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I hear this a lot and I have a hard time believing it. What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? Your example with publ

I hear this a lot and I have a hard time believing it. What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? Your example with public vs private schools has less to do with diminishing public schools and everything to do with their maximizing their own children's education. If we end private schools, do we still allow paid tutors? If so, I don't see how that field gets levelled.

luffapi 5y ago
> What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? https://www.fastcompany.com/90642878/worker-pay-went-up-just-1-8-in-2020-ceo-pay-increased-nearly-16 https://www.fastcompany.com/90642878/worker-pay-went-up-just... And that’s not even starting on lobbying and policy.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  So the rich made stocks go up because they want to destroy the middle class?
  - luffapi 5y ago
    As per the source I linked: the rich captured all the gains and failed to increase everyone else’s pay to even match inflation.
    - BobbyJo 5y ago
      As per the source, the rich are paid in stock, and they made more because stocks grew in value. You're making it sound like a scheme when it's a paycheck. Everyone in the US is free to convert all of their money into stock whenever they like. The reason the CEOs get paid in stock to to tie their compensation to the value of the company, not to disenfranchise the poor.
      - luffapi 5y ago
        Nowhere in that article does it talk about executive compensation coming solely from stock. Mismatched equity grants are one of the levers, but so is regular salary. Regardless, the fact is executive pay has been rising while worker pay has been stagnant for decades. That’s not even up for debate, it’s a fact.
      - fungiblecog 5y ago
        Duh, the poor have to spend money to live, they can't just buy stock and wait for it to increase in value. And at the volumes they can afford the transaction fees would kill any profit.
        BobbyJo 5y ago
        So now we have come full circle, back to "the poor are poor because of the rich". I'm open to the possibility, but the comments this far inspire little confidence in the soundness of the argument.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        How is this a weak argument? The value in the economy has been funneled to shareholders, and the poor are definitionally not shareholders
      - throwaway2048 5y ago
        You are not free to convert money you need to live into stocks.
      - oblio 5y ago
        > Everyone in the US is free to convert all of their money into stock whenever they like. Hey, let me convert my ramen money into 2 Berkshire Hathaway shares. Do you realize how ridiculous and disconnected from reality you comment sounds?
8note 5y ago
Moving to areas with "good schools" is one. Only schools where wealthy people live get good funding, so when they concentrate where they live to one place, everywhere else suffers
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  Wealthy people choosing to live near each other, and thus their local community having more taxes per child, does not demonstrate to me intent to destroy the middle class.
- wyager 5y ago
  The US has some of the best-funded public schools in the world and some of the worst outcomes in public schools. “Funding” is a red herring at best and an excuse for extractive politics in reality. It turns out that life outcomes have approximately nothing whatsoever to do with how much money your childhood schools got. It also strikes me as quite perverse to blame people who are able to move their children out of schools that have become terrible (through no fault of their own).
  - water8 5y ago
    > It also strikes me as quite perverse to blame people who are able to move their children out of schools that have become terrible How do some schools become terrible if they are public and well funded? They become terrible because funding is not distributed evenly.
  - dwater 5y ago
    Yes, the problem is not school funding but school segregation. It takes more than money to help high needs students, it takes attention and support. If your child needs attention and support and they go to a school where the majority of their peers have the same needs, none of them will get it.
    - wyager 5y ago
      Hold on… your claim is that students are not having their special needs met, and your solution is to put them in a school that’s even less equipped to handle their special needs? Schools absolutely should be segregated, as much as possible, by things like academic ability. That’s the only way schools can effectively meet students where they’re at. It takes a totally different strategy to help a low-performing student catch up vs helping a high-performing student excel. By forcing those kids into the same classroom, you’re not helping either of them.
matthewdgreen 5y ago
>What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? Vigorously target labor unions. Lobby for substantial decreases in state and Federal taxation, reductions that have in turn necessitated major reductions in education spending and substantial tuition increases that hit middle class families [1]. Attempt (so far unsuccessfully) to privatize social security. Strongly oppose healthcare reform proposals that might reduce out-of-pocket spending. PS The above examples are a very small part of the story. It's honestly shocking to me that the question even gets asked, or has to be answered. [1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-hig...
- qqtt 5y ago
  Those examples aren't really "the rich". Business tax cuts benefit shareholders, and globally there has been a race to the bottom to pit locations against each other to try to drive profit margins. These things have largely affected manufacturing - manufacturing itself being marginalized in the greater business landscape as other more profitable industries have gained favor. Note that "the rich" are not all that intertwined in the minutiae of manufacturing. Opposing health care reform is also a niche issue dominated by well-connected insurance companies. Many other industries would like nothing more than the government to take over health care costs and lower their own burden (including tech companies who end up paying exorbitant amounts to fund these benefits against other competitors). The health insurance companies (and related industries which benefit from price gouging in the health care industry) are entrenched in lobbying and congress and have the clout to block these efforts. Insurance companies aren't "the rich" they are simply well connected with government. Much of the talk about "the rich" trying to "destroy the middle class" really come down to two large buckets: * Company shareholders benefiting from profit margins (outsourcing, manufacturing, lowering cost without oversight or regulation) - this benefits "the rich" is so far as "the rich" are shareholders of these companies * Niche industries having disproportionate influence in our political system - such as private prison lobby, health insurance lobby, etc. - these players have in turn disproportionate impact on our legislative process because they are entrenched and intertwined with members of congress It doesn't benefit "the rich" to have a poor population, if anything it makes the rich more vulnerable. What we are seeing play out is actually unintended consequences of greed and plain as day corruption which continues without oversight and regulation.
arminiusreturns 5y ago
First, the bar you set is probably too high. Intent is notoriously hard to prove, even with deductive evidence, much less inductive evidence. Also, I never advocated for ending private schools. You are strawmanning that one, and it's a perhipherial point to the topic anyway. Since you asked though, how about the Fed's endless bailouts of the rich that are still ongoing? Those same bailouts that then get turned around into lobbying dollars to rewrite the laws to favor corporations over people (or stock buybacks, I could go on)? Like I said, intent is hard to prove, but there is a lot of inductive evidence pointing towards it being of a high probability. "Empires are even sometimes represented as unintentional. That's when it really starts to get cute. This should have been called maybe the funnier myths of empire, this part of it. The product of unconcious circumstance. When I was a youth, ... I used to hear that the British Empire was put together in a fit of absent mindedness. ... In fact, ladies and gentlemen, I think a moments reflection would tell you that empires are products of deliberate contrivance, of deliberate confection, planning, calculation, and manipulation. No social order can maintain itself in the long run, no social order can maintain itself without concious human agency. In fact that's why you have a state, the state is the concious human agency of coercion to maintain that particular set of interests and order, which don't necessarily always look out for our interests." - Michael Parenti [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOF56wYTl1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOF56wYTl1w
JKCalhoun 5y ago
> Your example with public vs private schools has less to do with diminishing public schools and everything to do with their maximizing their own children's education. Yes, that is exactly how it happens. I agree there is not a specific intent to destroy the middle class. There is an intent by the wealthy to keep their taxes going to only those schools and services that would benefit their children — the rest of the community can just fuck off and get rich if they want good education too. It's like that in all ways. Not specifically antagonistic toward the working class, just selfish. Another example: they give money to politicians that will pass legislation that will favor them and theirs. Again, the rest of us can get rich and buy our own politicians if we don't like it. Human nature? Maybe. And no doubt the working class can behave selfishly as well. But the working class and poor don't have the financial means to bend policy toward their selfishness, only the wealthy can do that.

luffapi 5y ago

> What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? https://www.fastcompany.com/90642878/worker-pay-went-up-just-1-8-in-2020-ceo-pay-increased-nearly-16 https://www.fastcompany.com/90642878/worker-pay-went-up-just... And that’s not even starting on lobbying and policy.

BobbyJo 5y ago
So the rich made stocks go up because they want to destroy the middle class?
- luffapi 5y ago
  As per the source I linked: the rich captured all the gains and failed to increase everyone else’s pay to even match inflation.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    As per the source, the rich are paid in stock, and they made more because stocks grew in value. You're making it sound like a scheme when it's a paycheck. Everyone in the US is free to convert all of their money into stock whenever they like. The reason the CEOs get paid in stock to to tie their compensation to the value of the company, not to disenfranchise the poor.
    - luffapi 5y ago
      Nowhere in that article does it talk about executive compensation coming solely from stock. Mismatched equity grants are one of the levers, but so is regular salary. Regardless, the fact is executive pay has been rising while worker pay has been stagnant for decades. That’s not even up for debate, it’s a fact.
    - fungiblecog 5y ago
      Duh, the poor have to spend money to live, they can't just buy stock and wait for it to increase in value. And at the volumes they can afford the transaction fees would kill any profit.
      - BobbyJo 5y ago
        So now we have come full circle, back to "the poor are poor because of the rich". I'm open to the possibility, but the comments this far inspire little confidence in the soundness of the argument.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        How is this a weak argument? The value in the economy has been funneled to shareholders, and the poor are definitionally not shareholders
    - throwaway2048 5y ago
      You are not free to convert money you need to live into stocks.
    - oblio 5y ago
      > Everyone in the US is free to convert all of their money into stock whenever they like. Hey, let me convert my ramen money into 2 Berkshire Hathaway shares. Do you realize how ridiculous and disconnected from reality you comment sounds?

8note 5y ago

Moving to areas with "good schools" is one. Only schools where wealthy people live get good funding, so when they concentrate where they live to one place, everywhere else suffers

BobbyJo 5y ago
Wealthy people choosing to live near each other, and thus their local community having more taxes per child, does not demonstrate to me intent to destroy the middle class.
wyager 5y ago
The US has some of the best-funded public schools in the world and some of the worst outcomes in public schools. “Funding” is a red herring at best and an excuse for extractive politics in reality. It turns out that life outcomes have approximately nothing whatsoever to do with how much money your childhood schools got. It also strikes me as quite perverse to blame people who are able to move their children out of schools that have become terrible (through no fault of their own).
- water8 5y ago
  > It also strikes me as quite perverse to blame people who are able to move their children out of schools that have become terrible How do some schools become terrible if they are public and well funded? They become terrible because funding is not distributed evenly.
- dwater 5y ago
  Yes, the problem is not school funding but school segregation. It takes more than money to help high needs students, it takes attention and support. If your child needs attention and support and they go to a school where the majority of their peers have the same needs, none of them will get it.
  - wyager 5y ago
    Hold on… your claim is that students are not having their special needs met, and your solution is to put them in a school that’s even less equipped to handle their special needs? Schools absolutely should be segregated, as much as possible, by things like academic ability. That’s the only way schools can effectively meet students where they’re at. It takes a totally different strategy to help a low-performing student catch up vs helping a high-performing student excel. By forcing those kids into the same classroom, you’re not helping either of them.

matthewdgreen 5y ago

>What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? Vigorously target labor unions. Lobby for substantial decreases in state and Federal taxation, reductions that have in turn necessitated major reductions in education spending and substantial tuition increases that hit middle class families [1]. Attempt (so far unsuccessfully) to privatize social security. Strongly oppose healthcare reform proposals that might reduce out-of-pocket spending. PS The above examples are a very small part of the story. It's honestly shocking to me that the question even gets asked, or has to be answered. [1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-hig...

qqtt 5y ago
Those examples aren't really "the rich". Business tax cuts benefit shareholders, and globally there has been a race to the bottom to pit locations against each other to try to drive profit margins. These things have largely affected manufacturing - manufacturing itself being marginalized in the greater business landscape as other more profitable industries have gained favor. Note that "the rich" are not all that intertwined in the minutiae of manufacturing. Opposing health care reform is also a niche issue dominated by well-connected insurance companies. Many other industries would like nothing more than the government to take over health care costs and lower their own burden (including tech companies who end up paying exorbitant amounts to fund these benefits against other competitors). The health insurance companies (and related industries which benefit from price gouging in the health care industry) are entrenched in lobbying and congress and have the clout to block these efforts. Insurance companies aren't "the rich" they are simply well connected with government. Much of the talk about "the rich" trying to "destroy the middle class" really come down to two large buckets: * Company shareholders benefiting from profit margins (outsourcing, manufacturing, lowering cost without oversight or regulation) - this benefits "the rich" is so far as "the rich" are shareholders of these companies * Niche industries having disproportionate influence in our political system - such as private prison lobby, health insurance lobby, etc. - these players have in turn disproportionate impact on our legislative process because they are entrenched and intertwined with members of congress It doesn't benefit "the rich" to have a poor population, if anything it makes the rich more vulnerable. What we are seeing play out is actually unintended consequences of greed and plain as day corruption which continues without oversight and regulation.

arminiusreturns 5y ago

First, the bar you set is probably too high. Intent is notoriously hard to prove, even with deductive evidence, much less inductive evidence. Also, I never advocated for ending private schools. You are strawmanning that one, and it's a perhipherial point to the topic anyway. Since you asked though, how about the Fed's endless bailouts of the rich that are still ongoing? Those same bailouts that then get turned around into lobbying dollars to rewrite the laws to favor corporations over people (or stock buybacks, I could go on)? Like I said, intent is hard to prove, but there is a lot of inductive evidence pointing towards it being of a high probability. "Empires are even sometimes represented as unintentional. That's when it really starts to get cute. This should have been called maybe the funnier myths of empire, this part of it. The product of unconcious circumstance. When I was a youth, ... I used to hear that the British Empire was put together in a fit of absent mindedness. ... In fact, ladies and gentlemen, I think a moments reflection would tell you that empires are products of deliberate contrivance, of deliberate confection, planning, calculation, and manipulation. No social order can maintain itself in the long run, no social order can maintain itself without concious human agency. In fact that's why you have a state, the state is the concious human agency of coercion to maintain that particular set of interests and order, which don't necessarily always look out for our interests." - Michael Parenti [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOF56wYTl1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOF56wYTl1w

JKCalhoun 5y ago

> Your example with public vs private schools has less to do with diminishing public schools and everything to do with their maximizing their own children's education. Yes, that is exactly how it happens. I agree there is not a specific intent to destroy the middle class. There is an intent by the wealthy to keep their taxes going to only those schools and services that would benefit their children — the rest of the community can just fuck off and get rich if they want good education too. It's like that in all ways. Not specifically antagonistic toward the working class, just selfish. Another example: they give money to politicians that will pass legislation that will favor them and theirs. Again, the rest of us can get rich and buy our own politicians if we don't like it. Human nature? Maybe. And no doubt the working class can behave selfishly as well. But the working class and poor don't have the financial means to bend policy toward their selfishness, only the wealthy can do that.