Monday, January 14, 2013

Biggest threat to US power: Decline of the middle class

If you think it's just fine that the American middle class is sinking into oblivion because that's the way the free market works, think again.

The CEO of a private intelligence agency says the
biggest threats to U.S. military power is the decline of the middle class.

George Friedman, the head of Stratfor Global Intelligence, warns:
The threat to the United States is the persistent decline in the middle class' standard of living, a problem that is reshaping the social order that has been in place since World War II and that, if it continues, poses a threat to American power.
Or as Robert Oak over at the Economic Populist puts it:
China is simply capturing our industrial base. China ships goods into the U.S. we used to make every day. Exports was a major reason the U.S. became an economic superpower after WWII. We literally handed China the keys to our kingdom by outsourcing our jobs and manufacturing abroad. 
Now Generation Y is finding themselves stuck in dead end jobs, overeducated, in debt and not using their talents...Every single statistic shows wage repression, a widening gap between rich and poor. If trickle upon economics really worked we would be swimming in pools of gold instead of the never ending economic shit pile the American worker is in.
Friedman warns that the never-ending economic shit pile puts the social fabric of the United States at risk:
... and with it the massive global power the United States has accumulated. Other superpowers such as Britain or Rome did not have the idea of a perpetually improving condition of the middle class as a core value. The United States does. If it loses that, it loses one of the pillars of its geopolitical power.
So if you're an American citizen you ought to support the middle class, even if you don't care about fairness or equality or even democracy.