Can The Middle-Class Be Rebuilt?

This discussion talks about how things like Government policy, over-valuation of the dollar etc. over the past 30 years have contributed to the lowered-wages and standard of living of the United States' middle-class. With foreign-made resources available for cheaper (Steel, Automobiles, etc.), the wages for middle-class jobs in the US have decreased.

It's interesting however, that changing policy to give the middle-class higher wages etc. would result in the lowering of wages for highly-educated professionals. But this would also mean that services that these people provide would be at a lower cost as well (health-care etc.)

I also found the statistics on name-brand medication vs. generic to be completely baffling. Without the USA's excessive patent laws, we could be spending 1/10th what we normally do on our prescription drugs. All these patents do is to increase big-pharma's profits, which in turn makes the top-employees of the company wealthier. It's not like they are letting their middle-class workers who manufacture these medications have access to the insane profits they're making from charging outlandish fees for highly necessary medication.

Being that the health of those in the middle to lower-classes is not as good as those in the upper class and beyond (i.e. lower class tends to smoke more, has very poor dieting habits), and that the middle and lower classes make up a much larger population than the upper-classes, shows how a huge portion of the United States' population could benefit from getting prescription drugs for cheaper.