10 ms·

This is another canary in the coal mine example of the rapidly shrinking middle class in the western world IMO

zhte415 9y ago
Why? Objective?
influx 9y ago
So weird you used this analogy considering the town was founded because of a mine. Once those minerals are gone most mining towns dry up like this.
chesimov 9y ago
Serious question: does anyone know where to get some good in-depth data which deal with the middle class's fortunes in Europe, and possibly some interpretations?
- pmyteh 9y ago
  Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century is an empirical analysis of wealth distribution in capitalist countries over the long term, as well as a discussion of possible causes and consequences. It's very good.
pkaye 9y ago
Which is apt since this town was found of coal mining and it did have a 160 year run.
daveFNbuck 9y ago
There are only 18,000 people in this town. To hit his goal of 60 diners a day would require the average person in town to visit more than once a year. How many middle class people are going to spend $130 on an entree on an average Tuesday night? I've never spent that much on a meal and my income is too high to be considered middle class in the US.
- pjc50 9y ago
  You need to count tourists, especially those specifically looking to tour Michelin star restaurants. There's the reason a tyre company is publishing a food guide in the first place.
  - daveFNbuck 9y ago
    Is touring Michelin star restaurants a middle-class hobby?
    - justherefortart 9y ago
      Why wouldn't it be? I love eating out at nice restaurants and traveling. Maybe the issue is the middle class doesn't have as much disposable money as it used to.
    - cyberpunk0 9y ago
      Not at "$130"
      - bdamm 9y ago
        Almost all middle class families can afford a $130 meal once or twice a year. It's really just about what else they're giving up. Think about how many "middle class" families own Harley motorcycles - and those things are inflated money sinks, similar to a boat, ATV+trailer, RV, lifted truck, or dirtbag travel habit. Most "middle class" families can afford one toy. On that scale, $130 even once a month is quite affordable.
        user5994461 9y ago
        Do they have kid menus? $130 for 4 people would be $520. That's insane. That's the monthly rent for a many bedroom flat in France (outside of major cities). The after tax income is twice or three times that number. Don't expect a middle class family to eat there.
bklaasen 9y ago
You can't generalise like that about the whole of Europe - it's a very diverse region. I walked across Europe this summer, from Ireland to Istanbul. Southern Germany is doing fine, but Northern France has been hollowed out. The humdrum little rural towns and villages are not doing well at all. I passed through many places where empty shops had signs in their windows saying things like "thank you for your custom over the last eighteen years, but we can no longer make a living here."
- gumby 9y ago
  Interesting choice of trip —- were you inspired by Patrick Leigh Fermor?
  - bklaasen 9y ago
    Yes! Though I walked from Cherbourg rather than Hook of Holland, I crossed the Alps between Salzburg and Kranj in Slovenia, and walked across the Balkans and Bulgaria.
- mc32 9y ago
  The Ruhrgebiet probably comes close to having the iconoclastic brownfields and abandoned buildings, but don't come close to Detroit's fall. Still, they do have some "rust" areas but have managed better than us.
  - foepys 9y ago
    It's quite the opposite in regards to the Ruhrgebiet. Ruhrgebiet cities like Duisburg, Dortmund, and Essen are growing fast. Not as fast as Munich or Hamburg but fast enough for rents to go up considerably. Gentrification is also in full force there. The actual losers are the former GDR states that are being bled to death by thousands of little cuts. Siemens recently announced that it's closing two high-tech factories in Saxony and with it whole towns will lose their currently well-paid jobs. This will lead to an even higher loss of jobs in retail etc.
    - 9y ago
wazoox 9y ago
Actually it's more an example of dying of all medium-size cities in France, mostly because of globalisation and the Euro which is killing French industry (800 factories close every year and it has been so since 2003).
- user5994461 9y ago
  France is killing itself. It has nothing to do with the euro.
  - dmichulke 9y ago
    I think you're both right: France is doing everything in its power to keep companies from going there and employing people (by improving worker conditions to the detriment of employers). But the French government budget would surely also benefit from a devaluation here and there as it always did. On the positive side, without the EU the French agricultural sector would have to face the plain market and get along with a few dozens of billions less per year, so there's that. For a little bit more data I cannot recommend enough the Economic Libery Index: http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking France is 72nd, quite a few ranks after countries such as Albania, Kosovo, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, ... Unsurprisingly, Government Spending and Labor Freedom are the worst elements of its index value.
    - caseydurfee 9y ago
      Any list of "free" countries that has [the UAE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates#Labor_law_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Ara...), Chile and Singapore in their top 10 is using "free" in the Orwellian sense. "Labor Freedom" is perhaps the most galling. One might think it would cover the right of laborers to organize and collectively bargain. Or the right to have safe working conditions, sick days, severance pay, access to childcare and healthcare. In fact, it's the exact opposite. A perfectly free workforce in Heritage Foundation's verbiage would be one with no worker protections or individual rights of any kind and a 100% labor participation rate - to them, quite literally, "labor freedom" is slavery. Maybe France does have to many workers' rights to compete with other countries, who knows. Heritage's numbers aren't granular enough for me (or you) to assess that. But re-defining the meanings of basic words so one can accuse people who disagree with you of "hating freedom" is pathetic. Please try to find some other way to make your case that's befitting educated adults discussing a serious issue.
alexasmyths 9y ago
Not really, the locals in that area have never known good jobs.
thatfrenchguy 9y ago
We’re fine in France, the downward pressure on middle class salaries have been compensated by good healthcare / a high minimum wage / a decent labor code, unlike in the US. Sure it sucks if you’re a software engineer but as a minimum wage person you’re an order of magnitude better than in the US.
- adventured 9y ago
  1% of the US labor force earns the minimum wage. The US middle class has among the highest disposable income levels on the planet, far higher than France. The median full-time job in the US nearly pays $50,000 at this point, far higher than France. The person at the median in the US middle class has their healthcare paid for by their employer. The US middle class has in fact seen significant compensation increases that are not accounted for, because their healthcare benefits from employers are not accounted for in salary comparisons. Whether France has a decent labor code, or actually has a backwards labor code that has severely damaged their economy for decades, is clearly open to debate given the high persistent unemployment rate of France. France's labor code has not resulted in high wages, the US has higher wages in every regard. It has not resulted in high employment, the US always has a lower unemployment rate. It has not resulted in faster growing wages, US wage growth averages three to four times faster over the last decade. It has not resulted in faster economic growth, US GDP growth is typically four or five times faster. When US wages grow at only 2% or 2.5%, we wonder what's wrong. In France, wage growth has averaged about 0.4% the last three years; the 0.6% growth level it put in a few quarters ago, was a three year high. If the French labor code is so desirable, why is French wage growth so atrocious? See: "Wage Growth in France averaged 0.53 percent from 1999 until 2017" https://tradingeconomics.com/france/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/france/wage-growth vs https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth And that can be confirmed by simply Googling "french wage growth" and looking at dozens of recent news sources. Your order of a magnitude claim is very obviously wrong.
  - barrkel 9y ago
    You'd be better off talking about household-adjusted median disposable income at PPP levels. It still makes your point, not as dramatically but more solidly. There's a table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalent_adult_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalen... There's another chart here, from OECD with similar distribution and levels: https://mises.org/blog/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden-and-germany-rank-kentucky https://mises.org/blog/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden... (You need to adjust for different levels of required expenditures (different things are subsidised in different countries), different cost levels for local goods and services, different worker participation rates (e.g. dual income vs single income), etc.)
NicoJuicy 9y ago
Where are you from? We never had it better. A lot of top chefs don't want the pressure of a star. And all michelin restaurants are fully booked in Belgium.

Why? Objective?

So weird you used this analogy considering the town was founded because of a mine. Once those minerals are gone most mining towns dry up like this.

chesimov 9y ago

Serious question: does anyone know where to get some good in-depth data which deal with the middle class's fortunes in Europe, and possibly some interpretations?

pmyteh 9y ago
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century is an empirical analysis of wealth distribution in capitalist countries over the long term, as well as a discussion of possible causes and consequences. It's very good.

pkaye 9y ago

Which is apt since this town was found of coal mining and it did have a 160 year run.

daveFNbuck 9y ago

There are only 18,000 people in this town. To hit his goal of 60 diners a day would require the average person in town to visit more than once a year. How many middle class people are going to spend $130 on an entree on an average Tuesday night? I've never spent that much on a meal and my income is too high to be considered middle class in the US.

pjc50 9y ago
You need to count tourists, especially those specifically looking to tour Michelin star restaurants. There's the reason a tyre company is publishing a food guide in the first place.
- daveFNbuck 9y ago
  Is touring Michelin star restaurants a middle-class hobby?
  - justherefortart 9y ago
    Why wouldn't it be? I love eating out at nice restaurants and traveling. Maybe the issue is the middle class doesn't have as much disposable money as it used to.
  - cyberpunk0 9y ago
    Not at "$130"
    - bdamm 9y ago
      Almost all middle class families can afford a $130 meal once or twice a year. It's really just about what else they're giving up. Think about how many "middle class" families own Harley motorcycles - and those things are inflated money sinks, similar to a boat, ATV+trailer, RV, lifted truck, or dirtbag travel habit. Most "middle class" families can afford one toy. On that scale, $130 even once a month is quite affordable.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        Do they have kid menus? $130 for 4 people would be $520. That's insane. That's the monthly rent for a many bedroom flat in France (outside of major cities). The after tax income is twice or three times that number. Don't expect a middle class family to eat there.

bklaasen 9y ago

You can't generalise like that about the whole of Europe - it's a very diverse region. I walked across Europe this summer, from Ireland to Istanbul. Southern Germany is doing fine, but Northern France has been hollowed out. The humdrum little rural towns and villages are not doing well at all. I passed through many places where empty shops had signs in their windows saying things like "thank you for your custom over the last eighteen years, but we can no longer make a living here."

gumby 9y ago
Interesting choice of trip —- were you inspired by Patrick Leigh Fermor?
- bklaasen 9y ago
  Yes! Though I walked from Cherbourg rather than Hook of Holland, I crossed the Alps between Salzburg and Kranj in Slovenia, and walked across the Balkans and Bulgaria.
mc32 9y ago
The Ruhrgebiet probably comes close to having the iconoclastic brownfields and abandoned buildings, but don't come close to Detroit's fall. Still, they do have some "rust" areas but have managed better than us.
- foepys 9y ago
  It's quite the opposite in regards to the Ruhrgebiet. Ruhrgebiet cities like Duisburg, Dortmund, and Essen are growing fast. Not as fast as Munich or Hamburg but fast enough for rents to go up considerably. Gentrification is also in full force there. The actual losers are the former GDR states that are being bled to death by thousands of little cuts. Siemens recently announced that it's closing two high-tech factories in Saxony and with it whole towns will lose their currently well-paid jobs. This will lead to an even higher loss of jobs in retail etc.
  - 9y ago

wazoox 9y ago

Actually it's more an example of dying of all medium-size cities in France, mostly because of globalisation and the Euro which is killing French industry (800 factories close every year and it has been so since 2003).

user5994461 9y ago
France is killing itself. It has nothing to do with the euro.
- dmichulke 9y ago
  I think you're both right: France is doing everything in its power to keep companies from going there and employing people (by improving worker conditions to the detriment of employers). But the French government budget would surely also benefit from a devaluation here and there as it always did. On the positive side, without the EU the French agricultural sector would have to face the plain market and get along with a few dozens of billions less per year, so there's that. For a little bit more data I cannot recommend enough the Economic Libery Index: http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking France is 72nd, quite a few ranks after countries such as Albania, Kosovo, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, ... Unsurprisingly, Government Spending and Labor Freedom are the worst elements of its index value.
  - caseydurfee 9y ago
    Any list of "free" countries that has [the UAE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates#Labor_law_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Ara...), Chile and Singapore in their top 10 is using "free" in the Orwellian sense. "Labor Freedom" is perhaps the most galling. One might think it would cover the right of laborers to organize and collectively bargain. Or the right to have safe working conditions, sick days, severance pay, access to childcare and healthcare. In fact, it's the exact opposite. A perfectly free workforce in Heritage Foundation's verbiage would be one with no worker protections or individual rights of any kind and a 100% labor participation rate - to them, quite literally, "labor freedom" is slavery. Maybe France does have to many workers' rights to compete with other countries, who knows. Heritage's numbers aren't granular enough for me (or you) to assess that. But re-defining the meanings of basic words so one can accuse people who disagree with you of "hating freedom" is pathetic. Please try to find some other way to make your case that's befitting educated adults discussing a serious issue.

alexasmyths 9y ago

Not really, the locals in that area have never known good jobs.

thatfrenchguy 9y ago

We’re fine in France, the downward pressure on middle class salaries have been compensated by good healthcare / a high minimum wage / a decent labor code, unlike in the US. Sure it sucks if you’re a software engineer but as a minimum wage person you’re an order of magnitude better than in the US.

adventured 9y ago
1% of the US labor force earns the minimum wage. The US middle class has among the highest disposable income levels on the planet, far higher than France. The median full-time job in the US nearly pays $50,000 at this point, far higher than France. The person at the median in the US middle class has their healthcare paid for by their employer. The US middle class has in fact seen significant compensation increases that are not accounted for, because their healthcare benefits from employers are not accounted for in salary comparisons. Whether France has a decent labor code, or actually has a backwards labor code that has severely damaged their economy for decades, is clearly open to debate given the high persistent unemployment rate of France. France's labor code has not resulted in high wages, the US has higher wages in every regard. It has not resulted in high employment, the US always has a lower unemployment rate. It has not resulted in faster growing wages, US wage growth averages three to four times faster over the last decade. It has not resulted in faster economic growth, US GDP growth is typically four or five times faster. When US wages grow at only 2% or 2.5%, we wonder what's wrong. In France, wage growth has averaged about 0.4% the last three years; the 0.6% growth level it put in a few quarters ago, was a three year high. If the French labor code is so desirable, why is French wage growth so atrocious? See: "Wage Growth in France averaged 0.53 percent from 1999 until 2017" https://tradingeconomics.com/france/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/france/wage-growth vs https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth And that can be confirmed by simply Googling "french wage growth" and looking at dozens of recent news sources. Your order of a magnitude claim is very obviously wrong.
- barrkel 9y ago
  You'd be better off talking about household-adjusted median disposable income at PPP levels. It still makes your point, not as dramatically but more solidly. There's a table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalent_adult_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalen... There's another chart here, from OECD with similar distribution and levels: https://mises.org/blog/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden-and-germany-rank-kentucky https://mises.org/blog/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden... (You need to adjust for different levels of required expenditures (different things are subsidised in different countries), different cost levels for local goods and services, different worker participation rates (e.g. dual income vs single income), etc.)

NicoJuicy 9y ago

Where are you from? We never had it better. A lot of top chefs don't want the pressure of a star. And all michelin restaurants are fully booked in Belgium.