US income pyramid and the American Dream

The US economy is valued at approximately $15 trillion dollars. The population is estimated at 310 million, of which an estimated 14% (45 million) lives below poverty (about one-third of Hispanics and Blacks live below poverty). Although the US was the world’s richest country in the late 1940s, the income distribution was not much different [...]

The end of the ‘credit middle class’

In all economic contracting cycles throughout finance capitalism’s history, labor (blue-collar skilled to unskilled, agricultural day laborers to small farmers, and white collar, clerical to professionals and mid-management) ultimately pays the price for dislocation. The middle class, as the media and governments define it today to include a very broad range from upper working class [...]

Africa’s middle class grows faster – report

The number of middle class Africans has astoundingly risen to 313 million people- slightly over34% of the continent’s entire population, according to a new report from the African Development Bank (AfDB). Titled, The Middle of the Pyramid: Dynamics of the Middle Class in Africa, the report suggests the rise in purchasing power is due to [...]

Latin American middle class

From 2008 to the present, the US and a number of European countries, especially southern Europe, Balkans, and Baltic countries have experienced high unemployment and negative GDP growth. Consequently, they have suffered a speedier contraction of the middle class and lower living standards for mid to lower income group. By contrast, Latin America has experienced [...]

The con-game of neo-liberalism

Behind the theory of neo-liberalism rests a con game by all of its apologists who profit from it at the expense of workers and the middle classes throughout the world. Based on Adam Smith’s WEALTH OF THE NATIONS (1776), liberal theory of economics rests on the political philosophy of John Locke, and the assumption that [...]

China to replace us as world’s no.1 economy

Just a few months ago, I wrote on the prospects of China’s economy when it replaced Japan as the world’s second largest behind the US. Relying primarily on IMF studies that speculated how China would surpass the US economy within the next two decades, I then argued that the state-directed Chinese economy was easily leaving [...]