Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

There's lots of talk about the Middle Class and everyone seems to think they're in it. Other than the mega-rich, even the wealthy consider themselves Middle Class, and The Poor feel like they are essentially Middle Class or close, like owning a cell phone, a car, having a place to live & eating Fast Food. The reality is that the Middle Class is actually a perception brought on by our ever increasing standard of living, and everyone thinks they're in the Middle Class until they're convinced they aren't by the media which shows another, presumably better, richer lifestyle. However, economists have a mathematical description of the Middle Class that as a percentage shows that it is shrinking when it should be getting bigger.

Where is the Middle Class going? Well, The Rich are getting richer is the major reason all the brackets are skewing, and what used to be the Middle Class sinks lower and lower. Plus, every time wealth goes through the Market machine, more & more of it goes to The Rich, leaving less, as a percentage, to everyone else. The Rich use the increasing standard of living as a smokescreen but math is math & facts are facts: we are better off but we're getting less and less of the booty. This can't go on forever because wealth provides opportunity, and opportunity provides liberty... Until it's gone. A society with extremes of wealth is a de facto Class system, meaning that eventually opportunity becomes almost nil outside of luck & romance novels. The solution is progressive tax rates that would lower returns for The Rich, knocking them out of line so that the next person gets a shot at the brass ring, and so on down, dragging more & more people back into the Middle Class.