[nofutureagain]

The big difference is that in much of Western Europe, the combination of social security, healthcare, pensions, social housing, eduction costs, public transport etcetera means you don't rapidly fall out of the middle class even if you lose your job.

As a result, there's much less talk about the "decline of the middle class" in Europe. There has been no dramatic change.

[olefoo]

Thus the greater likelihood of violent revolution, or violent suppression thereof in the United States.

Given what happened with Occupy the suppression part is well under way.

The head of the NYPD said he needed to be able to deploy a 150 strong unit with machine guns to deal with protests yesterday.

http://nypost.com/2015/01/30/nypd-to-launch-a-beefed-up-coun...

[scarmig]

350.

[ahomescu1]

> The big difference is that in much of Western Europe, the combination of social security, healthcare, pensions, social housing, eduction costs, public transport etcetera means you don't rapidly fall out of the middle class even if you lose your job.

All those things depend heavily on a solid government budget, with solid income from taxing a strong economy. As we're now seeing with Greece, they're not sustainable if the government "coffers" are emptying up or if the economy is weakening.