The End of the Middle Class as We Know It

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090429_the_end_of_the_middle_class_as_we_know_it/

The End of the Middle Class as We Know It

Posted on Apr 29, 2009

By Marie Cocco

This is how it ends. Or at least, this is how the latest, sad chapter in a story that has been ending for three decades is written.

If Chrysler survives, it will be in partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat, an odd pairing for any number of reasons. If General Motors survives, it will be only because the government effectively took it over, ousted its management—and cleared the way for thousands upon thousands of workers to lose their jobs and the hard-won benefits that once made them symbols of a robust American middle class.

They are now icons of its decline.

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What should not be forgiven is the three decades of public and political indifference about those whose life paths and prospects do not include college. Despite decades of national effort to make higher education more accessible, only about a quarter of Americans 25 and older now hold a bachelor’s degree, according to the Census Bureau.

The work force breaks down into four segments, roughly evenly divided, according to Harry J. Holzer, a Georgetown University public policy professor who specializes in studying the labor pool. A quarter drop out of high school, another fourth earn high school diplomas, another fourth get some further education but not a college degree, and the top quarter earn bachelor’s degrees or higher.

“We have really let go of career and technical education in the United States,” says Holzer, a former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department. “There are millions of kids on their way to prison who could have been electricians and plumbers. We all wrapped our heads around this idea that only if you go to college and get a B.A. are you a success. As a society, we demeaned people who worked with their hands.”

[opihimoimoi]

1. K&R answer? The GOP is void....The Dem side flirts with Reason

[Hardrada]

2. The Nazis had their moment in Germany because they

honored labor. The Bolsheviks did too and rose to power in Russia. It is good for political parties to value labor, in short.

[raccoon]

3. Rec'd. I've said it before here, but I think in the US there's this meme of EVERYBODY should go to

college, and college isn't for everybody. And as a society, we do indeed demean people who work with their hands.

[mopinko]

4. there is pretty much none of that kind of education left in chicago.

i would like to know the real reasons for that. someone i doubt is was simple dollars and sense. more likely cutting off the supply so that skills would still be scarce, and therefore those in those jobs would be safe.
there used to be a huge trade school run jointly by the unions and the school system. all the building trades, plus chefs. it was in a crummy part of town, iow, where it belonged. they moved it out to a spot in the suburbs which is almost completely cut off from public transit. much smaller, too, i believe.
and i did i mention that this was all free? 4 years. free.
but we don't give a shit about that now.

[nichomachus]

5. So, the plan is working

The goals of the corporatists have always been:

1. Destroy the middle class
2. Destroy unions
3. Drive down wages
4. Privatize the infrastructure
5. Eliminate taxes on the ultra-wealthy

We're almost there . . .

Oh, and the next step in their playbook is "Deal with the civil unrest that follows 1 through 5."

[fencesitter]

6. It's true, the trades are not seen as worthy...

as a professional degree position. I am constantly trying to validate what I need to charge for my services. I have a degree in my field, I have a lifetime of experience, but I do work with my hands. I have clients that, I know, earn huge salaries who cannot understand why I would need to charge the same or more than the local auto garage.

[Baby Snooks]

7. And not just here...

There were the artisans in Mexico who created the most incredible wrought iron pieces. All slightly imperfect. Now the pieces are molded by machine and only welded together by the human hand. Many trades were in fact quite artistic. Stone masons another. Now we have plaster-of- paris pieces the builders just glue on.

I get sick looking at the "perfect" wrought iron staircases in new homes. I remember a staircase in a friend's home in Los Angeles. The owner had artisans from Mexico "create" it when he built the house in the 1920s. Along with a magnificent door "cover" piece.

No machine can create what the human hand can. But the machine can mass-produce. And mass production ensures profit. Profit is all.

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. We often hear the 'plumber making more than the teacher' story. Plumbers crawl under the house!

Teaching is an honorable profession but supply and demand come in the play. Just because your job
requires a degree doesn't make it 'harder'.

[eilen]

9. Makers of the world, Unite! nt

[Stinger2]

11. Common Sense has gone by the name of Greed

Common Sense has gone by the name of Greed

Common Sense has gone by the name of Greed, How have millions of businesses started in the USA? You learned by doing a job, then started your own business from what you learned. The part the morons moving off shore don’t understand, once lets say the China or India have all the know-how and the factories they will cut out the middle man, The US Factory Owners, Then they will be without a Job.

[Baby Snooks]

10. And under the sink!

I suspect under the sink in most cases is more hazardous than under the house. Under my sink anyway.

[mbperrin]

12. Teacher pay is lower because they operate in a monopsony.

There's only one effective buyer for their services - public schools. This gives those buyers disproportionate power just as a monopoly structure gives sellers a disproportionate power in the marketplace.

I've been teaching 13 years. I was a working carpenter for 22 before that. I'm just about equally tired from both jobs.

Both have got about the same disadvantages - everyone thinks they can do your job just as well, if a bit slower. Then they call you when their screwed up projects aren't what they wanted them to be - and want you to fix them fast and just about free.

That said, we certainly do need to reintroduce trades. This whole No Child Left Untested by Large Corporations As Often As They Need to Make Huge Profits mentality is costly, in human and monetary terms.

35 years ago, when I was in our district schools as a student, we had welding, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, auto repair, diesel mechanics, locksmithing, paint and body, masonry, concrete finishing, cosmetology, culinary arts, cabinet making and other tech-voc courses, all leading to work certificates by graduation from high school.

One of the things they did was to have students build, starting from footings, beautiful homes in existing neighborhoods. They framed, plumbed, wired, finished, bricked, painted, built cabinets, everything needed, and then the houses were sold to fund the program. Anyone could make an appointment to have their car or truck repaired, paint and body done, and so on. At that time, this community had average income in the top 60th percentile nationally and top 80s statewide. The area was used to test new products on a national scale, the percentage of home ownership was nearly 70%.

Then the stupid Texas Legislature (whom we only let meet once every other year and only for 140 days - it's all the damage we can stand) in 1984 decided that every child needed to pass a series of standardized tests of purely academic content. These became the drivers for school funding, and by 1990, all those programs were gone.

Now this community ranks in the 40th percentile nationally in average household income, and right at the 50th statewide. Home ownership is about 50% now. Highest rate of STDs in the state countywide, second highest rate of teen pregnancies in the state countywide, whole neighborhoods awash in meth, coke, and heroin.

50% of the county population over the age of 25 does NOT have a high school diploma.

So the idea that everybody needs to go to college is just about one of the most destructive and pernicious notions ever to come down the pike. Solution? Next year, instead of giving 4 tests, they'll give 8. I'll be dead in a decade or so, and I really hate that those years will be spent in a hellish environment that throws away the talents and interests of young people in favor of a corporation that gives bubble tests for a living.

I hate just as much that these kids have no out, and they've got a lot more years in hell to go than I do.