AP/HuffPo — Median Household Income Dropped 4 Percent Since The End Of The Great Recession: Report

The Huffington Post
Median Household Income Dropped 4 Percent Since The End Of The Great Recession: Report
AP/HuffPost

More Evidence That America's Middle Class Is Sliding Toward the Third World

The U.S. is near the bottom of the developed world in median wealth, probably the best gauge for the economic strength of the middle class....

...a middle-class adult in Finland owns $122 for every billion dollars of his or her nation's wealth. In Canada it's $13. In the U.S. it's 60 cents. Only China (40 cents) and India (30 cents) [in the countries included in the survey] give their middle-class adults less.

It's called "becoming globally competitive." The US is highly competitive,  of course. Among developed countries, the US is winning the race to the bottom hands down.

AlterNet
More Evidence That America's Middle Class Is Sliding Toward the Third World
Paul Buchheit

Loews Chairman, Jonathan Tisch: No problem if Americans are poor. We can always get foreigners to buy our goods!

I was just watching Loews Chairman, Jonathan Tisch, on CNBC, arguing that the government should make it easier for foreign tourists to get into the US so we can have more tourists and more guests for his hotels. That's all good, as I have nothing against tourists coming to America. Moreover, it's understandable that Tisch views foreign tourists as a source of revenue for his business since most Americans have experienced stagnant or falling incomes over the past four years and probably can't do much vacationing. Come to think of it, real earnings for wage earners in America haven't gone up in over 40 years so their consumption of leisure, especially at the high end, is quite low. On the other hand, Mr. Tisch and his fellow CEOs have seen their earnings increase something like 250% in that time, but I digress.

Listening to Mr. Tisch plead for greater visa leniency made me wonder why he wasn't showing the same degree of fervor and support for working Americans so that they, too, could have the means to travel and stay at his properties? After all, we are a nation of 310 million and if regular folks (not just CEOs and rich foreigners) had the wherewithal to travel, his hotels would be booked solid all year 'round. In fact, there'd be wait lists to get a room.

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the hotel and hospitality industry, which is where Mr. Tisch's businesses operate, are notoriously low payers. The average hotel employee earns far below the nation's median income. If Mr. Tisch and other CEOs in low paying industries simply paid their employees more, then people would have more money to spend on travel and leisure and his hotels would be booked solid.

But that doesn't interest Mr. Tisch because he's found a really profitable business model that's a lot easier to arrange and it doesn't entail providing economic well being to lowly working Americans. All he has to do is lobby his friends in Washington for visa rule changes (which Mr. Tisch said he was able to finegle) so that foreigners with money can come here instead. And the real beauty of it is, when they're done with their vacations, they just go home and Mr. Tisch doesn't have to deal with them anymore. Actually, I'm sure Mr. Tisch wishes he could send the rest of us lowly Americans packing, too, so that so he an his billionaire friends could enjoy America all to themselves. But don't worry, he's working on that, too.

It's time that the rest of wake up and smell the complimentary coffee. The plan that Mr. Tisch and his friends have for America is to keep Americans in low paying jobs and bend the rules so that foreigners can come here and spend. That way, their profits and wealth continue to climb higher and higher, while the rest of us go nowhere or worse, down. And if you're wondering about jobs, well, their attitude is, just take our shit jobs and shut up.

In a nation that has monetary sovereignty, like ours, WE are the boss, not them. We have the means to raise incomes and make the investments that benefit all people, not just a few. The problem, however, is getting people to understand that.