Main Street Squeeze

It was interesting to read this article, but also very frustrating.

When I turn 70 recently, friends asked how it felt.  My answer? “Like everything is a re-run.”

Richard Longworth’s book, “Global Squeeze,” was one of the first I read with which I could identify. Many of my friends and relatives were being bribed to take early retirement. (or coerced if that didn’t work) My own business was feeling the threat of long-time clients shifting operations to Mexico and Asia.

I had already been writing to everyone I could think of since NAFTA was being considered. My representatives, financial publications, labor unions all either ignored this as a threat or, even worse,  replied with a list of the ways we would all “benefit from cheaper consumer goods and the new knowledge/service economy.”

Many people have tried to point out how the massive economic changes will effect our nation, but no one can compete with the D.C. lobbyist when it comes to setting economic policies.

Expect more re-runs and a tighter squeeze ahead for both middle and lower class Americans.

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Here is a partial list of my reading on the subject:

“The Lexus and the Olive Tree,”  and “The World is Flat,” Thomas Friedman

“Indendently Wealthy,” by Robert Goodman

” A Future Perfect,” Micklewait and Woolridge

“Who will tell the people?” William Greider

“Perfectly Legal,” David Cay Johnston

“Running on Empty,,” Peter Peterson

Selling Ben Cheaver,” Ben Cheaver

“Nickel and Dimed,” Barbara Ehrenreich

Posted by whattheheck on May 23, 2008 at 9:09 AM

I haven’t read these books, but the review discourages me.  While I believe they probably chronicle the ills of the non-wealthy in America accurately, they don’t seem to give any kind of logical analysis of these ills or their possible solution.  For example, about the second book the reviewer says ‘The problem isn

Posted by anarcissie on May 30, 2008 at 8:24 AM

anarcissie,

The problem isn

Posted by whattheheck on May 30, 2008 at 11:44 AM