www.alternet.org/economy/were-not-number-1-guess-which-country-now-has-more-affluent-middle-class-america
"Conservatives will try to come up with all kinds of nonsense to explain what’s happening to the middle class, and we’ll probably be hearing the old magic mantras about small businesses and regulation. But it’s obvious looking at the historical data that regulation loosened under Bush, but the middle class fared worse. Right now, U.S. states that have pushed deregulation hard, such as those in the South, have been hit particularly hard by the recession. In the big picture, we have been cutting red tape and regulations for three decades now in America. Funny how that coincides with the bad news for the middle class."