1950s, a economic fluke?

[guitarnnblack]

My History professor at school has been saying that the economic prosperity of the 1950's was an anomaly. The middle class will never be what it was and historically there has always been a large gap between the rich and poor. This is simply the norm. We were simply in a unique position after WWII, not being blown to bits like the rest of the world.

What do you all think? With all the foreclosures, "class warfare", and other things going on; do any of you think there is any hope for the future?
Or will history repeat itself and revert back to a historic "norm"?
Discus.

 

[meesterperfect]

it wasn't just the 50's, things were pretty damn good with the exception of a few normal recessions right up until the past few years.
Then a lot of factors messed it up.......almost all of which were caused in one form or another by the GOV.
There is however some truth in what your teacher says, but that prosperity didn't/doesn't have to end.

 

[busaguy79]

So in essence, they way to solve our economic woes and bring the Middle class back to where it should be is a 5 year long worldwide war??

Ok Germany the ball is in your court!!

 

[D-rock]

My History professor at school has been saying that the economic prosperity of the 1950's was an anomaly. The middle class will never be what it was and historically there has always been a large gap between the rich and poor. This is simply the norm. We were simply in a unique position after WWII, not being blown to bits like the rest of the world.

What do you all think? With all the foreclosures, "class warfare", and other things going on; do any of you think there is any hope for the future?
Or will history repeat itself and revert back to a historic "norm"?
Discus.

Was it a fluke, yes probably in a lot of ways due to the after effects of WWII,...but it doesn't have to be that way. There's no reason we can't take what we had and do everything reasonable to make it stay that way and enact reasonable restrictions to keep things from slipping back, which they have already done. There is no reason we can't enact restrictions to make things ethical and fair for everybody and to help as many people as possible. Instead we let a small number of rich elite sell us out to increase their own profit at the expense of everybody else in the world. There is no reason we can't try to give everybody possible a place to work where they can make a decent days pay for a decent days work. The only thing stopping us is our own greed and lack of political will.

Things like globalization and the cutthroat capitalism we use now are just nothing more than a system to keep funneling ever more money into the hands of the fewer from everybody else, and a means of the few exploiting people for ever more money and nearly forcing everybody else to be dragged along with it because they have no reasonable alternative.

Our economic system used to be based on a principle of doing the best that could be done to make the best products that people wanted and encouraging it with competition. Somewhere along the line it got warped to making things as cheaply as possible, cutting as many corners as one could get away with, and seeing who could race to the bottom the fastest to make the cheapest things possible for the greatest profit margins possible and to hell with all others concerns.

There is no magical force that makes a gap between the rich and the poor. It’s just the logical conclusion of human nature having greed.

 

[Kingfisher]

It's amazing how everybody seems to forget about the other recessions before this current one after the recession is over.

 

[~~whimsy~~]

More like a sex fluke.

 

[TnA_Addiction]

middle class prosperity in the nineteen fifties was partly due to economic boomtimes but was mostly a sign of a rise in consumer capitalism in the 20th century; people were able to buy because there were more affordable consumer goods being produced in America than ever before and the more business being done, the more an economy grows. while america continued with decades of relative prosperity, afterward the decline in middle class wealth is a result of the increased wealth and influence of corporations and some few wealthy individuals and political fuckery. why is americas middle class shrinking? blame raegan-omics, corporate greed/political influence, the outsourcing of any and all industries to countries that will take your jobs because they will work harder for them; americans' refusal to "buy american" instead of saving a few bucks by shopping at walmart where NOTHING is made in your country and your saving come out of the pockets of emplyees with no unions or bennefits who can barely afford to pay rent, the bush administration and americas fear of socialism. americans feel entitled to everything but for some reason dont understand when the choices they make as a society or the choices they allow their elite to make for them dont serve to bennefit the country on a whole...

...but what the fuck do i know, im canadian and we've been sucking your country off for years

 

[guitarnnblack]

It's amazing how everybody seems to forget about the other recessions before this current one after the recession is over.

There have been recessions recently, but we have yet to see growth and prosperity like we did in the 1950's.

 

[Trident1]

There were two recessions in the 1950s. One in '53 and a worse one in '58. The middle class found work in Cold War industry, from manufacturing, to aerospace. It wasn't an anomaly. During the Cold War there were roughly 500 million workers in the global market. Since 1990 that number has swelled to over 2 billion. The US is the largest consumer nation on the planet and as such we want goods that are priced cheap. So corporations sent the jobs to countries(China, India) where labor is cheap so that we the consumer are happy paying at the counter.
China keeps those jobs from leaving by devaluating their own currency which is not good for them in long run.