Customer Reviews

RETURN OF THRIFT: How the Collapse of the Middle Class Welfare State Will Reawaken Values in Americs

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I picked this book up at the library on a whim. Everything he predicted is coming true. We are seeing the collapse of the middle-class welfare state. He is one of the few commentators that has been honest about the overwhelming debt obligations and promises of our government and how it is unsustainable. The bubbles are bursting and there are none left to inflate and philip candidly spells out in the book the looming issues that everyone knew for years and is happening TODAY. Read it if nothing else, to understand how tragically all this could have prevented.

Mr. Longman's message can be distilled into just a few words. The wealthy of our country have lost their concern about whether or not the non-wealthy eat their food from garbage cans. If one wants to survive in the future, one must save one's cash and other assets.
What Mr. Longman seems to miss is that this is going to make the non-wealthy very angry. At some point, life will become decidedly unfortunate for those who will not share. It is relatively easy to put the squeeze on the disenfranchised poor and working class. When one attacks the relatively large middle class of our country, converting this class to virtual slaves, Mr. Longman will have to write a new chapter.

Phillip Longman uses vocabulary which drives the perception of the content.
He calls Social Security "entitlement" v. "safety net."
He does not take in to account the impact of inflation on the defining of Middle Class.
He does not take into account that the temporary tax cuts have resulted in decreased revenue, which has a much greater impact than he would have one believe on the health of the middle class. He links it to a later book on declining birth rates further exacerbating our decline.
The fact that business is making more money than ever, while decreasing hiring has further threatened the middle class. This is not well communicated in the book. Perhaps I missed the presentation that rise of the middle class was due to these types of supportive programs and rise of union labor. Missing is a discussion of the impact of "right to work", removing those private industry safety mechanisms given by unions. If this book were written better, perhaps I could see his point. In fairness, this book was written before the current econonic crisis, but I believe those values are what generate the worry about class warfare. I don't think that what I experience today in an urban environment where individuals are in a free fall from econonic down-turn would see these programs as entitlements at all. Additionally, this fall from financial security is exactly what is causing the children of the former middle class baby boomer generation to realize they cannot afford children.
Perhaps the greed of Ayn Rand is the basis for values he wants reawakened. My philosophical bend is "To each to his need: from each according to ability."