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

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News Skewed to Suit the Powerful.

Today there is a growing number of people who believe that disinformation, deception and propaganda pervade the mainstream media, and to a degree, alternative media accessed easily through the Internet. From ignoring major issues to printing bogus pretexts for war and other phony factoids, the mainstream media is nothing more than an organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc, to forward the agenda of the ruling class. Daniel Simpson, former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, and author of A Rough Guide to the Dark Side confirms that this is true.

Simpson claims that the newspaper's famous motto, "All the news that's fit to print" should read "[All] the news that's fit to serve the powerful." And with good reason. When the "weapons of mass destruction" propaganda was at its peak, Simpson was asked to report false information about Serbians selling WMD delivery parts to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein when in actuality, the Serbs were just selling spare airplane parts.

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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

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Class Warfare 101: Preach What You Leech.

The greatest irony in the world is that as much as the understanding of what it takes to sustain health has advanced, the health of the population has not improved. In fact, if anything, the health of our population is worse than ever.

Turn on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc. and, within a few minutes of watching, you're bound to see health segments preaching the value of fruits and vegetables, getting enough exercise, and the importance of eliminating processed foods, to maintaining our health. In the meantime, the hegemonic and political forces lurking behind the scenes of United States, Inc. are doing their very best to continue the mass production processes developed to provide cheap food to concentrated working-class, urban populations who have became dependent on this cheap food for their nutritional sustenance. Not to mention, the rising cost of food, and medical care, Monsanto's harvest of fear, and the elimination of jobs that has taken place over the last three to four decades.

A study published in the November 2009 issue of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine showed that 50% of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their childhood, and a startling 90% of Black children will be.

Now, more and more struggling working-class families - due to the downturn in our economy, and rising food prices - are having to sacrifice nutritional value in order to stay afloat. Although this report is from the UK, to be sure, especially considering the outrageous medical expenses we Americans have, the situation here is the same, if not worse.

Here's the thing. According to this report, fruit and vegetable consumption amongst the bottom 10% has fallen 30% in four years. 30% over forty years would've been bad enough, but four years! That, my friends, should be a wake up call for everyone.

Leeches, they preach to us. Why? Simple. Indoctrinate us to believe it's our fault when our health fails, our neighbor's fault when their health fails. Keep our nation divided against itself...keep us in-fighting in order to distract us as they leech from us what they preach to us.

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U.S May Conduct Anthrax Vaccine Research and Testing on Children

In North Carolina , today, victims of the state’s 45 year-long eugenics program, extending from 1929 to 1974, that forcibly sterilizied women, men and children, are testifying before a state task force considering possible compensation.

At least 31 states sterilized people in this program that was billed as a way to cut down on poverty and other perceived social ills. This is all part of a-well documented, "shameful chapter of American history known as the Eugenics Movement." Their purpose: To "improve" the genetic make-up of the population, by sterilizing people "characterized as a drain on society".

Fast forward to July 7, 2011 and the Anthrax working group of the National Biodefense Science Board will convene to discuss what federal regulations will be required by the federal government to test the potentially lethal anthrax vaccine on children.

That's right.  If the federal government gets its way, despite adverse event reports related to the vaccine among adult test subjects that have included hospitalization, disability and even death, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is exploring the possibility of testing the vaccine on children.

Of course, the potential testing of this lethal vaccine is "rationalized" as a protection mechanism that will be helpful in the neverending black hole, called the "war on terror.  Totally ignored are the the vaccine's dangers, and, moreover, it "raises the specter of class- and/or race-based selection of medical test subjects which has haunted US health agencies for over a century."  The parents of these children will not be told the whole truth of what their children may expericnce.

If approved, you can be sure the children  chosen as "guinea pigs"  will come from the most vulnerable and poorest segment of society.  You see, in order to keep our pathological system working, it's essential that to maintain a certain percentage of the population in poverty. That segment is growing at a rapid rate which demonstrates just how valuable poor people are to the powers that be.

40-year long Tuskegee experiments in which the US Public Health Service withheld syphilis treatment from infected black men to measure the effects of the disease.

In October of 2010, President Obama apologized to Guatemala for tests during the 1940s when the US Public Health Service used prostitutes deliberately infect 700 prisoners, soldiers and patients with emotional and mental problems with syphilis both through visits with prostitutes and pouring bacteria for the disease onto skin abrasions on the subjects' bodies.

Vaccine testing has its own special place in the annals of this kind of integrity-free medical research. In the early 1960s, mentally disabled children at a residential state school in New York were deliberately infected with viral hepatitis so that they could be test subjects for the disease.

A 1978 CDC test for a hepatitis B vaccine which sought "promiscuous homosexual male" volunteers has some interesting connections to both HIV and the previously rare opportunistic diseases associated with the AIDS virus. As recently as 1990, the CDC and Kaiser Pharmaceuticals gave 1,500 black and Hispanic 6-month old infants an unlicensed measles vaccine without the approval and consent of their parents.

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Being Born Into the American Dream Increases Your Chances for Acquiring It...Duh.

One of the biggest obstacles to leveling the playing field in America is the part of the population, who as former football coach Barry Switzer says,

"are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple."

Unfortunately, this similar thinking group is not only large in number, but having been "born on third base" has the power and money to make and enforce the rules.

Most who fail to recognize or are loathe to admit their enormous head-start in life more than likely did not struggle financially, are white, Republican, and more than likely find Bill O'Reilly intellectually stimulating, fair and balanced and even truthful. Shallow, status conscious, self-absorbed and elitist, these individuals will always believe people succeed based on the merits of their accomplishments rather than the social class into which they were born.

As harsh as that may sound, there must be an element of truth as it does not take a genius to comprehend that it's much easier to succeed born into a white, financially sound, "educated" "Leave it to Beaver" atmosphere rather than being born into the "poverty-stricken" projects to a crack-addicted mother, an incarcerated father, and having to worry whether a stray bullet will permanently disqualify him from attaining the "American Dream".

I don't know much about Barry Switzer, the man however Republican J.C. Watts, Switzer's former quarterback and the first black congressman elected to office in Oklahoma described Barry Switzer in the excerpt posted from his book, What Color is a Conservative? .

Nevertheless, whatever else Barry Switzer did or didn't do he certainly summed up why American society will find it hard to achieve anything but a veneer of democracy.

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Why do Front Line Positions Pay So Little?

Although, soldiers face the most danger, soldiers aren't the only ones on the front line sacrificing themselves to line the already lined pockets of the American elite...the front line extends all across America, and it is a necessity that we pay these employees very little, meanwhile draining as much "blood" from them as it is possible to get away with.

Yes, "we" claim to admire and respect those who occupy the front line positions that literally keep America safe, secure, educated, wealthy and most of all free. However when it comes to putting our money where our mouth is and paying these hard working people a decent wage, we draw the line, conveniently believing that generous payment somehow detracts from the service these positions provide.

Of course, the soldiers, police officers and firefighters are the "vanguard elite" of the front-liners, but there are those, who although may not face the same degree of risk or level of sacrifice, nevertheless expose themselves to an elevated possibility of suffering loss or injury while receiving very little compensation, such as teachers, social workers, aids in nursing homes, and even bank tellers and mall employees etc.

Bank tellers not only risk the real possibility of coming face to face with a bank robber (3 out of the 3 career bank tellers I know have been robbed) they also risk facing relatively severe consequences should they inadvertently violate bank policy, since bank tellers are the bank's first line of defense regarding compliance with all the federal laws that govern them, not to mention screening out possible terrorists...tall order for $10 bucks an hour.

For instance, years ago, during my bank teller training, I was told that tellers could be prosecuted for adding or subtracting one penny in order to come out even at the end of the day. Adding one penny to your drawer is grounds for prosecution!

So, why does America accept the inherent unfairness built into our system of compensation? The simple answer is that it is essential for the rich greedy corporate whores who control most of the world's wealth to employ millions of fall guys at low wages so that their golf courses remain green and golfable. The American elite depend on it. To do this they count on, at the very least, three-quarters of our population, to value their "comfort" zone above all else.

Inasmuch a person's "comfort" zone is normally based on an arbitrary belief system he's internalized from his surroundings; the wealthy and powerful realize they must do all they can to keep the majority of Americans ignorant enough not to question why we pay some people exorbitant salaries to wine, dine and play golf all day and pay others next to nothing to save lives, defend our country, take care of our children, elderly relatives etc. Of course, if those in the "zone" were to become enlightened, the boogieman will surely appear repeatedly until "We the People" "safely" return to the stifling boundaries we have become so accustomed.

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