Found this on yahoo finance

 

Are you better off than your parents?

Probably not if you're in the middle class.

Incomes
for 90% of Americans have been stuck in neutral, and it's not just
because of the Great Recession. Middle-class incomes have been stagnant
for at least a generation, while the wealthiest tier has surged ahead at
lighting speed.

In 1988, the income of an average American
taxpayer was $33,400, adjusted for inflation. Fast forward 20 years, and
not much had changed: The average income was still just $33,000 in
2008, according to IRS data.

Meanwhile, the richest 1% of
Americans — those making $380,000 or more — have seen their incomes
grow 33% over the last 20 years, leaving average Americans in the dust.
Experts point to some of the usual suspects — like technology and
globalization — to explain the widening gap between the haves and
have-nots.

But there's more to the story.

A real drag on the middle class

One
major pull on the working man was the decline of unions and other labor
protections, said Bill Rodgers, a former chief economist for the Labor
Department, now a professor at Rutgers University.

Because of
deals struck through collective bargaining, union workers have
traditionally earned 15% to 20% more than their non-union counterparts,
Rodgers said.

But union membership has declined rapidly over the
past 30 years. In 1983, union workers made up about 20% of the
workforce. In 2010, they represented less than 12%.

"The erosion
of collective bargaining is a key factor to explain why low-wage workers
and middle income workers have seen their wages not stay up with
inflation," Rodgers said.

Without collective bargaining pushing up wages, especially for blue-collar work — average incomes have stagnated.

International
competition is another factor. While globalization has lifted millions
out of poverty in developing nations, it hasn't exactly been a win for
middle class workers in the U.S.

Factory workers have seen many of
their jobs shipped to other countries where labor is cheaper, putting
more downward pressure on American wages.

"As we became more connected to China, that poses the question of whether our wages are being set in Beijing," Rodgers said.

Finding
it harder to compete with cheaper manufacturing costs abroad, the U.S.
has emerged as primarily a services-producing economy. That trend has
created a cultural shift in the job skills American employers are
looking for.

Whereas 50 years earlier, there were plenty of blue
collar opportunities for workers who had only high school diploma, now
employers seek "soft skills" that are typically honed in college,
Rodgers said.

A boon for the rich

While average folks were
losing ground in the economy, the wealthiest were capitalizing on some
of those same factors, and driving an even bigger wedge between
themselves and the rest of America.

For example, though
globalization has been a drag on labor, it's been a major win for
corporations who've used new global channels to reduce costs and boost
profits. In addition, new markets around the world have created even
greater demand for their products.

"With a global economy, people
who have extraordinary skills… whether they be in financial services,
technology, entertainment or media, have a bigger place to play and be
rewarded from," said Alan Johnson, a Wall Street compensation
consultant.

As a result, the disparity between the wages for
college educated workers versus high school grads has widened
significantly since the 1980s.

In 1980, workers with a high school
diploma earned about 71% of what college-educated workers made. In
2010, that number fell to 55%.

Another driver of the rich: The stock market.

The
S&P 500 has gained more than 1,300% since 1970. While that's helped
the American economy grow, the benefits have been disproportionately
reaped by the wealthy.

And public policy of the past few decades has only encouraged the trend.

The 1980s was a period of anti-regulation, presided over by President Reagan, who loosened rules governing banks and thrifts.

A
major game changer came during the Clinton era, when barriers between
commercial and investment banks, enacted during the post-Depression era,
were removed.

In 2000, President Bush also weakened the
government's oversight of complex securities, allowing financial
innovations to take off, creating unprecedented amounts of wealth both
for the overall economy, and for those directly involved in the
financial sector.

Tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration and extended under Obama were also a major windfall for the nation's richest.

And
as then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan brought interest rates
down to new lows during the decade, the housing market experienced
explosive growth.

"We were all drinking the Kool-aid, Greenspan
was tending bar, Bernanke and the academic establishment were supplying
the liquor," Deutsche Bank managing director Ajay Kapur wrote in a
research report in 2009.

But the story didn't end well.
Eventually, it all came crashing down, resulting in the worst economic
slump since the Great Depression.

With the unemployment rate
still excessively high and the real estate market showing few signs of
rebounding, the American middle class is still reeling from the effects
of the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, as corporate profits come
roaring back and the stock market charges ahead, the wealthiest people
continue to eclipse their middle-class counterparts.

"I think it's a terrible dilemma, because what we're obviously heading toward is some kind of class warfare," Johnson said.

A bigger bunch of half-baked crap I haven't read in a long time:

 

- Union wages are down because union manufacturing membership is down.  Why? Because the unions can't deliver.  Why?  Because through decades of padding union wages and benefits, forcing companies to keep union workers sitting on their butts not producing anything except union dues, and refusing to adapt to updated methods,  manufacturers found it more profitable to pick up entire factories and move them overseas and to right-to-work states.  Sure the manufacturing wages are lower in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and South Carolina.  So much so that Mercedes-Benz found it more profitable to open a manufacturing plant in the Alabama vs Germany.  Go figure.

- Wages overall, particularly in lower middle class, are depressed largely due to illegal immigrant labor.  Blame who you want, illegals work for less, thus driving down overall earnings numbers.  When an illegal will do the same job for $1 less, what do you do?  You either work for less, or if it's significant enough, go on unemployment.

- High school graduates used to earn proportionately more because 30 years ago, the high school graduate could read, write and at least make change without a calculator.  Now, I can't find a high school graduate who can measure a six-inch line with a ruler and a pencil.  That's a fact.  Now, I can't get a college graduate who can write a cogent paragraph.  Why would I pay more for that?

- "In 2000, President Bush also weakened the government's oversight of complex securities, allowing financial innovations to take off, creating unprecedented amounts of wealth both for the overall economy, and for those directly involved in the

financial sector."  Rubbish.

Bush tried at least three times that I am aware of to reign in Fannie and Freddy to help stem the tide of easy and cheap mortgage money that fueled the bubble.  The financial gurus couldn't even explain the derivaties to the SEC, very few really understood them, but Fanny and Freddy bought them up to fuel the easy mortgage machine, so how would more regulations or regulators have made a difference?  It cracks me up that the very "experts" who were resisting regulating the money machine then, are now claiming that Bush created the mess by not regulating them.  History didn't start today.

- Instead of weaning back the money by gradually increasing interest rates, the government chooses to finance its debt by printing more money, thus setting the middle class up with hyperinflation that will really hit hard – when – in 24 months.  After the Annointed One gets re-elected.  The middle class' money will be worth less than half of what it is today.  It won't matter what your check reads in dollars, because in real purchasing power it will be worth about 25 percent of what is was worth in 2008.  And this moron is concerned about wages being flat?  You'd be happy for that in 2-5 years.

And I'm looking at a retirement in a few years, knowing that:  my 401k is worth 24% less than it was in 2007 despite the market being above 12,000, my military retirement will probably be cut back because the government is broke, but I'll still make too much to collect Social Security under a means-tested system (it has to come, just wait).  I will be the door greeter at WalMart until the day I die.