A good start to reviving the middle class
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/12/opinion/frum-obama-speech/index.html?hpt=hp_bn9
I really liked this part of the article:
Realistically, the president’s Kansas speech translates into a formula of higher taxes on the rich to pay for more spending on favored Democratic public-sector constituencies.
There are some good elements in the article, I urge those interested to read the whole thing. While I don’t personally recall such times, I do know from my study of history that until my generation it was taken as a given that a single middle class income could support an entire family, house, car, kids and school. Today it takes income at the 1% level to achieve that state so I would suggest that the real buying power of the middle class wage has been cut by well over half in the last generation. I know that in the Philippines, an excellent proxy for the third world state the US is on the verge of sharing, it is possible for a single wage earner to support family, house, etc., though at well below the standard of living we are accustomed here (my theory for why this is possible is largely due to the ready supply of food through the tropical conditions they live in and their ready access to the sea). While class mobility is far from excellent in the Philippines (it is quickly decreasing in the US and has been for decades (Bill Gates, btw, started life as the son of a millionaire, a real head start on becoming a self-made billionaire)) it does appear to me that there are more opportunities there for people trying to get by than here in the US. It may be an artifact of my observational position (my parents-in-law are wealthy and well connected over there), but I get the strong impression that there are way more entrepreneurial opportunities there than here.
For instance, one of the problems with a minimum wage is it sets a floor on the level of productivity for any given position. If you are required to pay, say, $10 an hour for your employee, that employee must produce on the order of $25 an hour to make hiring them economically viable. If minimum wage can float to the market place, then in parts of the country where the standard of living is quite low, it might be practical to pay someone a third of that, thus dramatically reducing the required revenue the position must produce, thus increasing the opportunities for employment, pumping money into the economy, increase tax revenue, upward spiral, etc. The market only really works when there is a certain minimum level of competition and when none of the competitors can afford to purchase politicians. In our ‘great society’ many corporations have concentrated so much business that they are ‘too big to fail’ and also have the resources to purchase our government outright, thus severely distorting any potential for a free and fair market (where _everyone_ is free to fail and go bankrupt, not just the ones that can’t afford politician).
