09-15-2018, 07:00 AM
(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.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.