Free Trade is Pro-Middle Class and Pro-Family
Free trade brings communities together, for example
Tag: middle class
Want Widespread Prosperity? Radically Lower Costs
It’s easy to go down the wormhole of complexity when it comes to figuring out why our economy is stagnating for the bottom 80% of households. But it’s actually not that complicated: the primary driver of stagnation, decline of small business…
Stagnation Nation: Middle Class Wealth Is Locked Up in Housing and Retirement Funds
One of my points in Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin was to highlight how few families had the financial wherewithal to invest in bitcoin or an alternative hedge such as precious metals. The limitation on middle class wealth isn’t just the total…
Mao and the Middle Class: What’s the Source of Political Power?
The decline of middle class wealth and income is not just an economic trend–it translates directly to a decline in political power. Chairman Mao famously noted that “Political power grows out of the barrel of gun,”, but this is only…
What’s Killing the Middle Class? (Part 1)
We all know the middle class that actually owns capital and wields political influence is shrinking. As I noted last week in Redefining the Middle Class: It Isn’t What You Earn and Owe, It’s What You Own That Generates Income,…
The Elites Have Destroyed the Status Quo’s Ability to Self-Correct
For any system to endure, it must maintain a built-in capacity to self-correct: that is, it must generate accurate informational feedback about dangerous asymmetries and auto-correct with behavioral feedback. This is true of ecosystems and enterprises as well as political/social…
The Elites Have Destroyed the Status Quo’s Ability to Self-Correct
For any system to endure, it must maintain a built-in capacity to self-correct: that is, it must generate accurate informational feedback about dangerous asymmetries and auto-correct with behavioral feedback. This is true of ecosystems and enterprises as well as political/social…
Are The ‘Invisible Americans’ the Key Players in This Election?
For the bottom 90% of American households, the “prosperity” of the “recovery” since 2009 is a bright shining lie. The phrase is from a history of the Vietnam War, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.…
What Does It take to Be Upper Middle Class?
What does it take to be upper middle class? According to one analyst, the answer is: at least $100,000 a year for a family of three. The Growing Size and Incomes of the Upper Middle Class (Urban Institute). The paper…
What Killed the Middle Class?
Everyone knows the middle class is fading fast. I’ve covered this issue in depth for years, for example: Honey, I Shrunk the Middle Class: Perhaps 1/3 of Households Qualify (December 28, 2015) and What Does It Take To Be Middle…
The Cultural Contradictions That Have Crippled the Great American Middle Class
Conventional explorations of why the middle class is shrinking focus on economic issues such as the decline of unions and manufacturing, the increasing premiums paid to the highest-paid workers and the rising costs of higher education and healthcare. All of…
Honey, I Shrunk the Middle Class: Perhaps 1/3 of Households Qualify
The Pew Research Center’s recent report The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground: No longer the majority and falling behind financially made a media splash, as it reported that less than 50% of adults are members of the Great American…
Here’s Why Housing Must be Propped Up
The Powers That Be have gone to extraordinary lengths to prop up housing by whatever means are necessary since the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008: the Federal Reserve has pushed mortgages rates down by buying mortgage-backed securities, the…
Time to Trade in Your Jag, Benz, BMW for a Dented Econobox: Days of Rage Are Coming
It’s time to trade in your Jag, Mercedes, BMW (and maybe your Prius, Volvo, Lexus, etc.) before the Days of Rage start. As I’ve explained before ( As the “Prosperity” Tide Recedes, the Ugly Reality of Wealth Inequality Is Exposed),…
Memo to the Fed and its Media Tool Hilsenrath: We’re Not Here to Enrich Your Corporate Cronies
The Federal Reserve is appalled that we’re not spending enough to further inflate the value of its corporate and banking cronies. In the Fed’s eyes, your reason for being is to channel whatever income you have to the Fed’s private-sector…