Donald Trump: polls of approval and favorability

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-22-2017, 07:57 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: But is Hayek an authority beyond criticism? No! There are valid alternatives on much that he says. Many find his idea that economic inequality is a desirable end repugnant. Economic growth that ensures great misery fails my humanist values. 

This is close to one hub of the problem. It is logical, rational and tempting to favor economic inequality so long as one is on the rich side of the inequality, and so long as you don't care about those stuck on the low side of the inequality. The latter is a values problem. There is little that one can say to someone who doesn't care that will make him care. Thus, I wouldn't throw about lightly terms like insane, uninformed, or deluded. In many cases, if someone doesn't care about another, they will act to put others a bad place, or often fail to act to get them out of the bad place. They will do so in an informed, rational, prudent and heartless way.

I am concerned that things will get worse. As automation deletes jobs, as there are more people competing for fewer hours, as attacks on the safety nets continue, there will be more and more people hitting the hard floors under where the safety nets used to be. There is currently a brick and mortar retail bubble bursting. More jobs will vanish. I'm suspicious of the restaurant sector. Someday, people might remember how to brew their own coffee and flip their own hamburgers. As the split between rich and poor increases, it will become more difficult for everybody to get enough of a job for a decent sustainable way of life.

I'm not particularly concerned for myself. I spent a good amount of time in the software industry, and have a nest egg that will pull me through anything but a total gonzo collapse. I'm just not eager to see the total gonzo collapse. It could happen if enough people care only about themselves, not enough about a healthy inclusive economy.