While many of my hubs and blogs are lite and fun in this one I am taking on a more serious matter. As the title suggests I believe that the middle class as we know it is going away and going away  fast. How I define middle class is high income, lots of credit, nice house, new car(s), buy it now and pay later instant gratification lovers of being comfortable. That used to describe me to the tee.

Now I am running my own business, don't use credit unless it makes me more money, and am giving up driving a nice car and buying a nice house to put the money back into my business. With the economy going the direction it is, I will not be counting on Social Security, IRAs or 401Ks for my retirement. I am counting on good old fashioned business sense. Starting and running businesses is one of the only ways to create income from nothing but an idea.

When I came up with the title "The Death of the Middle Class" I was thinking of a way of life that most can no longer sustain.Credit is harder and harder to get and sustain. Job security is almost non-existent these days. The US economy is turning back to the days before the industrial revolution. More and more people are becoming consultants or starting their own small business to make a living. This economic environment is going to weed out the middle class and make more poor and more rich people. The choice is yours which way to go. There are different ways of thinking for each class. These ways are taught to us by our parents and environments but can be changed. 

Below are the ways each of the three classes think and behave. 

The poor live day to day. They struggle to bring in enough to even provide the basics. Their cash flows in from a job or jobs and flows right back out through expenses leaving no extra for saving or investing. 

The middle class, like the poor, also work a job or jobs for income. They tend to make alot more income than the poor and they like their comfort and will borrow to get it now. Why not? They deserve it. This too leaves little extra to save and invest after taxes, interest and principal are paid every month. While many middle class people do invest it likely in something that does not take much effort or knowledge like IRAs or 401Ks. Their time is taken up working to pay the bills. They are basically caught on a treadmill called the rat race. 

The rich are the give it up now so I can have much more later folks. The rich have cash flow that comes from their investments and their businesses and then flows back into their investments and businesses. The rich do not need to work for money, they make money work for them. Many do still work and work hard because of their passion and enthusiasm about their products but most could walk away and never need to work again. The rich can afford to buy what they want without borrowing and only borrow if they can make more money from the borrowed money than they are paying in interest on it. 

As you can tell from my definitions I want to be rich. Rich people create jobs, new products and more opportunity. In fact one of the defining factor of a rich person is that they see opportunity where poor and middle class people see problems.They have a different way of thinking about money and comfort. 

I choose to be rich. I choose not to be poor and I no longer choose to maintain a middle class lifestyle.

Thanks for reading my rants and ravings. If you feel different (or the same) about this topic please post a comment.