Is there anything you'd be willing to fight a war for?

[Eric the Green]

(10-31-2022, 04:03 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(10-31-2022, 01:29 PM)David Horn Wrote: Working in the South is do-or-die.  There's not much in the way of social safety net, so failutre to work offers two options: mooching and crime.  I fail to see that as a net plus.

Working is supposed to be "do-or-die" (at least, not being unemployed for like a year plus). Yes, wages are lower, but cost of living is also much, much lower than in most of the rest of the country. Me 10 years ago would have extended a bit more benefit of the doubt. I have been unemployed a few times, and it's a horrible place to be, but more and more I see the younger millennials and Gen Z openly....bragging about quitting work. Doing it as a social/moral statement and not applying for more jobs when possible. We don't tolerate those people in the South. 

I'm not even particularly extreme on this issue, but I'm sorry to say, this is a clear instance of "give'em an inch, they'll take a mile".

Research shows that guaranteed income actually works, and people still work when they can. I support welfare and unemployment insurance, but they are so small that they are no incentive not to work. I guess your "do or die" goes along with your willingness and promise to shoot any burglars. Not much respect for life, nor any aspiration to make life better and more enjoyable instead of nose to the grindstone or suffering on the street. I disagree. I much prefer a blue state where people take responsibility to help one another. Individual initiative is great as far as it goes, but blue states provide insurance for losing your job, which is more often than not the fault of the employer. Self-employment is not for everyone. More justice and fairness is better than do or die. Fewer guns is better than gun-violent anarchy. Democratic Party policies are better than Republican all the way around and in every case. And the South is the most reliably Republican and the most reliably inferior on every measure, and that is no accident, but deliberate political decision by Party dominance. And it is largely due to white votes.

Unemployment is low everywhere right now, so saying the south has lower unemployment now does not mean much. And the pandemic has encouraged workers to seek better jobs and better pay for the work they do, which pay because of Republican policy is a mere pittance. $15 an hour minimum wage is not even adequate, but is better than the Republican policy of $7.25 which is not anywhere near a living wage anywhere in the USA. I admit that in coastal blue states cost of living is higher, because that is the desirable place to live and the South is a cruel swamp. Minimum wages need to be higher than $15 in blue states and cities and sometimes they are.

[David Horn]

(10-31-2022, 04:03 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(10-31-2022, 01:29 PM)David Horn Wrote: Working in the South is do-or-die.  There's not much in the way of social safety net, so failutre to work offers two options: mooching and crime.  I fail to see that as a net plus.

Working is supposed to be "do-or-die" (at least, not being unemployed for like a year plus). Yes, wages are lower, but cost of living is also much, much lower than in most of the rest of the country. Me 10 years ago would have extended a bit more benefit of the doubt. I have been unemployed a few times, and it's a horrible place to be, but more and more I see the younger millennials and Gen Z openly....bragging about quitting work. Doing it as a social/moral statement and not applying for more jobs when possible. We don't tolerate those people in the South. 

I'm not even particularly extreme on this issue, but I'm sorry to say, this is a clear instance of "give'em an inch, they'll take a mile".

Let's look at the underlying assumptions.  Work is readily available: maybe, maybe not.  Hard work will be rewarded: based on what?  Employers in a liberrtarian world exercise an undue level of power over employees.  In states that have Right to Work and Employment on Demand laws also ohave the lowest average and minimum wages.  Why is that good?  Higher pay also creates more inclusive societies -- societies, btw, that pay for the RtW and EoD policies in less progressive states.

[JasonBlack]

(11-01-2022, 10:08 AM)David Horn Wrote: Let's look at the underlying assumptions.  Work is readily available: maybe, maybe not.  Hard work will be rewarded: based on what?  Employers in a liberrtarian world exercise an undue level of power over employees.  In states that have Right to Work and Employment on Demand laws also ohave the lowest average and minimum wages.  Why is that good?  Higher pay also creates more inclusive societies -- societies, btw, that pay for the RtW and EoD policies in less progressive states.

I'm honestly a moderate on this issue. My main point was more that I find this new trend of "quitting work to make a contemptuous social statement" repugnant and, we are far, far less tolerate down of such behavior down in Dixie.

[Eric the Green]

(11-01-2022, 03:10 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 10:08 AM)David Horn Wrote: Let's look at the underlying assumptions.  Work is readily available: maybe, maybe not.  Hard work will be rewarded: based on what?  Employers in a libertarian world exercise an undue level of power over employees.  In states that have Right to Work and Employment on Demand laws also ohave the lowest average and minimum wages.  Why is that good?  Higher pay also creates more inclusive societies -- societies, btw, that pay for the RtW and EoD policies in less progressive states.

I'm honestly a moderate on this issue. My main point was more that I find this new trend of "quitting work to make a contemptuous social statement" repugnant and, we are far, far less tolerate down of such behavior down in Dixie.

I might be a bit moderate on the issue, since I might favor welfare to work requirements, if designed right and not as Gingrigh did it.

But I am applauding the trend of people quitting work to make a statement, but it's not contemptuous and not especially social; just that people want to find work doing what they want to do or at least get better pay, which sure is not the case now under minimum wages of $7.25 an hour in red states.

You like the South and southerners, so here's one fer ya.

[JasonBlack]

(11-01-2022, 04:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But I am applauding the trend of people quitting work to make a statement, but it's not contemptuous and not especially social; just that people want to find work doing what they want to do or at least get better pay, which sure is not the case now under minimum wages of $7.25 an hour in red states.

That's easy for you to say. The first half of millennials (and this is one area I have much common ground with millennial democrats) have spent the last 15 years trying to convince people that we're not lazy...and then the second half of millennials and early wave Gen Z came along like "pfft! We never promised we wouldn't be lazy. Tough shit man, we're just gonna live off our parents while you do the real work". A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats have switched over to our side cuz they're sick of this.

[David Horn]

(11-01-2022, 03:10 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 10:08 AM)David Horn Wrote: Let's look at the underlying assumptions.  Work is readily available: maybe, maybe not.  Hard work will be rewarded: based on what?  Employers in a liberrtarian world exercise an undue level of power over employees.  In states that have Right to Work and Employment on Demand laws also ohave the lowest average and minimum wages.  Why is that good?  Higher pay also creates more inclusive societies -- societies, btw, that pay for the RtW and EoD policies in less progressive states.

I'm honestly a moderate on this issue. My main point was more that I find this new trend of "quitting work to make a contemptuous social statement" repugnant and, we are far, far less tolerate down of such behavior down in Dixie.

At the moment, there are no other options.  As long as power is dramatically unequal and government sides with business interests, the only way to show how disgusting this is is quiet quitting.  It's a form of boycott, and as American as proverbial apple pie.

[Eric the Green]

(11-01-2022, 06:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 04:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But I am applauding the trend of people quitting work to make a statement, but it's not contemptuous and not especially social; just that people want to find work doing what they want to do or at least get better pay, which sure is not the case now under minimum wages of $7.25 an hour in red states.

That's easy for you to say. The first half of millennials (and this is one area I have much common ground with millennial democrats) have spent the last 15 years trying to convince people that we're not lazy...and then the second half of millennials and early wave Gen Z came along like "pfft! We never promised we wouldn't be lazy. Tough shit man, we're just gonna live off our parents while you do the real work". A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats have switched over to our side cuz they're sick of this.

A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats are unreasonable then. Republicans are HORRIFIC! They only oppresse the people in the name of free enterprise and guns. You don't have any way of proving what you say about late-wave millennials and early Gen Z.

The people quitting their jobs recently are not of one sub-generation; they are of all ages!

Take this job and shove it! After a while, given the opportunity, people will quit their shitty neoliberalReaganomics-era job and look for better options after being subjected to horrific oppression by bosses and slave wages. Labor is asserting its rights! Under renewed neoliberalism after this shitty election, there will be more rebellion! God Damn America!

[pbrower2a]

(11-01-2022, 06:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 04:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But I am applauding the trend of people quitting work to make a statement, but it's not contemptuous and not especially social; just that people want to find work doing what they want to do or at least get better pay, which sure is not the case now under minimum wages of $7.25 an hour in red states.

That's easy for you to say. The first half of millennials (and this is one area I have much common ground with millennial democrats) have spent the last 15 years trying to convince people that we're not lazy...and then the second half of millennials and early wave Gen Z came along like "pfft! We never promised we wouldn't be lazy. Tough shit man, we're just gonna live off our parents while you do the real work". A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats have switched over to our side cuz they're sick of this.

The consumer economy is adequate motivation to get people to work. Harsh necessity is over the top. People tend to vote with their feet to find better lives for themselves and their loved ones, often at great sacrifices of short-term advantage. So Mila Kunis' father chose to be a taxi driver in the USA than a physics teacher in Ukraine (when it was part of the Soviet Union)? Good choice on behalf of her daughter.  

Neoliberal economics (basically "sadonomics") operated on the assumption that people could be driven to toil for very low levels of personal satisfaction on behalf of rapacious profiteers as employers and suppliers of necessities (food, housing, medical care, transportation). It is possible to compel people to toil for very little, as slavery (whether the plantation or a KZ-Lager of the demonic Third Reich) has shown. On the other hand, both slave systems failed militarily. Cannon fodder makes lousy soldiers, all in all. Not many become solid NCO's; NCO's win the small battles, but an army that wins lots of small battles can win big wars.  

Sadonomics operates on the assumption that price stability is the first objective of a sound economy even to the extent that it requires monopolistic gouging, abysmal wages, and limited opportunity for improvement in personal life. Real wages declined during most of the forty years of Reaganomics, and now we see what happens when the lid comes off.   

Every reasoned defense of capitalism depends upon the assumption of "enlightened self interest" as the norm. I have met highly-successful executives and I have met migrant farm workers, and the concept of "enlightened self interest" seems to guide the behavior of most people irrespective of ethnicity, religion, and social class. People may have different resources, but most operate on similar assumptions. Economic realities may be different, but what constitutes rational thought is far more universal (the rules are the same in Beijing, Benares, and Berlin alike). Big trouble comes from efforts to force irrationality and pointless hardship. 

So consider the fast-food business. So long as pay was low enough, the business could tolerate as much as 400% turnover among staff. There was little to lose, as people were not developing skills on the job. Still, any employer should reasonably seek to reduce turnover, and many such employers have found that they can best reduce turnover with such employee benefits as free or cheap education. If you want your employees to stick around in crappy jobs for five years or so, then if those people do not have college degrees you might as well offer the carrot of at the least a BA degree that requires one to stick around for four years or so.

[JasonBlack]

(11-03-2022, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 06:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 04:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But I am applauding the trend of people quitting work to make a statement, but it's not contemptuous and not especially social; just that people want to find work doing what they want to do or at least get better pay, which sure is not the case now under minimum wages of $7.25 an hour in red states.

That's easy for you to say. The first half of millennials (and this is one area I have much common ground with millennial democrats) have spent the last 15 years trying to convince people that we're not lazy...and then the second half of millennials and early wave Gen Z came along like "pfft! We never promised we wouldn't be lazy. Tough shit man, we're just gonna live off our parents while you do the real work". A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats have switched over to our side cuz they're sick of this.

A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats are unreasonable then. Republicans are HORRIFIC! They only oppresse the people in the name of free enterprise and guns. You don't have any way of proving what you say about late-wave millennials and early Gen Z.

The people quitting their jobs recently are not of one sub-generation; they are of all ages!

Take this job and shove it! After a while, given the opportunity, people will quit their shitty neoliberalReaganomics-era job and look for better options after being subjected to horrific oppression by bosses and slave wages. Labor is asserting its rights! Under renewed neoliberalism after this shitty election, there will be more rebellion! God Damn America!

I'm really not a fan of the way "slave" is thrown around so dramatically by the left (it gets worse the further left you go). One of the reasons why PoC tend to think that white liberals are weirdos with some of their positions is that any immigrant from Nigeria, Pakistan, China or Russia would laugh at you if you tried to say that low wage earners in the US were "slaves". Even so, I'm happy we're at least focusing on the economic end of things, rather than presenting that the performative social posturing and empty appeals to solidarity/inclusiveness are really the root cause here.

I'm skeptical of some of their authoritarian tendencies, but from what I've seen, some of these rising right wing politicians across Europe have more reasonable platforms than the "there's no such thing as society" types of right wingers in the US (I ordinarily like Thatcher, but that quote is painfully naive and is never going to win votes consistently during a 4T).

At present, the right is still playing too much of the "lone ranger conservatism" that isn't going to get anything done, and the left is too busy cannibalizing itself with ever harsher and more pedantic cancelations, appeals to singular demographics and witch hunts that pit them against each other even more than they do the right. Both have yet to return to any form of mindset that would ask "how do we get society functional again?" One of the reasons America tends to lean 3T is that we're eternally skeptical of institutions and have a rebellion-as-tradition approach to their entire lives. Mid-to-late 4Ts are necessary because they are a rare period where Americans are forced to revalue some form of institutions even as they grow increasingly cynical of the existing ones.

[JasonBlack]

I am a retail worker, live alone and pay all my own bills, so I am about as close to your definition of a "slave" as you can get. Let's take a look at what this "slave" salary can get me
- I eat a relatively healthy diet
- I drink a variety of high quality teas every day
- I have enough money for occasional car maintenance/repairs as needed
- I visit state and national parks up in the mountains 1-4 times a month
- I have a gym membership
- I have a fairly large TV, a netflix account and several video game systems
- I buy (audio) books like it's going out of style
- I have consistent food and shelter
- I don't have to deal with particularly abusive people

...and with all this, I can still save about $200 a month without having to be insanely frugal. Point is: if you compare me to about 90% of the world's population, I have a very good life. I am not, never have been, and never will be a fucking "slave". There are plenty of people in the US who are poorer than me and have far harder lives than I do. I even support a good number of policies that would improve working conditions for several occupations and have mixed opinions on things like socialized healthcare. My point is that job and income alone are not a good indicator of if someone is a "slave", and that in spite of my on-paper "low status", I have nothing to be resentful for.

PS: I actually have two jobs. My second is as a professional prop trader, but as I'm reinvesting all my profits and have yet to pay myself, it's actually costing me more than it's making me at present, so, if anything, it only furthers my point.

[pbrower2a]

(11-03-2022, 10:08 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: I am a retail worker, live alone and pay all my own bills, so I am about as close to your definition of a "slave" as you can get. Let's take a look at what this "slave" salary can get me

- I eat a relatively healthy diet
- I drink a variety of high quality teas every day
- I have enough money for occasional car maintenance/repairs as needed
- I visit state and national parks up in the mountains 1-4 times a month
- I have a gym membership
- I have a fairly large TV, a netflix account and several video game systems
- I buy (audio) books like it's going out of style
- I have consistent food and shelter
- I don't have to deal with particularly abusive people

...and with all this, I can still save about $200 a month without having to be insanely frugal. Point is: if you compare me to about 90% of the world's population, I have a very good life. I am not, never have been, and never will be a fucking "slave". There are plenty of people in the US who are poorer than me and have far harder lives than I do. I even support a good number of policies that would improve working conditions for several occupations and have mixed opinions on things like socialized healthcare. My point is that job and income alone are not a good indicator of if someone is a "slave", and that in spite of my on-paper "low status", I have nothing to be resentful for.

PS: I actually have two jobs. My second is as a professional prop trader, but as I'm reinvesting all my profits and have yet to pay myself, it's actually costing me more than it's making me at present, so, if anything, it only furthers my point.

Retail work is generally the lowest-paying work available. It is unskilled, and not intellectually demanding. If anything, I have observed (I did such work upon graduation from college) that the stupider that one is, the happier one can be if one does it. People who don't fit the pattern of the "Dullard at Dillard's" (a horrid employer that insisted that its retail clerks do cut-throat compete with each other for small privileges) in which people do that work as an alternative to factory work, domestic service, or clerking in an office. People who said things like :I don't want to be a secretary" did exactly that within six months of working at Dillard's. Or if they said that of factory work -- such is what they ended up doing.  Such was more demanding intellectually or physically, and that horrid company ended up with lots of "Sad Sack" types.  Dillard's hasn't changed much since I was there forty years ago, and it got recognition as one of the Ten Worst Companies to Work For several years ago. Ferocious competition is what one expects in pure selling; sales at a certain level pays more than any other activity for the same level of intellectual competence and work ethic for anyone without an extreme specialization such as a skilled trade, creative activity, or such professions as law, engineering, and medicine. The only good thing about working there was that I got to learn old-fashioned salesmanship, something not taught in college. I found that highly useful as a substitute teacher (I had the wrong college degree, and I love working on children's minds to a desirable end), and more often more useful than anything that I learned while in college classes.

If it is a choice between some illicit activity, hunger, or homelessness (you can share a slum apartment or a run-down trailer with others), then a company like Dillard's isn't all bad. But know that management sees every one of its workers as a lazy moocher who would steal if the opportunity arose. You will be expected to dress like an executive, which is good practice for a responsible position that pays more and does not have an ethos in which all the rules seem to begin with "Suffer for!" 

I see a pattern in at least one  retailer. It seems a dreary place to work, and I see its workers going out for smoking breaks. Smoking is a costly waste of meager income and personal health, but it is one good way that one does not end up a destitute old person because one will die before any mandatory age of retirement. Heck, if I were making a million dollars a year I would consider smoking a pointless waste of money and health. If such is one's sole joy in life, then one is in trouble. 

OK, one can live sort-of-OK (sharing an awful apartment or trailer if one isn't living with parents). It is a good idea to

1. avoid junk food altogether. I am on disability and get food aid, and I can have a reasonably-good and varied diet if I stay away from chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas. All of those offer little nutritive value, but the sugar-and-saturated fats "high" is relatively low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  They all contribute to obesity. Alcoholic beverages do not qualify for food aid, and I rarely get those. I'm not a scratch cook, so I don't make my own lasagna. 

I have my suggestion for SNAP: disqualify chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas as eligible items but instead offer eligibility for toilet paper, soap, and detergents that are just as necessary. Issue a cookbook, and require anyone getting food aid to participate in community-college courses in cooking and nutrition. Learn to make your own lasagna; this can be a matter of pride. 

2. Better teas than sodas. They are actually cheaper than sodas. 

3. Encourage the use of dial-a-ride services for local travel, as to general merchandisers in box stores or to the gym. 

4. If you live in a hick town you will need a car. If you live in a ghetto-like slum and need to commute to the suburbs for the fast-food and retail jobs that the local kids abandon once they get something else, you will need a car to do shift work. Ideally one is paid well enough to do this. 

One morning I was in greater Detroit to drop someone off at an airport. I figured that the drive back would be the opposite direction of commute traffic of white suburbanites headed to the few well-paying jobs downtown. I saw myself in heavy traffic going the opposite direction, and most of the people traveling in my direction were black. They were in an opposite flow almost as heavy as the expected suburban-to-core city flow long stereotyped in America. I had no cause to believe that blacks dominated late-shift work in factories. The service and retailing jobs are in the suburbs.  Such work still has poverty as an employee perquisite, but it is more remunerative than welfare and easier to get. 

5. I know places to go. I live in a farming area, and except for weather at its rawest, little could be more unnatural than farmland. New York City has Central Park; Boston has Boston Commons; Chicago has its lakeshore; all three cities need those or they would be unlivable. "Scary, Indiana" seems to have been built without them, and it shows. The South Side of Chicago seems to lack this, and it shows. I avoid both. 

A trip to a zoo, a museum of almost any kind (art, natural science, technology, history, ethnic heritage), or a symphony concert or opera is often a lasting experience. I'll pass on casinos which offer banks of slot machines that offer a mysterious return from what seem like gussied-up soft-drink machines. It's the memories that matter. 

I have been to Yosemite National Park, Isle Royale National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Mammoth Cave National Park, Indiana Dunes National Park, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All memorable. I can make plugs for Tahquamenon State Park and Pictured Rocks in Michigan, and quite a few state parks in California (redwoods and seashore). All are memorable. I have been to the main art museums in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and Toledo. 

I have yet to hear the Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, or Cleveland Orchestra live, but I have heard the San Francisco and Dallas Symphonies.  

6. The senior center near me has exercise machines. I am too old to do running (I have always gotten winded easily) but I can certainly work out on an exercise bike. 

7. A "small" television that one does not use simply as a computer monitor has about a 32" diagonal screen, and one of those is available for about $150 at "Wally World", and it has built-in access to Roku, Netflix, YouTube, and other such services. Do you know anyone who still watches a 19" TV with a CRT screen?   

8. Recorded books are for the blind (I do not use the PC equivalent) or for use while taking a long drive. Otherwise -- just borrow books from the library.  

9. People should not be priced into destitution. If you do honest work, then any work should afford some privacy without gnawing boredom. 

10. Consider yourself lucky. Some work environments are themselves abusive (think of retailing). If you have trustworthy family members and can avoid dealings with sociopathic relatives (I know two certifiable sociopaths and avoid them. One did a huge embezzlement of his employer. Another schmoozes people in the public sector to buy overpriced stuff or services by losing consistently at golf). 

Poverty seems to concentrate bad people due to poor work habits or overall dishonesty too dangerous for paid work. It also exposes one to the reality of an economic hierarchy that supposedly creates prosperity in the presence of gross deprivation. We have people living like sultans and people living as if they were in Hell-holes of the Third World. A city like Chicago is part Dubai and part Caracas. Poverty of experiences is a mark of a lack of education and imagination. Give up the bad habits (if you have them), and you can get some good experiences as alternatives. 

I would prefer that we were more like Copenhagen as a whole (and this is clearly not an ethnic swipe).

[Eric the Green]

(11-03-2022, 04:46 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-03-2022, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 06:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 04:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But I am applauding the trend of people quitting work to make a statement, but it's not contemptuous and not especially social; just that people want to find work doing what they want to do or at least get better pay, which sure is not the case now under minimum wages of $7.25 an hour in red states.

That's easy for you to say. The first half of millennials (and this is one area I have much common ground with millennial democrats) have spent the last 15 years trying to convince people that we're not lazy...and then the second half of millennials and early wave Gen Z came along like "pfft! We never promised we wouldn't be lazy. Tough shit man, we're just gonna live off our parents while you do the real work". A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats have switched over to our side cuz they're sick of this.

A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats are unreasonable then. Republicans are HORRIFIC! They only oppresse the people in the name of free enterprise and guns. You don't have any way of proving what you say about late-wave millennials and early Gen Z.

The people quitting their jobs recently are not of one sub-generation; they are of all ages!

Take this job and shove it! After a while, given the opportunity, people will quit their shitty neoliberalReaganomics-era job and look for better options after being subjected to horrific oppression by bosses and slave wages. Labor is asserting its rights! Under renewed neoliberalism after this shitty election, there will be more rebellion! God Damn America!

I'm really not a fan of the way "slave" is thrown around so dramatically by the left (it gets worse the further left you go). One of the reasons why PoC tend to think that white liberals are weirdos with some of their positions is that any immigrant from Nigeria, Pakistan, China or Russia would laugh at you if you tried to say that low wage earners in the US were "slaves". Even so, I'm happy we're at least focusing on the economic end of things, rather than presenting that the performative social posturing and empty appeals to solidarity/inclusiveness are really the root cause here.

I don't reject the spoken need for inclusiveness, especially these days when appeal to prejudice has become so much more open and seems to arouse racism and religious prejudice to levels in our politics not seen since the days of discrimination and lynching. I do agree that the "economic end of things" is more important to how people live these days. The social issues are used by the right-wing mainly for the purpose of empowering those who DO keep so many people as "wage slaves". No doubt people in less developed countries have it worse, but people in developed countries are entitled to whatever prosperity our economy can deliver, and they contribute just as much to it as the CEOs and owners who now are enabled by the Republicans to hog all the revenue it generates. The middle class in the USA has declined severely in the 42-year-and-counting neoliberal era, and this was the result of deliberate policy and was never necessary at all. The USA is the worst developed country in the world by any measure, and the South is the worst region of the USA by far by any measure. Descriptions of personal conditions and abilities are not relevant. Voters who only look at their own fortunes when deciding who to vote for are irresponsible. The Democrats might keep their majorities in Congress if they would stress this issue of middle class decline due to Republican policy, and not cower behind social issues, and to counter Republicans' use of the "inflation" which they themselves contribute to and have no answer for.

Quote:I'm skeptical of some of their authoritarian tendencies, but from what I've seen, some of these rising right wing politicians across Europe have more reasonable platforms than the "there's no such thing as society" types of right wingers in the US (I ordinarily like Thatcher, but that quote is painfully naive and is never going to win votes consistently during a 4T).

Thanks for that intelligent remark.

Quote:At present, the right is still playing too much of the "lone ranger conservatism" that isn't going to get anything done, and the left is too busy cannibalizing itself with ever harsher and more pedantic cancelations, appeals to singular demographics and witch hunts that pit them against each other even more than they do the right. Both have yet to return to any form of mindset that would ask "how do we get society functional again?" One of the reasons America tends to lean 3T is that we're eternally skeptical of institutions and have a rebellion-as-tradition approach to their entire lives. Mid-to-late 4Ts are necessary because they are a rare period where Americans are forced to revalue some form of institutions even as they grow increasingly cynical of the existing ones.

I don't think the Left's cancellations are any where near as "harmful" as what the right is doing to democracy and to mutual respect for all people, and all the violence and destruction that they enable and promote. The Left in blue states is doing things like taking down statues of Christopher Columbus and renaming holidays and schools and such. In the South fortunately some confederate statues and flags are coming down, and that's all to the good. It's all not that important to me, but I'm a white guy, and I feel the need to understand how indigenous and formerly-enslaved people feel when they see someone venerated who oppressed them. How do we get functional again is indeed the question though. The answer which I see as certain is repeal of neoliberalism and getting back to the progress we had in the sixties and seventies. An appropriate compromise in the culture wars is something I hope can happen. As I said though, and I stand by it, that cultural and social liberties are not often reversed for long, once attained.

I would say that rebellion-as-tradition does make itself felt in every turning, except maybe the first. But also our native authoritarianism is felt in all 4 turnings, and that is a tradition that is not as often recognized, but is even stronger in the USA (especially in the South) than our rebellious tradition. We need to reshape institutions in this 4T too, indeed, but this only happens after whatever the battle is, is won by the progressive side-- at the end of the turning. So I see this as possible at the end of this decade, but not if the right-wing wins. If it does, our republic and our world will start a continual decline that will last 4000 years. No more saecula, and no more progress; just what the right-wing thinks it wants.

[Eric the Green]

Maybe some US workers are no longer so willfully ignorant anymore, and so willing to passively accept all the increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the reduced benefits, the longer hours, and the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the moment you go to collect it. And maybe they are not so willing to let the members of the BIG CLUB of wealthy owners and CEOs take their social security retirement money and give to their criminal friends on Wall Street. Maybe they won't be so accepting of the big red, white and blue dick that's being shoved up their assholes every day. Maybe they won't be quite as willing to vote against a Democratic President in midterms by at least making the margin of loss less this time. They may not vote in such great numbers for the politicians that don't care about them but only about the owners. The system that threw them overboard 30 (now 40) fuckin' years ago may not be able to deceive so many of them so they don't even notice or care. They are more willing to resign and demand a better job with better pay or join a union. Maybe they are not quite as asleep as they used to be, especially maybe the younger ones who were never brainwashed 30-40 years ago by the Reagan neoliberal slogans.






O.D.
1 month ago
Anyone who wonders why people have quit their jobs in record numbers just needs to watch this. George is dearly missed.

(a comment on a longer version here, if you dare...)
https://youtu.be/KLODGhEyLvk

[JasonBlack]

(11-03-2022, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Take this job and shove it! After a while, given the opportunity, people will quit their shitty neoliberalReaganomics-era job and look for better options after being subjected to horrific oppression by bosses and slave wages. Labor is asserting its rights! Under renewed neoliberalism after this shitty election, there will be more rebellion! God Damn America!

(11-03-2022, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: better options after being subjected to horrific oppression by bosses and slave wages. Labor is asserting its rights! Under renewed neoliberalism after this shitty election, there will be more rebellion! God Damn America!

You just moved the goalposts considerably: asking me for evidence of a given phenomenon, only to later admit that you yourself believe the same phenomenon to be taking place. "you don't have any prove that Group A is doing X" --> "okay, so I don't blame Group A for doing X!". Frankly, this is disingenuous.


Alas, one thing I've typically seen eye-to-eye with with liberal boomers is that we both share a fundamental assumption of "people who work hard and perform well should be rewarded for their effort and expertise". Where we differ is to the degree that we believe people get what they deserve (once again, I'm a moderate here because I think things like that are super case by case). However, a lot of late wave millennial and Gen Z liberals have essentially taken an attitude of "I give up, I'm just gonna opt out". Tbf, something superficially similar can be seen with Gen X, but where Gen X embraced the gig economy, the former are literally just dropping out and expecting other people to pay for them.

[JasonBlack]

(11-04-2022, 10:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Retail work is generally the lowest-paying work available. It is unskilled, and not intellectually demanding. If anything, I have observed (I did such work upon graduation from college) that the stupider that one is, the happier one can be if one does it. People who don't fit the pattern of the "Dullard at Dillard's" (a horrid employer that insisted that its retail clerks do cut-throat compete with each other for small privileges) in which people do that work as an alternative to factory work, domestic service, or clerking in an office. People who said things like :I don't want to be a secretary" did exactly that within six months of working at Dillard's. Or if they said that of factory work -- such is what they ended up doing.  Such was more demanding intellectually or physically, and that horrid company ended up with lots of "Sad Sack" types.  Dillard's hasn't changed much since I was there forty years ago, and it got recognition as one of the Ten Worst Companies to Work For several years ago. Ferocious competition is what one expects in pure selling; sales at a certain level pays more than any other activity for the same level of intellectual competence and work ethic for anyone without an extreme specialization such as a skilled trade, creative activity, or such professions as law, engineering, and medicine. The only good thing about working there was that I got to learn old-fashioned salesmanship, something not taught in college. I found that highly useful as a substitute teacher (I had the wrong college degree, and I love working on children's minds to a desirable end), and more often more useful than anything that I learned while in college classes.

You mistake me. I think the difference in assumption here is that I have never worked for anyone else expecting to like what I do. Any job I've ever had is just something to pay the bills, so I select work that requires the least effort and physical/emotional energy to free up time for my real plans. Put simply: people are only going to pay you for two types of jobs
1) Something that needs to be done that they can't do.
2) Something that needs to be done that they don't want to do.

Never in any period of history has a society been described where the majority of people were passionate about what they did. Although in my case, my position is solitary enough to where I can listen to audiobooks while at work. Helps me get extra financial research in and/or satisfy my compulsively high trait openness. Imo, slavery is more characterized by what your life is like after you get home from work, and your ability to go somewhere else if you work for abusive management.

Quote:If it is a choice between some illicit activity, hunger, or homelessness (you can share a slum apartment or a run-down trailer with others), then a company like Dillard's isn't all bad. But know that management sees every one of its workers as a lazy moocher who would steal if the opportunity arose. You will be expected to dress like an executive, which is good practice for a responsible position that pays more and does not have an ethos in which all the rules seem to begin with "Suffer for!" 

I see a pattern in at least one  retailer. It seems a dreary place to work, and I see its workers going out for smoking breaks. Smoking is a costly waste of meager income and personal health, but it is one good way that one does not end up a destitute old person because one will die before any mandatory age of retirement. Heck, if I were making a million dollars a year I would consider smoking a pointless waste of money and health. If such is one's sole joy in life, then one is in trouble. 

OK, one can live sort-of-OK (sharing an awful apartment or trailer if one isn't living with parents).

sort-of-okay is all I can ever expect from a job. Do your duty and go home. Getting the good life requires power, and power means that you either become indispensable to someone else, or build the system yourself. As the latter requires less social hoop jumping and obsequious pandering, that is the route I decided on a long time ago.

Quote:avoid junk food altogether. I am on disability and get food aid, and I can have a reasonably-good and varied diet if I stay away from chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas. All of those offer little nutritive value, but the sugar-and-saturated fats "high" is relatively low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  They all contribute to obesity. Alcoholic beverages do not qualify for food aid, and I rarely get those. I'm not a scratch cook, so I don't make my own lasagna. 

For me, it's more that I'm just too selfish to put junk into my body.

Quote:I have my suggestion for SNAP: disqualify chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas as eligible items but instead offer eligibility for toilet paper, soap, and detergents that are just as necessary. Issue a cookbook, and require anyone getting food aid to participate in community-college courses in cooking and nutrition. Learn to make your own lasagna; this can be a matter of pride. 

Yes!

Quote:2. Better teas than sodas. They are actually cheaper than sodas. 

Some of the higher grade stuff is pricier, but even then, it's like....twice as expensive as soda for what would be considered luxury in many parts of the world

Quote:4. If you live in a hick town you will need a car. If you live in a ghetto-like slum and need to commute to the suburbs for the fast-food and retail jobs that the local kids abandon once they get something else, you will need a car to do shift work. Ideally one is paid well enough to do this.

Have done both (well, not lived in the ghetto, but right next to it, and it was the only place I could do my laundry).  

Quote:5. I know places to go. I live in a farming area, and except for weather at its rawest, little could be more unnatural than farmland. New York City has Central Park; Boston has Boston Commons; Chicago has its lakeshore; all three cities need those or they would be unlivable. "Scary, Indiana" seems to have been built without them, and it shows. The South Side of Chicago seems to lack this, and it shows. I avoid both. 

oof, you're from Gary? I lived in Chicago for 3 years, and we heard nothing but nightmare stories

Quote:A trip to a zoo, a museum of almost any kind (art, natural science, technology, history, ethnic heritage), or a symphony concert or opera is often a lasting experience. I'll pass on casinos which offer banks of slot machines that offer a mysterious return from what seem like gussied-up soft-drink machines. It's the memories that matter. 

Before he died, I got to hear the Russian baritone Dimitri Hvorostovsky life in Chicago. People always talk about how "expensive" opera is, but, like with tea, this is an illusion.

Quote:I have been to Yosemite National Park, Isle Royale National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Mammoth Cave National Park, Indiana Dunes National Park, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All memorable. I can make plugs for Tahquamenon State Park and Pictured Rocks in Michigan, and quite a few state parks in California (redwoods and seashore). All are memorable. I have been to the main art museums in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and Toledo.

 
I'm not nearly as well traveled as you, but at some point I'll have to share some pics from the Ozarks and the Blueridge Parkway. You should share some too.

Quote:8. Recorded books are for the blind (I do not use the PC equivalent) or for use while taking a long drive. Otherwise -- just borrow books from the library.  

The blind and the dyslexic. I am the latter. 

Quote:10. Consider yourself lucky. Some work environments are themselves abusive (think of retailing). If you have trustworthy family members and can avoid dealings with sociopathic relatives (I know two certifiable sociopaths and avoid them. One did a huge embezzlement of his employer. Another schmoozes people in the public sector to buy overpriced stuff or services by losing consistently at golf). 

Oh I do! I've worked for my fair share of abusive bosses. The most abusive company I worked for was support worker program for mentally handicapped people. 

Quote:Poverty seems to concentrate bad people due to poor work habits or overall dishonesty too dangerous for paid work. It also exposes one to the reality of an economic hierarchy that supposedly creates prosperity in the presence of gross deprivation. We have people living like sultans and people living as if they were in Hell-holes of the Third World. A city like Chicago is part Dubai and part Caracas. Poverty of experiences is a mark of a lack of education and imagination. Give up the bad habits (if you have them), and you can get some good experiences as alternatives. 

Not all poor people are bad, but just about all poor people have to live in proximity to bad people. This is one of my main motivations to make money. I saw some pretty nasty crimes during my time in The Windy City

[Eric the Green]

(11-04-2022, 08:26 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-03-2022, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Take this job and shove it! After a while, given the opportunity, people will quit their shitty neoliberalReaganomics-era job and look for better options after being subjected to horrific oppression by bosses and slave wages. Labor is asserting its rights! Under renewed neoliberalism after this shitty election, there will be more rebellion! God Damn America!

(11-03-2022, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: better options after being subjected to horrific oppression by bosses and slave wages. Labor is asserting its rights! Under renewed neoliberalism after this shitty election, there will be more rebellion! God Damn America!

You just moved the goalposts considerably: asking me for evidence of a given phenomenon, only to later admit that you yourself believe the same phenomenon to be taking place. "you don't have any prove that Group A is doing X" --> "okay, so I don't blame Group A for doing X!". Frankly, this is disingenuous.


Alas, one thing I've typically seen eye-to-eye with liberal boomers is that we both share a fundamental assumption of "people who work hard and perform well should be rewarded for their effort and expertise". Where we differ is to the degree that we believe people get what they deserve (once again, I'm a moderate here because I think things like that are super case by case). However, a lot of late wave millennial and Gen Z liberals have essentially taken an attitude of "I give up, I'm just gonna opt out". Tbf, something superficially similar can be seen with Gen X, but where Gen X embraced the gig economy, the former are literally just dropping out and expecting other people to pay for them.

You lost me in how "I moved the goalposts".

Again, you provide no evidence for your conclusions about "a lot of late wave millennial and Gen Z liberals". Such a contention cannot be validly based on personal observations of people you have run across or know.

The reason a lot of young people don't have jobs today is that the jobs do not pay enough to meet sky-high-priced expenses, so they stay home. The economic crisis of our time remains the drastic erosion of economic equality in the USA due to Reaganomics neoliberal policy, and younger people are the most affected by this.

Again, the videos embedded and linked at my site as well as my writing explain this problem very well. That includes plenty of evidence for my points.
http://philosopherswheel.com/freemarket.html

[pbrower2a]

(11-04-2022, 11:39 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-04-2022, 10:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Retail work is generally the lowest-paying work available. It is unskilled, and not intellectually demanding. If anything, I have observed (I did such work upon graduation from college) that the stupider that one is, the happier one can be if one does it. People who don't fit the pattern of the "Dullard at Dillard's" (a horrid employer that insisted that its retail clerks do cut-throat compete with each other for small privileges) in which people do that work as an alternative to factory work, domestic service, or clerking in an office. People who said things like :I don't want to be a secretary" did exactly that within six months of working at Dillard's. Or if they said that of factory work -- such is what they ended up doing.  Such was more demanding intellectually or physically, and that horrid company ended up with lots of "Sad Sack" types.  Dillard's hasn't changed much since I was there forty years ago, and it got recognition as one of the Ten Worst Companies to Work For several years ago. Ferocious competition is what one expects in pure selling; sales at a certain level pays more than any other activity for the same level of intellectual competence and work ethic for anyone without an extreme specialization such as a skilled trade, creative activity, or such professions as law, engineering, and medicine. The only good thing about working there was that I got to learn old-fashioned salesmanship, something not taught in college. I found that highly useful as a substitute teacher (I had the wrong college degree, and I love working on children's minds to a desirable end), and more often more useful than anything that I learned while in college classes.

You mistake me. I think the difference in assumption here is that I have never worked for anyone else expecting to like what I do. Any job I've ever had is just something to pay the bills, so I select work that requires the least effort and physical/emotional energy to free up time for my real plans. Put simply: people are only going to pay you for two types of jobs
1) Something that needs to be done that they can't do.
2) Something that needs to be done that they don't want to do.

Never in any period of history has a society been described where the majority of people were passionate about what they did. Although in my case, my position is solitary enough to where I can listen to audiobooks while at work. Helps me get extra financial research in and/or satisfy my compulsively high trait openness. Imo, slavery is more characterized by what your life is like after you get home from work, and your ability to go somewhere else if you work for abusive management.

Obviously all jobs have their downsides. Some downsides including body-wracking pain in work that eventually cripples one. Another is overt danger. Construction and mining have both. Persistent, toxic relationships as a part of the job are another. (Retail is infamous for this; lower-level management is little better than the clerks, and upper management often sees itself as god-like. The salesclerk-customer relationship is itself typically one of command-and-control). For some jobs such as accounting one needs a high tolerance for numbing routine.

Personal reality may be that one cannot afford post-graduate education that allows one the career specialization that fits one's personality. In such cases, success in life is talents that one can never learn in any educational setting, developing a trade through an apprenticeship, starting a shoe-string business that has a high likelihood of failure -- or learning to count one's blessings. If you run out of blessings, start counting again, and start with being thankful that you are not living in Syria or North Korea, and finally with "I wasn't fired today" or I did not have a fatal heart attack or stroke or get run over by "Danny Drunkee". 

Much of the problem is that the economic elites concentrate narcissistic personalities. People who have never had the obligation to make sacrifices on behalf of people who treat other people as mere tools, and if somehow living things livestock at best and vermin at worst. The more that our economy goes from competition to crony capitalism, which closely correlates to concentration of economic and political power, the worse things get.  America's economic elites increasingly look like the Junkers who dominated German economic life until the end of World War II (they got big profits from their support of Hitler until the Allies bombed their factories to smithereens or confiscated their wealth behind the Iron Curtain), and a Soviet-style nomenklatura of self-selecting administrators in business and even (now) educational hierarchies. Much of what passes as Christianity is little more than a Gospel of Greed melding with pre-modern superstition -- a Calvinist hierarchy (those who Do Well are particularly blessed) with superstition for ignoramuses who believe such junk as young-earth creationism or fall for the pure unreason of Qu Qlux Qlanon or gutter racism. 

I have many disagreements with Marxism, but Marxists did get racism right. It is a tool of exploitation and a destruction of human solidarity necessary for economic and moral progress.     

Quote:  If it is a choice between some illicit activity, hunger, or homelessness (you can share a slum apartment or a run-down trailer with others), then a company like Dillard's isn't all bad. But know that management sees every one of its workers as a lazy moocher who would steal if the opportunity arose. You will be expected to dress like an executive, which is good practice for a responsible position that pays more and does not have an ethos in which all the rules seem to begin with "Suffer for!" 

Quote:I see a pattern in at least one  retailer. It seems a dreary place to work, and I see its workers going out for smoking breaks. Smoking is a costly waste of meager income and personal health, but it is one good way that one does not end up a destitute old person because one will die before any mandatory age of retirement. Heck, if I were making a million dollars a year I would consider smoking a pointless waste of money and health. If such is one's sole joy in life, then one is in trouble. 

OK, one can live sort-of-OK (sharing an awful apartment or trailer if one isn't living with parents).

sort-of-okay is all I can ever expect from a job. Do your duty and go home. Getting the good life requires power, and power means that you either become indispensable to someone else, or build the system yourself. As the latter requires less social hoop jumping and obsequious pandering, that is the route I decided on a long time ago.

A toxic environment at work can hardly fail to pollute the rest of one's life. The best that one can hope for is that one can successfully separate personal life from the jungle of a workplace. As we go from a nation of small shopkeepers and yeoman farmers to the nearly-pure decadence of plantation-like corporate farms, monopolistic gougers, bloated bureaucracies, and rent-seeking profiteers, life gets harder for everyone else. Profit becomes the objective of all human life, even if one can enjoy nothing more from it than what the elites deem necessary to keep us from starving and rebelling. Crappy food, crappy housing, crappy religion, and crappy entertainment allows survival; the ideal for our narcissistic elites would be something similar to slavery in its oppression and inequality but somehow does not violate the 13th Amendment. 

In view of the support that our economic elites gave to Donald Trump and that their political stooges go along with (they will find someone similar in ideology if not the same Caligula-like eccentricities to be the Great and Infallible Leader to whom we are expected to honor) someone more adept at establishing a plutocratic tyranny will likely emerge. We will then have a pure command-and-control society that most likely tries to impose its nastiness where such is unwelcome and that implodes militarily. We could end up with an inversion of The Man in the High Castle in which the Germans and Japanese are the good guys, and the leaders from a fascistic America strangle while they dangle after Nuremberg-style trials.          

Quote:

Quote:avoid junk food altogether. I am on disability and get food aid, and I can have a reasonably-good and varied diet if I stay away from chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas. All of those offer little nutritive value, but the sugar-and-saturated fats "high" is relatively low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  They all contribute to obesity. Alcoholic beverages do not qualify for food aid, and I rarely get those. I'm not a scratch cook, so I don't make my own lasagna. 

For me, it's more that I'm just too selfish to put junk into my body.

Dollar stores are everywhere, and they offer a wide selection of junk food. These are the default retailers for most poor people. Tellingly they no salad greens or fresh fruits or vegetables.  

Quote:

Quote:I have my suggestion for SNAP: disqualify chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas as eligible items but instead offer eligibility for toilet paper, soap, and detergents that are just as necessary. Issue a cookbook, and require anyone getting food aid to participate in community-college courses in cooking and nutrition. Learn to make your own lasagna; this can be a matter of pride. 

Yes!

Of course one would end up disqualifying much of what constitutes "food" at dollar stores.

Quote:

Quote: 2. Better teas than sodas. They are actually cheaper than sodas. 

Some of the higher grade stuff is pricier, but even then, it's like....twice as expensive as soda for what would be considered luxury in many parts of the world

Do you realize how much sun-brewed tea you can make out of a box of tea bags that costs less than a 12-pack of sodas? A cup of herbal tea is less costly now than a can of soda -- and far healthier. 

Quote:

Quote:4. If you live in a hick town you will need a car. If you live in a ghetto-like slum and need to commute to the suburbs for the fast-food and retail jobs that the local kids abandon once they get something else, you will need a car to do shift work. Ideally one is paid well enough to do this.

Have done both (well, not lived in the ghetto, but right next to it, and it was the only place I could do my laundry).  

As housing becomes more corporate in nature, it becomes more slum-like. It's more profitable, and in a country in which elite power, indulgence, and gain increasingly become what passes as the national objective and great principle, slum apartments become the norm. These places always stunted child development, and it is hardly surprising that the humane values of the New Deal and Fair Deal pushed single-family housing. 

One response is to have no children. I may be a bitter old man now but I can at least be glad that I offered no children to toil as near-serfs, to become soulless consumers of schlock entertainment, or to dwell in degrading slums. We are getting the worst of an aristocratic order and Commie-style bureaucracy at the same time, and most people are too scared or deluded to fail to recognize such.  

Quote:

Quote:5. I know places to go. I live in a farming area, and except for weather at its rawest, little could be more unnatural than farmland. New York City has Central Park; Boston has Boston Commons; Chicago has its lakeshore; all three cities need those or they would be unlivable. "Scary, Indiana" seems to have been built without them, and it shows. The South Side of Chicago seems to lack this, and it shows. I avoid both. 

oof, you're from Gary? I lived in Chicago for 3 years, and we heard nothing but nightmare stories

No, I simply read the front page of a story in a local newspaper in Michigan City, Indiana (itself a dump, but not as horrible as "Scary, Indiana". 

If Chicago were the biggest city in America instead of New York City, then the state providing the grist of jokes about itself would be Indiana, and not New Jersey.  

 

Quote:

Quote:A trip to a zoo, a museum of almost any kind (art, natural science, technology, history, ethnic heritage), or a symphony concert or opera is often a lasting experience. I'll pass on casinos which offer banks of slot machines that offer a mysterious return from what seem like gussied-up soft-drink machines. It's the memories that matter. 

Before he died, I got to hear the Russian baritone Dimitri Hvorostovsky life in Chicago. People always talk about how "expensive" opera is, but, like with tea, this is an illusion.

I got a complete, satisfying set of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner for less than $30 from Amazon. com. This isn't for everyone. These works all take at least an hour to perform and to listen to, but if you love the magisterial composition. That's obviously not for people who like their music short and sweet with no elaboration, as in the disposable fare of Top-40 hits. 

I find opera an excellent anodyne for loneliness, to put it mildly.       

Quote:

Quote:I have been to Yosemite National Park, Isle Royale National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Mammoth Cave National Park, Indiana Dunes National Park, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All memorable. I can make plugs for Tahquamenon State Park and Pictured Rocks in Michigan, and quite a few state parks in California (redwoods and seashore). All are memorable. I have been to the main art museums in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and Toledo.

 
I'm not nearly as well traveled as you, but at some point I'll have to share some pics from the Ozarks and the Blueridge Parkway. You should share some too.

I'm 66, and I have lived in Michigan, California (for a short time, but my brother lived there and I took trips to see him), and Texas. I can tell you some places that I have never been -- anywhere outside the USA except for the southern tier of Ontario or outside of the polygon that includes Boston, southeastern Virginia, Nashville, Dallas, Houston, San Diego, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Dubuque, Madison, and the UP of Michigan. Places in which I have never been include Toronto, New York City (my parents changed the "N" to a "J"), Atlanta, New Orleans, and Minneapolis. 

I am not that well traveled.   

Quote:

Quote:8. Recorded books are for the blind (I do not use the PC equivalent) or for use while taking a long drive. Otherwise -- just borrow books from the library.  

The blind and the dyslexic. I am the latter. 

I forgot that handicap. As I am on the autistic spectrum, I do not relate to fiction unless it is really, really good. 

Quote:

Quote:10. Consider yourself lucky. Some work environments are themselves abusive (think of retailing). If you have trustworthy family members and can avoid dealings with sociopathic relatives (I know two certifiable sociopaths and avoid them. One did a huge embezzlement of his employer. Another schmoozes people in the public sector to buy overpriced stuff or services by losing consistently at golf). 

Oh I do! I've worked for my fair share of abusive bosses. The most abusive company I worked for was support worker program for mentally handicapped people. 

Every company is going to have some level of regimentation and hierarchy just to keep from abusing clients. Mentally-handicapped people are particularly vulnerable. 
[/quote]

Quote:[quote pid='83059' dateline='1667623180']

Quote:Poverty seems to concentrate bad people due to poor work habits or overall dishonesty too dangerous for paid work. It also exposes one to the reality of an economic hierarchy that supposedly creates prosperity in the presence of gross deprivation. We have people living like sultans and people living as if they were in Hell-holes of the Third World. A city like Chicago is part Dubai and part Caracas. Poverty of experiences is a mark of a lack of education and imagination. Give up the bad habits (if you have them), and you can get some good experiences as alternatives. 

Not all poor people are bad, but just about all poor people have to live in proximity to bad people. This is one of my main motivations to make money. I saw some pretty nasty crimes during my time in The Windy City

[/quote]

Yes -- avoid the South Side except for White Sox games. The North Side of Chicago is Copenhagen, and the South Side is Caracas.

[nguyenivy]

(11-04-2022, 10:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-03-2022, 10:08 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: I am a retail worker, live alone and pay all my own bills, so I am about as close to your definition of a "slave" as you can get. Let's take a look at what this "slave" salary can get me

- I eat a relatively healthy diet
- I drink a variety of high quality teas every day
- I have enough money for occasional car maintenance/repairs as needed
- I visit state and national parks up in the mountains 1-4 times a month
- I have a gym membership
- I have a fairly large TV, a netflix account and several video game systems
- I buy (audio) books like it's going out of style
- I have consistent food and shelter
- I don't have to deal with particularly abusive people

...and with all this, I can still save about $200 a month without having to be insanely frugal. Point is: if you compare me to about 90% of the world's population, I have a very good life. I am not, never have been, and never will be a fucking "slave". There are plenty of people in the US who are poorer than me and have far harder lives than I do. I even support a good number of policies that would improve working conditions for several occupations and have mixed opinions on things like socialized healthcare. My point is that job and income alone are not a good indicator of if someone is a "slave", and that in spite of my on-paper "low status", I have nothing to be resentful for.

PS: I actually have two jobs. My second is as a professional prop trader, but as I'm reinvesting all my profits and have yet to pay myself, it's actually costing me more than it's making me at present, so, if anything, it only furthers my point.

Retail work is generally the lowest-paying work available. It is unskilled, and not intellectually demanding. If anything, I have observed (I did such work upon graduation from college) that the stupider that one is, the happier one can be if one does it. People who don't fit the pattern of the "Dullard at Dillard's" (a horrid employer that insisted that its retail clerks do cut-throat compete with each other for small privileges) in which people do that work as an alternative to factory work, domestic service, or clerking in an office. People who said things like :I don't want to be a secretary" did exactly that within six months of working at Dillard's. Or if they said that of factory work -- such is what they ended up doing.  Such was more demanding intellectually or physically, and that horrid company ended up with lots of "Sad Sack" types.  Dillard's hasn't changed much since I was there forty years ago, and it got recognition as one of the Ten Worst Companies to Work For several years ago. Ferocious competition is what one expects in pure selling; sales at a certain level pays more than any other activity for the same level of intellectual competence and work ethic for anyone without an extreme specialization such as a skilled trade, creative activity, or such professions as law, engineering, and medicine. The only good thing about working there was that I got to learn old-fashioned salesmanship, something not taught in college. I found that highly useful as a substitute teacher (I had the wrong college degree, and I love working on children's minds to a desirable end), and more often more useful than anything that I learned while in college classes.

If it is a choice between some illicit activity, hunger, or homelessness (you can share a slum apartment or a run-down trailer with others), then a company like Dillard's isn't all bad. But know that management sees every one of its workers as a lazy moocher who would steal if the opportunity arose. You will be expected to dress like an executive, which is good practice for a responsible position that pays more and does not have an ethos in which all the rules seem to begin with "Suffer for!" 

I see a pattern in at least one  retailer. It seems a dreary place to work, and I see its workers going out for smoking breaks. Smoking is a costly waste of meager income and personal health, but it is one good way that one does not end up a destitute old person because one will die before any mandatory age of retirement. Heck, if I were making a million dollars a year I would consider smoking a pointless waste of money and health. If such is one's sole joy in life, then one is in trouble. 

OK, one can live sort-of-OK (sharing an awful apartment or trailer if one isn't living with parents). It is a good idea to

1. avoid junk food altogether. I am on disability and get food aid, and I can have a reasonably-good and varied diet if I stay away from chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas. All of those offer little nutritive value, but the sugar-and-saturated fats "high" is relatively low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  They all contribute to obesity. Alcoholic beverages do not qualify for food aid, and I rarely get those. I'm not a scratch cook, so I don't make my own lasagna. 

I have my suggestion for SNAP: disqualify chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas as eligible items but instead offer eligibility for toilet paper, soap, and detergents that are just as necessary. Issue a cookbook, and require anyone getting food aid to participate in community-college courses in cooking and nutrition. Learn to make your own lasagna; this can be a matter of pride. 

2. Better teas than sodas. They are actually cheaper than sodas. 

3. Encourage the use of dial-a-ride services for local travel, as to general merchandisers in box stores or to the gym. 

4. If you live in a hick town you will need a car. If you live in a ghetto-like slum and need to commute to the suburbs for the fast-food and retail jobs that the local kids abandon once they get something else, you will need a car to do shift work. Ideally one is paid well enough to do this. 

One morning I was in greater Detroit to drop someone off at an airport. I figured that the drive back would be the opposite direction of commute traffic of white suburbanites headed to the few well-paying jobs downtown. I saw myself in heavy traffic going the opposite direction, and most of the people traveling in my direction were black. They were in an opposite flow almost as heavy as the expected suburban-to-core city flow long stereotyped in America. I had no cause to believe that blacks dominated late-shift work in factories. The service and retailing jobs are in the suburbs.  Such work still has poverty as an employee perquisite, but it is more remunerative than welfare and easier to get. 

5. I know places to go. I live in a farming area, and except for weather at its rawest, little could be more unnatural than farmland. New York City has Central Park; Boston has Boston Commons; Chicago has its lakeshore; all three cities need those or they would be unlivable. "Scary, Indiana" seems to have been built without them, and it shows. The South Side of Chicago seems to lack this, and it shows. I avoid both. 

A trip to a zoo, a museum of almost any kind (art, natural science, technology, history, ethnic heritage), or a symphony concert or opera is often a lasting experience. I'll pass on casinos which offer banks of slot machines that offer a mysterious return from what seem like gussied-up soft-drink machines. It's the memories that matter. 

I have been to Yosemite National Park, Isle Royale National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Mammoth Cave National Park, Indiana Dunes National Park, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All memorable. I can make plugs for Tahquamenon State Park and Pictured Rocks in Michigan, and quite a few state parks in California (redwoods and seashore). All are memorable. I have been to the main art museums in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and Toledo. 

I have yet to hear the Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, or Cleveland Orchestra live, but I have heard the San Francisco and Dallas Symphonies.  

6. The senior center near me has exercise machines. I am too old to do running (I have always gotten winded easily) but I can certainly work out on an exercise bike. 

7. A "small" television that one does not use simply as a computer monitor has about a 32" diagonal screen, and one of those is available for about $150 at "Wally World", and it has built-in access to Roku, Netflix, YouTube, and other such services. Do you know anyone who still watches a 19" TV with a CRT screen?   

8. Recorded books are for the blind (I do not use the PC equivalent) or for use while taking a long drive. Otherwise -- just borrow books from the library.  

9. People should not be priced into destitution. If you do honest work, then any work should afford some privacy without gnawing boredom. 

10. Consider yourself lucky. Some work environments are themselves abusive (think of retailing). If you have trustworthy family members and can avoid dealings with sociopathic relatives (I know two certifiable sociopaths and avoid them. One did a huge embezzlement of his employer. Another schmoozes people in the public sector to buy overpriced stuff or services by losing consistently at golf). 

Poverty seems to concentrate bad people due to poor work habits or overall dishonesty too dangerous for paid work. It also exposes one to the reality of an economic hierarchy that supposedly creates prosperity in the presence of gross deprivation. We have people living like sultans and people living as if they were in Hell-holes of the Third World. A city like Chicago is part Dubai and part Caracas. Poverty of experiences is a mark of a lack of education and imagination. Give up the bad habits (if you have them), and you can get some good experiences as alternatives. 

I would prefer that we were more like Copenhagen as a whole (and this is clearly not an ethnic swipe).

Part Dubai and part Caracas. That sounds like it sums up most large American cities. A central business/historic district where one would have to be a millionaire to live in with its tree-lined streets, loads of tourist attractions, new architecture, clean streets, waterways, an engaged/joyful populace, etc, vs residential neighbourhoods with housing that is falling apart, shootings every day, few trees & parks, and people who are sad/angry/bored a lot.

[pbrower2a]

(11-06-2022, 03:35 PM)nguyenivy Wrote:

(11-04-2022, 10:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-03-2022, 10:08 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: I am a retail worker, live alone and pay all my own bills, so I am about as close to your definition of a "slave" as you can get. Let's take a look at what this "slave" salary can get me

- I eat a relatively healthy diet
- I drink a variety of high quality teas every day
- I have enough money for occasional car maintenance/repairs as needed
- I visit state and national parks up in the mountains 1-4 times a month
- I have a gym membership
- I have a fairly large TV, a netflix account and several video game systems
- I buy (audio) books like it's going out of style
- I have consistent food and shelter
- I don't have to deal with particularly abusive people

...and with all this, I can still save about $200 a month without having to be insanely frugal. Point is: if you compare me to about 90% of the world's population, I have a very good life. I am not, never have been, and never will be a fucking "slave". There are plenty of people in the US who are poorer than me and have far harder lives than I do. I even support a good number of policies that would improve working conditions for several occupations and have mixed opinions on things like socialized healthcare. My point is that job and income alone are not a good indicator of if someone is a "slave", and that in spite of my on-paper "low status", I have nothing to be resentful for.

PS: I actually have two jobs. My second is as a professional prop trader, but as I'm reinvesting all my profits and have yet to pay myself, it's actually costing me more than it's making me at present, so, if anything, it only furthers my point.

Retail work is generally the lowest-paying work available. It is unskilled, and not intellectually demanding. If anything, I have observed (I did such work upon graduation from college) that the stupider that one is, the happier one can be if one does it. People who don't fit the pattern of the "Dullard at Dillard's" (a horrid employer that insisted that its retail clerks do cut-throat compete with each other for small privileges) in which people do that work as an alternative to factory work, domestic service, or clerking in an office. People who said things like :I don't want to be a secretary" did exactly that within six months of working at Dillard's. Or if they said that of factory work -- such is what they ended up doing.  Such was more demanding intellectually or physically, and that horrid company ended up with lots of "Sad Sack" types.  Dillard's hasn't changed much since I was there forty years ago, and it got recognition as one of the Ten Worst Companies to Work For several years ago. Ferocious competition is what one expects in pure selling; sales at a certain level pays more than any other activity for the same level of intellectual competence and work ethic for anyone without an extreme specialization such as a skilled trade, creative activity, or such professions as law, engineering, and medicine. The only good thing about working there was that I got to learn old-fashioned salesmanship, something not taught in college. I found that highly useful as a substitute teacher (I had the wrong college degree, and I love working on children's minds to a desirable end), and more often more useful than anything that I learned while in college classes.

If it is a choice between some illicit activity, hunger, or homelessness (you can share a slum apartment or a run-down trailer with others), then a company like Dillard's isn't all bad. But know that management sees every one of its workers as a lazy moocher who would steal if the opportunity arose. You will be expected to dress like an executive, which is good practice for a responsible position that pays more and does not have an ethos in which all the rules seem to begin with "Suffer for!" 

I see a pattern in at least one  retailer. It seems a dreary place to work, and I see its workers going out for smoking breaks. Smoking is a costly waste of meager income and personal health, but it is one good way that one does not end up a destitute old person because one will die before any mandatory age of retirement. Heck, if I were making a million dollars a year I would consider smoking a pointless waste of money and health. If such is one's sole joy in life, then one is in trouble. 

OK, one can live sort-of-OK (sharing an awful apartment or trailer if one isn't living with parents). It is a good idea to

1. avoid junk food altogether. I am on disability and get food aid, and I can have a reasonably-good and varied diet if I stay away from chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas. All of those offer little nutritive value, but the sugar-and-saturated fats "high" is relatively low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  They all contribute to obesity. Alcoholic beverages do not qualify for food aid, and I rarely get those. I'm not a scratch cook, so I don't make my own lasagna. 

I have my suggestion for SNAP: disqualify chips, cookies, pastries, candies, fake fruit drinks, and sodas as eligible items but instead offer eligibility for toilet paper, soap, and detergents that are just as necessary. Issue a cookbook, and require anyone getting food aid to participate in community-college courses in cooking and nutrition. Learn to make your own lasagna; this can be a matter of pride. 

2. Better teas than sodas. They are actually cheaper than sodas. 

3. Encourage the use of dial-a-ride services for local travel, as to general merchandisers in box stores or to the gym. 

4. If you live in a hick town you will need a car. If you live in a ghetto-like slum and need to commute to the suburbs for the fast-food and retail jobs that the local kids abandon once they get something else, you will need a car to do shift work. Ideally one is paid well enough to do this. 

One morning I was in greater Detroit to drop someone off at an airport. I figured that the drive back would be the opposite direction of commute traffic of white suburbanites headed to the few well-paying jobs downtown. I saw myself in heavy traffic going the opposite direction, and most of the people traveling in my direction were black. They were in an opposite flow almost as heavy as the expected suburban-to-core city flow long stereotyped in America. I had no cause to believe that blacks dominated late-shift work in factories. The service and retailing jobs are in the suburbs.  Such work still has poverty as an employee perquisite, but it is more remunerative than welfare and easier to get. 

5. I know places to go. I live in a farming area, and except for weather at its rawest, little could be more unnatural than farmland. New York City has Central Park; Boston has Boston Commons; Chicago has its lakeshore; all three cities need those or they would be unlivable. "Scary, Indiana" seems to have been built without them, and it shows. The South Side of Chicago seems to lack this, and it shows. I avoid both. 

A trip to a zoo, a museum of almost any kind (art, natural science, technology, history, ethnic heritage), or a symphony concert or opera is often a lasting experience. I'll pass on casinos which offer banks of slot machines that offer a mysterious return from what seem like gussied-up soft-drink machines. It's the memories that matter. 

I have been to Yosemite National Park, Isle Royale National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Mammoth Cave National Park, Indiana Dunes National Park, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All memorable. I can make plugs for Tahquamenon State Park and Pictured Rocks in Michigan, and quite a few state parks in California (redwoods and seashore). All are memorable. I have been to the main art museums in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and Toledo. 

I have yet to hear the Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, or Cleveland Orchestra live, but I have heard the San Francisco and Dallas Symphonies.  

6. The senior center near me has exercise machines. I am too old to do running (I have always gotten winded easily) but I can certainly work out on an exercise bike. 

7. A "small" television that one does not use simply as a computer monitor has about a 32" diagonal screen, and one of those is available for about $150 at "Wally World", and it has built-in access to Roku, Netflix, YouTube, and other such services. Do you know anyone who still watches a 19" TV with a CRT screen?   

8. Recorded books are for the blind (I do not use the PC equivalent) or for use while taking a long drive. Otherwise -- just borrow books from the library.  

9. People should not be priced into destitution. If you do honest work, then any work should afford some privacy without gnawing boredom. 

10. Consider yourself lucky. Some work environments are themselves abusive (think of retailing). If you have trustworthy family members and can avoid dealings with sociopathic relatives (I know two certifiable sociopaths and avoid them. One did a huge embezzlement of his employer. Another schmoozes people in the public sector to buy overpriced stuff or services by losing consistently at golf). 

Poverty seems to concentrate bad people due to poor work habits or overall dishonesty too dangerous for paid work. It also exposes one to the reality of an economic hierarchy that supposedly creates prosperity in the presence of gross deprivation. We have people living like sultans and people living as if they were in Hell-holes of the Third World. A city like Chicago is part Dubai and part Caracas. Poverty of experiences is a mark of a lack of education and imagination. Give up the bad habits (if you have them), and you can get some good experiences as alternatives. 

I would prefer that we were more like Copenhagen as a whole (and this is clearly not an ethnic swipe).

Part Dubai and part Caracas. That sounds like it sums up most large American cities. A central business/historic district where one would have to be a millionaire to live in with its tree-lined streets, loads of tourist attractions, new architecture, clean streets, waterways, an engaged/joyful populace, etc, vs residential neighbourhoods with housing that is falling apart, shootings every day, few trees & parks, and people who are sad/angry/bored a lot.

I have my suggestion on education. It would frustrate the ends of people who seek to profiteer off human suffering. I'm not going to say "F-- 'em"... they enjoy plenty of sex, if highly exploitative use of others for sexual gratification. Just think of Donald Trump. Tough! We can have a sustainable society or one damned to disintegrate in war or revolution, if not to bring about the destruction of civilization (if not Humanity itself) in some apocalyptic war.  

For dealing with the sophisticated liars and cheats (including PR types selling Hard Right ideology in the service of an order in which the super-rich alone have commanding power over everyone else to the extent of the power to decide life and death) we need more education, the sort of liberal arts education that used to define the "educated Man" (OK, woman as well). I can suggest a syllabus that includes Freshman composition (so that people can do coherent reports and create coherent material of dissidence if necessary), economics (how the economy works on both the small and large scale), philosophy (ethics and formal logic), psychology (to avoid getting manipulated), comparative political systems (if it acts like fascism then it probably is), and statistics and probability. We also need to know how better to use our time and money, so I suggest appreciation of music, art, and cinema. You might think of other essential material, but it is unlikely that you can reject what I suggest. You are welcome to add. Heck, I am convinced that being a good cook is one way in which to improve the quality of life. 

 Will this ensure middle-class lives for the graduates? No -- but it would make better shop stewards in factories.  Most importantly we would be more capable of rejecting Donald Trump and figures likely to adopt much of his agenda which I see as the destruction of liberal democracy in behalf of a nightmare of hierarchy, repression, and inequality -- a vile trinity if there ever was one.

[JasonBlack]

Not enough for me to start a war over, but I am really looking forward to some of the retribution Homelanders will levy against elder Millennials and (whatever remains of) Gen X for all these mandatory lockdowns during the next 2T (or, hopefully, sooner). If I had my way, all of government officials who instigated these lockdowns would be arrested, and its supporters among the public should be shamed for the rest of their lives. 

Honestly, idgaf about the masks. In fact, I still wear one at work because it's convenient to hide my headphones. I believe in being socially responsible and took all reasonable measures, including frequent test as I lived with my elderly parents at the time. I worked through the whole thing, watched my diet, called out from work if there was a potential I was contagious. No one had to "make" me do anything. 

....however, as an American, I was never more ashamed of my country as was the case in 2020. As Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." In March of 2020...we chose temporary safety, and decided that all it took to say the First Amendment "doesn't count" is for the rest of the country to freak out over an unknown respiratory virus. 

Every one of you who supported forcing half the economy to shut down for months (or in some cases, over a year) have chosen security over freedom. You believe it is your right to control people, even forcing small business owners to go belly under because they can't stay open, because "the greater good" is more important. You...are...a...coward!