The Marriage & The Storm

The unique conditions that got us here.

“How we got here?” is an important question that often surfaces when talking about The Future Poor.

Situations like these always have complexity and contextual factors that lead to the eventual outcome. The way that I see it is from the perspective of a marriage of central ideas and a storm of contextual matters. When combined, we have the dilemma of The Future Poor.

The Marriage

In the U.S. (and western world) we have two dominant philosophies. The first is one of individual autonomy (property rights, individual freedoms, individual identity) and generally marked by liberal (lower-case L) principles. Individualism is married to the economic philosophy of capitalism. Capitalism gives “funding freedom” to what want to accomplish. The marriage in the U.S. takes on a third partner in the form of a representative democracy.

It is not without consequence, but it is the ambitious nature that sought to wed a philosophy of the individual being supreme, with a democratic governmental philosophy based on representation, with an economic philosophy of capitalism to fuel and make it all possible. This does create all of the rapid growth and opportunity we have seen, especially in the past 20-30 years. While it has effectively lifted up the entire economic state of the U.S. population, it has also set in the perfect storm that make The Future Poor.

The Storm

A perfect storm is when several weather factors combine to create something far more severe. Heavy rain, lightning, and strong winds compound things very quickly and could lead to severity like tornados or hurricanes. That is where we are today.

Factor number one is the establishment of the U.S. Middle Class around the 1980’s. From World War II to the 1980’s wages grew at a rapid rate. The American Dream became established. Retirement of leisure and independence became possible. Since then, the wages have been relatively flat for the Middle Class and essentially locked the Middle Class in.

The second factor is rapid advancement primarily in the realm of technology. Personal computers entering home. The internet. The iPhone. Social Media. Electric cars and more. This has created access to goods, services and information. It has made much of the world better.

Rapid advancement required a third factor of faster money. In the 1970’s we left the gold standard for a debt/fiat currency economy. This added the fuel to the expansion and growth of the economy and opened the door for many individuals to grow faster than was previously available. This also opened the door for increased debt for consumers. Homes, cars, credit cards and education debt became the norm, especially for the sub-50/sub-150.

These are just the start of looking at the situation that led us to being confronted with the dilemma of The Future Poor and especially looking at the current middle class.