Wages stopped going up in the United States in 1973. except for the very wealthy, whose income has been sky-rocketing. They didn’t do it through the free market; they did it through theft. They’ve captured the government, i.e., your typically spineless politician (most of whom are lawyers and therefore lower than child molesters), and have written laws to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. In other words, contra the ghey Rush Limbaugh (who used to live on welfare) if a person can’t make a decent living today, it’s not their fault. The fault lies with the government, most especially through crushing taxation and destruction of money through the Federal Reserve Bank, which is not federal, has no reserves, and if it’s a bank, then I’m a banana.
Used to be, a man could work 40 hours a week and make a very good living, enough to support himself, his wife, two kids, and have a nice middle-class house with a yearly vacation. Those days are gone. These days, both spouses have to work, they’re always in debt, and if they have one kid, it ends up in daycare at about two years old. That’s no way for a family to live, and no way for any child to grow up.
The old saying tells us, the business of America is business. The belief is, you’re supposed to be economically successful, and if you aren’t you have no one to blame but yourself.
This belief ignores the fact half the people in this country have IQs less than 100. They’re not going to be doctors, lawyers or even high school graduates, unless they’re given the degrees. In the not-so-distant past they could make a good living doing blue-collar work. Not anymore.
In point of fact, it’s gotten to the point you can’t make a decent living these days unless your IQ is 120 or above, which is less than ten percent of the population. If your IQ is 125 and above, it’s about five percent of the population. The other 90%-95% of the population, well, there are minimum-wage jobs as janitor, pizza deliverer, etc. And there’s collecting aluminum cans, too. And don’t forget about crime, say prostitution and drug-dealing.
Bye bye middle class!
I’ve read one percent of the people in the U.S. own anywhere from one-third to 40% of the wealth. I repeat: the free market did not do that. If I had to describe what has happened, I’d use the word “fascism,” which is a marriage of the State and corporations (or as I like to refer to them, Cosmodemonic Transnational Megacorporations).
Of course, none of it can last. It always collapses, and if the collapse of society after society has anything in common, it is, as St. Paul wrote, the lust (not love) of money, which results in corruption, brutality and theft, and trying to turn people into wage slaves/indentured servans in thrall to evil people.