Quote Originally Posted by pinklather View Post
Without diving into detail, we could also show how US mfg has *increased* in the US in the last few decades - while the depth and breadth of industries - and the jobs have evaporated.

An interesting view would be # of industries and % of population employed in mfg.

The issue is less an aggregate or total financial output - 5 min. of programmed trading in stocks & futures can outperform years of normal output - but what provides a stable and robust economy vs the frail economy vulnerable to boom & bust.

'Nothing new is going on. Calamities from monetary manipulation are as old as currencies themselves - from ancient Romans shaving coins to the 'Merchants of Venice' (banksters of their day) almost bankrupting Britain by manipulating the preference for gold over silver or vice versa.

In our present cycle, the more historically savvy responded to the '07-'08 panic by saying - they'll erase the middle class. We're just talking now about that erasure and how to survive it.

'Hope you & yours are doing better up north than our foolishness here.
I think I saw stats that said the service sector in the US economy was about the same as in Germany but that the manufacturing percentage of GDP was slightly smaller in the US. So the two economies are roughly similar. Official unemployment figures are about 2 percentage points apart with the US being higher. I think if you took a look at most western industrialized countries we are all in similar positions to each other.

Got to agree on the erasure of the "middle class", it is a done deal and we are having to deal with it. That did not happen over night either and was a long time coming looking back on it. The need for a fat and contented middle class has been determine to be of no necessity, for whatever reason, so now you will take whatever is offered and be happy with that. There are few if any choices in the matter.

No, realistically we are not doing much better up north either because the foolishness is and was not confined solely to the US. I just got off the phone with a relative in Germany and there is plenty of talk there in the media of future generations there being poor too compared to the way it used to be. Same contributing factors, lower wages, fewer benefits, having to work longer before being able to collect a government pension compounded by increasing costs of staples not really allowing money to be put aside for retirement at the rate it once was. I am seeing something similar happening here too. If it makes anyone feel better there is plenty of company.

Bob