How Bad Can It Get?
Middle-Class Concerns Rise
by Sarah Anne Edwards, PhD
co-author, Middle-Class Lifeboat
The latest opinion polls suggest that we in the
middle class are getting ever more concerned. A
recent national Pew Research Center survey
Inside the Middle Class: Bad Times Hit the Good
Life, reports that 80% of the population who define themselves as middle class now believes it’s harder for them to maintain their lifestyle. One in for feel stuck (25%). One in three perceive themselves as slipping backwards financially.
Nearly half are tightening their belts and about the same number expect to make more cutbacks in the year ahead. That’s more than twice the number in 1983.
They worry about losing their jobs if they one have and whether they will be able to make their next mortgage payment. Half of families have a debt load exceeding their annual income and credit is tighting fast. Even seven out of ten in the upper class feel things are getting worse!
But the Pew poll says we’re still optimistic. Most are confident their quality of life will be better in five years and they expect their children’s lives will be better yet. But should we be?
Will the economy get better soon or will our economic circumstances become even more strained in years to come?
A comment by David S. to our February 7th poll suggests that’s a question we should contemplate. He was surprised to discover he was the only one who wasn’t worried about any of the concerns listed on our previous poll, but not for the reason you would think. He said:
“Not that I don’t worry about the future, just that I worry about concerns not on your list, such as an imminent economic collapse or, even worse, that such a collapse (combined with peak oil and other resource depletion issues) might be severe enough to knock our society into widespread violence and looting for a time. How I might plan to survive such a scenario is currently occupying my worry space. A drop in my material standard of living? Ha, I regard that as inevitable, and I stopped worrying about it a few years ago.”
We’ve yet to find any nationally publicized polls with the temerity to assess public fears of an economic collapse. Polls like the Pew survey suggest that’s not what’s on our minds. But is it? Should it be?
Listening to the tone of Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke’s testimony before Congress recently, watching his facial expressions and the care with which he was choosing his words, you might wonder if maybe it should.
Reading the concerns expressed by peak oil, water shortage, and climate change experts like Richard Heinberg, Peak Everything, James Lovelock, and James Howard Knunstler, The Long Emergency, would do more than suggest. They’re indicating the potential possibility for something near to collapse most certainly better be on our minds, if for no other reason than to take seriously the changes we need to be busy making.
Even conservative economic and political analyst Kevin Phillips is saying we’re in deep trouble. He uses the word crumbling in his latest book Bad Money to describe the state of our economy.
Mainstream media isn’t ignoring such problems either. They’re just not using the “C” word. If you’d like to get a taste of the breadth and depth of these news reports subscribe to Carolyn Baker’s Speaking Truth to Power blog. Each day you’ll find a long list of links to major news stories on our economic/ecological perils. You can even subscribe to this service, as we have, and have the list of daily news stories delivered to you in box … but be prepared to get real worried.
Maybe the popular polls are not asking the right questions. Maybe David S. is not the only one who’s worries have shifted from how to maintain our a material standard of living to far more serious matters. Maybe he’s not the only one of us who is beginning to add the word collapse or crumbling to his worries.
We’d like to know. Take our new poll and let us tell us how deep your concerns go and, please leave a comment too explaining why you feel as you do.
How can we build an effective lifeboat if we’ve miscalculated the size of the storms we will need to weather?
April 18th, 2008 at 11:21 am
David S. is definitely not alone. About six years ago, I noticed that the discretionary money supporting my antique business was slowly drying up and operating costs were going up. Two years later (and still unaware of Kunstler’s THE LONG EMERGENCY), I had a gut feeling that I had better begin to liquidate my not-inconsiderable art collection and build a liquid retirement fund. Today, the collection is gone, I’ve met and talked with Richard Heinberg (a real gentleman), read and reread Kunstler, Klare, etc., and get my daily news from a great variety of sites and blogs such as Carolyn Baker, The Oil Drum, Michael Shedlock, Life After the Oil Crash, etc.
At this point, it is reasonable to expect that I’d say I was very worried, but I’m not. There is nothing that I can do that is going to stop the Titanic from going down and I have done all I can to build my own lifeboat and stock it for a long voyage - likely on my own. However, I would like to offer some observations on things that still frustrate me. My neighbors here in rural Oregon live day to day on minimal incomes and with zero curiosity about the world around them. In the closest city, there is a great deal of “green talk” and outrage at Big Oil, The War, etc. but very little practical planning. People both rural and urban seem to have a visceral sense that “things aren’t right” but have a childlike hope that the next election will set things right and/or technology will pull a rabbit from a hat, etc. but, to a man, have taken no concrete steps toward securing their future in an emergency, e.g. food, medicine, personal security, etc. Most, even if they talk the talk of emergency planning have little to fall back on if the banks close or the trucks delivering food stop running or the emergency services that they took for granted no longer respond. More serious problems like the electrical grid going down for a while or forever snap on the switch of “I can’t control that, so I don’t plan to worry about it.” And they don’t.
Having given away at least a dozen copies of THE LONG EMERGENCY (to very small effect) and having repeatedly bumped up against the walls of Denial and Willful Indifference, I’ve quietly retreated to my lifeboat and spend a lot of time planning my Victory Garden and tweaking my preparations.
It isn’t all about oil or natural gas. Now it’s about wheat rust, starvation, avian flu, water shortage (e.g. the Middle East and Atlanta); lack of leadership; an overindulged, uncritical and hedonistic US citizenry; the rise of nationalized oil; a failed economy and financial system; an unwillingness to confront many issues such as a very real threat from Islam’s core philosophy; a raped planet; climate change (Even George finally got it) and a host of other Horsemen who are already mounted and clattering down Elm Street and Wall Street.
I plan to take time out from paddling to vote for Ron Paul but then I’m back on the oars. The suction from a ship the size of this one is going to be huge.
April 19th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Thanks, Stephen, for sharing your own plans and concerns. I believe that doing all one can to build our lifeboats and stock it for a long voyage is the route to inner peace in our time. The most difficult time for most is in the interim between when we realize a big storm is upon us and the time when we are secured, as you are, in our best possible lifeboat. From all the interviews we did for the book, I know one’s secure lifeboat will be different for different individuals and families. Some will be away in small communities, others will be in neighborhoods within larger communities, and so forth. I also know that life circumstances can make it is far harder for some to create a lifeboat than others.
I empathize with your feelings about the walls of Denial and Willful Indifference. I think as a society we are still in the early stages of reacting to the impending storm. Many people still deny its existence. Others are discounting its significance, holding on to wishful thinking, reacting with anger, blame, etc. Linda Buzzell-Saltzman and I wrote an article about the 5 Stages of The Waking-Up Syndrome sharing our observations about the process one goes through, ending with taking action and getting one’s lifeboat underconstruction.
Paul and I have held many showings here in our community of movies like What a Way to Go and End of Suburbia, The Inconvenient Truth, etc. They have led to interest, discussions, etc. Even a Let’s Live Local group has formed. Our 1st project is a wood pellet coop. It’s almost fully subscribed now. Granted it’s slow and the storm is building, but I remain hopeful we will all be able to create our lifeboats, hopefully with the help and support of others in our communities.
You are proof it’s possible! Thanks again. Sarah
April 25th, 2008 at 3:50 am
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January 17th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Stephen,
I have to agree with you. I have given up on Americans for now even my own family. The truth is more that what most people are willing to accept. The time will come that some will listen to me and all of those who have raised the warning flag. I will be ready to help them help themselves but I will not sacrifice my own safty and preparedness for latecomers. Willful ignorance is understandable but I still consider it irresponsible.
Best of luck in the Brave New World!