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Newsweek: We Must Refranchise the Young and Restore the Middle Class

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Saturday, February 5, 2022 21:10
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Saturday, February 5, 2022 9:14 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


https://www.newsweek.com/we-must-refranchise-young-restore-middle-clas
s-opinion-1672658


IMO, This is a really good article.



I would add to the list a program that I just became aware of in Indiana.

IDA (Individual Development Accounts)

https://www.in.gov/ihcda/homeowners-and-renters/matched-savings-opport
unities-individual-development-accounts-ida
/


Quote:

IHCDA works with organizations around the state to help Hoosiers better themselves through a structured matched savings program. Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are available on a limited basis to qualified Hoosiers who are interested in improving their financial literacy and participating in a dedicated savings program where their deposited funds are matched. Once matched, and upon completion of a detailed work plan and financial counseling, program participants may put their savings towards a qualified asset purchase.

Since 1997, Indiana’s Individual Development Account program has assisted low-moderate income Hoosiers to attain their goals through matched-savings incentives and financial education. Operating on the rationale that income alone, is not enough for individuals to break trends of generational poverty, the IDA program focuses on asset building as a key component towards family and self-sufficiency. Participants in the IDA program are eligible to receive up to $4,500 in state match funds towards one of the eligible asset goals mentioned above. Participants also receive one-on-one counseling and 6+ hours of financial education covering topics such as budgeting, savings, credit, banking, taxes, and other money management strategies.

Qualified participants set savings goals and make regular savings deposits. Every dollar they save is matched, at a minimum for $3 for every $1 saved, to help them reach their goals so they can:

Purchase a primary residence located in Indiana
Expand a small business located in Indiana
Obtain Education and Job Training
Make essential repairs to owner-occupied housing
Purchase a vehicle for employment, education, or job training purposes




Hey... As long as skin color and sex isn't a determining factor (whether on the books or off of them), I think something like this is a great idea.

I'm sure that at those levels of getting a $3+ match for every dollar you save that they wouldn't be able to help a whole ton of people, but maybe it could be balanced out somewhat to find the sweet spot of cost/benefit ratio for the most people possible.

Without taking serious risk, you're not going to find anything close to a 300% return on your investment anywhere. Not even a 401k match sitting in a cash account with zero risk/reward, which would still give you possibly an amazing 100% return on your investment after you're vested in a few years.


The extra cash is the obvious benefit, of course, but the required financial training (assuming it's not just a complete waste of time) is also seriously beneficial to people who likely never spent two seconds being taught any of this during 12 years of Public School.

And just the simple action of denying yourself some bullshit short-term pleasures to save some money for the long haul to build up a nest egg to buy a home, make some serious repairs to your home, start a small business, or simply have a reserve of cash in case of emergency is a priceless skill to learn and would be highly incentivized by the large match to whatever funds you choose to put in there.

If we're going to be throwing trillions of dollars around anyhow, it might as well be going to re-establish the middle class through asset ownership over time. Most of the government programs out there now giving away free money do exactly the opposite of that and encourage Americans to remain asset poor, particularly since there is a very low income requirement to get on any of them and you're immediately penalized by losing it all the second you make one cent over the low thresholds and make just enough money to eek out a miserable existence where saving any real amount of money is still almost impossible to do..

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Saturday, February 5, 2022 9:34 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I'd also add changing the entire advertisement surrounding College Education, because currently it's one of the biggest lies told every day in our country.

90% of the jobs available out there that aren't low-tier minimum-wage jobs could be done by nearly anybody with a few weeks of On The Job Training and do not require a college degree. 90% of the college degrees received after tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars spent and years wasted on them hardly ever get utilized after the job interview process.

The negative impacts of this are two fold.

1. It is a large part of making life-long wage slaves, right up there with easy credit with high rates.

2. It serves as a gate-keeping mechanism for employers. I'm sure at one point this was designed to keep minorities and/or women out of the work force, but now that EOC is a law, it's time to do away with this metric when it comes to the job-application process unless we're talking about highly specialized fields that actually require 4 or more years of college to ever be able to hope to perform at an acceptable level.

The simple fact is that with the exception of getting a job interview, a vast majority people do not need college, and it's only as they grow into mature adults that are clocking in and out daily at their mundane jobs that don't utilize a single thing they learned in college that they realize this.

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Saturday, February 5, 2022 11:50 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


From your Newsweek article:
Economist Edward N. Wolff has developed the notion of "wealth poverty" or "asset poverty." To be "asset poor" means that one does not have sufficient financial assets to eat, keep a roof over one's head and remain clothed for three months without wage income. In other words, the asset poor have no margin for error for a stroke of bad luck. The asset poor do not own enough assets to stand on their own two feet.

The rate of asset poverty is high and rising. Research shows that it rose from around 35 percent of Americans in 1983 to around 47 percent in 2013. We have no reason to believe that this trend has not continued into the 2020s, making our situation worse.
https://www.newsweek.com/we-must-refranchise-young-restore-middle-clas
s-opinion-1672658


It just so happens, there is more data at
https://realtimeinequality.org/

What does it say?

The bottom 50% (124.8 million people) have an average wealth of $7,900 in 2021, Q4.

In 2020, Q1, the bottom 50% (123.9 million people) had an average of $1,400. Big improvement under Biden.

The next 40% (99.8 million people) have an average wealth of $358,300 in 2021, Q4. Their wealth was $280,200 in 2020, Q1. Bigger improvement under Biden.

The improvement shows up best if you remove the top 10% from the graph of Average Real Wealth.

Will the Bottom 90% understand which President did this for them? Not a chance in hell they will, which is why the top 10% will eventually have most of the money from the bottom 90%. The bottom 90% allow themselves to be swindled by the top 10%. This has been going on all my life, but I first became aware of how the system works 50 years ago when Richard Nixon accidentally got caught cheating on his taxes. That, not Vietnam, was my moment of true enlightenment about America. I have carried that light ever since. Thank you, Nixon, for showing me the Truth. Trump has also revealed the Truth in the same way by cheating on his taxes, but most Americans, the bottom 90%, were not enlightened. On the other hand, the top 10% learned tax tips on how to cheat from Trump.

President Nixon's Troublesome Tax Returns
http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/cf7c9c870b600b9585256df8007
5b9dd/f8723e3606cd79ec85256ff6006f82c3?OpenDocument


Trump's tax cheating
https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+tax+cheat

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, February 5, 2022 2:27 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Well... You're wrong about all of that.





Even CNN can't hide the lack of optimism for the future anymore.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/politics/unhappiness-americans-gallup-a
nalysis/index.html


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Saturday, February 5, 2022 2:49 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Also, $7,900 is worth a lot less in February of 2022 than it was in February of 2021.

Also, you're just as fucked when bad times hit with a paltry $7,900 to your name including assets as you would be with only $1,400 to your name if the shit hits the fan. That extra one-time $6,500 bump gained from trillions of government dollars spent is meaningless.

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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Saturday, February 5, 2022 3:04 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Well... You're wrong about all of that.





Even CNN can't hide the lack of optimism for the future anymore.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/politics/unhappiness-americans-gallup-a
nalysis/index.html

Explain this one away: In the United States, 36.5 percent of adults have obesity. Another 32.5 percent of American adults are overweight. In all, more than two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or have obesity.
https://www.healthline.com/health/obesity-facts#1.-More-than-one-third
-of-adults-in-the-United-States-have-obesity
.

I am pretty damn sure that the food is not forcing itself on these fat Americans. They are doing it to themselves. The most recent episode of My 600-Pound Life (S10E14) has Lisa from Fairbury, Nebraska complaining that she has done everything asked of her and yet she is still gaining weight. Lisa was lying. She did nothing right, but she did get sick, spent a month in the hospital, and lost 75 pounds because the hospital won't feed her 12,000 Calories per day. As soon as she was out, she regained the weight and complained it was NOT her fault. She blamed the doctor, the physical therapist, the psychiatrist for her weight gain. I am absolutely certain that most Americans are as unconscious as Lisa about what they are doing wrong. That wrongness isn't limited to just food or money. Americans do like Lisa does and blame authority figures such as Doctors or Presidents for why Lisa and Americans are unhappy.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, February 5, 2022 3:22 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Well... You're wrong about all of that.





Even CNN can't hide the lack of optimism for the future anymore.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/politics/unhappiness-americans-gallup-a
nalysis/index.html

Explain this one away: In the United States, 36.5 percent of adults have obesity. Another 32.5 percent of American adults are overweight. In all, more than two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or have obesity.
https://www.healthline.com/health/obesity-facts#1.-More-than-one-third
-of-adults-in-the-United-States-have-obesity
.

I am pretty damn sure that the food is not forcing itself on these fat Americans. They are doing it to themselves. The most recent episode of My 600-Pound Life (S10E14) has Lisa from Fairbury, Nebraska complaining that she has done everything asked of her and yet she is still gaining weight. Lisa was lying. She did nothing right, but she did get sick, spent a month in the hospital, and lost 75 pounds because the hospital won't feed her 12,000 Calories per day. As soon as she was out, she regained the weight and complained it was NOT her fault. She blamed the doctor, the physical therapist, the psychiatrist for her weight gain. I am absolutely certain that most Americans are as unconscious as Lisa about what they are doing wrong. That wrongness isn't limited to just food or money. Americans do like Lisa does and blame authority figures such as Doctors or Presidents for why Lisa and Americans are unhappy.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two





DID YOU EVEN READ THE OP?????




I'm not blaming Biden* for the middle class disappearing.

But I won't abide a shill dumbfuck like you pretending that he's helping them claw their way out of being asset poor either.


Read the fucking OP and the post that follows it, or shut the fuck up.

--------------------------------------------------

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Saturday, February 5, 2022 8:22 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

DID YOU EVEN READ THE OP?????

I'm not blaming Biden* for the middle class disappearing.

But I won't abide a shill dumbfuck like you pretending that he's helping them claw their way out of being asset poor either.

Read the fucking OP and the post that follows it, or shut the fuck up.

Here is the main item from the article: "Wages have not been rising for male workers. According to economists at the Congressional Research Service, wages have been stagnating for 40 years. For the median male worker, real (inflation-adjusted) wages were actually slightly lower in 2019 than they were in 1979. For Black and Hispanic men at the median, they were lower by 8 percent and 9 percent, respectively. What is going on?"

The story could, but didn't dare, answer the question "What is going on?" Instead, the story went off into a harmless direction of "wealth poverty". If the article answered the question: "Why haven't wages changed since 1982?" the article would not have been published.

The answer is the same as "What could force the top 10% to pay more to the bottom 90%?" The answer is known, just like the answer to being obese is known, but you can't get fat and poor Americans to take the answers and do something effective.

I can tell you that the top 10% (especially the top 1%) will not explain how to force them to pay higher wages, but here is a clue: Capital Gains and Dividends should be taxed at the same rate as wages. Oh, and also actually collect the taxes rather than let the top 10% cheat and lie on their income tax returns.

Once upon a time the government was forcing the rich and powerful to make a choice, either generously pay high wages to employees or, if the rich prefer being miserly, pay high taxes on income, dividends and capital gains. That successful system got changed to a new system where the rich pay low wages and the rich pay low taxes. It works for the rich! The poor don't like low wages, but they also don't vote for high taxes, so they will keep getting low wages until they understand the obvious, just like it is obvious over-eating causes obesity and yet Americans keep getting fatter and poorer.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, February 5, 2022 8:58 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


But what you don't seem to understand, Second, is that every time the government raises the taxes, it raises it on the people who can least afford to pay them.

Property tax, sales tax (And now health insurance premiums since Obama was in office)... These are things that KILL the middle and lower classes, yet they've outpaced wages by leaps and bounds over the last 20 years.

Social Security/Medicare just keeps going up for current workers while there are still people getting the paychecks that only worked half the time and only paid 1% of their income into the system for it. If you start your own business, do contract work or some other part of the gig-economy, you're paying twice what everyone else pays to boot, making the prospect of starting ones own business even less appealing than it already is with all of the other taxes and regulations.

Whenever they do put in something that will "only tax the rich", they don't put in any legalese that will make sure that those numbers are raised every year along with legitimate inflation statistics and one day end up taxing everyone. So eventually as money gets consistently devalued every time they fire up the printing presses, this is exactly what happens.

Those extra IRS workers? They aren't going to investigate the billionaires with legal teams the size of the American government. They're fucking the little guys selling shit they were forced to make on the side on websites like Etsy just to pay the fucking bills because their jobs were deemed not-essential by the government and then the extended unemployment was pulled out from underneath them at the same time that the moratorium on evictions was stopped.

All of this fuckery happens and just seems to get worse every year, and then to add insult to injury we get to watch how fucking stupid our government is with our money... getting constant reminders every day of how little value our labor is worth compared to the billions and trillions these fucks on both sides print and spend with LITERALLY NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT.




I take the Jimmy Dore stance on Capitalism. It's great, except when it turns into what it's turned into now... Predatory Capitalism.

Fuck the rich. Hard. The biggest reason I hope there's an afterlife is so that they finally do get what they deserve since they hardly ever seem to get it on this plane of existence.

I know. Pretty selfish of me.

--------------------------------------------------

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Saturday, February 5, 2022 9:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Oh, and PS.

Read the fucking OP. It's still clear that you haven't.

OP means original post. I shouldn't have to explain that, but I feel at this point that you actually don't know what it means.

The OP was mostly not about that article.

--------------------------------------------------

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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