Something to wrap your brain around

[GG]

Found this on Fark tonight. Since it is not copy righted I'm posting the entire thing. It really gives you something to think about.

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4633850
   

Cut and pasted from some other farker a year or two ago. If this is yours, you deserve credit. By the way, it's long:

"....that labour spent the first half of the nineteenth century learning the rules of the capitalist game and the second half applying them, then the first half of the twentieth century saw the apparently irresistible triumph of labour, and the second half its eclipse and fall - or almost."
--Eric Hobsbawm


60 years ago an entire generation of working class men returned from the most traumatizing conflict in human history and practically demanded a better life for themselves and their children. They felt they had earned it. The political and economic nerves of our society could not agree more. This generation, they felt, which had endured nothing but turmoil, hardship, poverty, economic ruin and the horrors of mass-mechanized war, had deserved to live the rest of their lives in comfort and stability.

So the war generation moved to the peace and quiet of suburban housing divisions around the cities. Everything the war generation asked for, they got. They wanted nothing like the Great Depression to ever happen again. An international system called the Bretton Woods was set up to safeguard this. They wanted affordable housing. They got it. They wanted stable incomes, with stable companies that valued their position, their work and their contribution. They got it. They even wanted their children to be smarter and better educated than they were--they wanted to send them all to college. From a generation where most did not have much beyond a grade 8 education, this was unheard of. Yet they got it. Most of the Universities, in fact, were brand new at the time, and needed to fill their halls with students. They would take anyone who applied.

All the concessions delivered to the average joe gave strength to a burgeoning new population demographic: the middle class.

The children of the middle class--the boomers--ended up becoming the whiniest, most spoiled, most self-absorbed generation on the face of the earth, because they grew up in this post-war period where everything was literally given to them on a silver platter. Life, they were constantly told, was going to be different. It was going to be better from then on. And they were the chosen generation, growing up with this sense of entitlement.

Most economists pinpoint the exact year when things began to change to be 1973--also known as the year when the middle class was the largest, and had the most power. Many things happened that year all at once that shook world economies and society in general, which had been relatively firm and stable since the Second World War, including:

1) The dissolution of the Bretton Woods financial contract
2) The removal of the Gold Standard in the World Bank (actually 1971)
3) OPEC flexes its muscle
4) The number of union workers reached its peak, and has been steadily declining ever since
5) Women's Liberation Movement was at its height. Title IX enacted (actually 1972)
6) Leo Strauss died

A lot of these things actually freed up corporations and made global trade more laissez-faire, which is what they wanted. The war generation desired world economic policy that deliberately prevented Depressions, so it was relatively benign, safe, and steady (and crash-proof)....forever moving slowly forward, with everyone on board. Like a bus. But 1973 is heralded as the year that Boomers suddenly started moving into positions in power en masse, and a revolution in economic thinking occurred: to them, global markets should move faster and quicker, like a race car.

Economic inertia is akin to a big hulking ocean liner, not a speedboat. Just as a big boat takes several miles and hours to turn on the high seas, when a gigantic change is made, it often takes years to manifest. Such it was that the world-sweeping policies in 1973 really started coming into play in the 80s, where it started behaving exactly like it was up until the 30s: big gains, but also big lows. Dow jumping and falling hundreds of points all the time (something that wasn't really a regular occurance until Reagan took office).

The Women's Liberation movement probably had the largest effect in the early 70s. Boomer women were the first generation that not only wanted to work the same jobs and positions as men, but felt they deserved equal pay and power for it as well. Suddenly, a whole generation of families had instantly doubled their income! When such a radical revolution occurs in an economic system, it immediately tries to right itself to cope with the influx of new capital, beginning with the first and most expensive commodity humans can buy, which sets the standard for every other purchasable thing on the planet: real estate. In the span of 18 months, houses tripled in value. This resulted in MASSIVE inflation.

1973 changed everything, though no one really noticed for several years. The 80s is when people started noticing that the middle class was shrinking, unions were evaporating and corporations were making more money than ever. Because the new school of boomer companies realized that the true secret to riches wasn't steady, productive growth like their parents corporations of the 50s and 60s, but rapid, massive growth very quickly. The way to do this, of course, is via venture capital and the stock market. But it wasn't foolproof. The Savings & Loan scandal, the crash of 87, and the cutthroat acquisition, merging and selling of companies popularized in films like Wall Street highlighted the decade's economic excess. A lot of people at the top made a lot of money really quickly, but as any economics 101 student can tell you, that means a lot more people at the bottom lost a lot of money as well.

The mid-90s tech-boom carried this new math to logical extremes. Companies moved so fast, they were not stable (and not intended to be). Rather than settling down and consolidating their gains, corporations used their income to create more companies. A lot of them were created, made money, and dissolved in a matter of months when funding ceased. Whole divisions and departments of corporations were created to service specific tasks, and then discontinued and dissolved as soon as they outgrew their usefulness.

This makes sense from a corporate standpoint, and is all well and good in the name of business to maximize profit. But think of the people employed by these "flash companies". When a job of that nature is so uncertain.....how can you even plan for yourself, much less your future or your family's future.

In addition to that is the magical world of outsourcing. America used to be one of the industrial and manufacturing giants of the world. Then in the 70s and 80s, manufacturers moved their jobs overseas. Phil Knight even told Michael Moore one time that the reason why he didn't have any Nike factories in America is because Americans aren't interested in making shoes.

But maybe he's right. Maybe that kind of work is beneath the average American. That they are too good for that. America doesn't want to be a manufacturing-based economy anymore. No, it wants to be a SERVICE-based economy. So all the Americans who previously filled up manufacturing employment stats then started filling up service employment stats.

Now America is outsourcing its service sector jobs overseas. Why? Because Americans don't want to serve people. That's for immigrants and poor people. Americans are much better than that.

No, what America wants to be instead now is a management-based economy. Yes. A whole country of people who's sole purpose is to telling other people what to do. Like, well......like Americans. Americans don't want to work, they want to run, own, operate and control companies that make other people work. Like Gekko said: I create nothing. I own.

A person with an MBA who goes from a $40,000 Marketing Supervisor to a $18,000 short-order cook is still counted as gainfully employed, but is it actually better for the economy? Do you think they're going to lower their standard of living and stop buying $7 coffee at their bohemian coffee house because they can't afford it? ......to today's consumer, not being able to afford something is not the same as not deserving that lifestyle.

So in effect, all the concessions given to the war generation to live comfortably were taken away from them when they died. The pendulum took a hard swing to the left after the war, as an apology to the generation that had to live through it and the Depression, and since 1973 has been swinging back to the right. Today, what do we have?

Double-income families that can't seem to make ends meet.

College tuitions that no one but the privileged can afford. Students in debt are practically indentured servants for several years, paying off a degree that guarantees them no job. Working class families can barely afford them.

As a result of the above: graduate students working minimum wage.

A public education system that is currently #18 in the world, with horrid reading and mathematics levels, understaffed, underfunded, and not preparing students for their futures.

Because of the failure of the above, the rise of private schooling and homeschooling for the privileged.

Criminal imprisonment of an entire class of people who hurt no one but themselves.

Healthcare no one but the privileged can afford.

The most inequitable distribution of affluence and the flaunting of this inequitable distribution of affluence (thanks to media) in human history.

I don't know about you, but I don't know a single person under 30 who reasonably expects to collect social security.

Companies that hire you for so long as is needed, and then discard you. Contract and temporary employment is cheaper than full-time. No one can gain a line of credit, because there are no stable jobs that last more than a year or so before they're moved, changed, dropped, outsourced or laid off.

A system of employment that favours quotas, equalization, parity, and maximizing stock dividends rather than actually hiring competent people to put out a decent product that people will buy.

Unions that--while once championing the power of labour and the spirit of the people--are now shunned, ostracised, spit on, and betrayed by their fellow workers.

A middle class that is being squeezed by the government and corporations alike, sponsoring a trend that, in 100 years, should see the annihilation of middle America altogether.

Credit card companies so voracious that they occasionally hand out cards to pets and children. People, incapable of saying no to credit they are awarded but don't actually have, are racking up record amounts of consumer debt and have resorted to begging for money on the internet to finance their habit.

You can probably think of many more.
   

[buckeye]

Yeah, reads like something from Fark alright...

[DolfanBob]

I'm going to send that to every Red White and Blue bleeding person I know that wants to live in denial of what has happened to us, the once great U.S.A.
And before the piling on starts. No I do not know of, or have a solution to how to change it.
I had to get a job out of High School and did not get the opportunity to a higher education.
Two jobs and five kids didnt lend to my Father being able to afford it. And I have no ill will because of it.
But I can tell when something is broke and needs to be fixed.
This has nothing to do with where it was posted.
It has to do with the truth.
Dont feel bad, If I had the six figure job, RV, Lake house, World travels, N.Y. operas, Two BMWs, six car garage and soft hands.
Id talk about the peasants wants and needs the same way.

[Red Arrow]

Dont feel bad, If I had the six figure job, RV, Lake house, World travels, N.Y. operas, Two BMWs, six car garage and soft hands.
Id talk about the peasants wants and needs the same way.

When you get the 7 or 8 figure income you can go back to having sympathy for the less fortunate.  You will have enough extra money to organize and legislate that those with 5 or 6 figure incomes actually do something about poverty etc.

[DolfanBob]

When you get the 7 or 8 figure income you can go back to having sympathy for the less fortunate.  You will have enough extra money to organize and legislate that those with 5 or 6 figure incomes actually do something about poverty etc.

You are so right Arrow. What was I thinking.
Even the Clampettes would be poor by todays standards.
I shot way to low on that one. Thanks.

[RecycleMichael]

I have a seven figure income. Unfortunately, there is a decimal point involved.

[cannon_fodder]

Alright, this begging a response, so lets go.  Sorry for the novel:

They demanded cheap homes.  And they got them. The efficient central city was abandoned and allowed to rot in favor of vanilla, cheap suburban sprawl.  Road mileage was ever increasing, more fire departments and police were needed, commute times soared, sewer systems and utilities were run, new bridges were built and white flight reintroduced segregation to America.  The movement of the middle class white people to the suburbs spawned shopping malls, killing classic downtown districts and eventually weeding out most mom-and-pop stores in favor of chains.   The reduction in density saw a greater need for cars, the two family car (or three, or four) which in turn created a need for more roads, highways, and a higher consumption of gasoline.  Since everyone had cars, who needs efficient mass transit?   

Surely it didn't contribute at all to the whole OPEC thing, pollution, or a reliance on one type of energy the author goes on to complain about?  I bet the American family doesn't even miss the extra 4 or 5 hours a week with their parents eaten by commute times.  And no way a 3500 Sq foot house has something to do with the need for two bread winners (actually, the "average" new home size is only 2500).

They wanted "stable companies" with high paying jobs.  So they flocked to unions in the automotive industries, steel companies, coal mines, railroads, and those new airlines.  Of course, they then demanded such high wages that those industries have all faltered.  The industries that served as the life-blood of America gave lucrative union contracts promising everything the workers wanted.  It was paradise . . . until the golden geese started dying off.  Now current workers are being laid off in droves to pay for the promises the "stable" companies could never keep.  The most unionized section of the economy now is government workers.  What does that say? 

Even the teachers unions gain a lot of traction and saw soaring membership.  With such a high union rate for teachers (government employees) you'd think they could keep the system on track.  We spend MORE per pupil now (inflation adjusted) than we ever have but produce results that are not on par with the rest of the world.  Strange, I thought more union teachers + more money would definitely mean better education.

And we sent every dolt who could apply to college nearly for free.  They got their education, as much as they wanted, and marched off into the workforce.  Then again, today damn near anyone can get as much education as they want to.  If you are in Tulsa you get Pre-K to 12 for free.  You can then go to TCC for two years, also basically for free.  Then transfer to OSU/OU/Rogers State/NSU for ~ $5,000 a year.  Add grants, scholarships, and other items to it and you can get a Bachelors degree for under $10,000 in Tulsa.  You are GUARANTEED low interest student loans for that amount (currently at 2.5%, over 10 years =  $100 a month.  A cable or cell phone bill).  I'd venture to say everyone can afford to go to college if they want to.

And they graduate and can't find jobs?  No kidding?  I have friends who majored in English Lit. but didn't want to teach or write.  People who got a degree in Asian Philosophy or the History of Art.   And good luck with African American Studies.  If you go to college for the sake of learning, then be happy you learned.  If you want to get a job when you graduate find a major that will help accomplish that goal (Engineers are guaranteed a job, accountants are always needed, computer programming is strong, teachers have a strong union). 

But then they enter a workforce that is devoid of manufacturing jobs, right?  Our manufacturing base has decreased in this country and all moved overseas.  Well, actually, that's not entirely true.  The manufacturing output of the United States is higher today than it was in the 1970 (or the 1990's for that matter).  The laborer positions have been reduced as it became cheaper to have a machine put the bolts on tractor tires instead of paying a AFL-CIO member $75,000 a year to do it (ask John Deere) and yes, some positions have moved to other countries.  But the engineering, machine maintenance, programming and other positions have grown.  A Mexican laborer can build a car nearly as well as an American for 1/5th the cost, and when it comes down to it the American he intends to sell it to is happy to save the $1500 per car.

In fact, Americans are happy to save money on all their products.  Blame CEOs and management if you want.  But they don't represent the majority of consumers.  If America can't do it better, more convenient, faster, or cheaper – then I'll buy the foreign made product, and so will 95% of Americans (regardless of what they say the sales #s don't lie).  And why shouldn't they? 

As a society we consumer far, FAR more today than we did in the 1950's or 1970's.  Multiple color TVs with cable or satellite, multiple telephones and even cell phones,  recreational vehicles (RVs, boats, jet skis), ipods, video games . . . more CRAP than we ever had before.  If you don't have a car, a color TV, and a cell phone your poor.  How can we afford this crap?  Well, in part we can't.  But in part it's because of international trade.  It simply doesn't make sense for an over educated American to demand $50,000 a year to do a task some guy in Vietnam will be happy to do for $500.   The system produces MORE for less.  The American  that's out the skill less manufacturing job is now free to occupy a position requiring more skill or that cannot be exported – thus enabling both countries to produce more (trade 101 says both parties end up ahead).  If we all "bought American" we could only consume a small fraction of what we do today and couldn't possible fill all the skilled positions we demand and the rest of the world demand we export.

But it doesn't matter anyway, because the poor SOB is going to DIE because he has no health care.  Never mind the fact that health insurance rates  in 1973 were lower than they are today, or that the life expectances has rose, or that the standard of care has increased (or that healthcare expense grew along with insurance availability and governmental interference).  Sure they'll live longer, healthier lives, but that's not relevant here.  What's important is that the standard of living has tanked!

Well, of course that's not entire true if you actually measure it.  It is true that the poverty rate has jumped from 11.1% in 1973 to an amazing 12.5% last year.  Granted those same "poor" have more things and are healthier, but that's only true because we have sacrificed our women to the workforce!

Those bastards.  It used to be a family could have a few kids in public schools, drive one car, live in a 1200 sq. ft. house, listen to the game on the family radio, and drive to Arkansas for vacation every summer on one income.  Today we struggle to make ends meet with 2 kids, soccer, tennis, and violin lessons,  a few cars, a jet boat, a few color TVs with cable, a gaggle of internet ready cell phones, a 3500 sq ft house and a family jet trip to go skiing in Tahoe each winter and a simple Disney cruise in the summer.  Even with two incomes.

Which is surprising.  Because women make nearly 50% more (when compared to male associated incomes) than they did in the 1970s.  You'd think they could make it work.  It must be the decline in our currency from the World Bank abandoning the Gold Standard (never mind the fact the World Bank is not a fiat currency and the US had long ago drop any real reliance on the Gold Standard). 

You know what we need?  More government.  While it is true that since 1973 we have increased spending many fold on existing and new programs, even when measured as a % of GDP.  And yeah our governmental spending as percent of GDP is way up.  So is our national debt.  Yeah that author  seems to say things have been going to hell even as government has grown . . . but we just need more.

Actually, you know what?  Maybe the problem is the rest of the world is catching up.  While we have a rising standard of living, more stuff than ever before, manufacture more goods and educated more people to a higher level . . . the rest of the world is catching up.  Isn't it possible that we ARE better off, but the Jones aren't as hard up as they once were?  The American middle class used to be RICH compared to every European.  Now the American is only "well off" compared to Europeans (and very well may trade "well off" for European average and 5 weeks of vacation with free healthcare).

I'm not saying I disagree with the ramble, or that everything is damn fine.   I'm not blaming the unions, I'm not pointing a boney finger at management.  But the doom and gloom crap is old news.  Americans live largely charmed lives as they stretch their means to live in ever greater luxury.  If you want the older simple life, then downsize your house, cancel cable, take a different job and lower your expectations.  Europeans don't have half the  STUFF we have.   If you want to beat the Joneses, have a BMW in the garage, and live in a mega sized house . . . then **** and get back to work.

XoXo,

c_f

[Red Arrow]

I have a seven figure income. Unfortunately, there is a decimal point involved.

No fair...you stole my joke.