We the Toxic Assets?

The "middle class" is an historical anomaly and in my humble opinion, was artificially created to build the wealth of the ownership class until it was no longer needed. Well, this class is no longer needed, hence its current decline.

Today, as J.A. Myerson point out in the video below, "the middle class is the working class plus debt." We're now in the process of returning to the natural harmonious capitalist order which does not include a "middle class". Home ownership, college, medical insurance, etc. is a privilege of wealth

“In the digital age where American workers have increased their productivity hugely with no real increase to their wages, the middle class has only been able to keep up the incredible consumption schedule it is used to by taking on a ton of debt. We go into debt to buy the home, the health care, the education, the automobile, that working class people aren’t traditionally entitled."

Links:

Who's Profiting From $1.2 Trillion of Federal Student Loans?

No FAFSA, No Diploma in Louisiana

After Math Error, Fitch Doubles Student-Debt Downgrade Estimate

Read more...

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.

The genius of our current plutocratic power structure is their ability to present the illusion of change on the surface, while maintaining continuity just beneath the surface. In other words, despite change in leadership, despite change in political party, despite promises to make a difference in the state or condition of things, despite promises to reform, nothing deviates from the status quo, wealth and privilege continue to reign supreme and our leaders, regardless of party affiliation, remain faithful to imperialist aims and objectives.

Of course, this should come as no surprise, since it's the wealthy and privileged--whether individually, or corporately--who provide most, if not all the funding for both the National Democratic Party and National Republican Party. The same wealthy who who demand free enterprise, at the same time that they totally support monopoly and vested interest. They use the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously in order to keep "we the people" in eternal subjugation.

If you don't believe the two-party system is a sham, consider the continuing escalation of economic inequality, economic insecurity, economic exploitation, corporatized media, military intervention, assault on our civil liberties, "Big Brother", educational indoctrination, not to mention the ever-increasing prison population (since the 1970’s our prison population has increased by over 500%, with over 2.2 million people in prison, 900,000 of them, black) over the last four decades.

What is the point of voting when the outcome is the same?

Read more...

International Studies Show Upward Mobility in US a Myth.

It's one of those entrenched American myths, that even people from humble beginnings, if they work hard, and keep their nose to the grindstone, can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and achieve the American Dream. It's the "land of opportunity", right?  Wrong. The reality is much different, so what leads people to embrace an idea that is contradicted by evidence and often times by their own experiences?

Sorry, "bootstrap" success is only possible when the playing field is level. While there is an infinitesimally small uber-successful "class" who reap untold benefits, the rest of us continue to spiral down the ladder. But despite evidence of declining mobility and structural inequalities, this idea of the American Dream is so anchored within our culture that most Americans continue to believe that perspiration is more important to mobility than the state of the economy or socioeconomic circumstances as a child.

You must take into consideration that our poverty rates are much higher than the poverty threshold or federal poverty measures acknowledge. The line above which a family can be reasonably expected to be able to pay their bills is far lower than it should be because  it doesn't include food or fuel in its calculus, and is  based on 3 times a thrifty basket of food, priced in 1978. The real poverty threshold is at least 3 to 4 times that rate. 2/3 of the poor remain hidden giving the illusion that the U.S. is still the "land of opportunity".

So it should come as no surprise that international studies show that exceptional upward mobility in the US is, indeed, a myth. 

Mobility Regimes and Parental Wealth: The United States, Germany, and Sweden in Comparison

Read more...

White America; Accidental Beneficiary of Unmerited Privilege

The Catholic Charities paper Poverty and Racism: Overlapping Threats to the Common Good, was not written with the intention to provoke white guilt but to help white people recognize the problem. This paper does not use the term racism in the sense of a conscious philosophical belief of racial superiority; rather as an unquestioning position of unmerited privilege..."white privilege" which endow Caucasians with a network of racially conferred advantages and beliefs so deeply embedded into our culture that its barely perceptible.

The concept of "white privilege" is elusive to the majority of white Americans because it is so ingrained - the belief about the inadequacies of people of color - in our society's institutional policies, social customs, cultural media and political process that we are often oblivious to its effect. As white people, we can study issues of civil rights our whole life and still have a difficult time comprehending simply because we're white.

Could someone understand the word ‘pain’, who had never felt pain? – Is experience to teach me whether this is so or not? – And if we say “A man could not imagine pain without having sometime felt it” – how do we know? How can it be decided whether it is true? (Philosophical Investigations §315)

Blogs like Stuff White People Like, White Whine, Black people love Us humorously poke fun at "white privilege" and more than likely white people created all three sites....white people who get "it". Jonah Peretti, co-creator of Blackpeopleloveus.com (and also of Nike Sweatshop E-mail fame) said that the Web site's purpose was to "draw attention to the unintentionally offensive comments made by well-meaning white folks."

Many white folk would take offense at all three blogs, not understanding how many doors open for them through no virtue of their own. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that Caucasians derive from the disadvantages of being a person of color. These denials protect "white privilege" from being fully acknowledged, because once acknowledged, the possibility is much greater of those privileges disappearing.

It used to be acceptable for a white man to drive his pick-up truck with a Confederate flag, attached to the top of his truck, flapping in the wind, as a noose trails from the back, basically wearing his feelings about people of color on his sleeve. We think because it is no long acceptable to vent our feelings of superiority that we've conquered white supremacy when all many of us have done is conceal it to the point that we don't even know it's there and operates independently of our awareness.

Although it's good that explicit racism is no longer tolerated, letting "racism" simmer beneath the surface can be more dangerous. How can you fight an enemy you can't see? Touch? Feel? It's similar to "boiling the frog in the pot" metaphor. The frog knows to jump out when he is thrown in a pot of boiling water but let the water simmer gradually to a full boil and the frog doesn't sense the imminent danger. He can't see it coming.

Katrina is no doubt a manifestation of the racism that exist in today's society. Those poor people who "boiled to death"did so because "we the white people" of America, "decided" instead of declaring an all out war on people of color or declaring ourselves lord and master - which can and has been fought and conquered in the past - that it's better to cloak our racism in the rhetoric of "personal responsibility" aimed at placing societal failures on the shoulders of people who were victims.

Personal responsibility is also related to a society of remaining barriers and persistent forms of racism that refuse to allow certain people to exercise their personal responsibility.

I'm not against personal responsibility, but I am against reducing the complexity of what we deal with to personal responsibility. I am for personal responsibility in relation to social responsibility and moral responsibility in relation to intellectual responsibility and immediate responsibility in relationship to ultimate responsibility. I believe in responsibility I just believe in a much more nuanced, complexed engaged notion or responsibility than mere personal responsibility. -- Michael Eric Dyson

No matter how hard "we the White People" struggle with issues of equality, at the end of the day we can walk away. Our whiteness allows us to avoid the subtle and overt, daily issues of color, part of his/her daily norm.

"The students also reminded me that ... it's not an option for us to be Black, that's what we are 24 hours a day ... If you wanted to ... you can walk away from this thing and never look back." -- Gary Howard

Read more...

Wouldn't it be Great if We Could All Cite Executive Privilege ?

President George W. Bush, once again cites executive privilege in order to dodge accusations that his administration fired nine federal prosecutors because they refused to "tow the line." He rejected a subpoena for requiring Karl Rove testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee in an investigation over fired federal attorneys.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy made available to Reuters, the letter Fred Fielding wrote to him explaining why Karl Rove is immune to testifying before Congress:

"Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity,"

Read more...