You are correct! And it’s crazy how effective those high corporate tax rates were at distributing wealth to better society and create a healthy middleclass of consumers to fuel an economy and prevent it from collapsing.
Weird how everything’s turning to shit now that corporations don’t pay taxes and use all their earnings to influence government elections instead of needing to actually be accountable to them.
“Too big to fail” was actually just “too big to stop.” So now where there used to be a US government, there is a handful of billionaire cultists.
The middleclass 100% existed. Billionaires just stole it. The money that drove US spending across 3 decades is now all in 5 people’s bank accounts doing jack shit to help anyone but those 5 people.
Higher corporate taxes = a middle class. See most Nordic countries as a great example that still exists.
Thank you for making this point. A middle class is the sign of a functioning society.
actually most middle class voters voted and supported for the policies that destroyed themselves.
they started deinvesting our healthcare and education systems in the 70s, often as a part of the backlash of civil rights and the economic stagnation of the 70s.
Who do you think was responsible for convincing the middle class to vote against their own best interests?
It was the people who didn’t have to pay taxes after Reagonomics. They used their money to fill television, print, and eventually social media with propaganda. Propaganda that taxes were too high (for them) despite our entire social safety net outgrowing it’s sustainability.
And this form of propaganda was SO effective, the Russians figured they would do the same. Then the Chinese. Now the Saudis. So now we have just about every country in the world that hates America purchasing every second of entertainment they can to make sure we’re always voting against our best interests to the point we just about don’t have a country.
there is no billionaire conspiracy dude. the average person is stupid and regularly does stupid shit that defaults their long term interests for perceived short term gains. it’s human nature. most people impulse spend on shit they don’t need or really want, but their monkey brain wants it because other monkey has it.
the few people who can value their long term gains at the expense of the short term tend to be those that are upwardly mobile economically.
The top income tax bracket in 2025 is 37%, for income earned over $751,600 (~$69,000 in 1960, married filing jointly).
In 1960, >$20,000 and <$24,000 was 38% (married filing jointly). (~$219,000 to ~$263,000 in 2025 dollars). The top tax bracket then was 91%, with all sorts of steps between 38% and 91%.
You’re right, but that’s not middle class–that’s working class. Making minimum wage and having a comfortable life is working class. The concept of “middle” class was a method of pitting one half of the working class against the other, so the rich could move from millions to billions.
I mostly agree. They’re synonymous today, but I think there’s still an important distinction.
The term “middle class” is distinct from the “lower class.” But those two are more or less the same when compared to the “upper class” (what I would call the “wealth class”). Both lower and middle classes need to work in order to survive, while the wealth class has enough money to live without working (many of them still work, but it’s optional for them).
Any distinction between lower and middle class ends up harming both, and allowing the upper class to hoard more wealth. I generally try to promote the term “working class” because it doesn’t divide us, and more accurately portrays the differences between classes.
I’ve watched people like you shoot themselves in the foot with useless arguments like this since I was in high school.
You can’t just say “Tax the rich.” No, we have to analyze every term and only use proper nomenclature. Heaven will fall if we call a Social Democrat a Socialist and the seas will part if we confuse an anarchist with a Trotskyite.
I’ve watched it for years, and I’ve never once see it help anyone actually win an election.
If you don’t use proper nomenclature or explain what is meant in detail you have no hope of truly being understood. People’s ignorance of what things actually mean is used as a weapon against further understanding, like the good old fashioned “socialism is when the government does stuff and is also evil and any hint of it will introduce satan” or whatever
Being hostile towards proper understanding of a subject is not going to help you actually comprehend it
First, you can cut out a third of the words in a sentence and still comprehend the gist of the message. ‘Proper nomenclature’ might be important in a college essay or a legal writ but in the real world people slur their words and mishear the replies and still manage to get the point across. Words aren’t numbers; any word can have a dozen different meanings.
Look at former NYC Mayor LaGuardia. Back in the day he ran on a Fusion Ticket that included Socialists, Communists, and Republicans? You could spent a lifetime trying to sort out the exact definition of what he was. Do you think Nazi Germany was ‘Socialist’ because of National Socialism.
Second, how much comprehension is actually needed? Do you need to understand the difference between alternating current and direct current to know when to use batteries and when to plug a device into the wall? Do I have to understand aerodynamics to buy an airline ticket? Does someone have to know every single position a candidate holds in order to decide to vote for them?
But that’s the issue, I disagree that “we manage to get the point across”. A lot of the times we simply don’t
Do you think Nazi Germany was ‘Socialist’ because of National Socialism
And you bring up a great point here, about why it matters to have proper understanding of terms. Otherwise you’d be likely to lump in Nazism in with socialist ideologies. And that has happened a lot. People have used this exact line of reasoning to demonize socialism
This website might not be a college essay, but it is a forum, where ideally you go to to see different perspectives and learn something about something. So I think this discussion perfectly fits here, why should you limit gaining knowledge to an essay or legal writ? There’s no rush to get your point across
As for the rest, no you do not need to know the specific differences between AC or DC… but you better know there is a difference, lest you’ll blow a device up if you try to do anything non-standard (like, say, plugging a computer up to a backup power supply. You need to make sure it’s an UPS that outputs a proper sine wave, lest things will go wrong with your PC’s PSU expecting one, but getting a DC input instead). And you might not need to know every single detail of you candidate… but I hope you do actually know what their positions are, yes
So, you agree with me 99% but will fight to the death over the last 1%?
Let’s take your last paragraph. There are plenty of kids who can hook up the PC, a video game console, and Grandma’s VCR and make them all work together without having the least idea of why it works. They know that this plug goes here and not there and that’s enough for them. None of them can tell a sine wave from a tsunami.
And you completely ignored LaGuardia being able to be a Communist and a Republican at the same time. He happily ignored the contradiction and got both to agree that he was the best man for the job.
My purpose in making the distinction isn’t to be pedantic, it’s to help clarify the nature of the class warfare we’re dealing with. I don’t care if you want to use the term “middle class”. I only bring up the distinction because of the nature of the original post, which was explicitly noting the false narrative of the “lazy poor”.
Tax the rich, restore the middle class, use whatever terminology you want. But understand that the poor are not the enemy of the middle class, and they’re not the villains. The rich people are.
When did I say anything about the poor being the enemy of the middle class, or that we aren’t all at war with the rich?
If you’re going to put words in my mouth please order some chips and salsa to go with it.
It doesn’t matter if you wanted to be pedantic, you were.
Now we’re involved in a useless argument over terms.
I’ve made my point twice, and I’m not going to repeat it a third time.
I understand your point, and I disagree with it.
If you decide to continue, you’re proving my point; that you’d rather engage in an argument with someone on your side than step back and accept a minor disagreement.
Adjusted for inflation, 11k in the 60s is equivalent to 120k today. You can get a house for that money. Not a big house, but houses weren’t that big back then either.
“Adjusted for inflation” is a pretty silly term. It might mean something in an economics class, but it’s nonsense if you try to apply it to the real world.
$1 million in 1960 would buy you an estate in Beverly Hills, a townhouse in Manhattan, a few luxury cars, and you’d have enough left over to invest and live comfortably forever.
$11 million today might get you a bungalow in a pricey neighborhood.
Lyndon Johnson wanted to have a massive war in Vietnam without raising taxes, so he printed money to pay for it. Nixon doubled down on LBJ’s plan. The OPEC oil embargo really made inflation soar. Jimmy Carter hired a man named Paul Volker to run the Fed and bring it under control. Carter’s plan worked, but only after Reagan won. Then Reagan turned around and started cutting taxes without a way to pay for the cuts.
In 1968 when Nixon came in, ‘middle class’ was one Union job supporting a family of four with enough left over for a few luxuries. By the time Bush Sr finished, ‘middle class’ was two incomes. In 1968 $1 million was a massive fortune; by 1993 it was what a rich guy paid for a party.
Yes there was.
In 1960 the US minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the average house was $11,000.00.
Two kids could get married on high school graduation day and be self supporting homeowners by the time they turned 25.
Of course in those days, the rich were content with a mere $1 million…
You are correct! And it’s crazy how effective those high corporate tax rates were at distributing wealth to better society and create a healthy middleclass of consumers to fuel an economy and prevent it from collapsing.
Weird how everything’s turning to shit now that corporations don’t pay taxes and use all their earnings to influence government elections instead of needing to actually be accountable to them.
“Too big to fail” was actually just “too big to stop.” So now where there used to be a US government, there is a handful of billionaire cultists.
The middleclass 100% existed. Billionaires just stole it. The money that drove US spending across 3 decades is now all in 5 people’s bank accounts doing jack shit to help anyone but those 5 people.
Higher corporate taxes = a middle class. See most Nordic countries as a great example that still exists.
Thank you for making this point. A middle class is the sign of a functioning society.
actually most middle class voters voted and supported for the policies that destroyed themselves.
they started deinvesting our healthcare and education systems in the 70s, often as a part of the backlash of civil rights and the economic stagnation of the 70s.
Who do you think was responsible for convincing the middle class to vote against their own best interests?
It was the people who didn’t have to pay taxes after Reagonomics. They used their money to fill television, print, and eventually social media with propaganda. Propaganda that taxes were too high (for them) despite our entire social safety net outgrowing it’s sustainability.
And this form of propaganda was SO effective, the Russians figured they would do the same. Then the Chinese. Now the Saudis. So now we have just about every country in the world that hates America purchasing every second of entertainment they can to make sure we’re always voting against our best interests to the point we just about don’t have a country.
themselves.
there is no billionaire conspiracy dude. the average person is stupid and regularly does stupid shit that defaults their long term interests for perceived short term gains. it’s human nature. most people impulse spend on shit they don’t need or really want, but their monkey brain wants it because other monkey has it.
the few people who can value their long term gains at the expense of the short term tend to be those that are upwardly mobile economically.
It is worth noting that:
The top income tax bracket in 2025 is 37%, for income earned over $751,600 (~$69,000 in 1960, married filing jointly).
In 1960, >$20,000 and <$24,000 was 38% (married filing jointly). (~$219,000 to ~$263,000 in 2025 dollars). The top tax bracket then was 91%, with all sorts of steps between 38% and 91%.
You’re right, but that’s not middle class–that’s working class. Making minimum wage and having a comfortable life is working class. The concept of “middle” class was a method of pitting one half of the working class against the other, so the rich could move from millions to billions.
Now you’re just playing with definitions.
“Middle class” is the term most people use.
I mostly agree. They’re synonymous today, but I think there’s still an important distinction.
The term “middle class” is distinct from the “lower class.” But those two are more or less the same when compared to the “upper class” (what I would call the “wealth class”). Both lower and middle classes need to work in order to survive, while the wealth class has enough money to live without working (many of them still work, but it’s optional for them).
Any distinction between lower and middle class ends up harming both, and allowing the upper class to hoard more wealth. I generally try to promote the term “working class” because it doesn’t divide us, and more accurately portrays the differences between classes.
An illustration in this vein:
I’ve watched people like you shoot themselves in the foot with useless arguments like this since I was in high school.
You can’t just say “Tax the rich.” No, we have to analyze every term and only use proper nomenclature. Heaven will fall if we call a Social Democrat a Socialist and the seas will part if we confuse an anarchist with a Trotskyite.
I’ve watched it for years, and I’ve never once see it help anyone actually win an election.
If you don’t use proper nomenclature or explain what is meant in detail you have no hope of truly being understood. People’s ignorance of what things actually mean is used as a weapon against further understanding, like the good old fashioned “socialism is when the government does stuff and is also evil and any hint of it will introduce satan” or whatever
Being hostile towards proper understanding of a subject is not going to help you actually comprehend it
Two points.
First, you can cut out a third of the words in a sentence and still comprehend the gist of the message. ‘Proper nomenclature’ might be important in a college essay or a legal writ but in the real world people slur their words and mishear the replies and still manage to get the point across. Words aren’t numbers; any word can have a dozen different meanings.
Look at former NYC Mayor LaGuardia. Back in the day he ran on a Fusion Ticket that included Socialists, Communists, and Republicans? You could spent a lifetime trying to sort out the exact definition of what he was. Do you think Nazi Germany was ‘Socialist’ because of National Socialism.
Second, how much comprehension is actually needed? Do you need to understand the difference between alternating current and direct current to know when to use batteries and when to plug a device into the wall? Do I have to understand aerodynamics to buy an airline ticket? Does someone have to know every single position a candidate holds in order to decide to vote for them?
But that’s the issue, I disagree that “we manage to get the point across”. A lot of the times we simply don’t
And you bring up a great point here, about why it matters to have proper understanding of terms. Otherwise you’d be likely to lump in Nazism in with socialist ideologies. And that has happened a lot. People have used this exact line of reasoning to demonize socialism
This website might not be a college essay, but it is a forum, where ideally you go to to see different perspectives and learn something about something. So I think this discussion perfectly fits here, why should you limit gaining knowledge to an essay or legal writ? There’s no rush to get your point across
As for the rest, no you do not need to know the specific differences between AC or DC… but you better know there is a difference, lest you’ll blow a device up if you try to do anything non-standard (like, say, plugging a computer up to a backup power supply. You need to make sure it’s an UPS that outputs a proper sine wave, lest things will go wrong with your PC’s PSU expecting one, but getting a DC input instead). And you might not need to know every single detail of you candidate… but I hope you do actually know what their positions are, yes
So, you agree with me 99% but will fight to the death over the last 1%?
Let’s take your last paragraph. There are plenty of kids who can hook up the PC, a video game console, and Grandma’s VCR and make them all work together without having the least idea of why it works. They know that this plug goes here and not there and that’s enough for them. None of them can tell a sine wave from a tsunami.
And you completely ignored LaGuardia being able to be a Communist and a Republican at the same time. He happily ignored the contradiction and got both to agree that he was the best man for the job.
Holy generalizations, Batman!
My purpose in making the distinction isn’t to be pedantic, it’s to help clarify the nature of the class warfare we’re dealing with. I don’t care if you want to use the term “middle class”. I only bring up the distinction because of the nature of the original post, which was explicitly noting the false narrative of the “lazy poor”.
Tax the rich, restore the middle class, use whatever terminology you want. But understand that the poor are not the enemy of the middle class, and they’re not the villains. The rich people are.
Holy genralizations yourself.
When did I say anything about the poor being the enemy of the middle class, or that we aren’t all at war with the rich?
If you’re going to put words in my mouth please order some chips and salsa to go with it.
It doesn’t matter if you wanted to be pedantic, you were.
Now we’re involved in a useless argument over terms.
I’ve made my point twice, and I’m not going to repeat it a third time.
I understand your point, and I disagree with it.
If you decide to continue, you’re proving my point; that you’d rather engage in an argument with someone on your side than step back and accept a minor disagreement.
Adjusted for inflation, 11k in the 60s is equivalent to 120k today. You can get a house for that money. Not a big house, but houses weren’t that big back then either.
“Adjusted for inflation” is a pretty silly term. It might mean something in an economics class, but it’s nonsense if you try to apply it to the real world.
$1 million in 1960 would buy you an estate in Beverly Hills, a townhouse in Manhattan, a few luxury cars, and you’d have enough left over to invest and live comfortably forever.
$11 million today might get you a bungalow in a pricey neighborhood.
I don’t see what’s silly about it. It’s the purchasing power that matters - not the numeric value.
That’s exactly the point I was making.
So it makes sense to adjust prices for inflation because the numeric value itself doesn’t illustrate the purchasing power accurately.
That’s exactly the point I was making.
Was going to bring up interest rates, but apparently a 30 year mortgage in 1960 was something like 7%. Which…isn’t that bad.
Lyndon Johnson wanted to have a massive war in Vietnam without raising taxes, so he printed money to pay for it. Nixon doubled down on LBJ’s plan. The OPEC oil embargo really made inflation soar. Jimmy Carter hired a man named Paul Volker to run the Fed and bring it under control. Carter’s plan worked, but only after Reagan won. Then Reagan turned around and started cutting taxes without a way to pay for the cuts.
In 1968 when Nixon came in, ‘middle class’ was one Union job supporting a family of four with enough left over for a few luxuries. By the time Bush Sr finished, ‘middle class’ was two incomes. In 1968 $1 million was a massive fortune; by 1993 it was what a rich guy paid for a party.
Mortgage rates were in the teens in the early 80s.
Yeah, that’s why I brought it up. I always assumed they were high in the 60s too.