Rich flourishing, poor struggling in recession recovery: report

This is a surprise to who again? All of this was written about extensively in the early 1990's (albeit from the angle of those with wealth). We knew back then that the changes in the taxes and laws would return society to where it was at the end of the 1920's/early 1930's. It is only when the wealthy start getting killed off in great numbers that things will change. Back then everything started kicking off in eastern Europe and spread outwards, this time it's starting in the Middle East/North Africa and spreading outwards.

The prudent will sell their lavish properties and invest in weapons manufacturing and profit again from the impending wars, the foolish will say: "let the poor rot/eat cake they deserve to be poor, besides; what can they do to us, "we're rich". Those who don't learn from history...

Yes, the middle class is dying. And this story just reinforces it. Yes it is sad but no it cannot be stopped. Sadly it will die. And while most people in the western world have come accustomed to a middle class, historically a middle class is not natural. Throughout most of history there have been 2 main classes--rich and poor. Each country had a rich class and a poor class. But that changed in the 20th Century. Now we had rich countries (capitalist and free trade) and poor countries (socialist and communist). This meant that there was so much money concentrated in capitalist countries that even the not so well educated there could get good standards of living--they became the middle class.

But that changed 20 years ago. Russia, China and India all embraced capitalism and free trade. We lost our advantage over them. Now they have the same capitalism and free trade we do and they are succeeding and competing for our middle-class jobs. We in the western world had a few good generations of a middle class but it will return to the historically normal state. Trying to prevent the decline of the middle class is like trying to prevent the onset of winter. The middle class is doomed--it's sad but inevitable. This story just makes it more obvious.

Well I'm not so sure the middle class is suffering. I am middle-class and so were my parents. But my standard of life is better than theirs was. Today's middle class has better cars, more tvs, better homes, more vacation days, safer workplaces etc than our middle-class parents. OK so maybe we are not catching up to the rich classes but today's middle class is way better off.

I'm curious...would you rather have a) a 2% improvement in your standard of living if it meant the rich got a 10% improvement OR would you rather b) everyone have a 1% improvement?

It seems society is getting "a)" and I am ok with that. There should be more rewards for people who work harder. But I can't help but think that there is a jealous element of society like SP. It is that kind of thinking that lead to socialism in Russia and China that caused their downfall in the 20s and 30s until they corrected it a few years ago.

OH GOD!!!
And this is news to who??? I didn't even have to read the article.
It's been the trend for a generation. This is why nobody trusts the media anymore. There so far behind that there a joke!!!

Refugee, you're missing the big picture here. Today's middle class is 'better off' than the previous generations because of advances in technology and the Global economy. I'm sure they felt the same thing. But what's happening is that in the 'old days', when things were doing poor, the rich would take their lumps with the rest of us and suffer losses. When a recovery was made, the rich would recover more quickly, but everything would come back as a whole...

Today, the rich absolutely REFUSE to see any sort of loss, and even consider a drop in PROFITS to be a loss. "We made $100mil last year, but only $80mil this year. So we lost $20mil!" They take measures to ensure their profits keep steady, on the backs of the poor and middle classes. This will keep happening until those groups are driven into the ground. The rich won't care, because as was previously mentioned, "They deserved it, since they were obviously uneducated and were meant to be poor. They mean nothing to us..." Again, thanks to the Global economy, there's a ton more people they'll soak dry (then they'll beg for more government 'stimulus') until they figure out they NEED us to keep going. By then it'll be too late. They'll have run the system into the ground, but they'll be rich enough to ride it out. I hate to think what'll become of the rest of us.

The middle class is dying due to greed, today we have employers who hire 1 person to do 3 peoples job while the other 2 sit on EI, we have job agencies who are actually parasites and should be referred to as such, sucking out every dime they can by being a useless middle man working with greedy corporations. Yes, the middle class is dying, the only way to fix it is people need to become self sufficient and stop relying on big corporations or others for jobs, create your own.

@ Troy. I think you just made Refugee's point. You are not happy unless others suffer. You agree that the middle class is better off than it was a generation ago...but it still bugs you that others are even better off than you. You correctly admit you don't suffer from a lower standard of living...but you suffer from envy. You admitted today's middle class is better off than it used to be but you seem to want even more. You also want others (ie the rich) to "take their lumps and suffer losses" (a quote from you) if you have to. What a petty person you are!!!

Troy is right, he just didn't explain it properly. Here is what he is getting at:
It used to be that if a company was poorly run, or producing something that was not competitive, it would go bankrupt, and disappear, to be replaced by a better competitor. So a few Wallstreet Banksters would have seen the house of cards they built fall down around their ears, and found themselves out on their rears with no bonus and no paycheck. They would have learned that if you screw around with other people's money and you screw up, you suffer some consequences.

This time around, instead of being punished for their gross negligence, wanton disregard for the investors, their own focus on filling their own pockets as rapidly as possible, and their general 'devil take the hindmost' attitude, they were handsomely rewarded three quarters of a trillion dollars were pumped into the banks - much of it ultimately went to (1) buy up worthless papers to make the bank's balance sheets look pretty, i.e. the financial equivalent of flushing money down the toilet and (2) pay the people who caused this mess, and pay them handsomely indeed.

The second three quarter trillion, for the general economic stimulus to help 'main street' was only window dressing to keep the unemployed on Main street from erecting gallows on Wall street.

Who pays for all this crap? not the people who caused it, but Joe Average making $10 an hour, and his kids and grandkids.

This rescue of the bankers removed what is called the 'moral hazard', it basically taught the banksters that they can do whatever they like, because they are too big to fail. This means that they will continue to take crazy risks, because they will profit greatly if they win the gamble, and Joe Average will pay for the loss if they win. The Banksters are playing a classic 'heads I win, tails you lose' game with us and no government on the planet has the balls to stop them.

This is how it worked: the Banksters told the government the following:
Guess where granny's pension is? Invested with US, in OUR investment bank.
SAVE US, or GRANNY's PENSION GOES POOF!
Mr. President, you don't want to be responsible for making granny become penniless overnight and starving, do you? That would have the entire nation at your door by morning. So be a good boy, and give us the money. And the government paid up. And the next time it will pay up again, and this will continue to happen in many countries - until all civilized nations are so phreaking broke that the Banksters own the entire planet. And here is the sickest part: GRANNY's PENSION WENT POOF ANYWAY, all the money went to the Banksters!

Here is how the government should have reacted to the Banksters 2008 hostage ploy:
Granny only has $250 000 invested. Your bonus alone is $100 000 000. It would be economically stupid to give you the money, because we could save 400 grannies with your bonus alone. Here is our plan:
(1) Insure the savings and investments of individuals only, up to $250 000. That means if someone has an pension fund worth $250 000 at AIG, the person rather than the company will get the money.
(2) Invest in durable infrasctructure, research and development to create real jobs. Roads and bridges, dikes and levees, alternative fuels, public transit, freight rail transport - all of this will pay off in the future by increasing our safety and the efficiency of our economy.

Yes, some people would still have lost jobs - but some new jobs would have been created. And most importantly - the Banksters would have thought twice before building another house of cards. They haven't been taught their lesson, so fasten your seatbelts for the next Bankster-caused crash.

The comments concerning the bailout are naive to say the least. If it had been left unchecked we wouldn't be in something like the 1930s... Think more like the dark ages.

Let me explain it to the people that don't get it. Imagine a group of 1000 friends that all invest in each other and back each other's position. Each has to maintain a certain assets to debt ratio or they go bankrupt and everybody invested in them loses their money.

Now one individual (lets say Tom) makes a really bad bet and loses $100 which makes him go bankrupt. Sally and John's investment in Tom now doesn't exist so they each lose their $100 investment and go bankrupt. Now 6 other people that were investment in the 2 of them each lose $100 and they also go bankrupt. Pretty soon it becomes apparant that the entire group of 1000 friends is going to lose everything.

Now instead of people know that they are banks. Instead of $100 we are talking billons. The federal government injected that money after Lehman brothers and AIG had already failed. Had they propped up the Lehman brothers it probably would have cost 1/10 as much. If they had propped up AIG probably would have cost 1/4 as much. If they had waited even a week longer it probably would have gotten beyond their ability to stop altogether. That would have meant a large percentage of the US banks would have gone bankrupt.

So what you think? Try no more debt available to you in any form. Imagine getting a letter that your house mortgage was due in full in 30 days and nobody would refinance (ever actually read your agreement, they do have the ability to pull it at any time). Imagine your work business shutting down because all of their debt was called. Basically the entire system would have lost everything. Tax reveneus would have fallen so far that the government would have been powerless to help anybody. Also to the guy above talking about insuring investments of individuals. How would you ensure the losses if everybody lost? There wouldn't be enough money in the world.

Lastly although the image of the $10 an hour Joe bailing out the banks is appealing it is totally a myth. Less than 50% of Americans pay tax. Of the taxes paid the top 400 familys pay 5% and the top 10% of familys pay over 50% of all taxes paid. Also the banks have repaid a large chunk of that money and will likely repay all of it in time.

If you want to complain about the auto wcompany bailout that is a totally separate issue and you might actually be correct with some of that. Otherwise stick to something that you know and understand because you obviously understand little of what actually occured.

ITS TIME TO PUT A CAP ON PERSONAL WEALTH....Everything after that should be taxed at 100%and spent on job creation, education and health...the greed is out of control..

@Gerry.... Ah spoken like a true "have not". Too stupid to make your own wealth, so you want to take it from those work hard and smart.