Open Thread

What class were all of your great great grandparents? Probably not middle class. They were probably either rural / agrarian or fit somewhere into the urban working class. Same with countless generations before that. So then your grandparents and parents were lucky enough to be middle class because of some circumstances unique to the United States in the mid to late 20th century and then all of a sudden everyone is entitled to be middle class and it’s some kind of crisis if most people aren’t?

Dona – exactly. My mom brought up a good point the other day. Yes, while people in the 70’s made much less in salary – they also didn’t have lots of extra “Stuff” to pay for. She reminded me she only paid rent, car insurance, electric bill and her telephone bill.
No one had cable TV, a cell phone, an ipod to fill with music, netflix subscriptions etc. I just feel that American consumerism took over in the 80’s and they marketed all this crap as necessities thereby putting more strain on the American public to spend spend spend and if you didn’t have the cash – well, now they offer you credit cards to get that stuff

Jessi, I really think that you should be working for the UN. There are a lot of programs under the UN (Food and Agriculture Organization FAO), the World Bank and others.
It is hard to keep up with all the programs, but there are also a lot of private organizations too. The also do a lot of studies to look at the effects of high food prices on the populations you mention as well as others. Do you remember the food riots three years ago? Again, there were lots of reasons for the spike in rice and wheat prices (weather biggest) but there were riots in the streets and the FAO has done a lot of work with economists but with people on the ground as to how to mitigate the effects on poor consumers of commodities.

” I think it does speak of a deeper issue that the idea of a true middle class in the US isn’t sustainable unless those people spend their life on credit – whether it’s buying your home on loan, car on loan or just “stuff” on credit cards – it’s very hard to live a cash life nowadays”

Gem;

I think that is how many in the middle class actually got themselves self in a mess. One cannot spend oneself into a certain status.