Middle Class Shrinks to ALL-TIME LOW
 

:Oh crap

SOURCE

It's voting season..

'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics'
-Mark Twain

That GW Bush still causing ish to go down :(

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

But.. tax cuts..... job creators...

It will shrink down to the capitalist sweet spot of about 5% of population.

It's been happening for nearly 40 years. Ever since Wall St & the Government shook hands and became partners.

Yeah, "trickle down" works :error

http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde...ddle_class.gif

It started during Reagan.

Actually a little earlier, but you could say say it really picked up steam in the '80s.

A shrinking middleclass benefits the rich, the poor, and those who stay middleclass- so who gives a shit?

Anyone who wants to get their income up to "middle class" should simply move to Chicago and become a teacher...looks like they average $71,000 a year (and went on strike for more) lol

That's not a lot for a Masters Degree. Want them to make min wage?

Middle class is $20,000 and $101,000 ?

Public school teachers have Masters Degrees? WTF????

You'd think the kids would be better educated if that's the case. :1orglaugh

Yep, apparently a person making 2 grand a week is only "middle class"

When I was younger that would seem like a king's ransom to me.

Well not defending the teachers but these days parents need to play a large roll in education
and do not..:2 cents:

I don't think it has anything to do with voting or the election season.

While it's easy to lie with stats, seems to me like we are just coming out of a huge recession - and the middle class is in fact shrinking. It's the simple fact that a lot of people lost jobs, and have been forced into less paying jobs.

Interesting, I'll let people know about this.
When posting office admin job openings almost 50% of all applications is coming from teachers or people who in other ways worked with children's education.

You probably hit the nail on the head.

Very simple.

Stop paying.

Its that and also wages have been flat since the 80's if it hadn't been for cheap credit. It gave feeling people were doing better than they really were.

Lets see the first thing always cut is education. So you 40 to 50 kids in a classroom, most are latch key kids. Some of these schools dont even have libraries.
I always find it interesting its class warfare to say the rich should pay more in taxes but its not class war fare to attack teachers. People that go to school take on all kinds of debt to teach the children. Those same children the right are so afraid to leave them debt but a shitty education thats ok.
Also think about the monsters they have to deal with its not kids just waiting to be molded. Its like a prison guard with book in bad neighborhoods.

What is amazing to me is the disparity of how teachers are educated. When I was in high school there were several teachers in my high school who had no degrees and had initially been hired to teach things like wood shop, metals shop, auto shop etc. Eventually they started picking up other classes. Our metals shop teacher taught a science class. The wood shop teacher taught a health class and the auto shop teacher eventually stopped teaching auto shop all together and taught economics. None of them had teaching degrees.

My cousin is a teacher with a masters degree who has also spent several of her summers taking classes and getting different certificates. A few years ago the school she worked for decided not to bring her back. They told her the new teacher had more certificates and a better education.

Pretty crazy.

Tony...watching the news about this the other day they said the AVERAGE school teacher in Chicago makes $71,000

I don't care what anybody says...that's one HELL of a nice paycheck for someone who works 9 months a year.

And when the schoolteachers are making more than the hardworking people paying taxes in Chicago to pay their salaries...it kinda pisses folks off when they go on strike in the middle of a terrible economy with high unemployment.

There's a reason that when FDR made unions legal...he purposefully stated that NO public sector jobs should ever be unionized because they are working for the taxpayer.

The problem with school budgets isn't the teachers wanting more money it is that they have become a haven for administrators who do nothing and get paid heavy.

When I was in high school (I graduated in 1989) my high school had about 600 students. We had one principle, two vice principles (because we had two different campuses) and a school board made up of about 5 people. There were also 4 guidance counselors.

That same school now has around 700 students. It still has 1 principal and 2 vps. It has 8 counselors, 9 board members, 2 "advisers," a dean of students and 2 "curriculum consultants."

I have friends that have kids that go to this school and nobody seems to know what half these people do, but most of them are paid $100K a year or very close to it.

This is just on the local level. If you move up to the district level it is full of people who seem to work about 10-15 hours a week and get paid north of $100K a year. It is crazy.

kane, you hit the nail on the head.

Govt. bureaucracy wastes so much money.

Normally I do begrudge teachers going on strike because I think they have a very hard job and earn their money. Also, I feel if you pay more you will get more applicants and, hopefully, you can get better teachers.

But, as you say, when we are in the middle of a huge recession with millions of people out of work going on strike when you already make a pretty good living doesn't make people have a whole lot of sympathy for you.

I have long been a proponent of some kind of voucher system that would force the school system to be more like private schools. I understand that it is not just that simple, but it really looks like the school system has become one of those places where people just create jobs that aren't needed and never end and all it does it get more and more bloated and corrupt.

And yet you should be paid millions for taking pictures of some whore?

It is all relative.

A guy like LeBron James is paid millions of dollars to play basketball because he is good enough at it that people will pay hundreds of dollars for tickets to watch him play and people will tune in their TVs to watch him play. Nobody is going to be willing to pay to see me play basketball.

Brad Pitt makes a lot of money because he has a worldwide fan base and people are willing to pay to see his movies.

If I take naked pictures of a hot girl, make a site out of it and tens of thousands of people pay for access to that site, I do deserve to be paid like that because my work has drawn in a big audience.

That's all well and good, but based on a (possibly corrupt) societal valuation.

What you and LeBron do really adds nothing of critical worth to society or its advancement.

On the other hand, teachers, in theory, should.

I'm just playing devil's advocate, but I just find Robbie's disdain for government spending funny.

Now, possibly those advisers and deans we were talking about are sitting on their ass all day not doing a damn, thing.

It's just as possible that those positions were created because they're needed.

Point is, government spending on education is crucial.

Teacher's shouldn't be millionaires, but where's the pork in education? It's hard to hide.

I have a disdain for the govt. spending one more penny than is necessary to effectively do whichever particular task they are assigned to do.

Truer words have never been spoken.

You could certainly make the argument that we as a society would be no different without LeBron, or even the NBA, but I might argue that he provides entertainment which is something that has a strong intrinsic value to society. It helps us deal with stress, it is one of the main ways that we socialize and it can help us learn and build relationships.
On the other hand, teachers, in theory, should.

I find it hard to believe that all of these extra people at my old school actually serve a function that adds value to the kids' education. I think it is like most government jobs, they bring someone on for one specific thing and they end up staying forever. Nobody ever seems to be let go.


As for teachers being millionaires...why not? I can think of few jobs that are more important to society as a whole than educating our future generations. Think about it like this for a minute. If being a high school teacher paid $200K per year you would have a lot of people who would be going into the field. In theory this increased number of people wanting to be teachers would allow schools to be very choosy about who they hire. In essence they could pick the cream of the crop.

Did that guy really just call Robbie's wife a whore for no real reason with no prior argument? Just because he has different views on how much teachers get paid?

C'mon now.. What the fuck is wrong with this place?

Eric, Theo, that shit is out of bounds.

Have you been to a school recently? Other than pay, the other reason the education system doesn't attract good teachers is: Who the fuck wants to be treated like shit every day by a bunch of selfish know it all teenagers, with no real recourse?

The teachers don't do themselves any favours either making people think they're a bunch of low paid people just scraping by. None of the kids in high school think their lives will "turn out as bad as having to be a teacher" right? They think teaching is what you do when you fail at all the other, better jobs. The kids really do think their teachers are low paid losers.

I like the idea of a larger 2 tier school system. Good kids who do their work get to go to the good schools. The kids who don't, don't. They can work hard and move up. The only caveat is the selections have to be done either A> by a computer or B> blind evaluations with only ID's. That way there's no bias about who gets to go where, and it doesn't just get abused by the rich people.

If your kid is an idiot, he goes to idiot school. Nuff said.

wow, you're all class:disgust

$20K is middle class? That has GOT to be way under the poverty line unless you live somewhere where the cost of the average home is under $60,000

WTF? $15,000 for a house in Detroit? A fucking house? A $67 per month mortgage? I would honestly be willing to get shot for that.

http://www.trulia.com/MI/Detroit,3823,Eliza_Howell/

Even better: A house with a tenant who pays $450 month is on sale for $3,500 dollars plus $5,500 in back taxes. WHY DOESN'T THE TENANT JUST BUY THE FUCKING HOUSE? The mortgage is $15 a month! http://investmentsforu.com/Liberal_St_8XWA.html

That's insane. I have friends who spend more on beater cars to drive over the winter months.

Maybe Detroit is a shitty place to live with a high crime rate and no jobs. I don't really know. Maybe properties in Detroit should be bought up by webmasters who are willing to turn the city into Porn Valley North.

I have no idea what this topic is about anymore.

I hear that Detroit has a pretty good hockey and baseball team. Their basketball team sucks - no worse than the laughable Raptors, though - but the Lions are all right. Best of all - Windsor is only a few minutes away.