Delight of the Overclass Demise of the Middleclass
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Chapter 2
Delight of the overclass. The rich are getting richer
One would think that society, especially in a democracy where the majority rule, would not tolerate the smallest minority of its population exploiting the rest for it's financial and social gain. However, today not much seems to be being done to prevent this.
Now that we know a little about the adversary, let's see how fat our money hungry shark is getting. Oops! I think we will need the flight deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise to lay this one out on!
In Time magazine, February 19, 1996, Jane Bryant Quinn says it like it is in , in her article "A Paycheck Revolt in '96?", "Without a question, it's a great time to be rich. Still, millions of people are working harder for less reward. Real earnings are flat down. The chasm between the rich and poor is the widest since 1947 (that's as far back as the numbers go)." Don' t you think this can qualify as a serious national dilemma?
Consulting all of my sources, I will try to put some fairly accurate numbers on this monumental problem. In 1972 some 24.1% of all of the nation's assets, real estate, stocks and bonds, insurance and household goods etc, were owned by the richest 1% of the population. This is the wealthiest of the rich 5% of the population. That was high enough then! Hold on to you're seat! Let's see how today's figures stack up. By 1992, the wealthiest 1 % of the entire population now controls a staggering 42% of the nations gross assets such as real estate, stocks and bonds insurances and household items, and a whopping 50% of all financial assets. I can only imagine what the remaining 4% of this overclass controls. By 1992, the richest 1% had an explosive 91% increase in personal income. The remaining 4% of this elite had a staggering 28% leap in personal income levels. These 1992 figures are probably much larger now.
Like a giant cosmic black hole, just listen to that giant sucking sound, this overclass is literally gobbling up our hopes, dreams, standards of living, quality of life and our entire nation!!!!
Here is some more food for thought. This greedy elite is socking over 15% of their incomes into savings. While the unfortunate middleclass is scraping a mere 2.1% of it's income into the piggy bank. This is down from roughly 3 - 4% not too many years ago. Some midd1eclass incomes have barely stood their ground, but most cases have fallen. The average American income for college graduates has fallen 11%. Income for high school graduates has taken a 16% dive. By my personal experience here in South Florida, that figure is closer to 50%. Income for high school dropouts has plummeted 28% from 1979 to 1994. The poorest 5% of the population known as the underclass, helplessly watched it’s personal income take a disheartening 17% dive. What in God’s name is going on here???
This ungodly , unfair distribution of financial and national assets is at an all time 63 year high.
Chapter 4 The effects of downward mobility. The rape of a lifestyle
They say it is more painful to have once had, than it is to have never had! This couldn't be any truer. This has happened not only to me and most members our entire family, but to a good percentage of friends and co-workers.
I am the son of a proud small business man. I saw my father start small, and realized his devotion to his fledgling business in Maryland was unfathomable. They were like his children, that he nurtured patiently. On many instances he was called a workaholic by all the members of our family. He saw the American Dream and pursued it, even sacrificing home and family to the cause. My sister, brother and I eventually accepted not having him home to play with us. We realized he was on a quest, that he was determined to undertake. It was what he wanted to do!
I remember the day, and joy on his face, when he opened a small airport shuttle bus service in Atlanta, Georgia. As his business grew and branched out, he was like a child with a new toy. He created his little empire in the transportation, time share and travel business. This was his perfect little world to dream and ponder in. However, there was a storm on the horizon.
By the late 1980's the economic forecast was calling for a category 4 hurricane. The great depression of 1990-91, as I call it, hit. My father is a proud man and shows little emotion, especially when it comes to grieving. As his little world began to crumble in the ferocious winds, his armor got a crack in it, and he began to take on water. I only know from a reliable source, that the "man of steel" was reduced to a whimpering, shaking child.
His world came down hard on all of us. His corporation being in a non-essential service related business, geared to pleasure, turned out to be it's weakness in the new economic environment. With mass layoffs, pay cuts, plunges in the family incomes and drops in the standard of living becoming status quo, people put the squeeze on their wallets. The extra funds reserved for vacations and pleasures, became survival funds far most people, and the demand for vacation travel, pleasure spending declined considerably.
At about this time, my family and I began feeling the fringes of this great storm. I had been working as a technician, selling services and servicing customers, for a large regional pest control firm in Pompano Beach Florida. I worked hard and was excellent at my work, after being with them for almost 8 years. In 1988, I had earned technician of the month, and in 1989, I had earned technician of the year. Most of all, I was rewarded handsomely for my expertise!
I was newly married at the time, and my annual income was roughly $28,000. Not too shabby at all for a blue collar income household! We lived a couple of blocks from the beach, in a comfortable apartment in Pompano Beach. The rent for this beautiful place was $400 a ninth. Gosh!, we earned that in about 3 days! We had one new car at the time and the payments were about $200 and some change. Another couple of days income to cover these major family expenses. To be conservative, in a week and a half, we covered the largest expenses in the middleclass lifestyle. That left us with another two and a half weeks of income to cover food, utilities, clothing, recreation and savings. We even started to save for a house of our own. After thinking job security was here to stay. I felt confident to buy a 19 foot caddy cabin power boat to nurture my growing interests in scuba diving and underwater photography. I had excellent credit with all of the major credit card companies, and department stores. The credit card bills were under control, with some having no balance at all.
We could go out on Friday nights to eat at the local bistros, Bennigan's, T.G.I. Friday's Etc. A trip to the grocery store was a pleasurable delight, since about $70 bought about six bags of groceries, enough to last a week and a half. A visit to the movies was a popular event for us. I used to go to the local firing range, to fire off a box of 9mm rounds. I loved to practice marksmanship at the gun ranges, with my Glock pistol. A gallon of gasoline was between 79¢ to 83¢. You can bet the boat was out most every weekend for a cruise, a round of fishing or scuba diving. We were even able to help some of the older members of the family. Most of our family, friends and co-workers were living similar lifestyles. The American Dream was sweet indeed!
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About the Book
Is it our imaginations, or does it seem like something is seriously wrong with life in America these days? Amidst plummeting white and blue collar wages, mounting layoffs, massive benefit reductions, rising costs of living, diminishing quality of life, declining standards of living, growing poverty levels, longer work hours, mounting job responsibilities, less recreation time, record number of labor law violations, growing pay and bonus disputes, demoralizing salary scams, ballooning product and service fraud, runaway false advertisement, declining product and service quality, price fixing, record corporate mergers, skyrocketing numbers of personal bankruptcies, more families, than ever before, falling into the ravages of poverty even with two incomes, dis-functional biased governmental regulatory agencies, corporate and political corruption, economic and social exploitation of a people in America and abroad, fleecing of an entire nation, and for the first time in modern history the Demise Of The Middle-class in America. Ironically, there seems to be a small minority, a scant 5% of the population of America benefiting very, very nicely from this current status quo. A privileged select few and their families known as the overdass now control almost 50% of the entire national income, graced with record income increases, booming corporate profits, skyrocketing CEO and executive incomes, larger fancier mansions, bigger yachts, more expensive cars, extravagant travel, growing tax breaks for the wealthy, increasing government blessings, lavish benefit and retirement packages, exploding stock values, landslide growth of elite savings, historical trading on Wallstreet, unprecedented growth of luxury at biblical proportions as we witness the fastest and most lavish growth of an elite class in recorded history, Delight Of The Overdass is guaranteed! Is this the America you want your children growing up in? Is this the America you would want to live in? Well my friends you already do!!! The American dream is to own a two story house, with a couple of slightly used cars, two children eating a couple of American apple pies. Sounds almost like a fantasy, doesn't it? Oh!, I forgot to mention two bank accounts with a couple of thousand dollars. Since World War II, the American middle-class has been the bastion of the thriving American Dream. In the past, this middle-class, a 90% of the entire U.S. population earned a comfortable lifestyle through diligence and loyalty at the work place. However, today the capitalist system that made the American Dream possible, has transformed into the most destructive, middle-class lifestyle beast named The Greed Factor to ever threaten our middle-class way of life. In the past decade or so, the cost of living has continued to climb, however, we have witnessed middle-class and poverty class incomes stagnate at best, but in most instances decline considerably. Now even with two incomes, today's middle-class families can not make ends meet, much less earn the purchasing power of a one income family a few decades ago. Yet to our dismay, the wealthiest 5% of the population, the so called "overclass", ironically had tremendous, explosive, record increases in their incomes in roughly the same period of time. Today the American Dream is slowly slipping out of the hands of the mass majority, and into the hands of the richest, wealthiest few. We are witnessing this smallest minority living an increasingly selfish, over lavish and greedy lifestyle than ever before. Amidst shrinking paychecks, declining benefits, longer work hours, mounting job responsibilities, and a deteriorating quality of life, the existence of the middle-class, as we once knew it, is doomed! The demise of the middle-class, and the formation of a two class proletariat society (indentured servitude based society) will be certain. A socio-economic apocalypse will force the remaining 95% of the American population to live and serve as the proletariat, there to be exploited by the wealthy overclass emperors and their global corporate empires. The people of America, regardless of race, religion, and national origin, must unite and halt this human exploitation NOW !!!!
About the Author
I am a typical American blue-collar worker. I am the youngest with a brother and a sister. We were born to a middle class family in the suburbs of Maryland. We were raised very comfortably but not spoiled in a one-income household, with Mom at home to raise us. Not quite the Brady Bunch, but a typical American family in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Today I am married to my wife Zenaida, and we currently have on beautiful child named Adriana. We plan on having more children in the future. Being a working husband and father has made me realize the importance of maintaining a functional middle-class standard of living. Working full-time jobs in the 1980’s, we were self-sufficient and savored the American Dream through hard stable work. With a one-income household, we lived the quality of life of our parents with one-income households in the 50’s and 60’s did. However, since the early 1990’s, we have watched our middle-class standard of living slowly slide into the poverty zone. Now with two incomes, we can not live the quality of life we were used to, much less the quality of life our parents did with one income three decades ago. I even learned two alternative trades in a vain effort to evade declining wages. Now with experience and training in three different trades and my wife’s job, our gross earnings have dropped from a comfortable $28,000 a year to about $13,000. Now even with two incomes, and the fact that the cost of living has almost doubled since the 1980’s, we are at poverty level and literally dependent on our parents again. According to my research on this trend, I feel this downward mobility of our family and the American people will continue past the year 2000. As personal experiences from our combined families, and the observations of our friends, co-workers and peer groups, I see this same story being repeated across the nation. I am now virtually incapable of supporting our family on today’s meager wages. We once had the American Dream; however, now it’s just a faded memory!