Everybody say "Thank you capitalism"

You said Obama wiped you out financially. 

People said you're full of shit. 

i seriously doubt that my middle class is same as some 3rd world shit hole - in fact >>>>  In dollar terms, Kharas defines the global middle class as those who make $11 to $110 a day, or about $4,000 to $40,000 a year.<<< does anyone here feel that 40K is middle class ??

>>does anyone here feel that 40K is middle class ??

Apparently Thom is comfortable with that figure.

So over $40K per year is mega-rich?

Even in California?

Certainly puts things into perspective. 

I am grateful to have food, shelter, clothing, and several comforts 

I'd also like to thank the collective taxpayers and government officials (USA & California) who fund my wages as case manager for people with disabilities. 

(((Thank you)))

>>>>“There was almost no middle class before the Industrial Revolution began in the 1830s,” Kharas said. “It was just royalty and peasants. Now we are about to have a majority middle-class world.”

Thank you Labor Unions for creating the middle class.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/it-wasnt-china-that-ruined-the-middle-...

congrats.

winning. bigly...

a tv is a luxury in 2018? 

biggest increase in wealth (most people moved from poor to middle) was certainly China.

China is communist.

>>>>China is communist.

Not anymore.  Maybe in name only, but modern China is about as capitalist as they come.

Heritage disagrees, Ken

(worth noting that Heritage rates countries with high social spending, such as Denmark, Sweden and Candad quite highly, so it isn't just a right wing hack organization as far as this ranking goes)

https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

"China’s economic freedom score is 57.8, making its economy the 110th freest in the 2018 Index. Its overall score has increased by 0.4 point, with higher scores for government integrity and judicial effectiveness more than balancing declines in fiscal health, labor freedom, and property rights. China is ranked 24th among 43 countries in the Asia–Pacific region, and its overall score is below the regional and world averages.

China’s economy remains “mostly unfree” but benefits from integration into the global economy. There is little momentum for reform, and state-owned enterprises still dominate the financial sector and many basic industries.

...

Nontariff barriers significantly impede trade. The prevalence of state-owned enterprises limits foreign investment.

The state uses control of the financial system to manage the economy.

The government owns all large financial institutions, which lend according to state priorities."

http://fortune.com/2015/07/22/china-global-500-government-owned/

"...Chinese companies are anything but global brands. They enjoy monopolies or oligopolies at home, but often struggle to expand their business outside of the protected borders of their home country. “Chinese companies that wish to go global are hindered because they lack adequate knowledge of consumers in target markets and experience in building leading brands,” Boston Consulting Group partners wrote earlier this year. Size is no substitute for strength in international competition. Today, many of the Chinese brands that are most known around the world—including Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and Xiaomi, none of which are state-owned—remain too small (in terms of revenue) to make the list.

The number of Chinese companies appearing on Fortune‘s list should continue growing in the coming years, because it is a government priority to rise up the rankings. At a SASAC event in 2013, the economist Hu Angang, Director of the Institute for Contemporary China Studies at Tsinghua University and a vocal proponent of the Communist Party and its state-owned companies system, said that by 2020 the number of SOEs on the Fortune Global 500 list would hit 130.

...."

https://www.britannica.com/place/China/The-role-of-the-government

China has been a socialist country since 1949, and, for nearly all of that time, the government has played a predominant role in the economy. In the industrial sector, for example, the state long owned outright nearly all of the firms producing China’s manufacturing output. The proportion of overall industrial capacity controlled by the government has gradually declined, although heavy industries have remained largely state owned. In the urban sector the government has set the prices for key commodities, determined the level and general distribution of investment funds, prescribed output targets for major enterprises and branches, allocated energy resources, set wage levels and employment targets, run the wholesale and retail networks, and controlled financial policy and the banking system. The foreign trade system became a government monopoly in the early 1950s. In the countryside from the mid-1950s, the government prescribed cropping patterns, set the level of prices, and fixed output targets for all major crops.

By the early 21st century much of the above system was in the process of changing, as the role of the central government in managing the economy was reduced and the role of both private initiative and market forces increased. Nevertheless, the government continued to play a dominant role in the urban economy, and its policies on such issues as agricultural procurement still exerted a major influence on performance in the rural sector.

The effective exercise of control over the economy requires an army of bureaucrats and a highly complicated chain of command, stretching from the top down to the level of individual enterprise. The Chinese Communist Party reserves the right to make broad decisions on economic priorities and policies, but the government apparatus headed by the State Council assumes the major burden of running the economy. The State Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance also are concerned with the functioning of virtually the entire economy.

The entire planning process involves considerable consultation and negotiation. The main advantage of including a project in an annual plan is that the raw materials, labour, financial resources, and markets are guaranteed by directives that have the force of law. In fact, however, a great deal of economic activity goes on outside the scope of the detailed plan, and the tendency has been for the plan to become narrower rather than broader in scope.

There are three types of economic activity in China: those stipulated by mandatory planning, those done according to indicative planning (in which central planning of economic outcomes is indirectly implemented), and those governed by market forces. The second and third categories have grown at the expense of the first, but goods of national importance and almost all large-scale construction have remained under the mandatory planning system. The market economy generally involves small-scale or highly perishable items that circulate within local market areas only. Almost every year brings additional changes in the lists of goods that fall under each of the three categories.

Is this the capitalism of which you speak?

Wall Street Journal

U.S. to Pay Farmers $4.7 Billion to Offset Trade-Conflict Losses

The Trump administration pledged to pay farmers $4.7 billion to offset losses from trade disputes with foreign buyers of U.S. agricultural products.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-pay-farmers-up-to-4-7-billion-to-off...

I'm tired of winning..

Capitalism was certainly a step up from feudalism, but its time may have come and gone. Capitalism can't survive without constantly increasing its market, but eventually this becomes impossible and unsustainable, as it runs up against the carrying capacity of the earth. Sure, we could add a couple more billion consumers, but it wouldn't be much fun.

In addition, capitalism faces a more imminent problem - increasing automation killing jobs. Yes, new jobs are produced, but many people don't have the education, training, or mental ability to do these jobs. However, capitalism needs these consumers to buy its goods. Perhaps a new system needs to be created that can produce goods and services without direct payments from the consumer.

Capitalism's biggest future problem is privatization wherein profit is made from the de-humanization of society.

The 3 greatest evils in the world are health care for profit, education for profit and prisons for profit. The United States now excels in all three. MAGA!

Good job, Zoners.

Middle class used to be defined by higher education.  Do something change?

>>>>Capitalism can't survive without constantly increasing its market, but eventually this becomes impossible and unsustainable, as it runs up against the carrying capacity of the earth. Sure, we could add a couple more billion consumers, but it wouldn't be much fun.

Just wait until the all the folks in India and China start consuming like Americans.