Rampant Unemployment = The Death Of The Middle Class -

[Beacool]

40 Facts That Prove The Working Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out.

Without an abundance of good jobs, the middle class in the United States is going to shrivel up and die. Right now, rampant unemployment is absolutely killing communities all over America. Hopelessness and poverty are exploding and many are now wondering if we are actually witnessing the slow death of the middle class. There simply are not nearly enough "good jobs" to go around anymore, and even many in the mainstream media are referring to this as a "long-term structural problem" with the economy. The only thing that most working class Americans have to offer in the marketplace is their labor. If nobody will hire them they do not have any other ways to provide for their families. Well, there is a problem. Today wealth has become incredibly centralized. The big corporations and the big banks dominate everything. Thanks to incredible advances in technology and thanks to the globalization of our economic system, the people with all the money don't have to hire as many ordinary Americans anymore. They can hire all the labor they want on the other side of the globe for a fraction of the cost. So the rich don't really have that much use for the working class in America anymore. The only thing of value that the working class had to offer has now been tremendously devalued. The wealthy don't have to pay a lot for physical labor anymore. Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas and they aren't coming back. The big corporations are thriving while tens of millions of ordinary Americans are deeply suffering. Almost all of the wealth being produced by our economy is going to a very centralized group of people at the very top of the food chain. The rich are getting richer and the working class is being systematically wiped out.

So the fact that we are facing rampant unemployment that never seems to go away should not be a surprise to anyone. Today, the "official" unemployment rate went up to 9.2 percent even though a whopping 272,000 Americans "dropped out of the labor force" in June. The government unemployment figure that includes "discouraged workers" went up from 15.8% to 16.2%. The mainstream media is proclaiming that this was "a horrific report" because most economists were expecting much better news.

Well, guess what?

Things are going to get a whole lot worse.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/rampant-unemployment-the-death-of-the-middle-class-22-facts-that-prove-the-working-class-is-being-systematically-wiped-out

These are scary times. The only person I know who remembers a worse economy is my 93 year old neighbor who was a child during the Depression. Her dad died in his 40s of TB. There were 3 little kids to feed. Her mom had to take in boarders and they still lost the house.

;(

[Kennah]

1. If you didn't read Steinbeck ...

... don't worry. You'll get to live it.

:sarcasm:

OK, not really, but I used the sarcasm tag because I want to believe that so much I see is all fiction.

[lunatica]

2. The Grapes of Wrath could easily happen again with the extreme weather we're having

We might get to live it again. The problem is for those who will be forced to leave their states due to drought there's nowhere else for them to go, but they will go anyway because few people just lie down and die.

[Beacool]

3. Yes, I've read it..

I'm try to find the silver lining in all of this, but it escapes me at the moment. I worry about everybody: myself, family, friends, coworkers, people here who I don't even know, the country as a whole and the world at large.

How are people going to survive if they run out of unemployment benefits, their savings and they still cannot find a job?

:(

[Kennah]

6. They'll survive because of the bridges of Madison County ...

... and the bridges in every other county in every state.

[Beacool]

8. OK, now you made me smile.

:D

[vaberella]

4. In all honesty the death of the middle class started during the late 70s early 80s.

Basically due to the rise of the yuppies. What I mean to say, that when jobs working at a telephone company or public transit just was not enough of a job not only to make a living, but it wasn't as assured as it used to be. We're not living in the era where working at the Ford plant will get you a brand new shiny Ford and a 3 bedroom home. We haven't been there in decades---I say neoconservatism is to blame and a whole host of other issues. To imply that the middle class is currently being wiped out is false. It has been going through that for decades and needs to be recognized.

[Beacool]

5. Yes, and both parties have shifted to the right.

There don't seem to be that many politicians willing to fight for the working class. They only give lip service. Forget the poor, like the other article I posted says, the poor and the unemployed are invisible.

Sooner or later something is going to give. Are we slated for a green revolution of our own?

[Mimosa]

7. True. Jobs and futures were traded away.

For instance, Kissinger saw the cheap labour available in China as the biggest most profitable investment opportunity. And thus it began.

[LatteLibertine]

9. To the large multinational corporations

we've largely become unnecessary overhead.