Re: Decline of the Middle Class?

The US is just too big and diverse to speak in general terms of such a thing
as a middle-class. How would we measure it as a national average? Even our
politicians who want to take away interest mortgage deductions cannot agree
on where to draw the lines. Those in the West say around a million or show,
those in the Midwest say around 150,000 should be fair. The US is not as
economic integrated and a uniform as we have been led to believe. We are
actually four or five market areas held together by laws which we are having
trouble understanding and applying.







"Jonas Cord" <cordjonas@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1117789227.181406.180340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi all,
>
> Why have the living standards of the middle class declined so much in
> the US (and other countries) over the past 30 years or so?
> I am not an economist, but it seems to me that middle class people have
> a lower standard of life nowadays than the one enjoyed by their
> parents, apart from technological innovations such as internet access,
> satellite TV, etc. An example: my working class parents in California
> had no problems buying a house (for about $10,000) in the 1960's. A few
> years ago they sold it for half a million. I am an IT consultant but I
> can't even afford to rent a house like the one my parents bought back
> then, let alone buy it.
> Why has this happened? Recently I watched a documentary by the Mises
> Institute on the Federal Reserve. They claim that the cause lies in the
> collapse of the Bretton-Woods agreement and the gold standard, which
> caused massive inflation.
> Another possibility could be the federal welfare programs introduced by
> the Johnson administration in the 60's. Or perhaps WWII gave us such a
> powerful Keynesian "shot in the arm" that its effects lasted a few
> decades until the early 70's.
> Personally I think the right explanation is a mixture of the first two.
> What do you think?
>
> Jonas
>

.

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