The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
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Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#2Is this not the goal? Everyone seems to want this. Reduced taxes for the rich. Deregulation. A better "business environment" due to "small government". The continuation of employer-provided healthcare. Stricter intelectual property laws. Ever single domestic policy choice of late seems determined to do this. Middle america should be happy. They keep voting for this stuff.
Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#3[deleted]
Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#4Chicago likely has harsh zoning laws that raise the cost of housing and also imposes steep taxes for not-great public services (https://www.illinoispolicy.org/study-illinois-home-to-highes...). Should it be any surprise that the middle class is moving to Phoenix, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, and Florida?
Perhaps we ought to lower the cost of living (https://www.econlib.org/yimby/) in Chicago, along with other cities like New York and Boston.
Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#5Is this not the goal? Everyone seems to want this. Reduced taxes for the rich. Deregulation. A better "business environment" due to "small government". The continuation of employer-provided healthcare. Stricter intelectual property laws. Ever single domestic policy choice of late seems determined to do this. Middle america should be happy. They keep voting for this stuff.
The fact that the system is routing around democratic processes to serve the interests of the wealthy is a feature, not a bug: the entire "objective function" that capitalism optimizes is weighted according to wealth.
Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#6Is this not the goal? Everyone seems to want this. Reduced taxes for the rich. Deregulation. A better "business environment" due to "small government". The continuation of employer-provided healthcare. Stricter intelectual property laws. Ever single domestic policy choice of late seems determined to do this. Middle america should be happy. They keep voting for this stuff.
Chicago is anything but a "small government" city. Chicago (and Illinois) is very much a "big government" city, so I don't understand your criticism.
Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#7Is this not the goal? Everyone seems to want this. Reduced taxes for the rich. Deregulation. A better "business environment" due to "small government". The continuation of employer-provided healthcare. Stricter intelectual property laws. Ever single domestic policy choice of late seems determined to do this. Middle america should be happy. They keep voting for this stuff.
I don't know where you hail from, but what you so snarkily describe is not happening...at all. Taxes in the US, at all levels, are going up as evidenced by the continual rise in tax revenue collected by virtually all levels of government.
There has never been more regulations placed on businesses that deliver middle class wages. Trump may have rolled back a handful of redundant regs, but that's just a finger in the dike. Healthcare costs and costs of coverage continue to geometrically increase because of government interference. IIRC, employer-provided healthcare may even be diminishing in some fashion. Not sure.
As for IP laws, I'm not sure how you're relating that to the collapse of the US/Western middle class, but I'm sure you have a reason to mention it.
Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#8Is this not the goal? Everyone seems to want this. Reduced taxes for the rich. Deregulation. A better "business environment" due to "small government". The continuation of employer-provided healthcare. Stricter intelectual property laws. Ever single domestic policy choice of late seems determined to do this. Middle america should be happy. They keep voting for this stuff.
Chicago has been overwhelmingly governed by the Democrats, yet they things you've listed are usually pushed by the Republicans. And people leaving are usually going to the majority Republican states and cities. How can you explain this phenomenon?
Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#9Chicago and C[r]ook county generally are corpses. They still look and smell alive, but in reality they are financially and spiritually dead. It's just that rigor mortis has not yet started to set in.
Re: The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone
#10Is this not the goal? Everyone seems to want this. Reduced taxes for the rich. Deregulation. A better "business environment" due to "small government". The continuation of employer-provided healthcare. Stricter intelectual property laws. Ever single domestic policy choice of late seems determined to do this. Middle america should be happy. They keep voting for this stuff.
The statistical evidence proves you are wrong.
Chicago's political system is dominated by public sector unions. Social welfare spending across the US, including in Chicago, has massively increased since 1970.
Meanwhile, on the regulatory front, the percentage of jobs requiring an occupational license increased from 5% in 1950, to about 25% today. Entire regulatory agencies were also created since 1970, including the EPA and OSHA.
Any broad-based measure of how regulated the economy is, like the size of the Code of Federal Regulations, shows regulations increasing in scope since 1970.