Restoring the American Middle Class
The Rising Cost of Just Living - An Increasingly Dire Situation -
BAsic overview of situation as commonly presented by RFKJ - average fam - percentage?? struggling to meet bills - food or medicine or rent choice. Car breakdown apocalypse - etc.
There are a number of aspects to this situation - from the rapidly rising costs of most everything - from food - to housing - to medicine(s)/medical care - and behind these situations/this state of things - there lays the core causes of political and financial corruption in our era of exponentially accelerating technological change.
The Struggle and Collapse of the Modern Middle Class is so central to the situation that an increasing number of US citizens find ourselves in, so we're breaking this page down into a few sub-pages.
On this main page we'll look at an overview of the desperate situation of increasing inflation and overall costs. And we'll also review RFK Jr's plan to address the situation and really give the middle class a chance. And hopefully it'll help us on the very poor side of the spectrum find a way back up into the middle class too!
In these Related and connected pages you can look more specifically at the important issues of:
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RFK Jr's plan for restoring - Labor Rights and the effectiveness of Unions.
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The Policies he'll implement to make HomeOwnership possible again.
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Making Higher Education Affordable and helping to Eliminate Student Debt.
There are so many labor saving technologies and massive abundance in our world today – that if there was just a bit more equality built into our modern capitalistic system we could all be living quite comfortable, low-stress, happy and healthy long lives. Instead the majority of us are living paycheck to paycheck, unable to afford a decent home, dealing with multiple chronic disease conditions and dying far earlier and more painfully than should ever be necessary.
Meanwhile those in the upper economic echelons are living like galactic emperors with financial resources nearly impossible for our brains to fathom – Jeff Bezos and Larry Fink being some of the more extreme examples.
A certain amount of inequality is natural, unavoidable and even beneficial but the gap between rich and poor has reached truly cosmic proportions and without serious deep level changes that gap is going to continue growing at an exponential rate - especial with the rapidly emerging tech of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), quantum computing and nanotechnology, etc.
- And while the wealthy have more abundance than they could ever reasonably spend, the poor aren’t just poor but devastated – with many more people struggling on the edge and losing their housing and ending up on the street every day. Unrecoverable bankruptcies, chronic disease, limitation to job prospects that have no clear route to a livable income or sustainable future - not to even mention the possibility of a nice vacation - or retirement. These crippling circumstances are becoming the norm, and something has to change, and soon!
Several decades if not a century ago it was predicted that by now people in first world countries like the U.S. would hardly have to work more than a few hours a week as improvements in technology would have done away with most of the need for arduous labor. And the truth is that technology really has made much traditional human labor redundant. But a huge percentage of such productivity gains from those technologies (besides making the wealthy even more super wealthy) are being applied to shallow and wasteful ends: – from a constant flood of poorly constructed products, unending new fashion trends, very unhealthy foods, largely ineffective and overpriced medical approaches, and a mega-abundance of shallow entertainment.
Meanwhile the average person has become impoverished in the essentials of survival: affordable housing, healthy food, deeply fulfilling relationships, as well as important 'non-essentials' such as inner peace, a connection to nature, profound self-knowledge and meaningful work. And at the same time a vast 'wealth' of superficial distractions is constantly being foisted upon us.
Personally I certainly do really enjoy a lot of the ephemeral fruits of modern technology - from epic special-effect filled movies, games, apps and even some social media – but the problem is that these fun distractions are steering our attention away from recognizing and addressing the profound disintegration of the core foundations that make for a truly fulfilling, healthy and meaningful life.
Realistically our world could even now be a mega-paradise for all – but sadly it seems to increasingly be veering towards a kind of techno-fascist paradise for a few and hellish devastation for the rest of us. A kind of twisted techno-feudalism – but one in which maybe the wealthy elites don’t feel all that compelled to even keep the serf class around
Most of those working in traditional fields such as farming and most service industries barely manage to pay rent and put food on the table despite working long hours.
While on the other hand high-finance jobs and careers in the military-industrial, mega-marketing world can bring in huge incomes but often contribute little of real value. And realistically speaking many of these high dollar careers are extremely instrumental in the acceleration of environmental, social, economic and health catastrophes.
In particular the growth of financial and investment markets, while contributing little real wealth have massively enriched an elite few - while simultaneously sinking most everyone else into deeper poverty and struggle. Over the last few decades even average middle-class workers have essentially been forced to join into the world of predatory investment markets – real estate and otherwise – just to try to keep up.
Ultimately under the influence of the short-sighted version of capitalism at the core of our modern economy the further growth of these industries has inevitably contributed to the rapid acceleration of the cost of housing and other key essentials – driving those at the bottom tiers of the economy deeper into desperation.
At present - -
* Prices were already quickly rising over the last decade but over just the last few years inflation and other factors have taken things to a whole other level!
* While unemployment is officially low – so many of the ‘wonderful’ new jobs are so low pay that it’s necessary to work at two or three of them just to make ends meet. And, as many new jobs are app-based ‘gig economy’ work, workers find themselves without medical coverage and other necessities offered by more traditional employment.
* Just since the time that Biden took office average U.S. home prices have nearly doubled – up from around $250,000 to $400,000 in just over three years! Making the dream of home ownership unattainable or at best tortuously stressful for the majority of aspiring workers.
* Mortgage rates have likewise more than doubled – leaving those attempting to pay off a home purchase even further buried in debt. Rent prices have similarly been accelerating – leaving those on the low end of the economic totem pole even more desperate for one of the most basic essentials of life, shelter.
* Also, after taking account of the effects of inflation, take-home pay for the average American has effectively dropped by nearly 10% during the tenure of the Biden administration, making things all the more desperate.
“More than 60% of Americans live paycheck-to
-paycheck, with no savings for an emergency.”
- from Kennedy24.com Cost of Living policy page
The corrupt corporate buy-out of most politicians in Washington DC has brought about the policies that led to this extreme wealth divide.
Long term solutions to this unsustainable economic situation will need to involve some very deep level structural changes as well as palliative-survival measures such as the implementation of a Universal Basic Income. But for the here and now Kennedy’s proposed policies can help to heal much of the economic disparities and desperation brought about by the last 40- plus years of abysmally lame policy.
RFK Jr. will implement several key and well-thought out measures to help restore the middle class while reducing the gigantic gap between the ultra-wealthy and the very poor..
At the core of his approach is the idea that “Being able to afford a decent life doesn’t mean working more hours. It means higher pay and lower bills.”
Here’s a list of the key policies his administration is going to use to turn this situation around (quoted from the Kennedy24.com website – but with emphasis by me.):
1. Raise the minimum wage to $15, which
is the equivalent to its 1967 level.
2. Prosecute union-busting corporations so that
labor can organize and negotiate fair wages.
3. Expand free childcare to millions of families with programs like that pioneered by the state of New Mexico.
4. Drop housing costs by $1000 per family and make home ownership affordable by backing 3% home mortgages with tax-free bonds.
5. Cut energy prices by restricting natural gas exports.
6. Support small businesses by redirecting regulatory scrutiny onto large corporations.
7. Secure the border and bring illegal immigration to a halt, so that undocumented migrants won’t undercut wages.
8. Negotiate trade deals that prevent low-wage countries from competing with American workers in a “race to the bottom.”
9. Rein in military spending and use the resources to fund infrastructure, health care, higher education, child care, and domestic prosperity.
10. Reverse the chronic disease epidemic that is a $3.7 trillion drag on families and the American economy.
11. Clean out the corruption in Washington, D.C., which funnels so much of our nation’s wealth to giant corporations and billionaires.
12. Establish addiction healing centers on organic farms across the country - to help End the crippling drug epidemics.
13. Make student debt dischargeable in bankruptcy and cut interest rates on student loans to zero.
14. Cut prescription drug costs by half to
bring them in line with other nations.
1. Raise the minimum wage to $15, which is the equivalent to its 1967 level.
2. Prosecute union-busting corporations so that labor can organize and negotiate fair wages.
3. Expand free childcare to millions of families with programs like that pioneered by the state of New Mexico.
4. Drop housing costs by $1000 per family and make home ownership affordable by backing 3% home mortgages with tax-free bonds.
5. Cut energy prices by restricting natural gas exports.
6. Support small businesses by redirecting regulatory scrutiny onto large corporations.
7. Secure the border and bring illegal immigration to a halt, so that undocumented migrants won’t undercut wages.
8. Negotiate trade deals that prevent low-wage countries from competing with American workers in a “race to the bottom.”
9. Rein in military spending and use the resources to fund infrastructure, health care, higher education, child care, and domestic prosperity.
10. Reverse the chronic disease epidemic that is a $3.7 trillion drag on families and the American economy.
11. Clean out the corruption in Washington, D.C., which funnels so much of our nation’s wealth to giant corporations and billionaires.
12. Establish addiction healing centers on organic farms across the country - to help End the crippling drug epidemics.
13. Make student debt dischargeable in bankruptcy and cut interest rates on student loans to zero.
14. Cut prescription drug costs by half to bring them in line with other nations.
Paying for These Policy Measures:
As briefly mentioned in the list above, the primary means of paying for these changes will be reducing our countries massive overspending on military imperialism. Where recent U.S. participation or rather meddling and manipulation of wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq and of course Afghanistan and Ukraine have cost over $8 trillion! Equivalent to right around $90,000 for a U.S. family of four –with enough money left over to have provided free child care, payed for college tuition, eliminated medical and credit card debt and repaired the nation’s out-of-date and crumbling infrastructure.
The other key source of money to make these policies eminently affordable will come from improved and appropriate taxation of mega-corporations. Essentially these new tax policies will become possible through the ending of the long-entrenched corruption and selling out of politicians in Washington D.C. so many of whom have been paid off to provide corporate bailouts and massive tax avoidance schemes.
Kennedy has a long and strong track record of standing up against powerful interests – corporations, the military-medical-industrial complex, the CIA, mainstream media and others – so there’s good reason to believe the promise expressed on Kennedy24.com that while, “Other Presidents have tinkered on the edges, but Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will make the deep changes necessary to put the economy on a sound footing. The broad prosperity of the Eisenhower and JFK era can be ours again. It is just a shift of priorities away.”
