ANOTHER ECONOMIC SLAPDOWN, Part 2

(continued from Part 1 below)

The middle class is being destroyed. I've seen it happening and I'm very frightened about the future right now, not just for me, but for friends, family, the people I went to school with, the people I've worked with over the years. So many are experiencing the same economic suffering. We are middle class people who have worked all our adult lives and been able to afford a certain moderate lifestyle in the past; we're intelligent, capable, dedicated people but we're being absolutely hammered. Our jobs are going away and if we have jobs either our salaries or benefits, or both, are being eroded.

The first companies I worked for in the 70's and early 80's not only had Health Plans, but Dental also, and they funded their own pension plan for each employee. The pensions went first, shifted to employee funded 401k with some employer contributions. Next were the rounds of layoffs in the late 80's and into the 90's (which finally got me in '95 after 14 years). Dental coverage disappeared, and now Health Plans are being pillaged. Pretty soon they will be benefits in name only, so empty of real coverage relief that they will be virtually worthless to the average employee.

When we lost manufacturing jobs the middle class shifted to lower paying retail, sales and service jobs. Now these are drying up, too. What comes next is frightening. In order to keep the economy healthy a certain portion of the wealth needs to be spread broadly across middle and lower incomes. When the middle disappears, or becomes so burdened with expenses there are no buyers then even the retail, sales, and services dry up. Eventually this cancer will work its way up the economic foodchain; in fact it's already beginning to happen.

I don't see anyone addressing what's happening to our country. The problems are systemic and very bad news for more and more for America's workers. We are becoming a country without a middle class, like in South America. I hope I'll be able to look back on these worries one day and see how wrong I was. God help us.