[grandalf]

Your comment reads like some kind of passage from scripture, offering humble ignorance of reality and blindly placing trust in some entity to take care of your best interest.

In the real world, it's clear that institutions become corrupt. Enron is one example. So is GroupOn. So is the NSA.

I suppose you think we should not let our faith be shaken by the revelation that corruption has been found in some NSA programs. The Catholic church has made a similar argument about why its members should still continue to support the institution even though it was found that it systematically placed priests accused of child abuse in other parishes.

We have new information, and so it's perfectly reasonable to reconsider our previous worldview. Sure we can just accept the institutional response at face value, but if we hope to reform the system we ought to be critical and expect actual change to occur.

[ilovepolitics]

You haven't actually considered that the system is reasonable as it is. Which is the hubris that I'm talking about.

I don't blindly trust institutions. But I also don't blindly distrust institutions when the system they perpetuate has merit.

Life is quite good in America if you're in the middle class as compared to the standards of living in the past and around the world.

I'm careful with my judgements as I understand that I don't fully understand all of the realities and circumstances and interests at play. I can only look at the result, which from my perspective is quite good relative to what I know about the world today and in the past.

Are there serious problems in society? Yes.

I went through a stage of cynicism when I was in middle school through high school so I can appreciate your perspective.

[grandalf]

Speaking of blinders, this sentence illustrates the pair you are evidently wearing:

> I can only look at the result, which from my perspective is quite good relative to what I know about the world today and in the past.

You are judging the state of the entire system by the level of personal comfort you experience and your heavily biased view of history.

It sounds to me like you are judging America's actions to be morally superior simply because America enjoys a high standard of living. I'd argue that a high standard of living out to result in a high moral standard for our institutions and officials.

[fleitz]

You know the 'middle class' is people making 250K+ right?

In most countries the middle class are doing fine and live well.

It appears that high school and middle school have done their job of building trust in US institutions. Yes, it's completely alright that Mr. Obama went from constitutional scholar to repeatedly lying to the public about the scope of surveillance in the country.

Remember the debate he wanted to have about surveillance but just forgot about having for 5 years? How about the rinse wash repeat of Grenwald says you're doing X, we're not doing X, here's your documents proving your doing X.

Ends justify the means right? Middle class is doing well, ghetto don't matter! Just wave a flag and say you're free!

[dllthomas]

Wikipedia says: "Depending on the class model used, the middle class constitutes anywhere from 25% to 66% of households."

Fewer than 5% of Americans make more than 250k/yr. So either that is not the cut-off for middle class, or a huge percentage of the former middle class is now lower class.

[fleitz]

It's the middle class, not middle income quintile. It would seem to be pretty ridiculous to me that more than 5-10% of America were doctors, lawyers, etc.

Perhaps in the US it's the middle class includes the working class but in my estimation middle class means you still derive most of your income from working but you own a decent portion of the means of production.

If the middle class means households making 100K then I would estimate that a couple working as tech support and a caregiver are middle class rather than working class.

To me it works like this:

  You derive your income from capital: Upper class
  You work and own a decent portion (5%+ unless public) of your employer: middle class
  You work: working class.

eg. My mom was a phone operator, my dad was a mechanic, they're working class despite making more than $100K inflation adjusted.

[dllthomas]

"It's the middle class, not middle income quintile."

I made no claim to the contrary. But if we are looking at income figures to try and guess class, 1) we're going to be doing a poor job if we're missing at least 4/5 of middle class people, 2) we're going to be talking about something other than what everyone else means when they say middle class, or 3) the situation has changed and it's a recent development that so few people are middle class and the models haven't caught up. If 3, we've either seen tremendous immigration/reproduction in the lower classes (somewhat possible in the small, but a five-fold increase would mean the earlier figures were pre-1900, which is unlikely) or we've seen a lot of people leave the middle class in a downward direction - which doesn't say good things regardless of how well the remaining middle class is doing. If 2, we might be able to have a meaningful discussion but it's likely a different one than most people in the discussion thought we were having. If 1, we should pick better numbers or simply refuse to include income in driving our estimates.

[fleitz]

I think it's an intentional political doublespeak that people who are making a median wage think they are middle class.

Thus policies for the 'middle class' are policies they identify with despite those policies not actually being particularly well suited to their economic situation.

IIRC I believe 90% of Americans think they are middle class, even from a quintile perspective this is probably skewed.

[ilovepolitics]

That's not the definition of middle class. It's usually put at households making more than $100k.

You're simply wrong.

And you haven't actually considered or responded to my argument. In fact this is exactly what I'm talking about. Hubris and intentional ignorance.