War on the Middle Class

[Fresh Prince]

http://reason.tv/video/show/61.html

I have to admit I sorta agree. People's anticipation of life get ahead of them.

[Mandark]

Drew Carey found some guys with a boat!  In my face!

Transparently awful libertarian mythbusting is why I can't bring myself to watch that Penn & Teller show.

[FlameOfCallandor]

What is this Libertarian ideals actually making since! Egad!

Seriously folks, there is a reason we become such a prosperous nation. I'll give you a hint, It doesnt involve higher taxes.

[MrAngryFace]

"Middle Class" isnt what it used to be. As a single person I make enough to be considered middle class, but if I was supporting a family on what I make considering where I live id probably be lower middle class.

[Fresh Prince]

The unverified interviews are garbage I agree (really what do you expect from sensationlist pieces as these) and a lot can be attributed to easy credit however this not too different from personal experience (which can also be considered 'conjecture').

"Middle Class" isnt what it used to be. As a single person I make enough to be considered middle class, but if I was supporting a family on what I make considering where I live id probably be lower middle class.

That's true but if you had children your wife would be also supplementing the household income and I'm not sure in America you may recieve some tax offsets.

[Human Snorenado]

What is this Libertarian ideals actually making since! Egad!

Indeed.

[Mandark]

Problems with this piece, off the top of my head:

1) 1900 is a bad benchmark to use for discussing socioeconomic trends.  If you pick two points in a data set and draw a straight line, it's easy to get any slope you want.

2) Cell phones!  Appliances!  Very nice, but a whole set of labor-intensive goods and services haven't had the same rapid advances.  Think healthcare and college tuition costs, which brings us to...

3) The socio- part of socioeconomic.  Stability, upward mobility, and a sense of fairness about distribution matters.  Myopically focusing on durable goods is a traditional conservatarian method for telling the proles to shut it.

4) Wealth should be measured by time spent working?  Two-income families are way more prevalent now than 30 or 40 years ago.

5) It didn't even touch on the prevalence of debt.

6) Working class guys!  With a boat!  Oy.

[Van Cruncheon]

what mandark said. however, bullshit! (the p&t show) makes a lot of good points in many episodes, especially those mocking tinhatters, collegiate posers, the religious, the new-age, and peta. they fail when they pull the conservatarian socioeconomic voodoo card.

[etiolate]

Drew should have interviewed D-Fens

[youtube=425,350]eREiQhBDIk[/youtube]