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the middle class is steadily eroding just ask the business that I possess a
there's a bunch of things I want to share with you actually here's with the
I'll start with a funny one it's also funny actually when you think about how
aggressively the Republican Party
and so-called conservatives have as since
the reagan administration during this thirty three-year era reaganomics that
we've been looking through
have been refusing to fund infrastructure
you know we very rarely build new schools in America or new hospitals or
do roads
Arora and and we built virtually no
new rail the no new high-speed rail you nothing of consequence
about the most we've done is expand a few airports
so
a rich in Minneapolis shares as me a story
that Pete Seeger
told him
he was driving Pete Seeger to the airport
after a after a gig in Madison Wisconsin
and Pete Seeger told in this socials joke he called
and he wrote a song based on the socialist job
the thats he been reg and
a so he's Senate they had many sneezes I fell for using PCR material that way we
contact the incense on promise given credit for the joke Naspers permission
saying it
pier or a bag that is fine if we use the job because he had stolen it from Carl
Sandburg
get so here's the joke a mother fly laid two eggs
a breeze came along and blew out the door
one laid on a hot dry stretch a pavement the other land on a delicious *** ain't
dead cat
time past the eggs hatch into maggots
the maggots on the cane cat grew healthy
while the maggot in the gutter suffered terribly one day they met
and the gutter magnet ask the Duquesne cat magnet
how he manage to look so good came the reply
hard work and perseverance my friend hard work and perseverance
you get like you know the dead cat is the infrastructure
good schools good roads good good day
you know the of functioning court system a non corrupt political system a.m.
Press that actually tells the tells the truth
a news that's actually news rather than infotainment
the ATN infrastructure a political
economic social infrastructure medical infrastructure health care for all
all you know but pensions for everybody a good function social security system
all of these things there the dead cat right there the their the
the infrastructure in which that mag grew healthy and strong
there the soil in which businesses and the middle class in America can grow
healthy and strong
and for 33 years we've been operating in this world of
love free trade low-tax reagan I know it you know
less regulation reaganomics and that infrastructure is crumbling
I mean just left the the course physical infrastructure just to take us back
where we were in rain came into office
would cost is $2 trillion dollars according to the American Society of
above the bear something or other engineers what bridge engineers
and and that and then
and then I mean you look at what countries like you know career South
Korea or
or Japan or many countries have your Purdue
where we can be going so much farther with infrastructure
we could be laying high-speed fiber-optic cabling we can forgive PPP
providing
a news and intellectual infrastructure to
people across our country I mean there's a couple a cities that are doing this
where you at the city runs the broadband system
so the ISP is always going to be net neutral
but the I think that there's two cities in the united states that are
successfully doing this it's the exception rather than the rule
we need to be adine
infrastructure we need to be building infrastructure so any outskirts States
creature
but instead what we're doing is at thirty-three years reaganomics has
brought us
that's Nelson Schwartz writing today in the business section in the new york
times
and he starts out talking about how in New York
LeMans lehman's Loen hman and I'm not in New York Red Hot Springs but it's a it's
a it's a chain
I love basically discount clothing stores
that quote the middle class and quite used to shop at
the canisters that I went to as a kid my dad worked as a tool and dye worker we
had a nice life
but it was decidedly American working class
lower-middle-class and so
I remember when I when I the
for sure high school there was some serb big event prom or something I've I
forget what it was
and I and by got my first suit
and dad took me to robert hall which back then was like
sir like Joseph a bank now I mean it wasn't it wasn't
a Saks Fifth Avenue for you know he special designer but it wasn't
was in Walmart
it was one is kinda midline stores and and I was so Prada suit and dad was so
proud that he could buy it for me
well that was the middle class those stores are going away
and what is rising well there's Nelson short says in the
was in the new york times he says would Wall Street analyst is within top
consulting firms among Wall Street analysts
the shift has been described with the frankness often associated with
left-wing academics
or more of an associate with left-wing academics and business experts
John G Maxwell headed the global retail and consumer practices at
PricewaterhouseCoopers said quote
those consumers who have capital like real estates in stocks
and I are in the top twenty percent are feeling pretty good
so what's happening is all over the country I and retailing
is booming the top twenty percent
we should be people you know I don't know where the where the top twenty
percent begins another top one percent begins
around 300,000 a year
of the plot the quintiles and get it but I would guess that that's probably a top
20 percent
is probably in the neighborhood have something over ninety your honor does
knowledge you
welcome
that group of people is now accounting war
the big boom in retailing right now in the united sates everybody else
everybody else is in trouble
you're listening to the Thom Hartmann program
call 866 987 thon
and it's not just 30 years a stagnant wages it's also an explosion
in things like student debt and the cost to housing