Visualizing The Collapse Of The Middle Class In 20 Major U.S. Cities

[rangerrebew]

Visualizing The Collapse Of The Middle Class In 20 Major U.S. Cities
 
by Tyler Durden
Apr 22, 2017 9:05 PM
 

When future historians look back at the beginning of the 21st century, they’ll note that we grappled with many big issues. They’ll write about the battle between nationalism and globalism, soaring global debt, a dysfunctional healthcare system, societal concerns around automation and AI, and pushback on immigration. They will also note the growing number of populist leaders in Western democracies, ranging from Marine Le Pen to Donald Trump.

However, as Visual Cpitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, these historians will not view these ideas and events in isolation. Instead, they will link them all, at least partially, to an overarching trend that is intimately connected to today’s biggest problems: the “hollowing out” of the middle class.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-22/visualizing-collapse-middle-class-20-major-us-cities

[Free Vulcan]

Between outsourcing, automation, and other factors, we are heading toward an economy with two distinctly separate worlds of methodology and outlook. You will have the high tech, automated urban centers of elites and their support and service people, and the traditional rural economy of people that are self-sufficient and trade and barter among themselves. Think Amish and Mennonite living.

Middle class? Won't be one. The robots will take over that. Over time, we'll will likely descend into city-states and rural ag states independent of each other, for awhile anyway.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Between outsourcing, automation, and other factors, we are heading toward an economy with two distinctly separate worlds of methodology and outlook. You will have the high tech, automated urban centers of elites and their support and service people, and the traditional rural economy of people that are self-sufficient and trade and barter among themselves. Think Amish and Mennonite living.

Middle class? Won't be one. The robots will take over that. Over time, we'll will likely descend into city-states and rural ag states independent of each other, for awhile anyway.

You sound like a liberal pinhead who doesn't understand capitalism.

[Free Vulcan]

You sound like a liberal pinhead who doesn't understand capitalism.

And you obviously have zero understanding of economics, yet your blowhard ego isn't going to let that get in the way of your delusions. You can't champion automation and then turn around bald faced and tell us there's going to be a healthy middle class.

[Sanguine]

Between outsourcing, automation, and other factors, we are heading toward an economy with two distinctly separate worlds of methodology and outlook. You will have the high tech, automated urban centers of elites and their support and service people, and the traditional rural economy of people that are self-sufficient and trade and barter among themselves. Think Amish and Mennonite living.

Middle class? Won't be one. The robots will take over that. Over time, we'll will likely descend into city-states and rural ag states independent of each other, for awhile anyway.

You forgot one major group - the urban unskilled.  That's where the turmoil and dysfunction is and will come from.

And, I'm not sure the rural ag numbers will be high enough to have any influence.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

And you obviously have zero understanding of economics, yet your blowhard ego isn't going to let that get in the way of your delusions. You can't champion automation and then turn around bald faced and tell us there's going to be a healthy middle class.

 

You're too stupid to understand creative destruction, or how jobs are created, or how we have been creating jobs since the industrial revolution.

[Free Vulcan]

You're too stupid to understand creative destruction, or how jobs are created, or how we have been creating jobs since the industrial revolution.

There will be no jobs created if it's robots doing the jobs, robots fixing the robots, AI's running the plant, automated vehicles loading and unloading the freight, and a handful of geeks can take care of it all remotely. When a factory that would have in the old days employed 2000 people now needs essentially zero, where exactly are the job opportunities?

Schumpeter's creative destruction doesn't operate in that paradigm. You're a blowhard that fancies himself as understanding finance and economics.

[Frank Cannon]

You're too stupid to understand creative destruction, or how jobs are created, or how we have been creating jobs since the industrial revolution.

Really? We're barely outpacing population growth with non-farm jobs with a 60% labor force participation rate.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Really? We're barely outpacing population growth with non-farm jobs with a 60% labor force participation rate.

There are varying reasons for that, but not in any inherent flaw in capitalism.

Otherwise you're a Marxist I guess?

[mirraflake]

Between outsourcing, automation, and other factors, we are heading toward an economy with two distinctly separate worlds of methodology and outlook. You will have the high tech, automated urban centers of elites and their support and service people, and the traditional rural economy of people that are self-sufficient and trade and barter among themselves. Think Amish and Mennonite living.

Middle class? Won't be one. The robots will take over that. Over time, we'll will likely descend into city-states and rural ag states independent of each other, for awhile anyway.

100% correct. Already like that in my semi rural area. Kids obtain  college degrees and have been moving out for 20 years leaving behind unskilled folks with only HS degrees. Big time brain drain. What we have left is retired folks, farmers, business owners and unskilled employees making $9.50 hr. on average, business that cannot be outsourced-gas stations and repair garages, small grocery stores, healthcare jobs and utilty co's and such  and the county slowly getting more poor each year and losing population.

I go to my  siblings homes in thriving areas-urban centers like Northern VA and it is as if I arrived on a different planet.

@Free Vulcan
@Weird Tolkienish Figure

[corbe]

   What's with you guys throwing around the insults so early in the day, didn't get 'any' this morning?

[mirraflake]

There will be no jobs created if it's robots doing the jobs, robots fixing the robots, AI's running the plant, automated vehicles loading and unloading the freight, and a handful of geeks can take care of it all remotely. When a factory that would have in the old days employed 2000 people now needs essentially zero, where exactly are the job opportunities?

Schumpeter's creative destruction doesn't operate in that paradigm. You're a blowhard that fancies himself as understanding finance and economics.

Self driving semi's will be the reality in 5-10 years and poof there goes 4 million truck driving jobs that pay fairly decent.

@Free Vulcan

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

There will be no jobs created if it's robots doing the jobs, robots fixing the robots, AI's running the plant, automated vehicles loading and unloading the freight, and a handful of geeks can take care of it all remotely. When a factory that would have in the old days employed 2000 people now needs essentially zero, where exactly are the job opportunities?

Automation makes prices go down (competition does this, but I think anti-trust laws are necessary). So what you need to buy, once fully automated, will trend towards little to no pricing. Even now, durable consumer good prices are coming down. What happens when you produce too much of something? The price comes down.

Schumpeter's creative destruction doesn't operate in that paradigm. You're a blowhard that fancies himself as understanding finance and economics.

What you don't know could fill thousands of volumes of encyclopedias.

WTF - that's enough.  No more insults.
                                                              -MOD 2

[Free Vulcan]

100% correct. Already like that in my semi rural area. Kids obtain  college degrees and have been moving out for 20 years leaving behind unskilled folks with only HS degrees. Big time brain drain. What we have left is retired folks, farmers, business owners and unskilled employees making $9.50 hr. on average, business that cannot be outsourced-gas stations and repair garages, small grocery stores, healthcare jobs and utilty co's and such  and the county slowly getting more poor each year and losing population.

I go to my  siblings homes in thriving areas-urban centers like Northern VA and it is as if I arrived on a different planet.

@Free Vulcan
@Weird Tolkienish Figure

Thanks bud. You're seeing what I'm seeing too. And it's hitting the uneducated urbanites too. Ultimately it's going to start wreaking havoc on the burbs as traditional high pay jobs get automated, meaning both less workers and management.

I hate to be doom and gloom, but what's happening is what's happening and burying the head in the sand won't change it.

[Sanguine]

Self driving semi's will be the reality in 5-10 years and poof there goes 4 million truck driving jobs that pay fairly decent.

@Free Vulcan

I'm not sure how I would advise HS students right now to plan for their futures.  Obviously for those who can go to college and go into STEM or another useful degree plan, it's not a problem, but for those who will not finish or go to college it's going to be a real problem.

[Free Vulcan]

Automation makes prices go down (competition does this, but I think anti-trust laws are necessary). So what you need to buy, once fully automated, will trend towards little to no pricing. Even now, durable consumer good prices are coming down. What happens when you produce too much of something? The price comes down.

What you don't know could fill thousands of volumes of encyclopedias.

Well that's all nice waving of the generality wand and throwing some glitter around, but again you're trying to be a google expert without really knowing the topic.

As prices go down, so do profits. What you describe tends to mature and concentrate the industry into a few mega sized hands because of the huge investment and capital cost. Costs will come down to the input of the raw materials, utility costs, and that portion of that capital cost assigned to that item, plus a small profit. If the priice drops below profit it won't be made. And no one will sell anything for free.

Which all means fewer jobs, and less income and creates a vicious cycle. You can't buy things if you have no money no matter how cheap they are. Again, how exactly is that scenario going to work?

[truth_seeker]

We have plenty of competition for healthcare, energy, housing, transportation, food, financial products and services, entertainment etc.. Have prices come down as a result of this competition?

No econ-babble, either.

Considering the macro-economic aspects of automation, what about the "All-in-Costs," after factoring for welfare/unemployment/prison costs of those displaced from low-skilled work?

(Or .. when the company benefits from reduced labor, does the cost get shifted to the government?)

Or what happens to the workers when your fast-food outlet fires the cooks and order takers, in favor of robots and kiosks?

Do those workers suddenly grow 15+ extra IQ points, go to technical schools and become computer coders?

(Same for the drivers displaced by self-driving vehicles.)

Where do those IQ points come from, in societies importing turd world "workers?"

The "breaking point" comes when the turd world low IQ folks decide they want more Pie, start rioting in the shopping malls between the kiosk, etc. .

[Cyber Liberty]

You're too stupid to understand creative destruction, or how jobs are created, or how we have been creating jobs since the industrial revolution.

Setting aside your propensity for calling people "stupid" this morning, I would point out that you are correct in stating that what we're seeing is creative destruction.  I live in an urban area, and I'm firmly in the middle class because I program automation.

Edited to add:  My city is one of the 20 in the article.

[skeeter]

The middle class is collapsing, but the reason has nothing to do with the march of progress and everything to do with the growth of our mandarin class and their allies in the oligarchy.

[truth_seeker]

In terms of real estate, some workers that are benefitting from technology want to live in a cool close-in village lifestyle.

Public transportation, high real estate prices. SF Bay area, is just one example. The revitalization of close-in areas, is obvious if you look for it.

Eventually high prices drive the less desirable less well off folks out. I am watching it take place in my OC coastal area. Older apartment buildings are giving way to modern, high density condos and townhomes.

Westside Costa Mesa has been something of a Barrio for decades. Apartments for low-skilled recent immigrants.

Apartments are giving way to 3 story townhomes, selling for 3/4 $million. The residents of the old apartments probably got rent assistance, food stamps,, etc.

The buyers of the townhomes need to make well over $100,000 to pay the mortgage, even with current historically basement interest rates.

I have no idea where the apartment renters go, but maybe the Inland Empire works for them. San Bernardino, Hemet, etc.

[mirraflake]

Here is what is going to happen:

1.You will see guaranteed minimum income for everyone one day as several countries are exploring.
2.  Gov't will get rid of surplus, uneducated population through birth control or charge you for kids via taxes or Elysium on Earth between the haves and have nots and it aint gonna be pretty. Elysium type communuties are already popping up around the country. gated communities with shops, stores, doctors all inside the "compound"
3. Gov'ts will outlaw certain forms of new technology such as self driving trucks until population is handled and new jobs developed to take care of the misplaced workers.
4. Possibly major war or disease planned on purpose to wipe out the unwashed masses on  a grand scale.

Don't laugh..soon there is going to be 30-40% of worldwide population w/o jobs via automation and robots. Drastic measures will be taken.

[Sanguine]

Here is what is going to happen:

1.You will see guaranteed minimum income for everyone one day as several countries are exploring.
2.  Gov't will get rid of surplus, uneducated population through birth control or charge you for kids via taxes or Elysium on Earth between the haves and have nots and it aint gonna be pretty.
3. Gov'ts will outlaw certain forms of new technology such as self driving trucks until population is handled and new jobs developed to take care of the misplaced workers.

Don't laugh..soon there is going to be 30-40% of worldwide population w/o jobs. Drastic measures will be taken.

Not that wild-sounding.  If only 60% of the workforce is actually working, we could be there already.

[Hondo69]

Not that wild-sounding.  If only 60% of the workforce is actually working, we could be there already.

If you look at countries around the world today the Middle Class of each tells an important tale.  Mexico, for example, has their groups of rich and poor but not a whole lot in the middle.  China has a rising Middle Class which scares the bejesus out of the Communist rulers as that simple fact may blow their 200 year plan sky high.  You can also go back through history and learn a great deal about the impact of a Middle Class in most any society.

The Globalists understand this very well which is why the Master Plan aims to delete the Middle Class right out of the equation.

[geronl]

You're too stupid to understand creative destruction, or how jobs are created, or how we have been creating jobs since the industrial revolution.

those steam-powered looms are the end of jobs!

[DCPatriot]

I'm not sure how I would advise HS students right now to plan for their futures.  Obviously for those who can go to college and go into STEM or another useful degree plan, it's not a problem, but for those who will not finish or go to college it's going to be a real problem.

Well...seeing as how they believe so strongly in "Climate Change" (warming), it seems a career in HVAC installation and repair would be something to consider.