US middle class is under siege
It’s too early to draw any large conclusions about the performance of the U.S. economy during the Trump administration, but the first quarter of 2017’s growth rate, 0.7 percent, is distressingly low.
North Korea’s growth rate is estimated at between 1 and 1.5 percent, by comparison.
The U.S. stock market, among the economy’s leading indicators, continues to go up. The investor class reaps immediate benefit, pension plans and 401(k)s get a boost, and consumer spending is bolstered by the wealth effect. Yet a large number of Americans do not realize gains.
A Pew Research Center study released last week found that between 1991 and 2010 the American middle class had shrunk, from 62 to 59 percent of adults in middle-income households. The number of rich and the number of poor had increased as the middle class was hollowed out. Income, in effect, was redistributed from the middle class to the upper-income class as economic inequality widened.
The same Pew study found that U.S. performance with respect to the fate of the middle class was worse than that of the other 11 countries in the study. Advocates of globalization will find it hard to argue that America is benefiting from the present arrangement.
The contraction of America’s middle class has led to frustration with and distrust of its ruling political elite, contributing to the vote for Trump in November, particularly from the “forgotten people.”
We have seen distress already in three- and four-job families, opioid deaths and people just dropping out of the economy, but the Pew study and the sub-North Korea growth rate has placed frightening data meat on the bones of concern.
Brilliant images are spacecraft’s legacy
Last week, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft went where nothing made by humans had ever gone before — it successfully navigated a path between Saturn and its rings and survived. Cassini also beamed back pictures and other essential data as it maneuvered the 1,500-mile-wide space between the solar system’s second largest planet and its icy rings.
The images, which take 78 minutes to make the billion-mile trip back to Earth, reveal a blazing, mysterious process of alternating light and darkness in the rings that scientists will be working to understand for years. That seems only fair since it has already taken 20 years for Cassini to be in a position to do what it is doing so far.
Between now and September, Cassini will make 22 dives between Saturn’s rings and the planet, clocking at an impressive 76,800 mph each time. The end result should be a treasure trove of stunning images of the planet, its diverse and mysterious rings, along with detailed maps of the gas giant’s gravity, magnetic fields and atmospheric conditions.
On Sept. 15, it will plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, streaming data back to Earth as it makes its descent of no return. It will be a bittersweet moment for the scientists at NASA, the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency, which collaborated on the mission.
There’s no reason to mourn Cassini yet. It is still very much with us, but a day is coming when it will be gripped by Saturn’s gravity and destroyed within minutes.