Message To The Working Middle Class – Step Up Or They Will Step All Over You

From the time you are employed over 15% of your wages were taken away for Social Security and Medicare. If you are employed by someone else you paid about 7.5% and your employer paid the other 7.5%. If you are self-employed you pay it all. Inasmuch as we say the employer pays 7.5% for you, do not be fooled, you paid it because I can guarantee you that absent that 7.5% your salary would be higher. The same is true for health insurance. American wages have been stagnant partially because of increasing health insurance cost. The company forgoes a bigger wage increase because of your health insurance. The employers’ cost per employee still increases but the income is transferred to the shareholders of private insurance companies and the providers of inflated health care services and drug providers.

I hope you are getting the picture. The cost of everything ultimately is borne by the working middle class. So this morning after getting back from the gym I pulled out my Xoom Pad and opened my pulse app. I was shocked by one of the first stories titled “AIG Chief Sees Retirement Age as High as 80 After Crisis”. Usually when you read articles like these, you are eased into the reasoning behind the shocking statement. Not this time. The article begins

American International Group Inc. (AIG) Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche said Europe’s debt crisis shows governments worldwide must accept that people will have to work more years as life expectancies increase.

“Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old,” Benmosche, who turned 68 last week, said during a weekend interview at his seaside villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia. “That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.”

The crisis, now in its third year, threatens to destroy Europe’s 17-nation currency union as Greece contemplates exiting the euro and Spain sees its bond yields rise and banking industry falter. German Chancellor Angela Merkel hardened her opposition to joint debt sharing in the euro region as U.S. President Barack Obama singled out Europe’s leaders for not doing enough to arrest the crisis.

Greece abandoning the euro could be a disaster for the country and Europe must work to keep that from happening, said Benmosche, whose company was the world’s biggest insurer before it took a U.S. bailout.

“People in Greece have to see there is no easy way out of this” and the government must get them to work longer, he said in the June 2 interview on the Adriatic coast. “If not, and if they go to their own currency, I think they will see huge inflation and it will be devastating for people on fixed incomes.”

Anyone reading this article must come to the conclusion that what Mr. Benmosche is saying is that they want workers to work until they die and as such there would be no liability by the state to pay for the promise of a retirement. The man is at his seaside villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia as he is saying this. As I have mentioned in previous blogs we are so conditioned by the misinformation from our corporate media that selfishness and economic abuse on the working class seem vogue.

I have a message for our working middle class. It is you that made America. It is your labor and intellect that have built the infrastructure and companies of this country. It is you that purchase the products and services you produce whose profits have made the wealthy class wealthy. It is your labor, innovation, and no how that created the companies that vulture capitalist come into in order to extract profits with no real risk. As such do not listen to any politician who requests austerity from you. You have been austere for over 32 years. That is how long working middle class wages have been stagnant.

Do not accept any changes in the social security promise you have worked for. You must be responsible in understanding the game. The working middle class pays social security on all their income. The wealthy pays almost none relative to their share of income and capital gains. Working class Americans must stand on this principle going forward. We will not accept any changes in our safety net (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) until all income, capital gains and all passive income is taxed exactly the same as the working man’s income. It is time for the working middle class to educate ourselves about what is being effected on our financial well-being and stand up to ensure it does not continue. It is our responsibility to fight back for ourselves, our families, and our country. The AIGs and other big multinational corporations move from country to county to extract wealth for a select few. As far as they are concerned, the working middle class is nothing but a commodity, an indentured servant that when used up should be discarded at the least cost possible.

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