Author Topic: AND THE SLAVE SHALL SERVE  (Read 8353 times)

Offline Jake

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AND THE SLAVE SHALL SERVE
« on: July 25, 2010, 12:49:00 PM »
I'm posting this because unless you're either mentaly retarded or have your head in the sand and just refuse to believe how bad it really is, you HAVE to realize that not only we (those of us reading this) but especialy our kids and grandkids (if you have them) are f'ed in a huge way.

Be afraid.... be very afraid.

In fact be scarred sh!tless. What's in the near future is terrifiying...................

The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it

From The Business Insider

Editor's note: Michael Snyder is editor of theeconomiccollapseblog.com

The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

Here are the statistics to prove it:

•    83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
•    61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
•    66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
•    36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
•    A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
•    24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
•    Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
•    Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
•    For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
•    In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
•    As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
•    The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
•    Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
•    In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
•    The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
•    In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
•    More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
•    or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
•    This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
•    Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
•    Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
•    The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Giant Sucking Sound

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are "less attractive" than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States.

So corporations are moving operations out of the U.S. at breathtaking speed. Since the U.S. government does not penalize them for doing so, there really is no incentive for them to stay.

What has developed is a situation where the people at the top are doing quite well, while most Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to make it. There are now about six unemployed Americans for every new job opening in the United States, and the number of "chronically unemployed" is absolutely soaring. There simply are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.

Many of those who are able to get jobs are finding that they are making less money than they used to. In fact, an increasingly large percentage of Americans are working at low wage retail and service jobs.

But you can't raise a family on what you make flipping burgers at McDonald's or on what you bring in from greeting customers down at the local Wal-Mart.

The truth is that the middle class in America is dying -- and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.


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The above is only the tip of the iceburg.... The reality is that as a whole, it's even worse than most of you think.

I feel sorry for the younger generation that will have to deal with all of this and the different lifestyles that it is invoking right now even as I type this.

The America I grew up in was a lot different than the America of today.
The only thing that separates Paint from Pain... Is a t.

Offline BrushJockey

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Re: AND THE SLAVE SHALL SERVE
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2010, 02:58:48 PM »
So Jake, any Ideas? Class uprising?  Bolshevik revolution. Or French?

I see you're pretty worked up, and I don't disagree-  but a way to react to a problem is much stronger than stating a problem.

Interested to hear your ideas.
"It would be ludicrous to think I'm new to this, I know this, this is what I do"  ( Prince and Geo Clinton..)

Offline Jake

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Re: AND THE SLAVE SHALL SERVE
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2010, 03:40:59 PM »
So Jake, any Ideas? Class uprising?  Bolshevik revolution. Or French?

I see you're pretty worked up, and I don't disagree-  but a way to react to a problem is much stronger than stating a problem.

Interested to hear your ideas.

ideas?...Ideas!?!...IDEAS!!!..... THE LUNATICS ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM!!! I WAS HOPING THAT YOU HAD THE IDEAS!!!  ;D ;D ;D

Seriously though I don't know man. I feel super frustrated about it.

I had started to type out a super long rant about people being kept asleep and just letting all of this go down... Which is what is happening....

Because, you know..... Football season is coming up and who's gonna be in the Stupid-Bowl this year?... and My kid needs braces, and I'm underwater $100,000 on my house, and the credit cards bills, and my bitching wife and boss, but HEY!!!... The new movie coming out with Bruce Willis and Arnold, and VanDamme, and all those other guys, and I really need that sweet new car I see advertized on TV.... Oh yeah!!! TV... What's on tonight over the 300 channels of bul!s**t that I get...

Bread and Circus's.........

I AM A ROBOT. I HEAR AND OBEY.  ::)

I dunno Bro.

One way or another somethings gonna happen. Either we'll all be standing in a soup line together, or the country will wake up.

A stockbroker once told me of an old saying in the market: "The masses are asses"...

I hope he was wrong.... But I doubt it.

What do YOU think we should do?

I'd also like to read Eric's opinion if he happens to see this and feels so compelled to respond.
The only thing that separates Paint from Pain... Is a t.

Offline rmichael

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Re: AND THE SLAVE SHALL SERVE
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2010, 04:07:47 PM »
I agree that the implementation of  Bill Clinton's "World Economy" has made most of Ross Perot's predictions a reality but I recently read that more US corporations are finding that manufacturing overseas is turning out to be an  "unsustainable business plan "  The reasons are that overseas workers ( Chinese) are demanding higher wages, at sea shipping costs continue to explode, product quality control is impossible, and most importantly they copy the technology and startup a competitive business that dwindles the US corporation's market share.. or take it over...  :'( 
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Re: AND THE SLAVE SHALL SERVE
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2010, 06:43:53 AM »
Governmental intrusion is the primary source of much more than just economic woes in this country (and globally for that matter).

Jake, do yourself a favor and get a copy of the Founding Documents, then read them.

Then re-read them. A few times. I'm dead serious, because the "fix" for the lion's share of this nation's problems are in those pages...In glorious black & white...

The re-reading process brings the clarity to view of what absolute geniouses our Founders were...

There's a reason for the Tea Movement, why such a diverse bunch of people are so angry, and it's all in the pages of our Constitution--Along with the cure for what's ailing us... ;)

Offline Lynjowoman

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Re: AND THE SLAVE SHALL SERVE
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2010, 11:45:36 AM »
You guys hit the nail on the head.
 As long as the Gov. continues to hand out unemployment checks, why would anyone in their right mind even try to look for a job. Their comments are, why work? we make more on unemployment & unreported side jobs than we make working & can sit around in bars drinking all day with no worries. Well who is going to pay all the debt the Gov. is getting us into. State Employment Tax has been gone for a long time. Employers, look out for your rates to go sky high to try to make up for the expense that never seems to be coming to an end. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of people out there looking for work, but there are still a lot of free loaders out there who know how to work the system. Oh, sorry they don't have to work the system, they are getting it already. Just being handed over to them, no questions asked.

Sorry guys I got carried away.

Lynjo
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anything