The US is NOT the wealthiest nation on the planet
By louisehartmann
America likes to think of itself as the richest nation on the planet, and looking strictly at total combined wealth, it is. But that’s only because there are a heck of a lot of billionaires living here. But looking at median wealth, or how much Americans in the middle are making, the United States doesn’t even crack the top ten in the world.
According to a new report by Credit Suisse, 15 OECD nations have a higher median wealth than the United States. That includes nations like Australia, Japan, and Israel. It also includes European nations that are in crisis like the Spain, Italy, and Ireland. That’s because over the thirty years since we embraced Reaganomics – the middle class in America has been devastated. We’re not the wealthiest nation on the planet anymore – we just have the most Romney-rich.
Comments
#2
I believe Reagonomics began in 1978 with the formation of the Shamrock Pool (Disney, Central Soya, et. al.)
In 1978 tomato wages were fixed in Florida until recently when Burger King was forced by bad public relations to offer to pay 1 cent/pound more for tomatoes so that slave conditions could improve for the Coalition of Immokalee Tomato Workers.
My husband says Thom refers to a"30 year Plan" which if begun 1978-2008 brings us to Fannie Mae Bankrupt and Indymac.
"30 year plans" involve both a concealed mortgage and a 30 year insurance charter. IRS knows at least half of this principle.
It is possible to pinpoint with chronologies which funds can be associated with the wage and price fixing which began in 1978.
#3
It will as long as Republicans are in office and Citizens United is law.
#4
Since the listing is a MEAN value, calculated according to Wiki as GNP divided by the population, it overstates the estimate since incomes are highly skewed. A better measure, not available from thes sources, would be the MEDIAN (5% lower, 50% higher). Often economic literatire will show a median value on incomes to be approximatele $20,000 lower than the Mean (which members of the GOP like to use).
#5
Wiki data under demographics is just re-reporting year 2000 census figures Median income. That's what they call it. So it was calculated by the Census Bureau. Wasn't it?
Clearly in Palm Beach, the jet set didn't send in their census reports else the Median would be higher. There isn't a servant's house or boat dock on the island you could lease for a year for what the stated Median family income is.
#6
One of the major contributors to the decline is free trade. In particular, one way free trade with partners who are surrepticiously screwing us. Since about 1975, real wages have trended down and they have tracked with tariffs ever since. (We cut trade barriers, and as a result we lose wealth). This is both a R and a D problem. For some unknown reason both parties think free trade is sacred and that tariffs can never rise and must eventually disappear. The best source of collected data on this is "The Myth of Free Trade" by Ravi Batra (A guest of Thom's several years ago)
#7
The decline of the working class (middle class) began with NAFTA. It is impossible for the American worker to compete with the workers of countries where they make a great deal less in their wage scale. As long as the free trade agreements exist and there are no tariffs, the American standard of living will continue to nose dive as it has in the last thirty years. Every president since the signing of the first free trade agreement has been guilty of selling the American worker out for political gain from multi-national corporations and businesses in the form of financial contributions which I call bribes. President Reagan, Bush1, Clinton, Bush 2 and Obama have all signed so call free trade agreements. They have all claimed it would help our businesses to sell our goods in new markets, bull shit.....The agreements were designed to increase profits for corporations by importing goods outside of the U.S. and bring them here with no tariff or tax, to be sold to us. That is why these big corporations move their operations from one country to the next, chasing cheap labor. And guess what, it is too late to do anything about it. Obama just signed a new free trade agreement, the TPP with Asian countries, including Vietnam. Anyone who thinks we will be selling our goods to the Vietnamese is delusional, they simply cannot afford it on the low wages they are paid. But, we will see goods imported from Vietnam, in competition with the cheap Chinese goods shipped here. There won't be any new factories being built or reopened here, unless we compete with the wages paid to the third world workers. The American standard of living is in a dead spiral downward and there is not a damn thing anyone can or will do about it. If the politicians told the truth about where the American worker and our standard of living is going, there would (will) be riots in the streets of every major city. Good bye middle class and dreams of reclaiming our way of life, hello poverty for the American worker.......Sad but true...
#8
I guess it all starts with people extremely unhappy and desperately worried about the condition of things..worried about surviving and the fate of their loved ones. When writing letters to Congressmen/women, griping on blogs, voting...doesn't work...we have to escalate this to a higher level. Of course, if no one ever communicated their feelings, as we do in these blogs, nothing will even ignite what needs to be ignited in order for escalated actions to occur.
Americans will look pretty meek and cowardly if they sit by and watch the rest of the world act out their discontent of their ruling elite and not do the same here. Those who actually do go out into the streets and demonstrate are really heroes and braver and committed than any of us who just write blogs. But, write our ideas and concerns, and praising those who do go out into the streets, we must... and hopefully inspire others, and ourselves, to take action.
Of course, no one wants to be a lone martyr but working in mass, as they did during the Vietnam years, making Nixon cringe and cower as he did, thinking that the masses were going to actually invade the White House, the course of history did change. Had they not massively demonstrated, this country would have kept on wasting money and lives over there. Had it not been for the Daniel Ellsberg Pentagon Papers, and a whole lot of organized, and even disorganized, opposition history would have looked a lot bleaker than the years after we pulled out of Nam.
I don't see any other way around it...Americans will eventually be so backed into the corner that they will have to react. And it even says in our constitution that we not only have a right but a duty to overthrow a tyrannical regime. And I'd say the top 1-3% have been very tyrannical. They have, in effect, told us all that if we don't have a certain amount of wealth already that we all have nothing left but just to lay down and die without complaint. They started this war against us and we eventually must fight back...not with a corrupt...doomed to fail...political system...but in the only way left. When animals are cornered they fight back. Should we, as humans, do anything less?
#9
Unless our ruling elite believes that what has happened in other countries...say Egypt...where they put Mubarak in a cage...even urinating on him, I'm told..and even worse for Ghadafi....can happen here as well....they will never budge an inch. These arrogant bigwigs need to start getting worried...very worried. And Americans need to make that happen before any positive changes will occur.
#10
Regardless of what the name of legislation was or what president "regan" that really started the decline, my spidey senses tell me that the decline is due to not imagining a middle class for all Americans in the first place. I just watch Mississippi a self-portrait. One of the big problems that they pointed out in the south was that they were at a time when blacks were still living on plantations, just 40 years ago but were being replaced by machines at an increasing pace. They were really dealing with the dilemma of having generations of slaves and their descendants in a socioeconomic stalemate. One on hand the whites felt a need to keep the blacks submissive, obedient this also meant they did not want to educate them for fear of them becoming up-ity. One the other the work for them was disappearing so what do you do with these people? This nation has not answered this question. Instead the grew dread and fear as increasing numbers climbed into what was the middle class. They had no choice but to attack the ladder as well as the people. Now the poor blacks and whites are separated more by class than race and competing over crumbs. If we can imagine equality in and for each other without fear we will see the morality of sustain the middle class.
Agapepeople.com
#11
I'm going to continue to beat this to death........ the Romney-rich will be successful in carrying out their economic terrorism, "concentration of wealth", just as long as their most formidable weapon, the Corp. Mass Media, is able to continue with massive dissemination of misinformation and get away with calling it news.
For christ sakes, my own relatives are so FOXMERIZED, they still think people like Bachmann and Beck are sane! The only way in hell 50% of those polled are willing to vote for Mr..... lower wages and poverty .......Romney, is becaues of the crap they hear from our good friends in the corp. media. Granted a few might just be dumb -ass racists, but I think most...and it's because I talk with quite a few people, are just sadly misinformed.
The war can be won if we figure out how to well inform with truth..... the average disinterested Joe, more than FOX screws with his head by misinforming him....run ads in your local papers pointing out the facts of the Ryan budget plan......and make local voters understand it's the REPUBLICAN agenda!
#12
My spouse is from Africa. Her relatives were surprised to hear/see how bad off financially many Americans really are. I felt embarrassed, her older relatives had a look of dismay/shock on thier faces. It's humiliating to go overseas to visit them and them thinking "those poor Americans it's not what it used to be in the USA ". My great grandparents must be rolling over in their graves.
#13
400 billionaires, 36,300 with more than $30million, and 3,104,000 millionaires...in 2009 (according to one source..wikipedia). But more recent data (from the Spectrum Group) says that 200,000 new millionaires were added to the US just last year (2011). They said that there are 8.6 million households in the US with a total net worth (minus principle residence) of $1million or more (about 2.76% of Americans). 1,078,000 households worth $5million or more and about 107,000 people worth $25million or more. So, it is really not just the 1% we need to worry about...it is the top 2.76% in the US who are millionaires. I highly doubt that you would find many liberals or progressives (real ones anyway...not the ones that just pretend) in that group. They all likely have the same screw everyone else mentality...and love the idea of getting rid of social security, medicare, and certainly wouldn't be for taxing the rich.
Fox News....Fox Screws! And all the other regular major news media tends to suck as well...but not as much as Fox. Fox is the great evil that deranges people to useful idiots for the ruling elite that exploits them.
Sometimes I think the Roman Gladiator mentality...or the Middle Ages...Christian witch-burning mentality...never left us. The major news media knows this and has these addle brained zombies hooked on all of this trash news that they play over and over again, ad nauseam. People still want to stone or burn other people...any excuse will do.
I watch, almost exclusively, RT, FSTV, and Link TV. Occasionally glimpse at CNN, or local channels.
#14
1975 is marked by the end of the Straus-German American-Lincoln Trust Company, formed 1910.
#15
I don't think the decline began there, but I remember when NAFTA went into effect, one lawyer I highly respect had his head in his hands and said, "this is going to ruin the country."
Free and easy credit to very young people in the early seventies, student loans, and balloon mortgages all were part of the destructive process prior to NAFTA.
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Here are some Wiki 2000 Census per capita incomes around America:
Leo-Cedarville, Indiana :$22,170 Fort Wayne, Indiana: $18,517 Gary, Indiana: $14,383 Immokalee, Florida: $8,576 Elberton, Georgia: $15,486 Paris, Texas: $17,137 Rancho Santa Fe, California: $113,132 Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina: $20,268
Salt Lake City, Utah: $20,752 Hidalgo, Texas: $5,849 (Zapata Oil Drilling Leases abound here)
Belle Glade, Florida: $11,159 Florida City, Florida: $8,270 Lakeland, Florida: $15,760 (Publix Headquarters)
Caruthersville, MO: $12,034 Amarillo, Texas: $18,621 Detroit, Michigan: $14,118 Orlando, Florida: $21,216.
Stamford, Connecticut has No Census incomes reported in Demographics in Wiki.
Now this I will tell you from numerous trips to Palm Beach Island, and a very thorough course in The History of Palm Beach Architecture, this is a pure LIE
Census reported Palm Beach median family income of $137,867.
Oh BS- that wouldn't pay the property tax and lawn maintenance on Palm Beach Island! What kind of malarkey is this? It wouldn't pay for two palm trees to be installed on the swale of the Kennedy Mansion.