The Future of Unions

[TheNomad]

I was working as a teen at the tail end of unions in America.  At that time, I was making hourly what would take the rest of the nation until the mid 00s to catch up with in terms of MINIMUM WAGE.

So, for the older people here, what is the future of unions?

Are they going to return with a vengeance?  It seems maybe.  Since we know these cycles run on reaction to previous circumstances.  And people now are tired of the CEO making millions while they do all the heavy lifting for corn and wheat.

[pbrower2a]

(09-08-2018, 04:12 PM)TheNomad Wrote: I was working as a teen at the tail end of unions in America.  At that time, I was making hourly what would take the rest of the nation until the mid 00s to catch up with in terms of MINIMUM WAGE.

So, for the older people here, what is the future of unions?

Are they going to return with a vengeance?  It seems maybe.  Since we know these cycles run on reaction to previous circumstances.  And people now are tired of the CEO making millions while they do all the heavy lifting for corn and wheat.

If the Hard Right gets its way, the only permitted unions will be company unions -- the sorts of unions that fleece workers and urge them to work harder and make great sacrifices for ownership and management so that they can deserve more and be able to plead for charitable people by people who have no charity.

The ruling elite of the USA wants the sort of inequality associated with high productivity -- people working to exhaustion for starvation wages, just as in a fascist regime. Basically the Gilded Age plutocracy has met the heritage of the planter class and the pair movers in political lockstep now. This is a nightmare.

I wish that I could expect better, but these people will arrange an economic crash the next time that we have a liberal government so that they can come back even more firmly, kill democracy, and make America the sort of country that people want to leave.

I hope for better, but that is the sort of hope that one makes when buying a lottery ticket. Maybe I am in a blue mood, as I have lost all faith in anything ever going well for me again. I am in a community that I despise and willl probably be stuck in for the rest of my life. I have outgrown in every aspect except finances -- and money is everything and people are nothing in Trump's America.

[TheNomad]

(09-08-2018, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 04:12 PM)TheNomad Wrote: I was working as a teen at the tail end of unions in America.  At that time, I was making hourly what would take the rest of the nation until the mid 00s to catch up with in terms of MINIMUM WAGE.

So, for the older people here, what is the future of unions?

Are they going to return with a vengeance?  It seems maybe.  Since we know these cycles run on reaction to previous circumstances.  And people now are tired of the CEO making millions while they do all the heavy lifting for corn and wheat.

If the Hard Right gets its way, the only permitted unions will be company unions -- the sorts of unions that fleece workers and urge them to work harder and make great sacrifices for ownership and management so that they can deserve more and be able to plead for charitable people by people who have no charity.

The ruling elite of the USA wants the sort of inequality associated with high productivity -- people working to exhaustion for starvation wages, just as in a fascist regime. Basically the Gilded Age plutocracy has met the heritage of the planter class and the pair movers in political lockstep now. This is a nightmare.

I wish that I could expect better, but these people will arrange an economic crash the next time that we have a liberal government so that they can come back even more firmly, kill democracy, and make America the sort of country that people want to leave.

I hope for better, but that is the sort of hope that one makes when buying a lottery ticket. Maybe I am in a blue mood, as I have lost all faith in anything ever going well for me again. I am in a community that I despise and willl probably be stuck in for the rest of my life. I have outgrown in every aspect except finances -- and money is everything and people are nothing in Trump's America.

What you say here on a personal level is shocking and I identify and know others of the same.  It's awful, seriously I feel for all of us.

The slaveship of fascisim is something I have been talking about, it seems apparent now there might finally be a realization. 

In this moment, I have to call 2018 a mega turning point in general.  Fakebook is finally being vilified, google is no longer so welcome in the elite, it seems like "pillars" of the last maybe decade or two are really being tested by backlash.  And we're seeing as much frustration with our rulers as we have in a long time.

I read today about youtube stars who struggle.  I never could understand how any of them thought they could make a living doing anything like that.  The story was about "The Algorithm" the entity that controls who sees what based on code (*wanks*) some youtubers even spoke of youtube as their EMPLOYER! 

I was stunned.  Complaints they are not being properly subsidized and "The Algorithm" is design to keep people posting material morning to night OR their get followers and traffic dropped.  Really?  Did someone expect something else?

The tech giants are the PRODUCT - full manifestation - of the WWII/GD backlash and reforms when we aggressively chose capitalism over socialism.

Google is ONLY a natural product of a company that would use every advance in a new technology and process to SELL 411 to anyone, to DEAL that 411 in any situation, to SELL OUT to militarism if their maps helped, WITHOUT BORDERS as it seeks to embed in every platform on Earth, and WITHOUT ALLEGIANCE (this may be the most important).  The last 4th Turning brought to us a BORDERLESS WORLD which ultimately leads to deletion of allegiance.  We no longer expect corporations to want to help any specific peoples. 

But I do not think there will be a return to feudalism just yet.  For some reason I have a real belief outside of patriotism that America will manage this and forge something better.  Remember, when the reforms of the last Turning happened, they worked well for A LOT of people for a while.  They only crumbled later. 

I believe our integrity is still intact, and that we have not yet surrendered entirely our American way of life of wanting independence and justice without compromising the larger things.  I don't think this is the end.

[pbrower2a]

(09-08-2018, 08:04 PM)TheNomad Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 04:12 PM)TheNomad Wrote: I was working as a teen at the tail end of unions in America.  At that time, I was making hourly what would take the rest of the nation until the mid 00s to catch up with in terms of MINIMUM WAGE.

So, for the older people here, what is the future of unions?

Are they going to return with a vengeance?  It seems maybe.  Since we know these cycles run on reaction to previous circumstances.  And people now are tired of the CEO making millions while they do all the heavy lifting for corn and wheat.

If the Hard Right gets its way, the only permitted unions will be company unions -- the sorts of unions that fleece workers and urge them to work harder and make great sacrifices for ownership and management so that they can deserve more and be able to plead for charitable people by people who have no charity.

The ruling elite of the USA wants the sort of inequality associated with high productivity -- people working to exhaustion for starvation wages, just as in a fascist regime. Basically the Gilded Age plutocracy has met the heritage of the planter class and the pair movers in political lockstep now. This is a nightmare.

I wish that I could expect better, but these people will arrange an economic crash the next time that we have a liberal government so that they can come back even more firmly, kill democracy, and make America the sort of country that people want to leave.

I hope for better, but that is the sort of hope that one makes when buying a lottery ticket. Maybe I am in a blue mood, as I have lost all faith in anything ever going well for me again. I am in a community that I despise and willl probably be stuck in for the rest of my life. I have outgrown in every aspect except finances -- and money is everything and people are nothing in Trump's America.

What you say here on a personal level is shocking and I identify and know others of the same.  It's awful, seriously I feel for all of us.

I recognize that I am not alone. My health is good for my age, and I have even shed about forty pounds over two years. Thank you for your expression of sympathy, but I need some mercy from the economic system that has shafted me badly. Nothing could ever prepare me for an economic order in which nothing matters except that the 'Right people' get whatever they want irrespective of the suffering that such entails except to have had everything go right for me by chance. 

This Crisis may resolve itself with some 21st-centiry equivalent of the guillotine. It's easy to make a 'little list'.

Quote:The slave-ship of fascism is something I have been talking about, it seems apparent now there might finally be a realization. 

It won't quite be slavery; it will most likely be debt-bondage. But going heavily into debt just to get a job could be a norm. I can imagine the creditors getting their hooks in people and taking away such freedom as people used to have in the enforcement of contractual terms. It will allegedly be voluntary -- do this or starve.

People who run off? The technology will be far more effective than the bloodhounds that chased Eliza in Uncle Tom'[s Cabin. Think of the laborer's position in Nazi Germany, infamous for far worse than the position of workers with respect to employers; workers could not change employers without the consent of the employer, and any worker who fell short of the employer's demands could be shipped off to some corrective labor camp. Ne thankful, one is told, that worse things that you see happening to others aren't happening to you. I see our economic elites -- owners and the executive elites --- no better than their counterparts in Germany around 1930 who found Hitler the means of achieving their economic desires for cheap, cowed labor and monopolized pricing. Trump may not be Hitler; he lacks the political savvy of that horrible man. Who knows? We might 'only' get a Pinochet. 

Quote:In this moment, I have to call 2018 a mega turning point in general.  Fakebook is finally being vilified, google is no longer so welcome in the elite, it seems like "pillars" of the last maybe decade or two are really being tested by backlash.  And we're seeing as much frustration with our rulers as we have in a long time.

Oh, do I hope that such is so with political reality again going sane and humane. As it is. my best hope is to marry some rich widow.

Quote:I read today about youtube stars who struggle.  I never could understand how any of them thought they could make a living doing anything like that.  The story was about "The Algorithm" the entity that controls who sees what based on code (*wanks*) some youtubers even spoke of youtube as their EMPLOYER! 

I had no idea of how people make money off YouTube. I consider it a volunteer activity, although people might solicit funds through Patreon (which allows people to get donations to support them). There are concert previews that encourage people to sign up for a subscription service.

Quote:I was stunned.  Complaints they are not being properly subsidized and "The Algorithm" is design to keep people posting material morning to night OR their get followers and traffic dropped.  Really?  Did someone expect something else?

The tech giants are the PRODUCT - full manifestation - of the WWII/GD backlash and reforms when we aggressively chose capitalism over socialism.

I do not know how to download a video onto YouTube, but I don't have any material to download/ Maybe I could use a camcorder to follow my trip on some rural expressway -- as if anyone wants to pay real money to see the scenery on the Ohio Turnpike.

Quote:Google is ONLY a natural product of a company that would use every advance in a new technology and process to SELL 411 to anyone, to DEAL that 411 in any situation, to SELL OUT to militarism if their maps helped, WITHOUT BORDERS as it seeks to embed in every platform on Earth, and WITHOUT ALLEGIANCE (this may be the most important).  The last 4th Turning brought to us a BORDERLESS WORLD which ultimately leads to deletion of allegiance.  We no longer expect corporations to want to help any specific peoples. 

It might not even be a choice. If the 'slave-ship of fascism' sets sail, then the slavers might find ways to look to Google to find out who is the potential resistance. We might 'only' get a Pinochet, but he murdered any potential opposition, too.

Quote:But I do not think there will be a return to feudalism just yet.  For some reason I have a real belief outside of patriotism that America will manage this and forge something better.  Remember, when the reforms of the last Turning happened, they worked well for A LOT of people for a while.  They only crumbled later.

This 4T, in contrast to the last one, is mild economically but a disaster in politics -- so far. I'd rather have the 1930s economy and political reforms than what we have. We may be losing our political freedoms in return for vague promises of prosperity that we can never achieve. We are at or near peak manufacturing in the First World because we need little new stuff. It's down to replacement (mostly of obsolete stuff). How many televisions, sofas, refrigerators, and cars do any of us really need?

Quote:I believe our integrity is still intact, and that we have not yet surrendered entirely our American way of life of wanting independence and justice without compromising the larger things.  I don't think this is the end.

The widespread contempt that Donald Trump gets offers some hope. The problem is that ruthless people know the seams in our systemand have every desire to exploit them again oce the opportunity returns.Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were portents of the trend toward tyranny.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin with a different concern than 'temporary safety'...

Those who would surrender their essential liberties for a promise of economic growth will lose their liberty and get no economic growth. As I see it the worst slum in Calcutta in a democratic India is preferable to a torture chamber in San Francisco (a city that I love
but expect to never return, instead getting to live in a community that is nothing more than preparation for a nursing home .

[TheNomad]

You speak of the slaveship of fascism as if in a possible future.  You said

We are at or near peak manufacturing in the First World because we need little new stuff. It's down to replacement (mostly of obsolete stuff). How many televisions, sofas, refrigerators, and cars do any of us really need?

Since the last Turning, America has been being groomed for the fascist slaveship... CONSUMPTION is the type of fascist we have become.  CONSUMERS.  As you say, when it runs out, when we can't reasonable consumer anything really further to RAMP an economy, we can't continue.

It began with the TV and the suburban automobile, children's toys, kitchen gadgets........ all of those things are from the 1950s origin.  The FRUIT of the last Turning reforms.  I say we have been living fascism for quite some time now.  Only, it is stopping to work.  We are slowing because we can no longer consume reasonable.  The cellphone may have been the very last large consumer product to which we could be sold never-ending upgrades, etc.  The IDEA of the phone.  Yes, electronics will always be that.  But the gadget-in-hand was the last.  Everything is changing now.

THE WORLD is actually within this fascist plot.  The whole world is a piece of the fascism.  Where are the consumers?  The manufacturers?  The sellers?  The distributors, etc.  I think any reasonable person understands such a system cannot last.  It simply cannot for the reason you said.  But we go into it.  I wonder if next turning will be isolation in response to previous attempts at high globalization ideas.  I hope so.  Those who speak as if things have no borders, boundaries or edges, they scare me.

[pbrower2a]

(09-09-2018, 12:02 AM)TheNomad Wrote: You speak of the slaveship of fascism as if in a possible future.  You said

We are at or near peak manufacturing in the First World because we need little new stuff. It's down to replacement (mostly of obsolete stuff). How many televisions, sofas, refrigerators, and cars do any of us really need?

I referred not so much to the political order as to the end of the economic paradigm in which we have been in since about 1900 in which people are motivated to work because they need or are convinced that they need new, costly manufactured stuff. When few people still have that stuff, capitalism can thrive by producing it and selling it to the proletariat. Capitalism saved itself at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution by turning destitute toilers into reliable consumers. In essence, Henry Ford expected those who made his cars to buy cars that Ford Motor Company made. OK, buy household furniture, refrigerators, stoves, good clothes, the electronic marvels of the time, and the power and other services necessary for working them. Above all -- nicer housing than the rural hovel or the firetrap slum. Such was expected of other workers -- that those who worked for General Electric to supply washing machines and phonographs or radios would themselves buy the sorts of things that Ford wanted his employees to buy. Consumerism saved capitalism from what Marxism-Leninism saw as the inevitable revolution. The technology and the objects have improved; a Model-T Ford would not be suitable for driving on current roads because it is unsafe and under-powered, and we have computers and not the wind-up gramophone with horn.

Now what happens? The plutocrats seems to solve their problem by cutting real wages. Get people to pay more for what they have, and all is well for the elites. It could be that as much as 50% of income goes to property rents in some places, rents that someone like Donald Trump exacts from people supposedly fortunate to live in high-cost places because that is where they must live just to be in the places where pay is really good. Nut that is not progress. Most people recognize an innovative entrepreneur as a sort of hero, but not a monopolistic gouger who simply gets as much out of a customer as possible for as little as possible. Capitalism itself is going into a crisis.

Work harder, pay more, and get less while rentier elites live like feudal lords. That is a raw deal, and it will destabilize a political order that recently operated on principles more humane.  

Quote:Since the last Turning, America has been being groomed for the fascist slaveship... CONSUMPTION is the type of fascist we have become.  CONSUMERS.  As you say, when it runs out, when we can't reasonable consumer anything really further to RAMP an economy, we can't continue.

The proletariat remains, but its good times seem to be over. It is finding fewer jobs in manufacturing that, physically demanding as it was, at least paid well. What remains is largely jobs in which the ownership cracks the whi9p and provides employees with the means at most of bare sustenance for full-time work. Sure, most of these jobs used to employ young and little-skilled workers buying their first car, insurance, and motor fuels, buying some nice clothes for dating, or perhaps paying some costs of college. But what if one is an adult with adult economic responsibilities and gets stuck in them? No I speak not of a transitory time in which one has job applications out for something similar to what paid well in the recent past -- I speak of people now in their 50s and 60s who work in fast-food restaurants and convenience stores.

Most people will find the economic system casting them off before they are ready to be cast off.  If one;s specialized skills are no longer of value, then that could be what one gets.

I have heard someone who works in such a place tell me how great Donald Trump is and how horrible Obama was... she fell for the slogan "Make America Great Again" and, unlike I, failed to ask such a question as what it means for America to be 'greater' or 'for whom'. If it means for monopolistic gougers, crony capitalists, or employers who treat their employees like livestock... no thanks. Of course the person who has such a job might have never done anything else, and this is the sort of work one gets if one has limited education and has no willingness to risk injury from heavy lifting.

Quote:It began with the TV and the suburban automobile, children's toys, kitchen gadgets........ all of those things are from the 1950s origin.  The FRUIT of the last Turning reforms.  I say we have been living fascism for quite some time now.  Only, it is stopping to work.  We are slowing because we can no longer consume reasonable.  The cellphone may have been the very last large consumer product to which we could be sold never-ending upgrades, etc.  The IDEA of the phone.  Yes, electronics will always be that.  But the gadget-in-hand was the last.  Everything is changing now.

But -- those things allowed people to establish individuality, something inconsistent with fascism. The right sorts of toys can stimulate curiosity and lead one into doing some real thinking; fascism requires mindless obedience out of ignorance and fear. Kitchen gadgets reduced the drudgery of the housewife  and may have caused her to want to get some sort of work. If she had a choice, she eventually got wrapped up in some independent consumerism. Automobiles give people mobility so that workers can say "take this job and shove it/ I ain't workin' here no more" when situations become inhuman or insufferable. Don't forget that the consumer society made cheap books available. Sure, most are schlock, but lots of people have gotten to read Orwell, Arendt, Shirer, Solzhenitsyn, Wiesel, and the like. It is safe to assume that many high-school students who heard about how horrible Communism is found a way to read Marx' Communist Manifesto.

You can fault the television as the "boob tube" as an anodyne for a working mind. If one is stupid enough one can choose to watch televised sports, music videos, infotainment, and witless sitcoms. Cable TV broadens the availability of mind-rotting trash. Even so one can watch material more informative... or motion pictures that are the definitive art-form of the last century, combining literature and graphic art. Depending on what news one watches, one can stay informed as well as if one had a newspaper.

Quote:THE WORLD is actually within this fascist plot.  The whole world is a piece of the fascism.  Where are the consumers?  The manufacturers?  The sellers?  The distributors, etc.  I think any reasonable person understands such a system cannot last.  It simply cannot for the reason you said.  But we go into it.  I wonder if next turning will be isolation in response to previous attempts at high globalization ideas.  I hope so.  Those who speak as if things have no borders, boundaries or edges, they scare me.

That may be an exaggeration. Of course our economic system is in trouble because it can no longer deliver what it once promised. The proletariat, which now includes most clerks as well as industrial toilers, today as in Marx' day, has nothing to sell but its labor. People who used to have good lives have been cast into it for no obvious fault of their own. It is easy to see why the plutocrats of our time would turn to fascism in America as did their counterparts in Germany did in the 1930s. The plutocrats would love to further immiserate the working classes as the Nazis did by taking away a worker's right to change jobs and giving an employer the right to send an under-performing or disgruntled worker to some labor camp in which he works even harder under the lash for starvation rations and either dies or comes to recognize how wonderful it is to get a little sleep and maybe a little sugar and coffee as well as a few more potatoes. Fascism relies more upon the threat that things can be much worse than upon the hope for a better life. Do our shareholders and executives want basically Nazi Germany without the racist murders, the street violence, and the destructive wars? If so they gamble big for some incremental gains against workers.

OK, I have hope in that Donald Trump is widely unpopular even without an economic meltdown or large numbers of young Americans coming back in body bags from Wars for Profit. It could be that people believe that Trump could bring about such through his cruelty and madness.  So at best we have a wave election in November like that of 2006 in which Democrats make huge gains in the House and adequate gains in the Senate to gut the President's authority to do really-crazy things; polling for the President (approval ratings) is so abysmal that he seems more likely to get defeated like Carter or Hoover in a bid for re-election while the Senate gives the Democrats a majority by reversing the 2014 Reactionary wave. It will take until 2022 to reverse the Tea Party wave... but by then I expect the Hard Right to finance mindless politics through such fronts as Club for Growth, Freedom Works!, Citizens United, and Americans for Prosperity to fall for reactionary politicians in unlikely places and bring back the pure plutocracy that now bedevils us. Then we are back to where we are now, except that we are all six years older.

[David Horn]

(09-08-2018, 04:12 PM)TheNomad Wrote: I was working as a teen at the tail end of unions in America.  At that time, I was making hourly what would take the rest of the nation until the mid 00s to catch up with in terms of MINIMUM WAGE.

So, for the older people here, what is the future of unions?

Are they going to return with a vengeance?  It seems maybe.  Since we know these cycles run on reaction to previous circumstances.  And people now are tired of the CEO making millions while they do all the heavy lifting for corn and wheat.

I don't see a union renewal, at least not in the form they previously held.  The capitalists won the battle of labor supply and demand, and that won't change.  Instead, something else has to emerge, though what is a great question.  You can't have prosperity and poverty in the same country without triggering political unrest at a very high level.  No one wants low crime and quiet more than the rich, so they will have to acquiesce at some point.

[TheNomad]

(09-09-2018, 10:34 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 04:12 PM)TheNomad Wrote: I was working as a teen at the tail end of unions in America.  At that time, I was making hourly what would take the rest of the nation until the mid 00s to catch up with in terms of MINIMUM WAGE.

So, for the older people here, what is the future of unions?

Are they going to return with a vengeance?  It seems maybe.  Since we know these cycles run on reaction to previous circumstances.  And people now are tired of the CEO making millions while they do all the heavy lifting for corn and wheat.

I don't see a union renewal, at least not in the form they previously held.  The capitalists won the battle of labor supply and demand, and that won't change.  Instead, something else has to emerge, though what is a great question.  You can't have prosperity and poverty in the same country without triggering political unrest at a very high level.  No one wants low crime and quiet more than the rich, so they will have to acquiesce at some point.

I want low crime and quiet.  Does that mean I'm rich?  I need to schedule a party.

Well, I am kind of shocked at the level of discrepancy between wealthy and non-wealthy.  But sometimes, not so much.  Through my life I have lived in all kinds of situations and I have to say, I'm a student of history and when I see things like RURAL lifestyles of just 50 years ago where people lived in ACTUAL (not hyperbolic) shacks and shanty towns, even public assistance receivers live better than that now.  That lifestyle is not optimal (I mean, speaking personally) but it is not swelled bellies and starvation, no malaria or lack of access to healthcare (anymore).

"Poverty" has been redefined in and by America if we are really honest.  Nowhere on Earth does someone who has nothing have access to base essentials like they do here in America.

YET, then above that is the supposed "middle class" and of course this is the problem because those people are must closely related to the "welfare" class than the wealthy.  MANY "middle class" are always one paycheck away from doom.  That's a big difference than those who have months free annually to go on vacations and have really not much financial worry EXCEPT where they are outspending their own livelihood.  You know, they people who expect a McMansion in their 30s but should be in an apartment if they got real with themselves?  That shit.

So, if people just lived within their means, there would be a lot less struggle than their is right now.  STILL THO those with "access" and "connection" just have way too much, it is almost like thievery.  No CEO should earn millions.  I just don't see it.  I know what CEOs do.  Most of them don't deserve what they are paid.  BUT our American system is set up that way.  Our hyper-capitalistic system tells business one thing: MAKE MONEY OR DIE.  <--- That is a killer robot.  Literally.  It's a cylon with one function: destroy everything and anything to increase the balance sheet numbers.

Who would do this?  WHO would do this?  WE DID.  America did.  We want restraints off totally from a creature that exists without reason or justice, without fairness or wisdom................................ its only function is to increase profit.  If that seems wrong to anyone here, we made this a reality when we chose hyper capitalism back in the last Turning.

[pbrower2a]

(09-14-2018, 08:09 PM)TheNomad Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 10:34 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 04:12 PM)TheNomad Wrote: I was working as a teen at the tail end of unions in America.  At that time, I was making hourly what would take the rest of the nation until the mid 00s to catch up with in terms of MINIMUM WAGE.

So, for the older people here, what is the future of unions?

Are they going to return with a vengeance?  It seems maybe.  Since we know these cycles run on reaction to previous circumstances.  And people now are tired of the CEO making millions while they do all the heavy lifting for corn and wheat.

I don't see a union renewal, at least not in the form they previously held.  The capitalists won the battle of labor supply and demand, and that won't change.  Instead, something else has to emerge, though what is a great question.  You can't have prosperity and poverty in the same country without triggering political unrest at a very high level.  No one wants low crime and quiet more than the rich, so they will have to acquiesce at some point.

I want low crime and quiet.  Does that mean I'm rich?  I need to schedule a party.

Well, I am kind of shocked at the level of discrepancy between wealthy and non-wealthy.  But sometimes, not so much.  Through my life I have lived in all kinds of situations and I have to say, I'm a student of history and when I see things like RURAL lifestyles of just 50 years ago where people lived in ACTUAL (not hyperbolic) shacks and shanty towns, even public assistance receivers live better than that now.  That lifestyle is not optimal (I mean, speaking personally) but it is not swelled bellies and starvation, no malaria or lack of access to healthcare (anymore).

Poverty has intensified in America as economic elites establish a social order in which they and their progeny get the opportunities easily and the rest of us are obliged to pay more to get lottery tickets that allow us to not join or remain in the proletariat. The economic elites will gouge us through student loans to attend overpriced colleges, and if we get good jobs that the over-indulged progeny of those elites lack the intelligence to perform we will be gouged in rent and tolls. Oh, so you are in a place like Indianapolis, Columbus, or Atlanta where there are no tolls? The elites are looking for ways to put tolls on existing highways so that if you have a place in the suburbs you will pay for the privilege of not living in one of the fetid slums that our elites want us to endure. We are to pay heavily for the questionable privilege of living in their world.

Quote:"Poverty" has been redefined in and by America if we are really honest.  Nowhere on Earth does someone who has nothing have access to base essentials like they do here in America.

Maybe the elites don't want to see people starve on the street, which is just too ugly for those elites to endure.

Quote:YET, then above that is the supposed "middle class" and of course this is the problem because those people are must closely related to the "welfare" class than the wealthy.  MANY "middle class" are always one paycheck away from doom.  That's a big difference than those who have months free annually to go on vacations and have really not much financial worry EXCEPT where they are outspending their own livelihood.  You know, they people who expect a McMansion in their 30s but should be in an apartment if they got real with themselves? 

The middle class would be wise to contemplate that the skills of its members that allow them to make above-median pay can easily go obsolete, which means that they would be better off looking for ways to invest in a small business than in a McMansion.

What the late Robin Williams had to say about cocaine (Cocaine is Nature's way of saying that you are making too much money) applies to a McMansiion. I have seen those ghastly ersatz palaces and castles full of architectural details (turrets? I am surprised that they don't have moats and dungeons) and wonder what people are thinking. I can only imagine what kids raised on Harry Potter novels and Lord of the Rings will want -- a pet dragon?

Quote:So, if people just lived within their means, there would be a lot less struggle than their is right now.  STILL THO those with "access" and "connection" just have way too much, it is almost like thievery.  No CEO should earn millions.  I just don't see it.  I know what CEOs do.  Most of them don't deserve what they are paid.  BUT our American system is set up that way.  Our hyper-capitalistic system tells business one thing: MAKE MONEY OR DIE.  <--- That is a killer robot.  Literally.  It's a cylon with one function: destroy everything and anything to increase the balance sheet numbers.

It is far simpler to avoid keeping up with the Joneses. I have been thrust into poverty, and I found a few things simpler. I do less shopping, and pay more attention to the food that I cook. I enjoy things that I bought up cheaply when times are good (like books, classical compact disks, and first-rate video) as much now as I did then. I'd like to sell off the white elephant of a  split-level house and downsize. Sure, like every one I could think of what I would do with $50K that I would have to spend (sorry, no charitable contributions or investment or saving) -- but who not already filthy-rich couldn't? Replace a ten-year-old car with what might be the last car I ever need? Check...

Capitalist profit comes from getting people to be overworked and underpaid, or to pay much more than is absolutely necessary. That's profit.

Quote:Who would do this?  WHO would do this?  WE DID.  America did.  We want restraints off totally from a creature that exists without reason or justice, without fairness or wisdom................................ its only function is to increase profit.  If that seems wrong to anyone here, we made this a reality when we chose hyper capitalism back in the last Turning.

Donald Trump will be the exemplar of all that is wrong with America -- the Seven Deadly Sins (anger, gluttony, sloth, envy, greed, lust, and hubristic pride) along with three others (deceit, cowardice, and cruelty) that I consider just as lethal. I attribute his intellectual laziness to sloth.

A 4T winnows out what works from what doesn't in the most dramatic manner, and I see Trump as a likely scapegoat for all that has gone wrong with contemporary America.

[David Horn]

(09-14-2018, 08:09 PM)TheNomad Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 10:34 AM)David Horn Wrote: I don't see a union renewal, at least not in the form they previously held.  The capitalists won the battle of labor supply and demand, and that won't change.  Instead, something else has to emerge, though what is a great question.  You can't have prosperity and poverty in the same country without triggering political unrest at a very high level.  No one wants low crime and quiet more than the rich, so they will have to acquiesce at some point.

I want low crime and quiet.  Does that mean I'm rich?  I need to schedule a party.

Well, I am kind of shocked at the level of discrepancy between wealthy and non-wealthy.  But sometimes, not so much.  Through my life I have lived in all kinds of situations and I have to say, I'm a student of history and when I see things like RURAL lifestyles of just 50 years ago where people lived in ACTUAL (not hyperbolic) shacks and shanty towns, even public assistance receivers live better than that now.  That lifestyle is not optimal (I mean, speaking personally) but it is not swelled bellies and starvation, no malaria or lack of access to healthcare (anymore).

"Poverty" has been redefined in and by America if we are really honest.  Nowhere on Earth does someone who has nothing have access to base essentials like they do here in America.

Abject poverty has been suppressed, not solved.  Other countries have actually created real solutions that lift people up, not merely subsidize them in their misery.  There's a reason we have a massive opioid crisis.

Nomad Wrote:YET, then above that is the supposed "middle class" and of course this is the problem because those people are must closely related to the "welfare" class than the wealthy.  MANY "middle class" are always one paycheck away from doom.  That's a big difference than those who have months free annually to go on vacations and have really not much financial worry EXCEPT where they are outspending their own livelihood.  You know, they people who expect a McMansion in their 30s but should be in an apartment if they got real with themselves?  That shit.

So, if people just lived within their means, there would be a lot less struggle than their is right now.  STILL THO those with "access" and "connection" just have way too much, it is almost like thievery.  No CEO should earn millions.  I just don't see it.  I know what CEOs do.  Most of them don't deserve what they are paid.  BUT our American system is set up that way.  Our hyper-capitalistic system tells business one thing: MAKE MONEY OR DIE.  <--- That is a killer robot.  Literally.  It's a cylon with one function: destroy everything and anything to increase the balance sheet numbers.

Who would do this?  WHO would do this?  WE DID.  America did.  We want restraints off totally from a creature that exists without reason or justice, without fairness or wisdom................................ its only function is to increase profit.  If that seems wrong to anyone here, we made this a reality when we chose hyper capitalism back in the last Turning.

The nominal Middle Class have stalled while the top 10% have advanced.  It's sad that, in a growing economy, only the top has seen any gains, wth the very top at all-time highs.

[TheNomad]

(09-15-2018, 10:21 AM)David Horn Wrote: Abject poverty has been suppressed, not solved.  Other countries have actually created real solutions that lift people up, not merely subsidize them in their misery.  There's a reason we have a massive opioid crisis.

This is really interesting, I would like to know the context.  I'll start another thread based on this.

[Anthony '58]

If the right wins the upcoming Second Civil War, unions will have NO future because the 1T will be a mirror image of the Gilded Age.

[pbrower2a]

It could be worse. Add to the rapacious plutocracy of the Gilded Age the peonage (debt bondage) that made sharecroppers helpless against the agrarian elite of the American South. Such a condition once existed for farm and industrial workers, and even white-collar workers alike. Attempting to change employment without the consent of a current employer was illegal in Nazi Germany, as was any strike or work stoppage. This is in addition to the genocide, war crimes, and gratuitous invasions by Nazi Germany that far overshadow the brutal working conditions for Germans (let alone enslaved peoples brought in as forced labor) in Nazi Germany.

The Hard Right already shows signs of losing. It is becoming more violent as it sees itself on the wrong side of history due to demographic change and the obsolescence of its appeal.

The Millennial Generation is clearly left-of-center in its politics, and as it rises in the political process (it will supplant the Silent, Boomers, and some late-wave X already in office) it will change American politics. Recent sleazy compromises such as dual wage scales will collapse. Like other Civic generations it will have the capacity to make sacrifices, but it will make those sacrifices more readily for something that improves the world. It will not make sacrifices on behalf of the power, indulgence, or gain of extant elites who show no restraint in their greed and sybaritic ways.

It will protect its children from every menace -- including poverty and ignorance! If you think Generation X got things psychologically rough, the Millennial Generation may have had things economically worse. The only progress that the Millennial Generation could count on was the progress of their toil to the gain of the Master Class in an economic order that saw nothing wrong with the economy that tax cuts, evisceration of unions, and regulatory regulation could not solve. This generation knows that it is getting a raw deal, and when it has influence enough to make the difference it will make the difference.

[David Horn]

I don't have a lot of faith in the union movement, to be frank about it.  Unions haven't been all that different from the capitalists they nominally oppose:

• Membership has been restrictive, with outright favoritism common and rejection for leadership common
  
• Corruption has been far too common, as has involvement by organized crime
  
• The interests of the union leadership often take precedence over the welfare of the members, and many times to their detriment
  
• They are becoming less and less effective at any level.
  

Why join if its an exercise in futility -- especially in light of Right to Work and At Will employment laws, that make them impotent. It may finally be time for the public sector to set rules that level the playing field, all squawking by capital to the contrary.

[pbrower2a]

(08-11-2019, 06:30 PM)David Horn Wrote: I don't have a lot of faith in the union movement, to be frank about it.  Unions haven't been all that different from the capitalists they nominally oppose:

• Membership has been restrictive, with outright favoritism common and rejection for leadership common
  
• Corruption has been far too common, as has involvement by organized crime
  
• The interests of the union leadership often take precedence over the welfare of the members, and many times to their detriment
  
• They are becoming less and less effective at any level.
  

Why join if its an exercise in futility -- especially in light of Right to Work and At Will employment laws, that make them impotent. It may finally be time for the public sector to set rules that level the playing field, all squawking by capital to the contrary.

Unions are big business. They often handle large amounts of money in welfare and strike funds, not to mention pension funds in which they are invested.

Corruption in unions reflects corruption in both government and Big Business.

Less effective? As manufacturing declines as a share of the economy, and a rush to the bottom in pay and working conditions becomes the norm in many businesses (unions imply that a worker has a stake in sticking around, which might be so in a well-paying job in an assembly plant but not in a fast-food place), unions lose their relevance. If the solution to poor pay and few opportunities is to get a college degree and start some other career, then one needs no union.

[Anthony '58]

Since July 24, 2009, when the minimum wage was last raised, the DJIA has more than tripled.

That's all you need to know.