Carter: Today's Middle Class Looks Like Poor From His Presidency Due to Income Gap

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

@AP: Former President Carter says today's middle class looks like the poor from his presidency due to income gap: http://t.co/U1UYX8fFwQ

CARTER: MIDDLE CLASS TODAY RESEMBLES PAST'S POOR

By LISA LEFF
— Oct. 7 11:46 PM EDT

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that the income gap in the United States has increased to the point where members of the middle class resemble the Americans who lived in poverty when he occupied the White House.

Carter offered his assessment of the nation's economic challenges Monday at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in Oakland — the first of five cities he and wife Rosalynn plan to visit this week to commemorate their three-decade alliance with the international nonprofit that promotes and builds affordable housing.

The recent economic downturn revealed that families living in even comparatively well-off, but expensive regions like the San Francisco Bay Area are economically insecure, he said.

"Even in one of the wealthiest parts of the world there is a great deal of foreclosures and now a great deal of people who are fortunate to own their own houses owe more on them than the houses are worth in the present market, and that's all changed in the last eight years," Carter said during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/carter-commemorates-habitat-work-calif-visit

[MannyGoldstein]

1. 21 years of Republicans and Third Way "Democrats"...

And here we are.

[L0oniX]

20. [phone] ^^^this^^^

[jsr]

2. Recommend

[efhmc]

3. Reaganomics set this in motion.

[DissidentVoice]

6. And the complicity of Third Way "Democrats" ensured it. n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

4. .

.

[hay rick]

5. K&R for the truth.

[DissidentVoice]

7. Carter is widely regarded as "ineffectual..."

...but where has the country gone since his Presidency?

In some ways he was too "nice" (meaning: he LIVED his morals and ethics instead of just bullshitting about them) for the office but at least the guy had a heart for something other than the Dow Jones bottom line.

[Art_from_Ark]

11. Exactly

Carter "walked the walk", but he got raked over the coals for it.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. Absolutely....

The way I put it is back in the 70's a typical factory worker could afford to buy a house and support a stay at home wife and kids and buy a new car every 3 to 5 years and buy a speedboat to take the family water skiing on the weekends.

Google the classic Chrysler Hydro-Vee.



Now that SAME JOB barely pays for a ROOM and gas for a rusted out clunker and FORGET extra money to go on a date. Plus, over the years the duties on that job have increased to where you are doing the work that THREE TO FIVE workers did in the 70s.

[hunter]

17. And his kids could go to college without loans, paying for it with summer jobs.

I graduated from college without any loans. My dad had an ordinary middle class union job.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. Some people worked their way through college delivering pizza....

The average income was about $15,000 but the average new home was $30,000 and a new car was about $3,500. The only people who rented were people who didn't want to settle down because it cost a LOT more to rent than to buy. Credit cards were for the rich back then but gas cards were common but they were used for things like tires and service because gas was about 50¢ a gallon.

They used to measure the health of the economy by how much people had in savings and banks used to compete to attract customers. I had a passbook savings account that earned 12.5% on a little over a thousand dollars.

The big thing back then was LIFE insurance and the joke was how high pressure but BORING the salesmen were and how crooked the companies were because widows had to fight with them to get them to pay off on the policy. They always tried to claim the death didn't qualify for sometimes ridiculous reasons and with a reputation like that handling our death we somehow gave them the power to handle our health. And then we're shocked when those companies found there's more to be made by letting the more expensive patients die.

[TBF]

26. Our dads worked in factories and we went to state schools -

my tuition was under $900/semester at UW Madison in the 80s.

Everyone had a house, cars, and medical care. We weren't millionaires but you didn't have to go to college to have a decent job that would support your family (and a few extras if you were able to do the piece work)

[Spitfire of ATJ]

30. These days they act like you need a BA to flip burgers.

[llmart]

28. mostly due to Reagan's union busting.....

That asshat came into office with the sole goal of promoting greed, everyone for himself, and busting the unions, starting with the air traffic controllers.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

35. The crowd that came with him were the worse of the worse of the Republicans...

In some cases we are talking former bagmen for the CIA / Mob connections. Some of these guys were deep into Nixon Era Cold War Black Ops. It's no wonder they had nothing but contempt for the public.

[JDPriestly]

9. Yes. We have gone from Bullocks (an old revered department store in Los Angeles) to Target.

It's more than just a few steps down.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Yes, during the Carter era, there was a definite middle class and businesses that catered to them

What do we have now?
We have the upscale luxury stores where a pair of jeans costs $110.
We have the Targets, WalMarts, and other discount stores, where a pair of jeans costs $30.
We have the shells of the old middle-class department stores, which have either gone upscale or have constant "sales" that bring their prices closer to those of Target.

We have upscale restaurants, where dinner with dessert and beverage costs a minimum of $35, if you're careful.
We have fast food, and a "dollar menu" for people who can't really afford fast food.
The mid range is a little better off than the department stores, thanks to ethnic restaurants and chains.

We have scads of upscale apartments being built, where a tiny studio costs $1000 and a 1-BR costs $1600 (and that's not in New York or San Francisco, which have been overpriced forever. I'm talking about Minneapolis and Portland.)
We have new apartments with income restrictions for the poor, the disabled, and seniors, although not nearly enough of them.
We have no new apartments in the city that I know of where middle-income people can live, because they can't afford the rents in the upscale apartments but are too "rich" to live in the income restricted apartments, and anyone, there are people who need them worse.

We're in a reverse bell curve.

[riverbendviewgal]

15. miami beach mall store had jeans for

$1,675.00 and I laughed when I looked at the price tag. Pretty crystal bling and the required rips. It was an experience seeing those clothes and prices.

[PasadenaTrudy]

25. We shopped

at Bullocks in Pasadena when I was a kid in the 70s. Lacoste shirts and cords...

[cosmicone]

10. I'd bow before Jimmy Carter in a heartbeat

right after taking a piss on Ronald Reagan's statue.

[llmart]

29. You get my rec.....

and I'd do the same thing. Jimmy Carter was a true Christian (and I'm not a religious person). He walked the talk.

[Cryptoad]

13. When CArter left office

the Median income for wage earners was over $38K / yr (adjust for inflation). When Dubya left office it was less than $26K / yr. These last 5 years we have been able to make an increase in the number but the things that need changing are continually blocked by the GOP!
We have got to elect more Democrats are all levels of government to make the changes that are needed!

[oberliner]

14. The biggest oppostion to President Carter came from liberal Democrats

He was a self-proclaimed moderate and a fiscal conservative.

No Democrats in Congress would sponsor any of his legislative proposals when he first came in to office.

Read his 2005 book for more information.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. As a Washington outsider, he didn't know

whose asses he was supposed to kiss to get anything done, and that was a large part of it.

It wasn't an entirely wonderful term, although certainly better than now!

It was the era when the MX missile was proposed (missiles that were supposed to be kept constantly moving on a newly constructed system of railroad tracks so that the Soviets couldn't target them) and the first interventions on the side of the brutal El Salvador government.

But on the whole, he tried to do the right thing.

[oberliner]

24. Lots of nastiness between him and Ted Kennedy

They really seemed to despise each other.

[leveymg]

27. The biggest opposition to Carter came from the oil companies and TV networks during the Iran crisis

The combination of the withholding from the retail market of refined product (the so-called Iran Oil Crisis of 1979-80, which was largely a sham)(1) and the nightly pummeling for what became The 444 Days was what actually did him in.

That, and his unwillingness to fire his Energy Secretary, James Schlessinger, who refused to invoke existing emergency powers to force the Seven Sisters to reopen refineries that had been shut down and deliver crude that was sitting at anchor offshore. That, and his refusal to confront Reagan, Bush and Casey about the dirty tricks that became known as the October Surprise. http://consortiumnews.com/2011/05/12/jimmy-carters-october-surprise-doubts/
___________________________________________________________________________
(1)Which was largely contrived, but immensely effective in pushing up oil industry profits and in creating a public sense of crisis going into the 1980 elections. See,

The Nation, 04/21/1979 - The Phony Oil Crisis by Deutsch, Peter
If the oil shortage is "real" it is because oil companies are building up ... The Phony Oil Crisis PETER DEUTSCH Faced with the onslaught of crisis ...

The Nation, 08/02/1980 - Editorials
It blamed everything on the cutoff of Iranian oil-the much-ballyhooed ... Iran's shortfall in exports has not produced any real shortage of crude in the ...

http://www.nationarchive.com/Summaries/v231i0004_04.htm

[oberliner]

31. Talking about within the government

Among Congress particularly.

[leveymg]

34. But, conflict with Dems in Congress wasn't the major reason for his defeat in the 1980 election.

There was a nasty rift at the '80 Convention with Kennedy, but I don't believe that was nearly as big a cause of the electoral defeat in November as the other factors I mentioned.

I tend to agree with H20 Man who in January '08 wrote:

One of the issues that has been raised since Senator Edward Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama is the 1980 democratic primary, when Kennedy challenged President Jimmy Carter. There are people who have an agenda which includes using that to discredit Kennedy, by blaming him for Carter’s eventual loss to Ronald Reagan. The implication is, of course, that Senator Kennedy is again taking an underhanded action that harms the legitimate democratic candidate, and is selfishly putting our nation at risk of another republican victory.

Kennedy’s challenge of Carter is an interesting and important episode in the democratic party’s history. A real discussion of the events that led to Ted Kennedy entering the primary should be encouraged. It is important, however, to consider the event in a larger context, rather than in the simple semi-mythical story that intends only to arouse emotions.

[oberliner]

36. They did prevent much of his legislative agenda from being implemented

At least according to his autobiography.

[liberal N proud]

16. It all fell apart shortly after Carter left office

I was in college when he left office, 2 years later, when I graduated, I couldn't find a decent job anywhere. It was 1984 before I had full time employment and it wasn't anywhere near what I was expect when I started school.

It has been an uphill struggle to keep ahead for 30 years.

[oberliner]

32. 1982 was the peak of the recession

Unemployment was close to 11 percent. Tough times indeed.

[leftyladyfrommo]

18. You know, he's right.

I have to live very simply and I never give it much thought. But the way I live I would have been considered to be poor back when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's.

[adirondacker]

19. Huge Kick & Rec! nt

[Hydra]

21. I keep saying that

DC keeps talking about "saving the middle class."

Too late, the middle class have become the working class or working poor. What might be properly considered middle class now used to be the upper mid to lower upper class.

The 1% have been vacuuming up everything and making sure nothing grew back where they looted. Their version of paradise.

[Uncle Joe]

33. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.

[Fearless]

37. And the income disparity continues to grow.