article # 8

Why America must revive its middle class

    By Jeffery D. Sachs

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2095573,00.html

In the article “Why America Must Revive Its Middle Class” by Jeffery D Sachs in the Time’s magazine of the October 10 2011 issue .Sachs talks about an idea on how to fix the government and make America prosper. The economy is making the rich richer and is making the middle class dwindle away, because of this happening the politics of this country are also going to the rich giving the less advantage little to any say in to what is going to happen with our government. This same situation happened not long ago when Harding, Coolidge and hoover were in office. They lowered labor standards and the minimum wage. These ideas were railed against in the great depression by franklin D. Roosevelt .How did we get here is a question a lot of people are asking themselves. Well let’s look at what we have done.  Lots of companies have sent work abroad and didn’t think of the consequences that would have on the economy. In the 1970 the US dollar lost its value, gas and food prices increased very rapidly. Even though all of these bad things were happening Reagan decided it was the governments fault instead of all the competition the US was getting from foreign markets .So Reagan cut taxes and reduced government programs. Although America has enjoyed the workings of Chinese products we are going to suffer because of that now .With the middle class losing their jobs to foreign workers .When Obama took office he didn’t think of treating the long term affect rather a short a temporary shock he called for tax cuts and spending increases he hoped by 2010 the economy would bounce back to normal .Sine he took office thing have not gotten any better the economy has actually become worse .Recently at a press conference Obama called for another short push .The message that a lot of the economy got is that congress and the white house are going to continue with the bush’s idea of tax cuts to 2012.this is the same idea the government has had for about thirty years and this is just making the economy worse and worse .Sachs says that “the republicans fail to understand that businesses are investing abroad not because of taxes but because higher wages in the U.S are not sufficiently matched by higher skills as they are in say Germany or Sweden .We are to put it bluntly uncompetitive in many industrial sectors. “When you look at other countries we are the country with lowest paying taxes yet we have the worst economy .The way to fix this is to stop arguing about increase taxes for the rich but rather on a long term basis of where the US economy is heading.

When I read this article it really made me think that if our government has been using the same idea for around thirty years and things just keep getting worse, why don’t they try to come up with a better idea. You would think that would be common sense your first idea didn’t work so try another one. When Sachs talked about how a lot of the rich people in the us are behind gates and there money is in outsourced country making money and they are doing just fine because they are the people who own the top companies that are making money on foreign ground they don’t care what happens as long they keep making money to love their lavish life styles. I think that is just sick. They get to sit in their mansions while a large percent of Americans today are barely making is and are scared they won’t be able to feed their kids tomorrow. I think Americans have become so selfish just thinking of ourselves we need to get back to help thy neighbor when in need rather than ignoring your neighbors when they need help .I’m not just talking about your neighbors across the street but the people who live here in America we need to take care of our own people before we can give millions away to help other countries.