Middle Class
topic on 9 shows · 15 statements across 12 episodes
American Optimist 
the Knowledge Project 
the Neon Show 
Sourcery 
Top Founders 
the MAD Podcast 
the a16z Podcast 
Big Technology 
All-In
15 statements about Middle Class, every show
Singerman argues wealth taxes hurt the middle class more than billionaires
“This is going to impact the middle class way more than it's going to affect mobile billionaires.”
Lonsdale: Middle and working classes today have far more real wealth than 1950s middle class
“In real wealth terms, like the middle class, working class are actually much wealthier, even than the better off middle class people back then.”
Rand Paul: Claims that trade hollows out middle class are false
“Most people who are for the protectionism say the middle class is being hollowed out and we're being ripped off. They're both absolutely and unequivocally untrue.”
Paul: The US middle and lower classes shrank because people got richer
“The middle class, 50 years ago, about 54% of the people were in the middle class, and now it's 51. Everybody's like, aha, the middle class is shrinking. Well, the lower class was like, 37%. It's now 33%. It's like, where did they go? They're being hollowed out…”
Andreessen: Knowledge-work economies concentrate urban wealth and squeeze out the middle class
“If you're gonna replant your, the sort of commanding heights of your economy on knowledge work, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna slam basically all economic growth into the cities, right? Because you're, which is what Silicon Valley has done, right? S…”
Andreessen: Western cities form top-plus-bottom political coalitions, ejecting the middle class
“What happens is from a political standpoint is the cities that are run right there in, in, in, in their local democracies, it's these super high end kind of, you know, very progressive elites. And then it's sort of the clientele underclass. Right. That you kno…”
Gramm: Pandemic labor drop occurred because welfare reached middle class
“And in fact, the reason the labor force participation rate fell during the pandemic, even after the pandemic was over, was the benefits had spilled into the middle class.”
Brown: Capitalism collapses unless the middle class is forced to work
“The reason capitalism works is you have people at the top of the heap that have already made it, probably because they killed themselves to get there, and then you have people who want to be where they are and are willing to do the jobs that are necessary in o…”
Sacks: Inflation Reduction Act did not benefit middle class at all
“That was a huge boondoggle and payoff for these green energy investors. That's who it went to. It did not benefit the middle class at all.”
Amitabh Kant: India's middle class represents about 34% of the population
“It's almost about 34% of India now.”
Pysh: The middle class receives zero benefit from stock market gains
“The middle class and people who don't have any disposable income do not benefit from the stock market going up whatsoever.”
Pysh: Quantitative easing is effectively socialism for the rich
“Quantitative easing, it routes the middle class. It literally guts them, right? It polarizes the wealthy so that they get wealthier. It's effectively socialism for the rich. That's what quantitative easing is period.”
Pritzker: Asia-Pacific middle class will reach 2.5B-3.5B in 15 years
“Over the next 15 years, you're going to see it go from about five hundred million to five hundred and seventy million middle class to Somewhere between two and a half and three and a half billion. I've seen numbers in, in, in that range. In 15 years.”
Nanduri predicts 2.5 billion people will be knowledge workers by 2030
“By 2030, there'll be five billion middle class human beings, of which at least half of them will be knowledge workers.”
Rao: Automating middle management is actively shrinking the middle class
“That's the layer of the working world, at least, that's increasingly being automated. We no longer go through like four layers of approvals to get like a travel expense form reimbursed. We go to a piece of software, enter some details, maybe one person takes a…”