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American Middle Class: What Happened?

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LevV

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American Middle Class: What Happened?

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I don't normally read the New York Times, but I'm vacationing here from Quebec, Canada at the "Ocean Walk" complex in Daytona Beach, went out for my "dark roast" at the local Starbuck and spotted the front page article in the newspaper on the table beside me: America's Middle Class no Longer World's Richest. Picking up the paper and reading on to the second paragraph, I read that the American middle class has been overtaken by Canada's middle class. And this is after tax income.
With the taxes we pay (not that I'm complaining), your middle class must have taken quite a hit!
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DWill

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Re: American Middle Class: What Happened?

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Congrats to Canada on that (sincerely). It can be really hard to know what's going on in your own lifetime, in your own country, when you're in the middle of it. I'm speaking of myself as a U.S. citizen, bewildered by all the contradictory economic claims and political point-making, in the meantime trying to make my own living. We rely on later generations to tell us what happened to us. I hope your sojourn in Daytona Beach means you've done all right yourself. Don't work too hard!
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LevV

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Re: American Middle Class: What Happened?

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I agree that the politics of your country is baffling but I enjoy making the effort to understand what I can.

As for me, I'm not doing too badly financially. My wife and I are retired teachers and teacher pensions in most of Canada are pretty good. And in our case, after retiring from central Canada we continued teaching in Nunavut in the far north for an additional seven years giving us some great experiences and an additional pension.
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Re: American Middle Class: What Happened?

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It's hard to know exactly what's going on in the U.S., but it seems that our financial systems are becoming corrupt, leading to wealth being siphoned from the middle class. Our government is either too incompetent or perhaps too willing to play a supporting role. A Princeton professor apparently wrote a paper recently arguing that the U.S. has become an oligarchy.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolrep ... -has-lost/
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Re: American Middle Class: What Happened?

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I'm sure it's more complicated than the simple answer I am going to give.

But I blame the consumer-centric culture we've nurtured/fostered. It seems that the lie has been perpetuated, embraced, and rebroadcast, that we all should live like celebrities and reach far, far, far beyond our means. Too many people have mistaken their luxuries with necessities. I don't think we've ever been as obsessed with new gadgets/toys/products and our own pampered lifestyles than we are now.
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Re: American Middle Class: What Happened?

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Hay sometimes things really are simple! In addition though I think it's the case that we simply don't work as hard (or at least as well) as they did in days gone by. I mean, on the one hand jobs have been devalued, and in many cases what used to be fulltime "real" jobs are now parttime - and if the job isn't real, so the thinking goes, why should the effort? Of course these tend to play into each other...
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Re: American Middle Class: What Happened?

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Personal accountability is nil.
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