if we're broke we aren't going to buy anything but the bare necessities.

they are doing better than ever before, financially, sitting on trillions of $ in cash held offshore.

A lot of that cash probably comes from US defense contracts, so there's always that source of revenue.

It's from them cutting hours, cutting benefits and putting out crappier products

ultimately the poor and middle class will not be able to afford anything and they won't be able to buy any of the goods the rich make. At some time the corps and the rich have to realize that the only reason that they are so well off is because they depended on the poor and middle class to support them. Once their sales begin to falter and fall off they are going to have to resort to some desperate measures to revive them. Maybe even - raising the minimum wage; paying a living wage; reducing prices on items they've been overly inflating; etc.

Once the corps and rich realize this - things might begin to turn around. If they don't well fall into a deep, deep depression and even the rich and the corps won't be able to live the life they've become accustomed to.

There's an expression that for everything, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, and I think our economy is entering an end stage. Not that we won't have an economy going forward, but that the economy that supported a healthy middle class is going to change more into the kind of economy that existed in Venezuela prior to Chavez or in other parts of South America, where the rich don't share; they merely erect compounds with armed security personnel, and party it up behind closed doors.

Hope that's not too pessimistic of a view.

but seems plausible to me, unless there are drastic changes.

but there are a few complications in the offing.

When we run out of oil, we run out of food. Our agriculture is totally dependent on fossil fuels as the base for fertilizer, insecticides, power for field equipment, heat for drying the grains and distilling alcohol from them. In addition, climate change, drought, and loss of the aquifers will also wreck our capacity for food production.

No rich-fuck compound can be self-sustaining under these conditions, particularly when surrounded by starving hordes. If they think they can maintain their security with armed guards, they will need to figure out how to feed those guards.

The starving masses will not be content to work factory jobs to produce toys for the rich without pay and without food.

When there is nothing to buy, money will lose its value and its magical power over people.

What will the super-wealthy do then?

Edgar Allen Poe.

the militarization of police depts are by design to keep the peons under control in the future, when we'll be fighting each other for table scraps.

What does Wall Street do besides move money from one place to another and take a cut everytime it passes through its hands? Hasn't most of the job growth in recent years been in services rather than manufacturing?

Maybe no more lower class. Maybe there will be a new class which we can call the Bottom Class, and we will all be a part of it.

talked about this characteristic of capitalism over a hundred years ago.... Ms Bigmack

wealth gap continues widening ...

eventually the worker will rise up
History tells us that fact
French Revolution and Russian Revolution and American Revolution

eventually the worker will rise up

because they are going to realize they are in a prison and a slave and they're going to die anyway
so why not die for their freedom

This country can't survive without workers......especially without military workers and if they get disgruntled then
your not going to win any wars

and I don't know if anybody has noticed by America hasn't won any wars lately check Iraq and Vietnam and Afghanistan etc...

what they have done is bankrupted this country

Harvard's right....it's unsustainable

here.

"that which can not continue, will not."

to get worse, every year. Is God going to call forth another Moses figure and set down 10 more commandments?

It's not that I don't speak English; it's that left unsaid from the conclusions here (unless I'm not reading it closely enough) is precisely HOW a relationship between two entities (the rich and the not rich) which is thriving can be said to be a relationship which is certain to come to an end.

One could argue more convincingly that something like bribery is unsustainable (since, unlike upward wealth redistribution, it is illegal); and yet, it seems to thrive legitimately in forms that lie outside traditional legal definitions of the word.

I guess part of what I'm getting at is that while unpleasant to consider, there are likely some (or even many) who control the levers of our economy who seek to usher in another Dark Age (akin to the era which followed the fall of the Roman Empire) in which the rich are, in fact, royalty and those who aren't royalty scrabble just to survive. They won't SAY it or admit it openly, but that is apparently the end game.

[center]

[/center][font size="1"]From Wikipedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eugène_Delacroix_-_La_liberté_guidant_le_peuple.jpg)
(Public Domain)
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When will we see this in the New York Times or the Washington Post? How about NBC News? Will Chuck Tood dedicate a Sunday morning to discussing this on Meet the Press?

Its called "debt". Cant afford rent...we have a loan for you. Cant afford food...we have a loan for you. Cant afford clothes...we have a loan for you. No credit. Bad credit. We have a loan for you. "Debtor prisons" will be relabeled "indebted labor work centers" a special government/private patnership to assist those with unsustainable debt a path to being debt free ( subject to terms and agreements). For the highly indebt, this program will provide onsite living with local stores and a special trades school for your children to attend...all for a monthly fee that will be taken right from your check.

Its a megarich utopia...all of the poor shuffled away , out of sight and out of mind, in "special" camps.

What about what I've said sound unrealistic?

Also drones for security, and an increasingly automated economy that shoves more people into the debtor's prisons every year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages

The concept is sooner or later wages hit a point where workers can NOT earn enough to survive. Thus wages either stagnant at that point, or you have population drops.

Given that workers tend to "rebel" at that point (i.e. rather be shot doing something to prevent starvation rather then stave) it leads to social unrest.

Thus sooner or later wages hit that point and you have massive social unrest. Given that we are also headed for zero population growth (at present rate the world will hit that date around 2050) you are also heading for a period of shortage of workers WORLD WIDE as people just do NOT reproduce. Outside of Central Africa, most of the world is already below replacement levels.

http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/beyond/beyondco/beg_03.pdf

Interactive Map of Population Growth AT THE PRESENT TIME:
http://www.maps.igemoe.com/fact_birth.htm

http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=24&r=xx&l=en

More of fertility rates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

2.1 children per woman is considered the ideal rate to maintain a Zero (0) population growth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility


Thus we are heading for a time period, maybe after I am gone, where people may be able to get better paying jobs do to the lack of workers to do those jobs. Thus the "Iron Rule of Wages" may lead to higher wages as people decide to cut costs by NOT have children (Children are expensive). In farming communities children can be an asset, an additional pair of hands during planting and harvest, but in modern urban environments such children cost families much more then their produce, thus the drop in world wide birthrates. Even Africa, which has the highest birth rate in the world today, that rate is DOWN from what it was just 20 years ago. The high birth rate in Africa is tied in with the high death rate in Africa (they is a 20 year gap between the drop in death rate and the drop in birth rates, i.e. as people get healthier and die less, they have less children to replace the children who use to die in childhood).

Given the drop in birth rate, sooner or later it will lead to a shortage of workers and thus social unrest as those workers DEMAND more in wages and get them for they are the only workers that can be hired.

"look out!!!! terror terror terror bad muslims bang bang war patriotism patriotism" (in main stream media)


watch the 'educated masses' (check school budgets for sarcasm control of 'educated')
sign up and voluntarily control its own size


possibly i'm really cynical
or i'm just a visionary

wont be happy until the US resembles the slums of Asia.

and that's why the Republicans filibustered overturning it.

Thanks for the thread, closeupready.

Oh well. Hope does spring eternal.

glad to see another study....

enough time has elapsed since the last revolution ignited by socioeconomic dislocation that even Harvard is populated with "this time, it'll be different" academics.

Thus, the big duh "breaking news: man bites dog!" conclusion here.