[dolanbaker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hile the study found that today's families have a real income which is 13 per cent lower than in 2007-2008, because wages rose more slowly than inflation, 30 per cent of households had risen one income group.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2y8LLi4vv
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[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hile the study found that today's families have a real income which is 13 per cent lower than in 2007-2008, because wages rose more slowly than inflation, 30 per cent of households had risen one income group.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2y8LLi4vv
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[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')
Let's call this relationship between the middle class and the elite a kind of dysfunctional symbiosis. As long as resources allow high consumption rates this symbiosis is not going away as you and many others have pointed out.

When resources constrain enough to slow way down economic growth than where is the fat to be trimmed? With the high consuming middle class.

Thus we will see that the elite, when they see the game is dwindling down on pumping up consumption, will move toward the opposite strategy of hording.

Some of that can be seen already as trillions of dollars of assets are sitting on the sidelines not being pumped back into the economy.

I think we underestimate how quickly this dysfunctional symbiosis can be abandoned.

We talk about how an eventual steady state economic system could be achieved and we often frame this as coming from some enlightened economic policies.

What I am pointing out here is that there is a far easier, more draconian, and probably for the elite a far more tempting path to take once resources are drawn way down. You disenfranchise that segment of the population who previously fed you but now is your competitor.

This rare moment in our species history where affluence was able to trickle down to a broad middle class was only possible due to fossil fuels. To assume that resource constraints will allow this segment of our population to continue is folly.

It will be a hollowed out form of capitalism that will promise much and deliver very little. Don't we see this already happening?

The middle class is screwed. And yes, this will be good for the biosphere and good for the long term goal of reaching sustainability.

Sorry to state the obvious.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'T')he largest employer, a mid size factory, in a small town decides to shift production to Asia. A couple thousand employees who dedicated their work and service were given a crisp letter of termination and thanked for their service. The decision by the CEO and CFO to move production was easy and they greatly increased their personal wealth as their labor costs were reduced by 80%.

Familiar story we all know. The heartlessness of the CEO and CFO to abandon, without a second thought, the relationship with all those loyal employees.

Profit motive is only one form of greed and worked like a charm during the rise of consumption and the rise of the middle class.

When economic activity slows way down then other forms of greed take over. A shift takes place toward a steady state economy where the elite will express this greed like refusing to play and hording.

For the middle class that will be like when the irrigation gets turned off on a golf course in the desert.

Great for the local desert ecology. Bad for the grass.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'a')nd she would have said, "Hey alien, where can I buy those shiny pants you wearin?"
...

[SeaGypsy]

http://list25.com/25-most-expensive-yachts-ever-built/

I doubt the people who own these yachts are too worried about what the middle class think defines the elite, or what happens when the stock markets and general fiat collapse. If there is one place in the world they can load up on bunker oil, they can cruise around for years and wait if necessary while the world becomes Somalianized. The 99% is a total myth and a most misleading one. The so called western middle class are and have been living way better than the .01% were 100 years ago. My view is the true elites are tiny in number, maybe .000001%_ and as long as they have the physical means to keep their lifestyle going, they have little reason to worry about eventual global fiscal collapse.

[americandream]

World stock of capital will probably treble over the coming decades as the working classes (I disregard the "middle class" label, it is largely a fiction) worldwide plumb new depths in the degradation of mass consumerism.

[Ibon]

Your guys responses have taken me back to the drawing board as to my theory to what degree the elite would abandon the middle class. As many of you pointed out the resilience of capitalism will not easily change the economic structure that will continue to feed the middle class and even allow it to grow long into the contraction of our resource base regardless of how marginal the profit will be.

So where does this leave us? It is related to the many threads about the feasibility of a steady state economy once high consumption capitalism hits up against physical constraints.

At some point something has to give. Hundreds of millions of high consumption middle class world citizens brings to mind James Howard Kunstler’s famous line years ago about suburbia, that it was the greatest mis- allocation of resources in the history of the world. Remember that line? Well, suburbia is a symptom of the middle class so more accurately the middle class collectively represents the greatest mis-allocation of resources in the history of our species.

Physical constraints will force an increase in efficiency as we see in transportation fuel or the efficiency gains in industrial agriculture. One of the remaining low hanging fruit where our global civilization can achieve greater efficiency is constraining the current values and consumption habits of the middle class.
Some of you see this process as just letting geology and the market do its work. That no tweaking or engineering on the part our elite will be required.

Do you all really believe that the consequences of human overshoot will result in the elite or those in charge surrendering this process over passively to the market?
I don’t. Such a very huge parameter of this systemic problem is human response which is far more important than geology, the economy or climate change. These questions come to mind

So how will those in charge respond?
How will the masses of disenfranchised look to their leaders?
How will leaders contain the social upheavel?
How can we engage the unemployed with a meaningful and dignified existence.
How will we balance brutality and enlightened response
What grass roots movements will take hold
What will dominate, nationalism or regionalism.
Will the children of the Koch brothers be doing permaculture?

I am left hanging in the wind here folks.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')Do you all really believe that the consequences of human overshoot will result in the elite or those in charge surrendering this process over passively to the market?
I don’t….

So how will those in charge respond?
How will the masses of disenfranchised look to their leaders?
How will leaders contain the social upheavel?
How can we engage the unemployed with a meaningful and dignified existence….

I am left hanging in the wind here folks.

[americandream]

The elite and capitalism are one and the same so seeing them as separate elements will confuse you. They exist concomitantly with the expansion of capitalism and the systems collapse will mark their disappearance. These facts essentially revolve around the transition of culture during capitalism's plummet into accumulation failure, a culture which will contain the seeds of what is to follow. The process is fundamentally external human decision making but there is an element of subjective dialectics at play which of course there will be given our sentience.

[Pops]

Quite a bunch of questions Ibon, lol

My knee-jerk short answer is normalcy bias will control.

Think about the video of the tsunamis in Japan and Indonesia. People are just kind of standing there watching this wall of water coming at them but they have no frame of reference, no experience with which to gauge just how dead they already are just by being there. This was part of what I was trying to get to in the Kool Aid thread: that deer-in-the-headlights, stubbed-toe-but-can't-feel-it-yet, I-knew-it-was-a-train-but-failed-to-vacate-the-tunnel - feeling.

The "elites" still put on their pants one leg at a time, I doubt they are more expecting of the things we talk about any more than the average joe. After all they are the .01%, they built that, they're John Galt and Gatsby rolled into one so the rules don't apply! I expect them to be just as sanguine as J6p, maybe more so, right up until J6p goes belly up. Then they'll attempt to foreclose or maybe buy up his property (as has happened in real estate lately) but they'll find that instead of buying low to sell high, they bought high and there is nowhere to go but down.

You remember "Dots", we talked about dots incessantly for a while, I'm sure lots still do. I suspect the dots will just keep on getting thicker and thicker and the only way to recognize what is going will be to squint real hard, like the super pixelated photo of Lincoln.

Eventually everyone will get it but as I mentioned above, most wealth is denominated in 1s & 0s and goes away as soon as you pull the plug. Not that that is any consolation and not that it doesn't mean a big civilization wide tantrum. I just don't see money as having much value when there is nothing to buy - kiinda why I've never gone in for the PM bit.