re: How Free Trade Took Down the American Middle Class

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There is a huge demand for skilled labor in this country.

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Like what, exactly?

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I view the world as a place where people are producers of goods and consumers of goods.

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You just described yourself as a globalist.

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That was the American middle class back then

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No, it wasn't, and because the pst started out with this lie, I stopped reading right then.

A factory job did NOT buy a family in 1970 a "big house," and "two shiny cars."

That's just a lie.

I was around then. Both my parents worked and we didn't have that in the 70s.

on one income you can still match your grandfather's 1,000 sq ft house with no AC or technology, own 10 outfits, go out to eat 1/month, never fly, maybe own one gas guzzler, etc.

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No, it wasn't, and because the pst started out with this lie, I stopped reading right then.

A factory job did NOT buy a family in 1970 a "big house," and "two shiny cars."

That's just a lie.

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The article takes some unnecessary liberties, but the overall message is correct.

The two cars claim is refuted with the stats provided right in the article. Less than 50%.

Just look at houses with single car garages versus two car. Around here two car garages in new construction were not common until the late 70s.

eta-Your family not living well is simply anecdotal. Even in 1970 there were poor people living below the standards of the middle class. The difference is the middle class was much larger.

Good points, and I agree. I will say that I think some other things played a factor.

Women fighting to join the workforce really didn't help, I think that is what is driving the price of everything to go up. Also they were probably building new neighborhoods that were easy to keep safe and nice back then. Now you have homeless people that are just allowed to meander wherever they want and low income housing thrown into every area. This is fine on a humanitarian level, but what it really does it make the crime free areas more expensive. And obviously people want to live in the nicest area. The country also subsidizes way too much of the lower class. This does not help them get out of poverty, it just keeps them there because it's easy and then they get shackled with children.

The government meddled in all of these affairs and created this stick built economy. They are saved the hard working American innovation and ingenuity. This problem will not fix itself, the working class is too lazy to work and the upper class will get wealthy beyond imagination, leaving the middle class further behind in the dust. If the government had done what we actually need it to do (fight monopolies), and stayed out of all of these other issues, we would be in a much better place. In a wealthy country, the main source of unhappiness is comparing lifestyle to another. Wealth inequality is the biggest issue in the country right now.

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Around here two car garages in new construction were not common until the late 70s.

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garages weren't even that much of a thing. Most around where I lived had carports

The strength of the middle class is what made America prosperous and the most powerful country on earth. We were able to outspend the soviets because of the wealth created by the middle class.

The "true conservatives" are fools blinded by their own moral superiority. They follow their "principles" despite the real world outcomes. Like the leftists who follow their belief in affirmative action even though it hurts black students when they can't keep up, the "true conservatives" will complain about the social structure crumbling without realizing that their zombie-like devotion to their ideology contributed to it. Instead of analyzing the results, they will insist that continuing to follow their ideology is the only way to solve the problem exacerbated by following their ideology.

This is why America First is the superior belief system for our country. We don't have to worry about hurting our country when we do "the right thing," because doing the right thing would always be what's best for America.

Dup