Your turning the arguement upside down, I am argueing from a different point then you are.

well i could be wrong but from here it appears that you quoted me. So you quoted me and said don't mix economy with education.

I merely pointed out why i thought that was wrong, no one is turning anything upsidown.

Good morning, all.



Diatribe? Moi? I just defend my admittedly somewhat unpopular opinions.   



I lost that years ago. Now I am an 'Ungracefully Aging Republican".



In the "5 myths of welfare" that Dystopic cites, myth 5 is about creating public jobs, not just public handouts, which I would support. However, at the less than 5% current national unemployment, everybody that can (or wants to) work is working. So, do we need to fund a 1930s style CCC program? Maybe we do, as a way to teach job skills and help those at the bottom move up.



If there are 95 jobs. In a perfect world, a capitalistic society would create 101 jobs. Granted, the jobs at the bottom would be just oiling the machines, but they would be there.



But as long as our GNP is growing our "economic cake" is growing, too? Isn't it? Or am I missing something?

The whole argument about NAFTA centered on whether or not a growing global economy would harm or help us. I think that it is helping the world, and helping us as a side effect, but there are people who are being hurt in the process, which is unavoidable.



This argument works well with serfs, not so well with citizens. How many people do you know that are in exactly the same job (not profession - the same JOB) for twenty years?People move up the ladder as they acquire more skills and wealth. That's the point - we aren't trapped in the same jobs.



I'm not taking food out of starving kids' mouths, but that is focusing too much on the individual  

I'll say again, wealth grows. It is possible, if not desirable, to create wealth. If there is more money to go around, everyone will get some, even the poor.



In a sense, Marcus, we are all bonded labor. I'm trading my freedom for a paycheck. Does that make me an indentured servant?



You know, that's true. All of my (sometimes vehement) arguments are based on my personal experience. We really don't have a national vision of how to uplift the poor.

"Bring me your tired, your weak, your poor" is what it says on the Statue of Liberty. Well, they're here and struggling. I suppose we should figure out how to help.



Nope. My name is Igot...Igotmyne Ugetyours.



The scary thing is that the government defines need then, not the free market. That seems like a bad idea.



If what you have said earlier is true, Dystopic, half of the nation should be going down. It's not. The top half isn't stealing money from the bottom half.

Yes, most growth is taking place in the top half. And the goal, like your fence builders, is to get into the top half, not remain where you are. That's capitalism. Also, can you correlate age of worker to that chart? I would bet the average age at the bottom stays fairly young, since we all start out at the bottom.

was only punning on a cliche, didn't mean anything sincere by the statement.



well, yes and no. our GNP and GDP have increased steadily, but all that means is that people have more dollar bills. it doesn't necessarily mean they can afford more. to get a sense of that, let's compare it to the consumer price index over the last 100 or so years. i made a chart for this yesterday and posted it in another one of Marcus's forums.

GDP in 2000 dollars, 1790-2005 (thanks Wikipedia):


CPI-U in 1983 dollars, 1913-2006 (data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics):


what does this mean? well, we have more dollar bills floating around the country, but you have to use a roughly porportionate number of them to get the same things. now, notice that the sudden, radical growth in CPI figures circa 1975 don't correlate to any sudden growth in real earned income for the lower 50th percentile (in the first chart i posted). that means that a lot of people are making the same money they would have, but can afford less than in the 60s. the GDP explosion occured in the 20s or so - so comparing now to the 1890s, yes we have more and can afford more. but we've been sliding backwards since the 1970s. the CPI here isn't a perfect measure, since it incorporates some luxury items (like junk food) and some things that aren't totally necessary for everyone (such as a car), but the bigger point is that the middle percentiles have made up the difference over the last 25-30 years by relying on debt, while the lower precentiles have had to adjust their ways of living (multi-family homes, not using or owning cars, having their childen work part-time jobs after school, etc.).

what these graphs don't capture are qualitative changes to the job market. a lot of the lower-paying jobs become increasingly demeaning. i can say for certain i'd take a job in a '50s malt shop over the JambaJuice position that helped me finish college in a dead second. hell, i might even do it for 1950s wages. well, might have done it. my job now's pretty respectful of me and dignified (i'm a university administrator). there's a great book that's basically a field study of the difficulty (both economic and psychological) of trying to get by in the lowest rungs: Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich. i googled the title, and the first hit was a "google books" link, which appearantly allows you to read the whole book for free. sweet, huh?



i could provide anecdotal counter-arguments myself. for example, you say people rise in their field over age. many, if not most, do, i'm sure. but then there's my dad. he had a degree, and the best he was ever able to do was a data entry job when i was young. after he was laid off from that, he slipped into being a newspaper stand repairman, a barbeque grill assembler, and then a public park groundskeeper.

my dad's an interesting case, though. he passed away when i was 20. his marriage to my mom was, at best a bad idea, and realistically it was abusive. after she finally left him, he sank into an obvious depression. he was probably depressed before that, but it was a dull, day-to-day sort of depression. he became a ghost of a man after my mom passed away. a year or so later, her confided in me that he always believed he and my mom would grow old together, maybe finally buy a house one day. this seemed so... diluted to me. i mean, did he live in the same house i did? my mom despised him, and neither of them had ever made enough money above their credit debt to even think about owning a home. he had this dream, "The American Dream" in many ways, but it was so divorced from reality i couldn't see how he'd managed to hold on to it for so many years. he never had the drive to make any of it real; he had the heart of an artist, and when he was painting or cutting stained glass was the only time i remember him seeming truly happy.

he died of systemic organ failure due to a perforated ulser in his large instestines. he had no health insurance and had only held down sporatic temp jobs for the two years after my mom left him. he'd been taking skill-training classes at night, trying to get into a better line of work. but the truth is (my truth, anyway) he'd been dead for those several years. he'd lost the will to live. i don't think he ever wanted to work for money, but he wanted to work to support a family, in a sense to prove his love. it was a cultural ideal ingrained into him. i don't doubt he loved my mom, my brother and i, and even his ex wife and daughter. but proving that love through money is a mediated, symbolic expression. i think a lot of his depression sprang from feeling like a failed husband.

my goal wasn't to sway anyone with sentimentality, but that seems to be where this is going. when people say things like, "if you don't have the will to work, you get what you deserve," it hurts me. yes, i'm a sensitive guy, and what's wrong with that? i think about how different my father's life would have been, and mine, if he didn't have to work so hard to make ends meet, and if economic success in our culture wasn't so implicitly tied into a sense of personal pride and accomplishment.

well, that's enough for one post. there were other things i wanted to reply to, but i'm a little weary at the moment (however much i've integrated these parts of my life, it's still draining to walk through memories like that).

It's interesting how your life experiences color your world view, isn't it? It makes you wonder if we're all just arguing about our own pasts...



Good point. I wonder if there is a correllation between the decline in higher-paying manufacturing jobs, here, too.



And the incredibly low savings rate in the US coupled to the amount of credit card debt proves that.

But here's a question - the curve in GNP goes up about 1965. The matching curve in CPI goes up in the mid-70s. Is the CPI just chasing the GNP? Is the same net value of money (not actual dollars) chasing the same goods? Is there an inflationary lag period that is a natural economic factor?

Haven't read that, but I read her next one about the current job-hunt environment. It's so true it hurt.

All of the money talk aside, has anyone really ever factored in the fact that there is no amount of gold comparable to back all of the paper out there? I understand this is just being thrown in on a whim but none the less, when we are speaking about the state of our economy it would be nice to know what these paper dollars are actually based on. Sooner or later something has to give and we all know what eventually happens to a house made out of cards so...

You're always a ray of sunshine, Stormbringer...

Actually, what we are seeing around here are a high number of foreclosures on sub-par mortgages. This is about to be a national problem. What happens when people who have no-money-down mortgages and a houseful of furniture on credit go bankrupt and walk away? What happens when that bubble bursts?

And the last surviving Republicans buy the world for 10 cents on the dollar?   

Yes Oz, this is going to be a problem. My wife and I just bought our 'first home' almost two years ago and let me tell you, you would be surprised to know how many 'lenders' aren't playing on the up and up. With our credit being 'bad' we couldn't go the traditional route with a mortgage so I had to search the 'net exhaustively, probably actually talking to about 13 different lenders out of the 80 or so I tried to get a loan with. Out of those 13, only two offered me anything near what one could consider a 'traditional' mortgage. All the others had the no money down or choose your payment/defer interest type schemes. Hell, even the one I went with wasn't totally on the 'up and up' as they fudged numbers quite a bit in order to get my paperwork to go through. Now I know that I am the one who ultimately benefits from their 'deeds' but that doesn't make what they did anymore 'right'. I fortunately can (barely) afford my mortgage and don't intend to ever walk away from my home. But for every couple like my wife and myself there are probably about twenty who would do just that, walk away shrugging their shoulders saying, "well if I couldn't afford it then why did they give it to me?". The home buying experience in general was very frustrating for us, and it seemed like we were fighting 'city hall' at times with all of the 'red tape' and hoops we had to jump through. I hope I NEVER have to go through that again. Oh, and just to add, even though EVERYONE assured us what we would need at closing... we were informed two hours before the closing session that we needed to come up with another 750.00. Both of us were at work and both of us were tapped financially. Thank God I have some good hearted co-workers... and even my employer gave me an advance to cover the difference needed, otherwise our 'good faith' money would have been lost, along with the house since it was a 'one time deal'.
Let this be a lesson for any of the younger generation going out in search of their 'first home'. There are a lot of shady lenders out there who will give you anything you want without hesitation since in the end, you will be the 'loser' and they will have made what they needed to out of you.

Yup. We're in our second house and our fourth mortgage. We're pretty experienced at it now, but I have similar stories. And there are people who are walking away because they are trapped. When enough foreclosures go on the market real estate prices will go down. If real estate prices drop enough (which, historically, won't happen, but you never know...) all the people with ARMs (including me, for another 12 months or so) will get caught if they house they bought is no longer worth what they paid for. They could get trapped in an escalating mortgage with no out. If there is a recession in the next five or ten years it won't be about oil. That will be an issue, but it will be about credit, I think.

Keep your nose to the grindstone, Stormbringer. It gets better, but boy is it hard. That's what gives you gray hair and turns you Republican!

i worked in customer service at ditech.com for almost a year... that was hell (i had my intelligence insulted repeatedly, i was called a fag, i was threatened... money makes people crazy). it sounds like those loans you were talking about earlier were option ARMs or 80/20s, and yes, they're horrible loans mostly designed for credit-building or people who don't plan to hold onto a property for long.

nothing will turn me into a Republican until the party accepts that gay rights are human rights.

[quote
nothing will turn me into a Republican until the party accepts that gay rights are human rights. [/quote]

Believe me, I'm not in complete agreement with everything the party stands for and this is certainly one of those areas. I'm also pro-choice. And if they can't find a viable presidential candidate with some vision I will happily vote for Barak Obama. I'm Republican, not stupid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah - you're all reaching out to type that they are the same thing. Funny. Ha, ha.   

speak for yourself!

carreer positive jobs are mainly for people with university degrees. If your a cleaner for example, i do not see how you can 'move up the ladder'. The best you can hope for as a cleaner is that one day your boss dies and you can try for his job. Unless your boss owns the company, then your screwed because the relatives become your next boss when he dies.

You need two things to escape a dead end job - determination to do educational courses and then luck that somone will hire you based on those educational choices when you have no practical experiance and are 40 years old! Well, it's not impossible, at least not absolutely impossible.

i won't ever support a party that panders to bigotry, period. the sad thing is, a lot of the republican politicians (perhaps most) have pretty liberal views on civil liberties, but because it makes so much more sense to run on a party ticket, they can't speak out in favor of issues like this that they happen to agree with.

oh, and i wasn't insinuating you agreed with this part of their platform, but i'm certainly happy to hear it.

and i'm not that different. i'm not all that impressed with the Dems, but i usually register democrat so i can vote in the primaries. living in California, i think voting democrat is a wasted vote here, since most everyone else already votes blue and the state's 52 electoral votes all go to the democratic candidate. i voted green in 2000 (voted dem in '04 because i wasn't willing to mess around with that election). i don't think a third party has a snowflake's chance in hell, but if they can get just 5% of the popular vote, they get federal campaign funding. that i want to see, because they'll bring issues to the table both the major parties tend to side-step. still, i want to vote in the democrat primaries because i want a say in the dem's candidate. aren't American politics fun?

OK, I will.

I went to public grade and high schools. I started flipping burgers in high school.
I spent two years at a local state university until I just couldn't do it any more. I am actually 3 courses short of an associate's degree and I haven't been able to force myself back to school.

I've been in foodservice my whole life (want fries with that?). I've learned everything I could on the job and worked my way up. Now, 24 years later, I am the director of dining services for a large senior community and it pays pretty good.

No breaks. No favors. I clawed my way up. If I can do it, and do it in foodservice when anybody can flip a burger, anybody can.

My kids tease me about my career and I don't blame them. I hope they choose something more lucrative. But I have had a pretty good time, I've got great stories, and like Frank said "I did it my way". Nothing wrong with that.



Nope. Not for me.



Again, nope. But my resume is 4 pages long. I've worked everywhere going from opportunity to opportunity. And I've worked long, hard hours. But it payed off.

Our money has value for one pure reason.

The government says it does and backs it up with current GDP and GNP figures.



The government already defines it, maybe not to an extreme, but its definetely there.



There is a small decline, but thats becuase people arent completely out of the automotive age and into the computer one.

So in escence people look for jobs in the wrong place.



Credit card companies are what I like to call the ultimate loophole. Their entire contract is compeletly flexible. They reserve the right to change any rate or due date for any reason whatsoever and you wont be able to do anything about it.

Whats worse the government denies it.



If there is money to go arround then inflation will surely follow.



The Statue represented a different age. An age where America was the destination of th world and even those ousted by other countries could make it big.

It was a symbol, nothing more.



True statistics.

A student that is graduating in 2007 will go through 14 jobs and five different careers.

One thing that worries most is how we are supposed to prepare students for five different careers.



I said dont mix education and economy. As in education effectes economy, but economy doesnt dictate education.

Now as to the election, I think it will be a HUGE breaking point and shifting point. Not so much about which candidate wins, for I am sure eithe will be used as the pawns of Congress, but which party wins. None of the candidates presented, especially on the Republican side, are all that promising.

In a sort of related statement. I was watching the Daily Show yesterday and one of the 'reporters' went up to a Republican presidential candidate and asked "On a scale of one to ten how would you rate yourself in public speaking?"

He answered, "I am pretty good at it".

Agreed. If someone has the courage to say what they think instead of what is expected I'll support them in 2008. Otherwise, Obama here I come.



I voted Libertarian in the last state election for exactly the same reason.



It beats watching "Dancing With The Stars"!

in reply to Oz the Great and Powerful,,

you make fair comment, and i will conceede that my post was a little narrow but still true for many people as is your post.



Well then you should say what you mean! hehehe lol.

I know it was confusing, for that I apologize.

This came to me while I was walking the dogs -



Mystik, the way you phrase this make me think that you are not in the US. I would say "college degree". Is that true? If so, you may not feel that you have the same oppotunities that I do, because you may be in a country that has more socialistic policies. That is very pertinent to this discussion. I feel that I can be whatever I want, at the risk of complete failure. You may not have such a risk, but may have limited options.

Or I might be wrong. Would you like to speak to that issue?

Nope. Actually, we agree to pretend it does. Modern "money" has no real value. For an example, look at the German economy after WW1.



The government doesn't define medical need, but it does mandate medical care to everyone, even those who can't pay. One of the reasons hospitals charge $5 for a Tylenol is to cover the non-reimbursable care they have to provide. In a sense, we have universal health care now.



Inflation isn't neccessarily bad. It is a natural consequence of capitalism. Excessive inflation is bad.



I refuse to believe this. I want to believe that the US is defined by its ideals, its desire to be "good", and to be a beacon to the world. That can be a problem when we do things like try to rebuild Iraq, but I think we are always questioning, always trying to do what we think to be "right".

I'm sure Marcus will have a field day with that...



Often, it doesn't prepare anybody for one career. There are plenty of stories of people graduating college with a major in ceramics and a minor in comparative religion and $65,000 in student loans who wind up working at Starbucks. I'm not sure our current college system is really doing anything other than making money for the colleges.

Sadly, it is a faiding dream, the US is going into an isolationist recesion as more of the Democrats and Moderats cry out for social and moral reforms. Frankly these troubled times have made quite a lot of people relise we have been living with the illusion that everything is perfect.

Plus with our diplomatic standing shot for decades to come I dont think we will be well respected for a while.

Still there is hope, France just had a presidential election and the new president is pro-american.


It matters on the individual, but it is true. Colleges are becoming more like a bussiness, running their own commercials and advetisements and trying to convince students that their college will give them the true "American College Experience".

In the end I think more and more students go to college to feel independent and free rather then for earning a better job.

However, we do still have the best colleges in the world. Not overall, but by individual ranking almost all of the twenty top colleges are here in the US or the UK.


In economic terms the money has value, in real terms its just paper. Well actual not paper, more like cloth.

One of the problems with the current Iraq debate in America is that, I am afraid, anything we do will drive us to be more isolationist. If we pull out it is very easy to turtle up. If we stay the consequences could be used as a reason to never get involved overseas again. And in the time it takes us to learn the lessons we should have learned after the world wars Al Qaeda will blow up something else.



If my kids want to feel independent and free I will encourage them to get a job and get out of my house. Then I can go to their houses and sit on their couches and eat their snacks...oh, what a dream...

I am in Australia. My story is common for allot of people... be a complete f--k up at school, then grow up and realise your past youthful lifestyle has left you with grades so low that you have to work at Mc donalds while having the intelligence of somone who should be working at NASA!