WTF? China, Mexico and India???

[Playinghardball]

[RKP5637]

1. Americans have never been known as the brightest inhabitants of Earth! And,

especially when they vote.

[tclambert]

23. Actually, we used to brag about our inventiveness, all the scientific awards we won, and

landing a man on the moon. We would laugh at the Russkis when they claimed to have invented airplanes and the telephone and transistors. (We may have claimed a few inventions we didn't create, like radio, too.) This was back when I was a child, during the Kennedy administration. Back then we believed we were the best and the brightest, and the best and brightest from every other country wanted to come here and study at our universities.

Now we have Trump University and people denying global warming and denying evolution and wanting to close our borders.

[ileus]

25. All those accomplishments were lies...

[ancianita]

46. Those accomplishments were true. Read "From Counterculture to Cyberculture" by Fred Turner.

[ileus]

56. noPE...all lies, America is and always has been a dumb dump.

I read it on DU.

[Fast Walker 52]

82. Man on the moon too?

[notadmblnd]

129. Germans widely aided our space program after WWII

So yeah, man on the moon too.

[whathehell]

122. Other nations have been viewed as "the best and the brightest" for a time as well..

They have their era of preeminence and then decline...What else is new?

[whathehell]

42. Speak for yourself..

You and your yours may be stupid Americans, but leave the rest of us out of it.

[RKP5637]

51. Oh, OK, I'll make a note of it. Thank you! ... that Americans are always clever voters! n/t

[whathehell]

121. Nice try

but your attack on Americans was obviously broader than that. That said, it is fun to see your smarmy attempt to walk it back.

[whathehell]

124. Bwahahahaha

Is that the best you've got, mate?

[RKP5637]

126. Yep, it was far too broad. I also took you off ignore. Your posts are always interesting.

[whathehell]

127. Always glad to be of assistance..

I'm going to assume your compliment is sincere and thank you for it.

[RKP5637]

128. It is, it's very sincere.

I went off the deep end, and you pulled me back! Thanks!!!

[whathehell]

131. You're making my day here, RK..

As I'm sure you know, non-defensiveness is a rare thing on DU....Have a great one...You deserve it.

[RKP5637]

132. Thanks!!! n/t

[Faux pas]

2. Sad and

disgusting especially with two 1 percenters running to f us even more.

[mrr303am]

44. Couldn't agree more, and I foresee us being passed up by more countries.

[Hortensis]

85. NONSENSE, all of you. NONE of these countries passes us.

The U.S. is fabulously wealthy, far beyond any other nation. Half of all the billionaires on the planet are Americans, 550 last time I bothered looking, and the number of American megamillionaires is in the many thousands. I'm so proud--not! It was incredibly stupid of us to allow this, and scary.

But if we want our middle class to be more wealthy, and we do, we not only can fix that but we have actually begun. That fact that the growing discontent of the very people whose own stupidity and negligence created this problem has finally moved it to the top of their lists is proof.

As usual the common awareness is way behind the curve, though, as demonstrated here. The clueless enablers were hardly the first people to recognize that we have endangered not just our own prosperity but our democracy.

You guys might do well to leave off wallowing in this defeatist slough long enough to stick your heads up and look around. You might even start by checking out polls of CONSERVATIVE voters to see what they think now about what they worked so proactively to create.

[George Eliot]

93. Table is correct. As a percentage of immense US wealth, share of middle class is small.

You are correct in that we must wake up and take it back. How do we start? Nobody is defeatist that I can see. What's the plan?

[Hortensis]

95. Ask Obama. Ask Hillary. Ask Warren. Ask Bernie.

You know, it's not like we haven't been here before. In the 1930s so much wealth and power had become concentrated in the hands of the wealthy that finally even the middle class was badly hurt, not just lower classes. And so they fixed it, as tends to happen when those who vote have finally had enough.

Political realities have changed, specifically the makeup of Congress and today's unfortunate unification of the right in one party (a unity perhaps in the process of breaking and dissolving though), so the fixing is taking longer. But let's face it, we also didn't fall as far as those who went through the Great Depression, so we also don't have quite as strong a national political will as they did.

However, most of today's conservatives are very fond of the Social Security and Medicare, and they now know those controlling their party are very seriously trying to take them away. The Trump-led rebellion against the GOP leadership is definitely not all about bigotry, and many Trump supporters no longer support funneling wealth to the wealthy. So this election may also reveal a reawakening of the old progressivism of many moderate conservatives that in the past helped make the New Deal and Fair Deal realities. If that happens,..

Anyway, at whatever speed we manage to get up to, it's happening. Stopping digging when you're in a hole may be the first thing to do, but the second is to look up and then climb out. And, again, some of the complainers on this post are obviously way behind the curve on looking up.

[BlindTiresias]

114. Situation is a bit different from the 30s, isn't it?

You also left out the fact that there is no comparison in terms of the level of political, social, and economic domination the right wing enjoys, forcing even the "left" to argue on right wing, capitalist terms for legitimacy. The American left in the 30's was considerably stronger, certainly strong enough to force an elite political class to offer concessions.

[Hortensis]

115. Good points, but there was no "forcing" of the left

"to argue on right wing, capitalist terms for legitimacy." The left tried to reach conservatives and the generally clueless by speaking the political language they were being indoctrinated in, and thus woo them back from extremism to the traditional conservatism they grew up with, but they failed. Right wing domination was too strong. And now we mostly don't bother with that losing game any more.

[BlindTiresias]

116. Of course they were forced

At gunpoint, if need be. Look at the extreme reactions our government and business class had towards the left, including the red scare and the purging of socialists and communists from multiple organizations, even Union organizations.

Meanwhile the right wing enjoyed absolute freedom to operate in the United States in any sphere, eventually importing a form of extremism from Austria in Hayek who influenced Friedman and whose economic ideology now forms the basis of both parties.

[Hortensis]

117. We seem to have different definitions of left,

BlindTiresias. Certainly the left was outorganized, outmaneuvered and out-ruthlessed by the anti-liberal forces on the right. Have a nice evening.

[highprincipleswork]

3. The Democratic Party must decide. Do we really have to forego middle class and working class

financial well-being in order to elect a woman President, fight for racial justice, and so on?

Think that the Clinton 90's are the answer? Not. So much of the erosion of our rights and ability to fight back and ability to live freely and ability to get the news that is accurate and to protect our financial future and to help the 99% versus the 1% happened in those days - the erosion of these things.

Yes, Hillary Clinton could do things differently and in fact better for the average person than Bill Clinton ever did, and wouldn't that be a feminist dream! I'd love the women around here to think about that for a second.

Yes, I believe the Democratic Party will be stronger if they take a message from Bernie's revolution and tone it down into a Progressive Evolution or Progressive Solution and make sure that all of us are in the bus. Then we really will have a united, unified, incredibly strong, and yes RIGHTEOUS cause.

And if she can only do this, and I believe she could or can, she will not only be the first woman President but a President as popular and long-remembered as FDR (not Reagan).

[MisterFred]

12. She could.

But that would mean going against everything she's stood for when in office. Stood for: her actual actions and policies implemented. Unless she's the second coming of LBJ and turns into a completely different person once in the oval office, the middle/lower classes ain't gettin' shit.

[KPN]

13. A high-road view. Admirable. But don't hold your breath ...

With the GOP self-destructing, it's all but certain the Democratic Party will now (after this election cycle) shift further to the right to fill the vacuum the GOPs demise leaves behind. It's the natural order of two party systems: when able and vibrant, position to maximize votes. It's about winning and power; ideology is secondary.

[ancianita]

47. I SO want to believe what her potential is, too. There is a Berner aboard her campaign, and

that shows a baby step toward listening.

I'm ambivalent but will err on the side of believing in her capacity to undo and outdo her hubz' presidency.

[Major Hogwash]

88. Ask yourself 2 questions. How many times has Hillary talked about the disappearing Middle Class?

And, how many times has Hillary talked about the Poor?

The answer is simple, she ignores the poor and acts like the Middle Class is just fine.
As if it is 1950, or something.
Instead, she concentrates her speeches on women, Trump, women, Trump, and women and Trump.

Not very deep, is she?

[Demonaut]

4. where do these numbers come from?

I hate knee jerk reactions to some chart without a little detail

[elleng]

5. 'The 2015 Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS)Global Wealth Report is now in its sixth year

of examining and analyzing wealth across the world in order to get a better understanding of wealth creation, consumption, saving, and asset allocation. Every year Credit Suisse picks a specific wealth topic to focus on, and in 2015 it was the middle class.'

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/13/1-chart-every-middle-class-american-needs-to-see.aspx

[former9thward]

69. What BS

Have you ever been to India, Mexico or China? I have been to all three. Our poor lives much better lives than the "middle class" in any of those countries.

[progree]

70. Yup, please see #67. Sad. n/t

[George Eliot]

90. Thanks for the analysis behind that chart. I understand their thinking.

[elleng]

107. You're welcome, George Eliot.

[progree]

72. The OP's numbers come from Column 2 of Table 2, p. 33 of Credit Suisse report

https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=F2425415-DCA7-80B8-EAD989AF9341D47E

As for an explanation of why the U.S. middle class's share of the country's wealth is so low

p. 38 - The middle class in the United States is also unusual in having a particularly low share of the country’s wealth, which at 19.6% is considerably less than its share of the adult population. This is because the middle-class wealth share is squeezed by the exceptionally high wealth of the 12% of adults who are beyond the middle class.

p. 27 - Figure 5 - Ultra high net worth individuals, 2015: Top 20 countries ($50 million or more)
1st-U.S. - nearly 55,000,
2nd-China: about 9,900,
3rd-UK: about 5,000 (reading these numbers from the graph)

Column 1 of that table:

Wealth holdings of middle class, 2015 by country by region, in $Billions
(I'm showing just the U.S., China, Mexico, and India since these are the U.S. and the three "WTF? China, Mexico and India???" countries)

United States 16,845
China 7,342
Mexico 791
India 780

[font color = blue]>>I hate knee jerk reactions to some chart without a little detail<<[/font]

Me too. But some people will scrape anything off the Internet that they see and post it. And some will believe it because they saw it on the Internet (like most in this thread).

[MariaThinks]

6. What's the surprise? The republicans have been sucking money to the 1% of the 1% since Reagan and

Nixon. There is no surprise here. This is the result of the republican capitalist absolutes.

[Raster]

10. Seriously? Republicans did NOT have a lock on funneling money to the 1%...

...they just had more opportunistic circumstances because of their seeming electoral advantages. Not to worry, certain Democrats have proven they are just as adept at enriching the coffers of the 1%. Think about it, Maria.

[RKP5637]

28. When it comes to big $$$$$$'s R=D=I. n/t

[KPN]

14. As have the Democrats actually.

[Urchin]

21. Better Wake Up

It's not just the republicans that are doing this to us.

"In 1999, Democrats led by President Bill Clinton and Republicans led by Sen. Phil Gramm joined forces to repeal Glass-Steagall at the behest of the big banks. What happened over the next eight years was an almost exact replay of the Roaring Twenties. Once again, banks originated fraudulent loans and once again they sold them to their customers in the form of securities. The bubble peaked in 2007 and collapsed in 2008. The hard-earned knowledge of 1933 had been lost in the arrogance of 1999." http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis

And who signed NAFTA into law?

If you don't realize that elements of both major parties have been screwing us, then you are part of the problem.

[RKP5637]

29. Well said!!! So many still just don't get how financially screwed most Americans are by R's and D's.

[99th_Monkey]

38. Or they do "get it" i.e. they are complicit up to their eyeballs. n/t

[RKP5637]

40. True, there are many on the take and don 't want their gravey train upset. So sad and pathetic! n/t

[Urchin]

108. It's those on the take and ALSO

Those voters who have been counting on their bubble-ized 401K's and bubble-ized homes they own, to support themselves in retirement because they otherwise spent most of their lives borrowing and spending instead of producing and saving.

So those voters don't want to see a fair economy, an economy in which asset values return to normal, so that young people might better be able to afford to buy their own houses.

As it now stands, if a young person buys a house, they must pay an unfair artificially inflated price for the house, the older home seller benefitting by taking more of the young person's hard-earned money than they would get if asset prices were allowed to normalize.

So those older asset holders want our distorted economy to continue at any cost, no matter anything else, and are happy to keep voting for the same kind of candidate to keep getting what we all have been getting.

[RKP5637]

110. I knew someone like that. They really have liberal ideas/feelings. I asked them why they vote

republican all the time. They said, because the democrats will take my money away. She owns a lot of real estate, older, and what you said is exactly what goes on.

[Urchin]

113. There are a lot of people

Who just loved how the prices of the homes they bought in the 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, rose in value during the 2000's.

Fools that they are, they didn't really think their homes would drop in value. They wanted to believe their homes really were worth the inflated price.

(I know someone who was so thrilled with the mushrooming value of his 401K and of the home he bought in the 1970s, that he thought of Alan Greenspan as one of the great financial geniuses in American history. Morons. Both of them.)

The older owners, reassured by the apparent appreciation of their home's value, were even less motivated to save for retirement.

Younger homeowners, borrowed against the ballooned valued of their home's appreciation, to buy things.

None of them want to see the value of their homes go back to normal, so they support Hillary who takes money from super rich asset holders.

The people who lost their homes after losing their jobs in this recent great recession, have nothing. They have no stake in the bubble economy.

And the young people, are the most victimized. They never even get the opportunity to have a job and a home to even lose.

And those who were sensible: who tried to work hard, tried to save and not gamble their money, they were also punished by the bubble economy.

These people are the ones who've been screwed.

They need to have a normal economy again, not an economy engineered to artificially prop-up the value of assets.

Because they know something is wrong with the current state of affairs, and depending on who or what they blame for their misfortune, they support either Trump or Sanders.

[George II]

50. The vote in the Senate was 98-1, the House 362-57.

Both votes were veto-proof.

Reminder, in the United States the President does not vote for legislation.

[elljay]

57. If you're talking about Gramm-Leach-Bliley

I believe the vote was 90-8, with the following senators, all Democrats except for Richard Shelby (???) opposing:

D Barbara Boxer CA
D Richard Bryan NV
D Byron Dorgan ND
D Russell Feingold WI
D Thomas Harkin IA
D Barbara Mikulski MD
R Richard Shelby AL
D Paul Wellstone MN


http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/106/senate/1/votes/354/

[George II]

58. I came across two different votes, one was 90-8 and the other was 98-1. Either way....

....they prove my point.

[djean111]

7. That's where the middle class jobs went and will continue to go.

And we keep voting for the politicians who send them there.
Yeah, not too bright.
This is NOT globalization, this is just relocation.
Globalization is of profits and lower wages.

[KPN]

16. Globalization is of profits and lower wages. That!

[stupidicus]

8. it's been a bipartisan effort

or the dems have simply been too unaware and incompetent to avoid or fix the problem

[RKP5637]

30. Yep, and often dems are part of the problem too even when they know what's going on.

[IronLionZion]

9. Their middle class has been growing very quickly

as people move up from poverty.

[KPN]

17. While ours has and is being fucked.

So what's your point?

[IronLionZion]

33. Other countries are growing their middle class faster than ours

It would be worth finding out what they are doing to accomplish that.

[That Guy 888]

36. By getting industries that used to be based here.

LowPoverty wages here were a step up in those countries. In China, some of the factories that are licensed to manufacture for big brands here steal the plans for domestically branded versions that don't always stay in China. The thing that those three countries have in common is that "lucky" Americans get to be trained to train their replacements.

[IronLionZion]

39. And plenty of industries that were never based here

I was hoping someone would mention their investments in education, infrastructure, healthcare, etc. Or entrepreneurship or the communication/technology/services industries or more.

Those countries are exponentially larger populations than ours. Simply moving factory jobs from the US is probably a small portion of their middle class growth. Many US companies have been exporting goods to sell to their middle class consumers in recent years.

[That Guy 888]

48. The jobs they get based on their education investments are still jobs that used to be based here

IT both here and in India are paid about half of what they would have to pay a new college graduate here, which is substantially lower than older experienced workers. The closer US workers get to retirement, the more HR looks for reasons to fire them.

Many US companies have been exporting goods to sell to their middle class consumers in recent years.

At best those goods are assembled here, or meet the minimum percentage to get the "Made in America" logo(which also includes places that are not included in our labor laws).

That being said, investment in our infrastructure and education would help new businesses get started. I don't think the multinational corporations are coming back here until we're desperate for slave wages.

[RKP5637]

31. With all respect, this really doesn't make any sense! The middle class has actually

been moving down into poverty.

[pampango]

37. These wealth figures are not consistent with income. Their incomes are even more unequal than ours.

Yet the portion of national wealth going to the middle class has increased more than in the US. Strange that their incomes are more unequal than ours - quite and achievement - yet their savings rates are better for their middle class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

[MynameisBlarney]

11. 'MERKA!

We're #1!

Oh...wait...nevermind.

[StarzGuy]

20. Isn't "merka" great...

...oh wait, never mind, it isn't true any more.

[tclambert]

24. We're #21! We're #21!

Ha, ha, #22. Number 22 can suck it!

[MynameisBlarney]

35. HA!

#22 is a fuggin yoooooge lossah!

[AgadorSparticus]

106. 😂😂😂😂

[libodem]

18. We are #1

In prison predation. So proud.

[99th_Monkey]

41. And that's in REAL numbers, not just as % of population. n/t

[libodem]

59. Free County

Ha ha.

[99th_Monkey]

63. Tell me another one...

All are equal under the law

[libodem]

65. LOLOLOL

[pampango]

19. Spain and the Netherlands at the top? Sweden and Switzerland down with the US? Weird. n/t

[Ghost Dog]

54. Relatively many very, very very wealthy in Switzerland

and apparently in Sweden.

[pampango]

61. Both Sweden and Switzerland have very good income distributions but wealth

distribution is apparently much different.

That's not too surprising for Switzerland with its banking laws attracting the accumulated wealth of the rich. Sweden is a more interesting case. They have the most progressive income distribution in the world. Not sure where the rich in Sweden get so much accumulated wealth.

[bhikkhu]

66. The two biggest items of wealth are home ownership and shares of stock

And there are national and cultural traditions on both of those points. That's not to say the low ranking of the US isn't something that we could do better on, but the national comparisons are mostly apples and oranges, and an explanation of why various countries are different, or why one is "ahead" of another, wouldn't necessarily say lead to anything informative about income inequality.

Its worth noting that middle class is a local measure, a comparison of incomes between arbitrary peer groups. To say that there are 500 million middle class in India (one projection for 2020) wouldn't say much about their material prosperity compared to our own, just that the society there is less stratified on average.

Measuring income is more useful, and we do have an income inequality problem in the US. But that's hard to compare to other countries as well, as different countries count income differently (tax subsidies, social assistance, rent controls and so forth are variously counted or not). Its more useful to say we can do better here, regardless of arguing about how anyplace else measures.

on edit, and very worth noting: income inequality has been improving here, largely due to Obama's policies, and the Democrats in congress who helped get his legislation passed https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/obama-really-did-sock-it-to-the-rich-bad/

[Javaman]

22. we're number something! we'er number something!

that something is a disgrace.

[yuiyoshida]

26. Not sure I am surprised about this...

We have been failing in so many ways.

[RKP5637]

32. The US is going nowhere in the 21st century. Often the US gets a free pass because the

US kills off people. Other countries are going to walk/run right pass the US. It's sad and pathetic in the big picture. And look at Trump as the republican nominee. How can any other country respect that. Just that an individual with the mindset/values of Trump is apparently what many Americans want demonstrates just how much of the US is stupid, ignorant and bigoted. FFS, the US is totally fucked up.

[valerief]

27. It's okay. We're gonna have lots more wars. That'll make rich people even richer in the U.S.

Cuz the 99% don't matter in the U.S.

[RKP5637]

34. That's the US's chief product. Wars, weapons, destruction, killing, maiming and rebuilding.

The majority of citizens don't matter and are in the way.

[truedelphi]

43. Forty years of policies from neo cons on both sides of the aisle, and trade agreements

That help only the wealthy, and this is what we get.

So that is how voting for the "lesser of two evils" works out!

[muriel_volestrangler]

45. Just for reference, here's the Credit Suisse definition of middle class

https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=F2425415-DCA7-80B8-EAD989AF9341D47E (p.28)

I'm not saying this has any particular implications, but it's worth knowing for thinking about the results.

They define middle class as between $50,000 and $500,000 per adult, for the USA, and the equivalent figures, allowing for purchasing power, in other countries (so $72,900 is the lower bound for Switzerland, and $13,700 in India).

The USA middle class is 37.7% of the population; there's another 12.3% who are wealthier. The country with the largest proportion in the middle class is Australia with 66.1%; the USA is at the lower end of 'rich' countries, but not that far below, say, Germany at 42.4%.

[udbcrzy2]

49. Our policies are so slanted.

This is why we can't have anything nice. But we are America! Yeah!

[George II]

52. How do they assess "middle class" in each of those countries?

[Skwmom]

55. I'm sure that morally bankrupt former treasury secretary will bring out his bogus charts to refute

this. I forget his name but he reminds me of Elmer Fudd. To think that someone like that was a Sec of Treasury.

Note: I only ridicule the corrupt assholes because it's the least they deserve.

[muriel_volestrangler]

76. See #45 (nt)

[George II]

97. It's virtually impossible to compare "middle class" from one country to another for many...

...of those on the list without injecting lots of subjective criteria and/or assumptions.

[Skwmom]

53. If this is correct, they can run this for an ad in Nov. Start practicing President Trump.

Hell, we shipped all our jobs to other countries. What in the hell did the geniuses think was going to happen. Oh that is right. They did not give a damn.

The hardest think to take. The went around and campaigned in earlier years and saw what devastation the trade deals had wrought. And so what did Clinton do. She went to Washington and promoted the SAME disastrous trade agreements. That is heartless.

[smirkymonkey]

60. How depressing!

I would have expected most of the European countries, but China, Brazil, Mexico and India? Unbelievable!

[Skwmom]

62. I wonder what a chart of historical share of middle income wealth in U.S. as compared to the

net worth of our elected politicians would show. I think it would show the more the middle class shrunk the richer our politicians became.

I guess it would be easiest to do on a per politician basis.

[George Eliot]

64. Americans are told we are exceptional and believe it.

Propaganda If you look at Forbes best countries to do business, most happy, best to live in etc. you will find US far down the lists and usually out of top twenty on every list. Americans are very uninformed. I looked into moving to Canada which is usually in top ten but they won't take you unless you have over a million dollars! But they do take many, many more refugees. The rich help to support these refugees with programs that American would never consider even if we did take them. We just don't have the social generosity we used to have.

[progree]

68. If you look at Table 2 p. 33 of the Credit Suisse Report, we look quite exceptional to me

Last edited Sat Jun 11, 2016, 04:13 AM - Edit history (1)

https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=F2425415-DCA7-80B8-EAD989AF9341D47E

U.S. middle class has the highest share of the world's wealth in the world -- 6.7%
Japan is next with its middle class holding 3.9% of the world's wealth

As for share of the world's wealth held by the middle class and beyond:
#1 U.S. 33.9%
#2 Japan 7.7%

Please also see #67.

[George Eliot]

71. Difficult to understand. Does wealth include cost of housing which rose sharply in NW?

This from page 32 preceding your chart.

Although North America is the region with the
largest share of middle-class adults, the highest
middle-class incidence rates are found elsewhere.
Half of all adults in the United States own more than
USD 50,000, but only 38% fall within our middle-
class range. This is a relatively low percentage
among advanced economies (see Table 1). Over
50% of adults qualify as middle class in Ireland,
the Netherlands and New Zealand, while over
55% qualify in Italy, Japan, Spain, Taiwan, the
United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
The middle-class incidence rate exceeds 60% in
Belgium and Singapore, and is highest of all in
Australia, where 66% of adults are in the middle
class and 80% belong to the middle class or beyond.

I'm sorry. I don't have time to review whole article but did skim quickly looking for qualifications. If total wealth includes housing then we would appear to have higher overall wealth. It makes sense that our middle class has more wealth because we have more people in the United States in all categories than most comparable European countries or Canada. We are one of the most populated countries due to our larger size. That 6.7% wealth is spread across many more people. It doesn't mean each person is wealthier.

How do they determine "middle class" - I read quickly that it was ten times the lowest number and that could skew what middle class means in the US. I don't know that. I will put my mind to work and see what I can defend. Also, this is 2014-15 and Forbes was December 2015. Not that I think that matters a lot. No one is saying that our standard of living is low. Except that for an awful lot of people living on the streets, it is lower than it should be given we are a very rich country.

I liked the Forbes profiles because they compared fewer items across all countries.

[progree]

74. Good observations

p. 38 - The middle class in the United States is also unusual in having a particularly low share of the country’s wealth, which at 19.6% is considerably less than its share of the adult population. This is because the middle-class wealth share is squeezed by the exceptionally high wealth of the 12% of adults who are beyond the middle class.

50% of the U.S. population is "middle class or above". That's a good percentage, but lots of countries exceed that. Table 33 p. 2, 2nd and 4th columns.

On the definition of middle class wealth - $50,000 to $500,000 in the U.S. For other countries, the same but adjusted for the local purchasing power. They justify the $500,000 upper limit of wealth as what is needed to purchase a lifetime annuity that produces the median wage (p. 28). FWIW. (In the U.S. they will get Social Security on top of that).

[font color = blue]>>It makes sense that our middle class has more wealth because we have more people in the United States in all categories than most comparable European countries or Canada. We are one of the most populated countries due to our larger size. That 6.7% wealth is spread across many more people. It doesn't mean each person is wealthier. << [/font]

True. The OP was comparing the U.S. to China and India, which have about 4X the population. So on a per-capita basis they look much worse. It also compared to Mexico, with about 1/3 of our population but their middle class has 4.7% of our middle class's wealth

p. 33 Table 2
Wealth holdings of middle class, 2015 by country by region, in $Billions
(I'm showing just the U.S., China, Mexico, and India since these are the U.S. and the three "WTF? China, Mexico and India???" countries)

United States 16,845
China 7,342
Mexico 791
India 780

[progree]

67. What a lie. Sad. And all the people who don't bother to check...

The caption to the right of the bar chart in the OP says:

[font color = blue]"According to Credit Suisse, The Middle Class Wealth In China, Mexico, and India Just Surpassed Us"[/font]

No, The Credit Suisse report did not say that. Whoever put that text to the right of the of the bar chart made it up.

https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=F2425415-DCA7-80B8-EAD989AF9341D47E

p. 33 Table 2
Wealth holdings of middle class, 2015 by country by region, in $Billions
(I'm showing just the U.S., China, Mexico, and India since these are the U.S. and the three "WTF? China, Mexico and India???" countries)

United States 16,845
China 7,342
Mexico 791
India 780

[George Eliot]

73. Different analysts use different criteria. Per Credit Suisse, our middle class is smaller.

Ever heard of liars use statistics and statistics lie? I'm not denigrating Credit Suisse at all. I am saying that there are different ways to measure these things. The Credit Suisse uses a lot of tools and understanding exactly what they all measure is difficult.

You claimed US is higher yet I found paragraph where Credit Suisse puts us lower than similar economies in the size of middle class. Let's try to untangle it all before making assumptions.

[progree]

75. Please read post #67 again. I was criticizing this statement

that was to the right of the bar chart in the OP. And it was in blue in #67, so you can't have missed seeing it:

[font color = blue]"According to Credit Suisse, The Middle Class Wealth In China, Mexico, and India Just Surpassed Us" [/font]

The Credit Suisse report does not say that anywhere. That text above is not from the report.

There is no way to argue what is in blue is a true statement. No way whatsoever.

I'm not questioning that the U.S. middle class, as defined in the report, has a smaller SHARE of the country's wealth than do the other 21 countries' middle classes have as a share or their countries' wealth. But that is not what the text in the OP's chart -- the blue above -- says.

You claimed US is higher yet I found paragraph where Credit Suisse puts us lower than similar economies in the size of middle class. Let's try to untangle it all before making assumptions.

Yes, I claimed that the Credit Suisse report says that the U.S. middle class has more wealth than any other countries' middle class. And you found nothing in the report that says differently. Nothing. Nothing I said in #67 is inaccurate except the garbage I quoted in blue. Nothing elsewhere in the Credit Suisse report contradicts what I said in #67. Nothing.

What you found is that the U.S. middle class has a smaller SHARE of the country's wealth than do the other 21 countries' middle classes have as a share or their countries' wealth. SHARE. PERCENTAGE.

[progree]

77. No, Credit Suisse does NOT say that our middle class is smaller

either in terms of total wealth, or total population.

It says our middle class's SHARE of the country's wealth is smaller than that of 21 other country's middle class's share of their country's wealth.

[font color = blue]>>Per Credit Suisse, our middle class is smaller.<<[/font]

[muriel_volestrangler]

80. At 37.7% of the country, the USA's middle class is pretty small

compared to 'Western' economies - Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Though a fairly large 'above middle' class means that it does pull ahead of Portugal when you combine the 2 numbers.

[progree]

81. Agreed. I have never argued that the U.S. middle class's SHARE of the U.S. population or

the U.S. middle class's wealth as a share of the total country's wealth was the largest or particularly large. Actually the U.S. middle class's SHARE of the U.S.'s total wealth is the lowest of any of the other 21 countries' middle class's SHARE of their country's total wealth. I have never tried to hide or to spin away that conclusion.

I agree we have dreadful inequality.

[George Eliot]

87. Credit Suisse does show smaller MC. If you are simply refuting OP, then OP chart is correct per CR S

Last edited Sat Jun 11, 2016, 07:52 AM - Edit history (1)

That table is correct. It reflects the share of wealth now held by the middle class and it is 19.6%. Dollars skew the data. Percentages show a more accurate picture of the wealth held by the middle class comparable to other middle classes which is what the chart was doing. It used percentages, you used dollars. Not comparable.

You have referenced so many different points that it was hard to follow. My apologies for that. I should have picked up on the percentage/dollars conflict earlier. My bad.

[progree]

103. Please see #102 eom

[progree]

83. Another interesting table - we barely edge out China in terms of number of people in the middle

class and beyond

Number in middle class and beyond, in millions, 2015, 2nd column Table 3 p. 35. Here are #1, 2, 3

#1 U.S. 121.7
#2 China: 115.1
#3 Japan 71.5

[muriel_volestrangler]

78. I would suggest that Table 1, p.32, with "proportion who are middle class or beyond"

might be the single figure that best shows how a country is doing in creating and sustaining a middle class. Since they've allowed for cost of living in the threshold for each country, it seems a reasonable measure for "how many have got to an 'OK' level of wealth".

At 50.0%, the USA is indeed well ahead of Mexico (18%), China (11%) or India (3%). It's roughly equal with Finland, Greece, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. It's a bit behind Canada or Switzerland (about 58%), France or the Netherlands (62%), Italy, the UK or Japan (69%). Australia is highest at 80%.

[progree]

79. I generally agree with your post -- I like the "middle class and beyond" metric

and the one that can be inferred from it by subtracting from 100% -- below middle class -- below $50,000 USD in wealth in the U.S. and the equivalents in purchasing power in other countries.

[font color = blue]>>At 50.0%, the USA is indeed well ahead of Mexico (18%), China (11%) or India (3%). It's roughly equal with Finland, Greece, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. It's a bit behind Canada or Switzerland (about 58%), France or the Netherlands (62%), Italy, the UK or Japan (69%). Australia is highest at 80%.<<[/font]

Middle class and below (subtracting your numbers above from 100%)
India 97%
China 89%
Mexico 82%
U.S. 50%
Canada, Switzerland 42%
France, Netherlands 38%
Italy, Uk, Japan 31%
Australia 20%

[George Eliot]

91. Correction: per your table, the OP is correct. You moved to dollars. The table uses percentages.

19.6% is the share of wealth for the middle class.
40.4% is Mexico's share of wealth for the middle class.
22.6% is India's share of wealth for the middle class.
32.2% is China's share of wealth for the middle class.

Using dollar amounts skews the data. It is a red herring. The table does reliably connect with the data in the Credit Suisse report.
I'm done. I feel like I graduated econ 101. Sorry for all the changes. That's what it takes to get to the essence of the analysis I guess. But I do now agree with the OP.

[progree]

102. I was NOT criticizing the bar chart in the OP but rather the text to the side of the bar chart

that whoever created that graphic in the OP added.

The text to the right of the bar chart in the OP says:

"According to Credit Suisse, The Middle Class Wealth In China, Mexico, and India Just Surpassed Us"

The person who added the text to the right of the bar chart in the OP was almost certainly trying to mislead.

Do you really think they have it better off in any of those 3 countries than we do? That's the impression that the text to the right of the bar chart is trying to convey.

I could add that the title of the bar chart, "Share of Middle Class Wealth" is rather incomplete and ambiguous. Without looking at the report, I would have never understood what was being talked about. Spain has a 52.4% share of middle class wealth? Finding the bar chart and its title incomprehensible, one is left to turn to the text to the right of the bar chart to understand what it means. As the misleader who put that graphic together intended.

[font color = blue]>>Using dollar amounts skews the data. It is a red herring.<<[/font]

How so? You never said why you think that way. Myself, I pay my bills in dollars, and I couldn't be bothered to give a rat's patootie what it is as a percent of something else.

[hr]
p. 33 Table 2
Wealth holdings of middle class, 2015 by country by region, in $Billions
(I'm showing just the U.S., China, Mexico, and India since these are the U.S. and the three "WTF? China, Mexico and India???" countries)

United States 16,845
China 7,342
Mexico 791
India 780

The above is also reliably connected to the Credit Suisse report. In fact it is right in it. (In fairness, so are the percentages in the bar chart -- but not that lying text to the right of it (p. 33 - Table 2, column 2).

[George Eliot]

111. Regardless of dollars, 37% Americans now enjoy 20% of the wealth of the country. Do you agree?

In Mexico, the middle class is much smaller (17%) but they enjoy 40% of the wealth of the country. In China, 11% adults comprise the middle class but enjoy 32% of the wealth of the country. In India, only 3% of adults comprise the middle class but enjoy 22.6% of the wealth of the country. Compared to these countries, our middle class is larger (good) but we are dividing up our twenty percent among more people. Do you agree? Based on that, I agree the chart misleads. At first glance, it appears our middle class has shrunk to 19.6%.

I wish you'd use percentages. Dollars are misleading. Cost of living, spread of dollars among how many, what dollars buy from country to country. Percentages compare apples to apples. However, what constitutes our middle class and what our dollars can buy are significant pieces to the algorithm that determines the condition of our middle class which is shrinking and is smaller than first world comparable countries.

The light of day. That's why I deleted so many posts. I was getting off track. If you disagree with the above. let me know. I'll think before I answer.

Finally, where's the other 80%? That's a lot of wealth you know. Did you read the chart that we have created 900 new millionaires? Isn't the wealth of the country primarily in the hands of Wall Street? I wonder how that compares globally? I have no idea. Just a thought. Young people on new frontiers (like tech most recently) do very well in the US. Yet our technology for the average person is woefully behind that of other countries which feature more competition, lower prices and faster speeds. There's something about America which moves wealth into fewer pockets compared to our Canadian and European brethren.

Adding one more thought: global agreements like Nafta were supposed to help create middle classes in these countries. Have they succeeded or are these very small middle classes comprised of a few people who enjoy the benefits of these agreements and made wealthier their elite? I am somewhat surprised at the small percentage of people who actually make up the middle class in these countries.

[Scuba]

92. Looks like we're well on our way to winning the Race to the Bottom!

[Recursion]

94. I'm guessing you don't understand that graphic?

Yes: the Spanish middle class owns 52.4% of Spain's aggregate wealth, and the US middle class owns 19.6% of the US's aggregate wealth, but the US middle class is much, much richer than the Spanish middle class, let alone the Indian, Chinese, or Mexican middle class.

[Indydem]

96. Ding Ding Ding! You WIN MATH!

I wondered how long it would take before someone besides me got the actual mathematics of this are completely irrelevant.

[muriel_volestrangler]

98. No. As we long ago established, the middle classes in each country are as rich as each other

They are the people with a wealth of $50k-$500k, or the equivalent purchasing power in each country, by the definitions that Credit Suisse has used. The report also tells us the median wealth in the USA is about the same as in Spain.

What we can tell is that, although the limits are the same, there must be a larger proportion at the upper end of the middle class in the USA, because the average for the middle class is higher:

Spain middle class 21 million (55.8% of total); $2200bn (52.4% of total)

USA middle class 92 million (37.7% of total); $16,845bn (19.6% of total).

And that's not surprising, since Spain has only 3.8% of people above middle class, owning 39.6% of the wealth; the USA has 12.3%, owning 79.1%.

[Triana]

99. Source article:

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/13/1-chart-every-middle-class-american-needs-to-see.aspx

Actual report: https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=F2425415-DCA7-80B8-EAD989AF9341D47E

[muriel_volestrangler]

100. The link for the source report is in #45 (nt)

[Barack_America]

101. And yet...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027897906

Do you think 33% of Spainards have no retirement savings or pensions?

I don't.

[Recursion]

104. I think it's slightly more in Spain's case (nt)

[valerief]

105. The U.S. doesn't share. I believe we're now an official arm of Saudi Arabia. nt

[Donald Ian Rankin]

109. The captioning here is an outright lie.

What the chart shows is that

(wealth of the American middle class)/(wealth of the American rich) < (wealth of the Chinese middle class)/(wealth of the Chinese rich)

It does not tell you anything about the ratio of (wealth of the American middle class) to (wealth of the Chinese middle class), since the American rich are much richer than the Chinese rich.

[George Eliot]

112. Please see #111. I've been trying to reckon with this. Do you agree?

I do not believe comparing dollars tells the story. The chart deals in percentages and mixing the two skews the point of the chart. Really, I'm trying to make sense of it.

[NuclearDem]

118. Any graphic that includes any variant on "keep sleeping", "wake up", or "sheeple"

has a 100% likelihood of being completely nonsense.

Oh, and you know this is well-researched and professional from the use of Comic Sans.

[Recursion]

130. ...

[Skittles]

119. that's where our jobs are going

[The2ndWheel]

125. That's American privilege talking

There's no such thing as "our" jobs. There are just jobs, and they can be done by anyone, anywhere.

[Skittles]

133. OMFG

you REALLY don't get it, do you? My guess: you profit from pimping off jobs.

OVER AND OUT

[Monk06]

120. So here is the endgame of Capitalism TWROP or Those Who Run Our Planet know that not everyone

or even a large portion of the planet can enjoy a middle class level of wealth and consumption If they did the environment and world economy would collapse and the rich would die with the poor

So the middle class must disappear so that the vast population of the poor can exist at less or merely subsistence levels

If they try to revolt the military class will intervene until disease and starvation eliminate all but the few servants the rich need to stay idle and fat

Hint it didn't work out well for the Romans, Egyptians, Byzantines, Chins, Aztecs, Greeks, Persians, Hittites, Babylonians ...... well you get the picture

We are entering a neo Feudal period which will end in blood and devastation followed by centuries of reconstruction It has happened many times in human history

It will happen again maybe this time for the last time

And Jesus won't be coming to save anybody

[oberliner]

134. The middle class in the U.S. also has the highest total wealth in U.S. dollars at $16.85 trillion

In terms of the numbers in the above chart, The Motley Fool (which is the source of it), says that the mean reason for the low percentage is because of American having such easy access to credit and accumulating a high amount of debt.

There's the article that the chart is based on:

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/13/1-chart-every-middle-class-american-needs-to-see.aspx

The conclusion:

How the middle class can take back its lost wealth
Middle-class individuals and families looking to get back on track should have four main focuses: improving their savings rate, reducing debt, minimizing taxes paid, and investing more.