This College Professor Has a Master's...And Is Living in Poverty

[appalachiablue]

128. If this country had health care, social safety services and child care like Europe- Sweden, Denmark,

Germany and France she and her child would make it. But in 30 years this country won't stop the death march of underpaying and exploiting the working and middle classes while allowing the wealthiest class unprecedented gains from tax breaks and subsidies and executive stock options that fill their troughs (and 2nd homes) rather than contribute to the common good, as was the case pre-Reagan when this nation was the strongest ever.

My grandfather must have paid around 90% taxes, several uncles around 70%. And they all lived well. (Other relatives were average, some knuckleheads too). They were grateful for the resources and ample opportunities this country provided, and they defended it in all wars. There were no vacation homes in the tropics or mountains, and no complaining about 'Uncle Sam, DC, the Guvment', Not One Word. They were hard workers, ambitious, built a successful company, provided employment to many and gave back to society.

A generation and a half ago, an American could have a home, raise children, enjoy security and live a decent life on one salary from a decent job with benefits. Since 34 years of destructive neoliberal transnational economics, the US is now a rapidly declining, decaying and highly dysfunctional former first world industrial nation. Our middle class, the largest and greatest the world has ever known, is no. 2 for the first time ever, behind Canada since 2013, and it's suffering and dying while the rich get richer and the hoarders pile higher.