via taxation or whatever other means necessary to get what they want.

So American prosperity was a fluke, back to being a third world country we go.

So it seems. Hell, he almost seems to enjoy it somehow thinking he is going to be ahead of the masses in his 'offshore proof' job. Not smart enough to realize that as the economy goes backwards, it will drag him with it.