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INTELLECTUAL
POOLING
By way of background, wage and income growth for many middle class occupations have recently begun to flatten or even decline. There are growing numbers of reports that suggest the American middle class is shrinking in size and that there could very likely be a decline in both the average net worth of its members and its total cumulative net worth. The conventional wisdom is that the large size and rapid advancement of the American middle class is what has set the United States economically apart from the rest of the western or free world. And there is a growing body of data that raises serious questions about the future trend of the standard of living for the American middle class. Before we can raise questions about the middle class, we must first determine how to define the middle class itself. We could arbitrarily define the middle class as the middle third of the population. However, when characteristics of biological systems are measured, virtually every characteristic that has been measured conforms to a bell-shaped curve clustered about the average with extreme highs and lows of the measured characteristic falling within multiples of a fixed distance from the mean, defined statistically by the standard deviation equation. Statistically speaking, the mean plus or minus one standard deviation will encompass a population range extending from the 16th to the 84th percentiles of the population or 68% of the population. If we blend these methodologies of defining the "middle class", we could identify the lower class as the lower 25% and the upper class as the upper 25%, and the "middle class" as the 50% of the population in the middle. This arbitrary division matches the divisions used in the excellent book, "The Bell Curve" by Herrnstein and Murray that identifies how IQ relates to education, income, and other important characteristics regarding life in the United States. Do not let yourself be misled by the low price in making a decision to purchase this book. It is a very important work filled with information that will be priceless in value for anyone interested in the political struggle against socialism. The adverse impacts of socialism on the United States are substantially more far reaching than just the economic impacts which are bad enough by themselves. Socialism has had a profoundly adverse impact on the intellectual capital of the United States. Many have wondered about the alleged "dumbing down" of America. "The Bell Curve" proves beyond any doubt that socialistic programs are having an adverse and growing impact on lowering our nation's average IQ. We are not only becoming progressively less educated; we are truly getting dumber, and the mandatory socialistic programs imposed by government are to blame. Poverty is recognized as a problem in America. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, poverty is not the cause of declining educational standards nor is poverty the limiting factor that keeps people from getting ahead. The documentation provided by "The Bell Curve" is clear cut. The careful analysis by Herrnstein and Murray clearly shows that socialism is a major factor that is growing in importance as a contributor to both poverty in America and the dumbing down of Americans. The golden rule of government is that whatever government subsidizes, you get more of it. The poverty rate had been steadily declining in the United States from the end of WWII until 1965. The continuous thirty-year decline in the poverty rate ended immediately when the "War on Poverty" was launched. The poverty rate then plateaued for a decade and has since started slowly turning up. Not only is the War on Poverty a measurable failure, the evidence is compelling that it made what had been a steadily improving situation worse. The historic and seminal nature of "The Bell Curve" is the compelling evidence that it provides that severs the cause and effect nexus of poverty to crime, unemployment, the drop-out problem and other social ills that the socialists have tried to blame on poverty. "The Bell Curve" provides compelling evidence that the common denominator and predictable cause of all these perceived "social ills" is not having enough intelligence rather than not having enough money. For those who might be tempted to believe that poverty might be the cause of low intelligence, the link is extremely tenuous and the evidence is convincing that low intelligence causes poverty. Once again, I would encourage anybody to purchase their own copy of this important work, The Bell Curve. Socialism invariably fails because the incentives are backwards. Everything the socialists believe is wrong because the incentives are backwards in all socialistic programs. Socialism invariably leads to a progressive downward economic spiral inevitably ending in impoverishment of everyone except the rich. Socialism is the mechanism by which all democracies end in hyperinflation or bankruptcy when the public learns to vote itself benefits from the public treasury. It is the downward spiral of economic indicators that I am asking readers to help me plot or track for the benefit of all readers and as a means of convincing others about the economic changes (trends) that are occurring and what can be expected going forward if socialism is not ended versus what trends could be expected if socialism is voluntarily ended in the United States before the boomers reach Medicare eligibility. Specifically, it would be very helpful to have data that tracks mean and median family or household net worth and income from 1950 until now. Having this data in a table or a spreadsheet would be preferred and having a link to the data source would also be very helpful. I would like to publish the data and link to the source in a future article and will provide proper credit and links to those who provide this information. Where the same or similar data is provided by more than one party, I will attempt to provide a table with links to everyone who contributes to this effort. Socialism is unlikely to be able to survive for much longer than another decade in the United States. History says that our economy has never grown at the pace that would be needed to amortize the unfunded liabilities that will begin accruing when the boomers become eligible for both Social Security and Medicare. History also confirms that our economy has never been encumbered by the record-breaking current level of total US indebtedness nor has our economy ever been faced with the record-breaking growth rate of current liabilities. There is no end in sight for the exporting of our manufacturing base and the out-sourcing of service sector jobs is a growing trend. Warren Buffet says, "You never know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out." When the asset bubbles in the bond market, real estate market, and stock markets burst, it will be crystal clear that the US dollar has been swimming naked and far too many Americans will discover too late that they have nothing to wear. There is no Constitutional authority for socialism at the level of the federal government. Socialism is a failed economic model because under socialism, all of the incentives are backwards. Socialism is not compatible with capitalism because it undermines savings and investment. Every democracy in history has ended in bankruptcy or hyperinflation whenever the people learn to vote themselves benefits from the public treasury. Our republic has become a democracy by surrogates through "professional" politicians because we do not have term limits. Socialism is the economic equivalent of cancer. "Professional" politicians are the cause and the sole means of spread. Either Americans are going to voluntarily end socialism which would be the catalyst for launching the Reagan Renaissance or socialism is going bring down the United States through bankruptcy or hyperinflation. Socialism needs to be ended quickly before the unfunded liabilities of the boomers begin to mature. It is time to go for the throat of the "professional" politicians before it's too late.
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