The funny thing about the new downsized 'middle class' is that they have only been able to purchase reasonably well paid jobs by spending enormous amounts of money on their own educations.
Exactly right, Opebo. There have been a lot of articles lately about the huge amount of student loan debt that the average American has to bear to graduate from college.
Then, even if they get a decent paying job, they are often restricted from moving up in class due to a huge amount of debt they need to pay off. Hell, I am 28 years old and still paying off student loans and credit cards from when I was in college (and I was fairly frugal as a student).
For many college graduates, they are merely "running in place" due to the huge debt burden they carry.
You and opebo have good points here. I even have co-workers who have previously worked in CPA firms agree with most of what I've said. I even had one woman tell me the big CPA firms are "sweatshops" that rope in young, naive college kids to work all kinds of hours with meager bonuses for working 60+ hours per week during tax season. Few of us are lucky enough to be dazzleman in that category so I stuck with the government. Add the student loan debt that I and Scoonie have it makes matters even worse. I know dazzleman is wise in many respects, but I hate to say he is a bit naive to what people in their 20s recently out of college have to go through.
