The class structure in America is changing. Formerly, there were basically three classes: poor, middle and rich. Due to the deregulation, privatization and corporatization - starting with Reagan in 1980 - and blossoming under neoconism, the class structure is in transition to a Brave New World consisting of three classes: homeless, debtor and investor. The homeless consist of the formerly poor class that used to be at least sheltered. Many of these unfortunate folks are veterans. All of them have been dispensed with by the prevailing American social system. A compassionate society would at least provide them with food and shelter, but, in America, they have been left to wander the streets, sleeping on sidewalks and under bridges and pushing their meager belongings around in shopping carts. These people have no job, no credit and few if any social or familial relationships. They can't cope with the demands placed on them by society and are unemployable. They've fallen through the cracks, and the societal safety net is non-existant for them. They are throwaways, people whom society doesn't want or need and feels no compassion for. America just wants them to go away. Reagan started the deinstitutionalization of these people, many of whom have severe psychological and physical handicaps.
The middle class in a way has always been a debtor class: mortgage debt, auto loan debt, credit card or consumer debt. A paycheck from a good paying middle class job was primarily spent on making payments of various kinds with little discretionary income left over for savings or a rainy day. Today a whole new class of debt has been added: student loan debt. College graduates graduate into a system in which right off the bat they have the equivalent of half a mortgage. Then add to that all the other classes of debt and an advertising industry on steroids to guarantee that every dollar of income and more will be spent and not saved or invested and you have a full fledged debtor class. Ironically, as more jobs are outsourced, a college diploma does not guarantee that anyone can ever pay off these debts and "creative financing" guarantees that the debts will go on forever, as long as the formerly middle class person survives. No longer will a person be able to discharge debts in bankruptcy. Bankruptcy protection will be reserved only for corporations. Bankruptcy protection will protect the investor from the debtor, not the other way round.The student loan industry has already secured from Congress a law making it impossible to discharge a student loan debt through bankruptcy. The credit card industry will be soon to follow.
The investor class consists of those who hold the debt of the debtor class. They own the country's assets and are increasingly foreigners. Oil rich Arabs and consumer product rich Chinese are increasingly buying up US assets. Asset backed securities provide a good return on investment as different investors choose the tranches they prefer. The market has also been so kind as to provide synthetic exposure to the asset backed security market to assuage the appetites of the sophisticated investor. Investors are those who make their income off of rents, dividends and interest and not from wage labor. It used to be called "unearned income," a somewhat pejoritive term. Today it's called "passive income" which sounds considerably better as far as the investor class is concerned. Wage laborers are becoming essentially slaves to paying off their debts as they are sucked further into debt by clever advertising. The debtor class, being essentially ignorant of how the economy operates, doesn't realize that its biggest purchase over a lifetime is not its cars, houses or consumer goods. It's interest, the price they pay for borrowing the money that pays for those things. The distinction between earned and unearned income, that is money gotten from wage labor or from return on capital investment, is one to be taken seriously. As wages stagnate and jobs are shipped overseas, many people of the former debtor class will slip into homelessness. As more jobs are roboticized and automated, wage labor will no longer be needed and as developing countries turn out more engineers and technologists, formerly middle class jobs will be turned over to them since they have as much expertise as Americans and will work for a lot less money.
Globalization will assure that the cost of the corporate labor input will be minimized by seeking out the cheapest labor source wherever it exists in the world. For jobs that must be done in the US, cheap labor will be imported either illegally for menial jobs or by means of visas. H1-B visas will give American corporations the right to bring in cheap foreign technologists and computer programmers in lieu of hiring Americans whom they would have to pay a lot more. Consumers will run on the treadmill of increased consumption leading to increased debt leading to more and more of their income going for debt service in the form of interest whether it be student loan, auto loan, mortgage or credit card interest. The investor class, being more savvy and sophisticated, will assure itself that its incoming revenue streams will be more than adeqaute to support its lifestyle. Not able to keep up, more and more denizens of the debtor class will fall into homelesssnness, 
especially those who have no family ties or social connections. The investor class, which, due to the accelerating accumulation of capital, will have more money coming in than it can possibly spend on consumer goods or lifestyle, will use this money to lobby Congress and advertise even if it is not interested in selling a particular product. For instance, Kerr-Magee, a company which does deep water oil exploration, advertises on television even though it has no consumer product to sell. Perhaps it is interested in refurbishing its reputation after Karen Silkwood, who died in an auto accident just before she was to air Kerr-Magee dirty laundry, blew the whistle on it. Corporate interests seek to promote a mindset that this is the best of all possible worlds and corporate money goes into lobbying and advertising to promote that mindset. Corporate interests want to promote docile workers and mindless, rampant consumerism. The debtor class's debts are the investor class's revenue streams.
There is an antidote to this treadmill. Resist advertising. Don't consume. Pay for, instead of charging, consumer goods. Become an investor instead of a debtor. Lower your lifestyle and treat your resultant increased discretionary income as a business. Don't waste money on a college degree which can be outsourced. Be self-employed. That way no one can take away your source of income. Don't be a wage slave. Invest in real property instead of financial assets. Wait until you can pay for a house outright, instead of getting a mortgage, and accumulate rental property. Shop at thrift stores. Drive a cheap used car or use public transportation. Use the first house you buy as a rental and continue to live in a cheap apartment or consider living in a camper or van, a van that could also be used as a work vehicle. Develop construction and handyman skills so you can fix up property instead of having to hire people to do the job. Spend money on only those things you really enjoy doing or on things which truly make your life easier and more comfortable. Don't live pay check to pay check. Pay off your credit cards every month so you pay no interest on them. Have a much longer financial time horizon. One way to do this is to establish a line of credit but not use it except for emergencies and to have an income much greater than an outgo. This gives you a much higher degree of flexibility so you're not right under the gun of depending on the next paycheck to pay the next month's bills. It allows you to roll with the punches more. Always assume your expenses are going to be twice as much as you think they are.
If you choose a lifestyle of self-employment, you choose a lifestyle of freedom rather than wage slavery because you have control over your time and labor, and you're accountable to no one. That's freedom. The US propagandizes freedom but seeks everywhere to turn individuals into consumerist, wage slave debtors - the exact opposite of a free people. Having control over your time and energy, a larger income than outgo, a longer time horizon than just month to month for paying bills, reducing debt to a minimum, having non-labor related revenue sources - these are the constituents of freedom. You want to have control over your own life rather than letting educational institutions, religious organizations, government propaganda, corporations and advertising have control over you. Your goal should be to support your lifestyle from the return on capital investment not on the capital itself and to leave a legacy to your heirs.
