American's living paycheck to paycheck as America moves toward oligarchical socialism

Millennials, Gen Xers, and baby boomers, whether work in big cities or rural towns are increasingly prevented from saving because of expenses of rent, child care, student loans, and medical bills. Examples of $2,249 rent, one piece of chicken left in the freezer at the end of a pay period, a nine-year old car paid off with zip ties holding together the rear bumper.

philly.com/jobs/labor/i-see-no-way-out-living-paycheck-paycheck-is-disturbingly-common-20181228.html

FLASHBACK September 1, 2018: Urban studies fellow Joel Kotkin says a large majority of population will subsist on some combination of part-time entrepreneurial 'gig work' and government aid" while oligarchs — Mark Zuckerberg, Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, founder of the Y Combinator — embrace a vision including a "guaranteed wage," usually $500 or a $1,000 monthly. Kotkin says gig economy workers are up 26 percent compared to the previous year — an increasing number of people who can't afford housing, but subsist on playing with their smart phones, video games and immersive computing.

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"The losers here will be our once-protean middle class. Unlike the owners of corporations in the past, oligarchs have no interest in their workers become homeowners or moving up the class ladder. Their agenda instead is forever-denser, super-expensive rental housing for their primarily young, and often short-term, employees."

— Joel Kotkin

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While the.01 percent avoid taxes and get tax breaks for their corporations, middle and upwardly mobile working class see an increasing tax burden, while watching many of their children devolve into serfs, dependent on alms and subsidies for survival.

ocregister.com/2018/09/01/america-is-moving-to-oligarchical-socialism