In the great flood of 1927, the upper crust of New Orleans tried to save the city by breaking the levees and flooding the land of poor farmers who lived farther up the Mississippi River. But even among those poor victims, blacks were treated worse than whites. John Barry, author of Rising Tide, an account of that flood, argues that the… return to article
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Reader Comments (63)Page 1 of 1 pagesI don’t know about another New Deal.Temptingly optimistic as it may sound.
The Republicans did not have Fox News back then,nor did they have the mindless followers that they have now.
Posted by wwoods on Sep 9, 2005 at 7:52 PM When will this crap end? The “class-based” response? Hey news flash to the idiot writer: the poor population is made up disparately of BLACKS in NOLA; everyone else had already vacated the city!
Who, the hell, do you think was being rescued?? It sure wasn’t the likes of Trent Lott, whom Dubya will surely be sipping mint juleps with when Lott’s multi-million dollar mansion is rebuilt.
It’s articles written by morons like this that give the left a bad name.
Posted by g-love on Sep 9, 2005 at 8:55 PM I’m not sure about another New Deal happening, either. As Gore Vidal said, “Nothing repeats itself, except human folly.”
I’m hoping that there will be some kind of new populist coalition that cuts across both race, class, and even party lines. Even if it doesn’t win (it probably won’t), it could force issues into the open.
But the New Deal was actually a last-ditch effort to save capitalism. FDR felt the heat from Huey Long, Dr. Franics Townshend, Charles Coughlin, Upton Sinclair, Norman Thomas, and others throughout the 1930’s. How could that kind of pressure happen now, in a country where there isn’t a strong, popular alternative to winner-take-all free trade? A New New Deal would have a hard time getting past the corporate types (who haven’t had their stocks collapse, like in the ‘30s).
Posted by albigensian on Sep 9, 2005 at 10:24 PM Who was it who said “people get the government they deserve” ? I’m already starting to see the shortlived wave of media independence receding as the white house spin machine shifts into overdrive. Not to be overly cynical, but the public’s attention span is nearing it’s expiration date. Soon we’ll be celebrating the anniversary of 9/11 (“whew…”). Mid-term elections are more than a year away, and the problem of computerized paperless voting machines has still not been addressed. And the democrats are as much a part of the problem as the republicans, with few exceptions. The problems facing this nation are gigantic and complex and most people are too tired to even engage in conversation about them, let alone take action, or bother to vote. Before Bush’s term is over there will be another manufactured crisis to distract from the one’s he actually caused or exacerbated, Roberts will be chief justice, tax cuts for the top will have been made permanent, and Jeb will be “voted” into the white house. New “New Deal” ? It’ll be a miracle if we can hang on to even a pretense of democracy in a Neo-Con America run by christo-fascists and their corporate sponsors.
Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Sep 10, 2005 at 5:46 AM Nice quote. Google says it was Alexis de Tocqueville and he applied it to democracies. Does this mean that if the Iraqis get a government that only a foreign power could love… then that’s pretty much on them?
Pardon the off topic remark.
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 10, 2005 at 7:32 AM http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2315/
From the article —”...there is a national sense of shame at how the victims were so disproportionately poor and black.”
I suppose we could say there is a disproportionate number of wealthy whites who lose their homes in California mud slides.
Or— If you build in the desert you will have a high number suffering heat stroke. (whatever your color)
Why is it everything comes down to racial BS and party preference? I was in Alabama in 1963 and was hopeful the 1964 Civil Rights Act would actually eliminate racial labeling.
The reverse is what we got — quotas, continually changing PC preferences as to what to call people, black pages phone directories, Black and HispanicTV channels, second language ads for (majority) minorities.
It’s like saying, “Don’t think of a pink elephant.” When everything is color coded or hyphenated how can we ever get past it?
Let’s do something truly historical…
We have a huge down-side adjustment in employment going on in this country. Both major parties are almost totally involved in selling out our jobs. Globalization has been eating away at the middle class. As they move down the economic ladder their advantages in education and experience will push those near the bottom even lower. Where do you go when the bottom rung of the ladder to success is out of reach — to Mexico? China? India?
Now we are facing the possibility of a “special guest worker” status which can be labeled with the oxymoron — Sub-minimum Wage. If free enterprise and free markets are what they say, let the market set the wages for picking lettuce or whatever. Americans will work if the pay is fair.
Some sort of massive works program is needed. I suggest something of the scope the Eisenhower administration did in the 1950s when the Interstate Highway System was built.
A nation wide passenger rail line connecting major cities and feed by an interurban link from smaller towns would do the following:
• Put thousands to work in construction • Thousands more in supporting jobs • Employ Americans, in America, for future Americans (little or no foreign competition)
• Conserve energy and move toward energy independence • Reduce emissions and improve the environment
• Increase the ability to evacuate areas in times of emergency (During WW2 thousands of our troops moved by rail)
This system could be funded by a combination of bonds (Like the WW2 War Bonds), by government and private company (RR) partnerships and by tax deductible contributions.
One possibility is installing a monorail on the Interstate median strip in many areas of the country.
Hint: Don’t lay the track below sea level, over earthquake fault lines or on unstable hillsides.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 10, 2005 at 3:47 PM In some instances and with some groups of people, one can foster confusion about the cause of disparity in America. With blacks in America, it is not really difficult at all because we can all point to slavery as the starting point. People want to believe that ending slavery soved evertything, but that lets us off the hook a bit easy.
The garanteed right to vote was hard fought and embarrassingly recent. When exactly, can we point to the fundamental change of heart that rid us of racism as a nation? It didn’t happen. WTH wants to pretend it did.
We assume that much of the problem of disparity boils down to poverty and education, access to resources and the fundamental question of how to remedy the situation escapes us.
You have a choice, really. You can claim that the lack of income and opportunity is solely the fault of the individuals at the bottom, or you can look at the rules of the game and try to understand why it is so hard to break the cycle of poverty.
The former invites us to blame genetics for a personality flaw shared disproportionately by minorities. The latter, casts doubt on the inherent superiority of those with means and the cycle of entitlement enjoyed by their offspring and relations.
Conservatives tell me that if we stop helping the poor so much, they will do better. From this we should infer that being raised by wolves is the conservative ideal.
My God, what would happen to Rabbit?
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 10, 2005 at 4:53 PM >> Indeed, the main problem was not the class-biased emergency response and relief, but rather the degree of poverty and inequality in the country—growing under the Bush administration—and the general lack of solidarity with low-income working Americans. <<
This is a straightforward plea for socialist economic solutions to our nation’s problems. The hard socialist economic/ political model of the Soviet Union is mercifully dead and gone. There is a fairly sharp divide between the Social-Democrat parties of Old Europe and the growing number of free-market capitalist democracies in the world. And the author is all in favor of socialism for the USA. Is that a good idea?
One of the arguments in the article is that “real median household income” is not rising. This is a classic case of lying with statistics. Median household income is on a long-term upward trend ($37,767 in 1984, $43,318 in 2003, as measured in constant 2003 dollars). Median household income spiked upward during Clinton’s dot.com Bubble, but this was artificial and unsustainable. Then the Clinton Recession followed the Clinton Bubble. Employment fell and incomes dropped during the Clinton Recession, but neither fell by much compared to previous recessions because President Bush cut taxes and Chairman Greenspan cut interest rates. Both steps pumped money into the economy, giving increased investment and job growth. So, yes, income is not growing at the moment. But employment is increasing and tax revenues are increasing, cutting the deficit. This will lead to an improved economy and improved personal well-being, if we do not try to apply idiotic socialist policies that screw up the works.
How bad are socialist economic policies? From the World Fact Book (2004 per cap GDP, equivalent dollars):
USA$40,100
Germany$28,700
France$28,700
Belgium$30,600
So, if a person lives in Old Europe he lives with about $10,000 fewer goods and services than if he lived in the USA.
If you think the Clinton Recession was bad, Old Europe has been locked in recessionary conditions for fifteen years, and has long enjoyed unemployment rates in the 10% - 12% range. The citizens of Old Europe like socialism, but find the resultant conditions intolerable. France just voted down the European Constitution, in which France was a prime moving force. Schroeder in Germany will be voted out of office next week. The Old Europe socialist welfare states are going broke, and nobody knows how to fix them or pay for them.
The reasons for the miserable performance in socialist economies are control and bureaucracy. In trying to dictate equal outcomes, socialist systems dictate such diverse items as terms of employment, prices of goods, and allocations of resources. The European Constitution that was just rejected dictated, among other things, the proper curvature of bananas. The old Soviet Gosplan prepared, and periodically updated, price lists for every one of the millions of items throughout the Soviet Union. Bread cost the same in Leningrad as in Vladivostok. There were no such things as sales or discounts in the Soviet Union. If there were too many winter clothes on the shelves, they stayed on the shelves throughout the summer until they were sold, because Gosplan dictated what was going to be sold. In practical terms, Old Europe makes it so difficult to fire or lay-off workers that employers find it better to avoid hiring, hence the high unemployment levels. One feature of socialist economies is lack of productivity; Soviet productivity was terrible, and Old Europe lags significantly behind the free market, capitalist economies. The high cost of the socialist bureaucracy is a major factor in poor socialist economic performance.
Posted by scorp on Sep 10, 2005 at 6:20 PM (Cont.)
>> … poverty and inequality in the country—growing under the Bush administration—and the general lack of solidarity with low-income working Americans. <<
This. Is. Nonsense. Just as income is going up, long-term poverty is going down. The Census Bureau employees thirteen different definitions of poverty, but poverty is down by about 30% since 1984. And President Bush’s electoral margin improved in 2004 among all ethnic groups and labor. We have ongoing problems, but the Democratic Party socialist bureaucracies of New Orleans, Watts, and Detroit make poverty worse, just as in Old Europe. What we need is market-based solutions to poverty. What we do not need is to limit our productivity utilizing socialist controls; that would make everyone worse off.
Posted by scorp on Sep 10, 2005 at 6:20 PM “polls show Americans think the government failed in its responsibilities”
-So lets make government bigger!
“America’s stark life-and-death inequalities projected on the nation’s television screens”
-Nothing unequal here. Those that stayed had the same chance of death.
“the catastrophe visited upon them was as much social as it was natural.”
-No, the catastrophe was the hurricane. The only social problems lie within their own culture. In America, your life discisions create you economic status. Only those that are LAZY stay in poverty.
“even if the problems have been developing over many decades”
-So, it was not just Bush? So, Congress appropreates where money goes?
“a man whose main qualification for the position, other than being a friend of a friend of Bush,”
-I hope the republicrats and democans realize this is how it is with every administration, and I hope we will not stand for this anymore.
“the hurricane evacuation efforts, which barely took into account those who couldn’t afford automobiles, showed how little attention officials pay to the poor and their needs.”
-Actually the local evacuation plans called for using school and city buses and the MAYOR and the Governor did not follow the plan.
“refugees waiting in squalor as Bush played golf and Condoleezza Rice went on a shopping spree for fancy shoes.”
-Not good, but atleast he was not bombing other nations while getting BJs.
“For Bush, government does have a role in providing security”
-You should read our Consitution, because providing national security is one of the only rights the Fed has.
“security closer to home highlights more failings of the Bush administration and opens the door for a new politics of security.”
-So we are back to bigger Government. I do not want bigger FED. THOSE THAT GIVE UP LIBIRTY FOR SECURITY DISERVE NEITHER!
“as well as his refusal to acknowledge the threat of global warming”
-What do meteorologists (you know, the ones that study the weather) have to say on this? And isn’t the Sun burning hotter now, than decades in the past?
“The hurricane’s disruption of an already tight oil market”
-I do not think it was Bush that did not want more drilling or new refineries.
“global warming was identified as a cause”
-AAAAAAA cause, not THE cause.
“the long-term failure to protect the ecosystem of the Mississippi river, its delta and the barrier islands—which Bush continued”
-So how is it only his fault?
“(Katrina) could help shift the balance of politics”
-This would be GREAT if the power is shifted back to the people, not the Left.
“bring about a respect for the role of government”
-So for you to “respect” government, they need to take, at the point of a gun, from some and give it to others.Think
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 10, 2005 at 7:56 PM My New Deal:
Blaming one party or another is in no way helping to solve the problems of America.
Believe it or not, but I was a registered democrat until just before 2000 when I left the party to be an independent. (I feel the party left me though.) When I made this choice, I thought the Left was about to destroy the Right. My plan was to do all I could to reel in the Left (I think big) and take them down, locally and nationally. I thought it was going to be the Left that would have all the power today, man was I wrong. Although, I believed then as I do now; the Right will be easy to bring down.
I think that this disaster has shown how the federal government and all its bureaucracy have hurt the individual, and probably the poor more so. I think this is because of the lack of the States and the people being represented in the federal government. Our system was setup so no one entity could “take over”, but that is obviously not the case today. This is because we have changed the foundation for which we stand on, our Constitution.
Most people do not know that the highest federal official a single person was originally supposed to vote directly for is: your congressperson. Your congressperson is supposed to “represent” you in congress, not the president or your senators. This is too bad for me because my representative is, Corin Brown, aka, “all white people look the same to me”.
And Bush is causing all the racial tensions.
Senators were appointed to the Senate by the state bodies. Therefore, the states were to be “represented” in the senate. This changed with the passage of the 17th amendment. We now have a popular vote for senators. Therefore, no one is representing the states, only big money. Thus we have the situation in Louisiana.I think the best way to help ALL Americans, especially the poor, is to repeal the 17th Amendment and to implement HB 25 (fairtax.org). The voice of the states is no longer heard and it needs to be. As for the Fair Tax, there is nothing out there that will help the poor more, but you socialists will have to get over the fact the “rich” will not pay income taxes either.
I will be here in the “middle” taking aim at the elite in the RNC and DNC.
Think
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 10, 2005 at 9:14 PM TFY: What?
You said: (the government failed) “-So lets make government bigger!”
How about “The fireman was unable to extinguish the flames with a garden hose, so why should we give him a firetruck?”
You said: “-...In America, your life discisions create you economic status. Only those that are LAZY stay in poverty…”
I call B.S. That is so wrong that it is nearly obscene. You think Paris Hilton created her own economic Status? Shrewed of her to be born into the Hilton family. The trouble with libertarians is that their models always leave out important variables.
What you earn has a lot to do with where you started in life. If your parents provide for you and have the means to see to it that you are well educated and well rounded, then you really have to be a complete moron to fail. (not that some don’t try - but some morons obviously succeed anyway)
On the other hand, if your parent(s) can’t afford to provide for your basic requirements or are abusive, then you have to be extraordinary to achieve even modest success. You will be prone to reject formal education as irrelevant while you scrap for short-term gains. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Your attitude does so much harm. It’s a lie you tell yourself because it makes you feel good thinking that all your success is earned success. Or maybe you think you deserved to be born to a middle-class supportive family because God loves you especially much. The again, perhaps you are one of the extraordinary ones. - Odds are that you aren’t.
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 11, 2005 at 5:37 AM Posted by GrayArea on September 10, 2005 at 11:53 AM
“When exactly, can we point to the fundamental change of heart that rid us of racism as a nation? It didn’t happen. WTH wants to pretend it did.”
No, no, no! In fact, just the opposite. What I said was…“I was in Alabama in 1963 and was hopeful the 1964 Civil Rights Act would actually eliminate racial labeling. The reverse is what we got…”
Since my time in Alabama, when everything was labeled Colored Only or White Only, progress has been accomplished in some areas, but in others I believe racial prejudice is at least as bad as ever — perhaps more so now since the quotas, etc. which I mentioned.Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says there shall be no discrimination based on gender or race what has happened with the quotas, busing “to achieve racial balance”, etc. has created racial feelings where none existed before. My dentist’s son could not get into med school even with high grades due to the balancing act. Our high school’s advanced math classes had to balance which meant even kids without the necessary skills were admitted and others with better grades excluded for lack of room. Not good for either group and built animosity.
We had a racial discrimination lawsuit which dragged on for 12 years. We built several new schools to equalize quality. We are still busing kids all over town — none of the parents of any race are happy with it and our school system has a huge deficit. The quality of education has dropped, 23 schools are below acceptable government levels and we are in danger of having the government take the district over. Think about the racial feelings that came from this. I agreed with the black father who brought the suit, but the “solutions” benefitted no one.
On the plus side: I have lived in my current home since 1967, when it was a totally white middle class neighborhood. Over time it has become quite integrated racially. We now have black families, Hispanics, and Indian. No one has complained, protested or made a big deal of it. No money down home sales have increased the mix with no problems and as far as I know no one has moved away due to anyone moving in. Prejudice is a generalized feeling — knowing individuals for who they are (neighbors) is the best cure.
I must admit to my own prejudice increasing when, due to fear of being called racist, teachers do not discipline minority children — when police are accused with racial profiling if they write more tickets to minority drivers — when minority bidders get a 10 percent edge on government projects. All of these things have happened in my city and to me or people I know.
Reversing the game doesn’t help the overall problem — “equal” should not be hard to understand.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 12:57 PM You guys are really bizarre, you ideologue socialists and evangelistic capitalists. The purity of your ideologies, the selectivity of the evidence you cite.
Selective. Biased. Preconceived. Prejudicial. Doctrinaire. No one can tell you guys a damn thing, because you already think you know.
What you both have in common is a lack of connectedness to what takes place in real people’s lives. You are both determined to see with only one eye, and you refuse to perceive what your other eye could show you.
You capitalists say that all we need is a will to work and to get government off our backs, but you don’t articulate any expectation that your wealth, once acquired and concentrated, should be used not only for masturbatory self-indulgence but for the betterment of the world in which you live and the people living in it. You say that unadulterated self-interest is the key to social advancement. That’s magical thinking! Thank God some among your number learned something other than unfiltered self-focus, and actually do use their wealth as a tool for the benefit of those around them. But don’t take credit for their generosity, there’s nothing in the heart of your “wisdom” that made them be generous. They probably learned it from church or from a socialist!
And you socialists, every time you encourage anyone to think that someone else is responsible for their quality of life, every time you convince a man that nothing he can do for himself has anything to do with his advancement or degradation, you mislead him. You play him false. You set him up for further failure and humiliation, while encouraging nothing but his resentment and his habit of casting about to find out who’s to blame for his sorrows and his dead-end life. You encourage a culture of feeling victimized. You encourage psychological emasculation. Thank God some among you have gotten the clue that in order to share wealth, you have to work your ass off to create it! But don’t take any credit for it, there’s also nothing in the heart of your “wisdom” that did anything but instill envy and jealousy at another’s success. Those of your ilk who did get ahead had to learn to do so from someone else, maybe their hard-working parents or another life experience that correlated effort with excellence.
There’s got to be another social philosophy besides the two of yours, that doesn’t encourage either alienated acquisitiveness nor idle bitching about how you got done to unfairly. The sooner it’s synthesized or invented, the better for us all. Too bad we’re wasting all this energy in the meantime as you two figuratively fight it out!
Posted by Kuya on Sep 11, 2005 at 4:15 PM Posted by scorp on September 10, 2005 at 1:20 PM
“One of the arguments in the article is that “real median household income” is not rising. This is a classic case of lying with statistics. Median household income is on a long-term upward trend ($37,767 in 1984, $43,318 in 2003, as measured in constant 2003 dollars).”While the numbers you quote may very well be true, they cover the period with the greatest stock surge since records were kept. The budget surplus we all heard about in the 1990s was predicated on the idea that the tech/productivity boom would continue to pour tax dollars into the hopper.
According to the report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of Census, median income is NOT doing well. See: Changes in Median Household Income 1969 to 1996, by John McNeil, P23-196, issued July 1998.
(on page 23) It states in the first paragraph…”From 1969 to 1996, median household income rose a very modest 6.3 percent in constant dollars (from $33,072 to $35,172). At the same time per capita income rose by a robust 51 percent in constant dollars (from $11,975 to $18,136).
(also on pg 23) “... a major change has occurred in income inequality. The distribution of income changed dramatically over the period, but it changed in such a way as to have a small effect on the median.”
My guess is that the biggest change is the outrageous amount CEOs are raking in by laying off our people and shifting operations to the cheapest foreign labor. Some of them now make 500 times as much as their employees. Congress has had an ongoing, bipartisan joint venture with big business unrivaled in U.S. history. NAFTA was pushed through by Clinton. My Republican Congressman still says this has been a great idea even though our state has higher unemployment than the national average. The AFL/CIO replied to my letters by essentially saying, “You mind your business, we’ll mind ours.”
Notice that the term median HOUSEHOLD income is used. Poor families tend to have larger families and more workers per family than do wealthy families. Even the middle class now has more workers than they did in the 1960s. Back then I was self employed, no benefits (health care, sick pay) and able to support a family of four on $30,000 a year or less.
Today, I believe the average American is working more hours for less money, fewer benefits, higher taxes overall, and has less representation than thirty or forty years ago. Taxes have increased many times. Unless you are a part of a special interest group with a strong lobby, you will not be heard.
I have a list of 50 people who I know that have lost at least one job due to globalization. This includes people in a wide range of occupations, architects, engineers, graphic designers, computer programmers and of course, manufacturing. (One architect I’ve known since high school has lost three jobs.) Work is going to India. One of my sons has lost two jobs, used up his unemployment and is only working part time. He’s earning less than half of what he earned at the same kind of work ten years ago.
Two days ago we heard of the son of good friends who lost his programing job several weeks ago. He is aged 46, with a good education, twenty years on the job and is now working part time on construction. Another friend has two sons out of work — both were in sales. In our state a part time employee cannot get unemployment if he loses his job — you must work full time at the same job for one year to qualify.
Unless a major effort is made we will go the way of the British Empire a century ago.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 4:19 PM Posted by scorp on September 10, 2005 at 1:20 PM
“One of the arguments in the article is that “real median household income” is not rising. This is a classic case of lying with statistics. Median household income is on a long-term upward trend ($37,767 in 1984, $43,318 in 2003, as measured in constant 2003 dollars).”While the numbers you quote may very well be true, they cover the period with the greatest stock surge since records were kept. The budget surplus we all heard about in the 1990s was predicated on the idea that the tech/productivity boom would continue to pour tax dollars into the hopper.
According to the report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of Census, median income is NOT doing well. See: Changes in Median Household Income 1969 to 1996, by John McNeil, P23-196, issued July 1998.
(on page 23) It states in the first paragraph…”From 1969 to 1996, median household income rose a very modest 6.3 percent in constant dollars (from $33,072 to $35,172). At the same time per capita income rose by a robust 51 percent in constant dollars (from $11,975 to $18,136).
(also on pg 23) “... a major change has occurred in income inequality. The distribution of income changed dramatically over the period, but it changed in such a way as to have a small effect on the median.”
My guess is that the biggest change is the outrageous amount CEOs are raking in by laying off our people and shifting operations to the cheapest foreign labor. Some of them now make 500 times as much as their employees. Congress has had an ongoing, bipartisan joint venture with big business unrivaled in U.S. history. NAFTA was pushed through by Clinton. My Republican Congressman still says this has been a great idea even though our state has higher unemployment than the national average. The AFL/CIO replied to my letters by essentially saying, “You mind your business, we’ll mind ours.”
Notice that the term median HOUSEHOLD income is used. Poor families tend to have larger families and more workers per family than do wealthy families. Even the middle class now has more workers than they did in the 1960s. Back then I was self employed, no benefits (health care, sick pay) and able to support a family of four on $30,000 a year or less.
Today, I believe the average American is working more hours for less money, fewer benefits, higher taxes overall, and has less representation than thirty or forty years ago. Taxes have increased many times. Unless you are a part of a special interest group with a strong lobby, you will not be heard.
I have a list of 50 people who I know that have lost at least one job due to globalization. This includes people in a wide range of occupations, architects, engineers, graphic designers, computer programmers and of course, manufacturing. (One architect I’ve known since high school has lost three jobs.) Work is going to India. One of my sons has lost two jobs, used up his unemployment and is only working part time. He’s earning less than half of what he earned at the same kind of work ten years ago.
Two days ago we heard of the son of good friends who lost his programing job several weeks ago. He is aged 45, with a good education, twenty years on the job and working part time on construction. Another friend has two sons out of work — both were in sales. In our state a part time employee cannot get unemployment if he loses his job — you must work full time at the same job for one year to qualify.
Unless a major effort is made we will go the way of the British Empire a century ago.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 4:30 PM Whoops, sorry about the double entry — it didn’t seem to go at first and I clicked it again.
Posted by Kuya on September 11, 2005 at 11:15 AM
“You guys are really bizarre, you ideologue socialists and evangelistic capitalists. The purity of your ideologies, the selectivity of the evidence you cite.”LOL — Boy are you off base! I voted for Nixon (X2), Reagan! And ... my first presidential vote was for Barry Goldwater. In between for John B. Anderson (He proposed a 50 cent gas tax to be spent on alternative energy development.) and Ross Perot.
(Actually I’m usually not voting for a candidate — I’m voting against the evil of 2 lessors.)
Socialist and evangelistic capitalist — I doubt the CEOs would agree with that one.
If anyone is willing to read something on a “rightwing” site, here’s an interesting article on how Wal-Mart and Home Depot handled the hurricane problems.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007238
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 4:42 PM WTH:
You clearly implied that in your view, keeping the notion of race in the social model is a large part of the problem. You offer no solution to the primary inequalities.
Equal, is, in fact hard to understand. The tragedy of what teachers do to minority children has little to do with discipline (at first). One major problem is is that they perceive them to be of lower performance. When white teachers listen to recordings of speech, the recording associated with the minority child tends to be rated lower than the tape associated with the white child - even if the tapes are swapped. This takes a lot of training to eliminate from the educations system - training that most tax payers don’t understand the need for.
The problem started long before the situation you describe with the quotas in the advanced math class tried to remedy the problem - inneffectively I would wager. What does work is early education intervention and training beyond that to bring up the level of awareness of these issues in the education system.
Nobody wants to pay for any of this stuff, so they don’t happen, or access is too limited. Sometimes assistance is there, but tangential issues like poverty interfere with success factors. Then, when everyone sees the achievement gap widening, they make attempts to institute the sorts of corrections you describe.
It is important to understand as a society that no child is responsible for their own poverty. No life decisions made by the child before 12th grade have established their economic status. The deck is stacked though and there are too many people who are unwilling to accept that. Correcting the problem too late is leveraged by the right as a political tool. It divides society as you have described and it makes people unwilling to invest in good programs.Your strapped school systems are still underfunded. It is immoral I think to leave these problems untreated.
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 11, 2005 at 4:45 PM Gray,
If we need a fire truck then I’d be fine with us getting one. My point is every time their is any kind problem there are people calling for more government. I do not like that.You are right Paris did not do a damn thing to get what she has, but that does not mean we have a right to give her wealth to anyone else. I stand by what I said about being lazy. I have been on food stamps, and my family was on Medicaid, I WAS making poor discisions, now I am not. As for being born into a situation, change WILL not take place from outside influence. Change starts from within, individualy and socialy.
As to what I earn, I took home $19,632 in 2004; $13,690 in 2003. (I miss reported this in another thread, sorry.) I also have a wife and six year old son. Taking money away from Paris is not what makes us happy nor will it help me make sure my son gets an education. Money is not everything. Whats inpoetant? Family, Food, Shelter,.... things they had in New Orleans.
Give a “poor” person $5000, they spend it on cigarettes and lotto tickets; give $5000 to a “rich” person and they invest the money. Then when the “poor” have nothing again, take more money from the “rich”, because he had parents that told him to invest. Okay.
As to where I started in life; gas station attendent. I did not like that, so I moved on. No one gave me anything, I have just showed up for work, and worked harder than everyone else. I have now,ten years later, taken on a supervisor position with a biopharmaceutical company (plasma center)and my income is directly related to me busting my arse.
Now if I can go back to what I believe will help fix this country; repeal the 17th amendment, this would give back the voice of the states taking it away from “big” money.
The other is, the passage of HB25 (fairtax.org). This is the best system for the “poor”. Taxes would only be collected at the retail level, and most of the poor do not buy everything new, I do not. The poor would also get a check every month for taxes paid on the necessities of life. There would be ZERO FICA/payroll taxes, because HB25 abolishes the IRS, therefore politicians can not use class warfare to divide the country so they can get elected. Check it out for yourself: Fairtax.org.
To those that fear globalization,
What is the matter with globalization? Textiles used to be produced in the Northeast, then cheaper labor in the southeast caused textiles to move there and those in the industry lost their jobs. Did the Northeast fall apart? No, they learned new trades. Textiles are now shifting overseas and those at home need to learn a new trade. This happens in all trades to some degree. We all know someone that has lost a job, shat happens.
Everyone in the world should be able to make money, and no one should have the right to say how/where that money is made. That is how we will help the poor of the world, not buy taxing those that have money. But, if it were up to socialists/communists, the government would appoint lifetime jobs and all would be fine, and if you buy that, I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona.
The best way to help is to get more people/countries involved in baking the economic pie, because we will bake a bigger pie, therefore more pie to go around. “Giving” someone a bigger piece of the smaller pie does not help them when that pie is gone.
Think
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 11, 2005 at 6:03 PM The problem with how we are educating our students is; we are teaching to the lowest common denomenator.
2+2=5, until you realize it does not.
The solution on the Left; give them more money.
How much money did the first “one room” schools have? ZERO!Yet, somehow we have created this great nation.
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 11, 2005 at 6:30 PM wth –
About 1990, I bought two household items, a counter-top microwave and a bread machine. Each of them cost about $230. In 2002, I suffered a minor domestic calamity, and had to replace them; in both cases, equivalent unit costs were down to under $100. A lot of our stuff is built overseas, the cost savings to us is tremendous, and this is a major factor in our economic well-being.
But the cost savings we enjoy from international trade itself comes at a cost; we must constantly upgrade our education system and job skills. In this, we are having mixed results. The teacher’s unions are reluctant to allow interference with their sinecures, but this obstruction is being corrected by expensive standards (No Child Left Behind) and less expensive competition (private, parochial, and Charter schools).
At any rate, the actual job availability has been very high, interrupted only by the Carter Catastrophe and by the Clinton Bubble Crisis. And the quality of jobs for the well educated or the technically educated is quite high. If you aspire to a McJob, you will receive McWages, and there is nothing for it. But most young people enter the job market at a low level, take night classes, and progress.
>> While the numbers you quote may very well be true, they cover the period with the greatest stock surge since records were kept. <<
The period I used went as far back as the US Census data table that I consulted. In fact, the Reagan economic and tax reforms did produce the “greatest stock surge since records were kept”, until the Clinton tax increases and dot.com bubble damaged the economy. But then you selected your data for the time period 1969 to 1996, a period that included Carter’s Catastrophe, when the economy and incomes were in peril. Despite such short-term irregularities, the long-term government and personal economic factors are trending upward since WWII.
I agree that some CEOs are overpaid and greedy. Some of the greediest were crooks and are on trial or in prison. But considering the massive wealth that Bill Gates created within our economy and in the world, Gates is sharply underpaid. Government controls on salaries, as on prices and on goods, does more damage than is justified.
I also think that we do not want to get into the business of telling people how big their families should be.
>> Unless a major effort is made we will go the way of the British Empire a century ago. <<
Non compos mentis. Who is to make this effort, some bureaucracy? Our relative freedom from socialist bureaucracy will do more for our economy than anything else. We are close to having the most free political system and the most free economy in the world, and we get spectacular results on both accounts. So, now some clown wants to impose controls and make it better? I don’t think so.
Posted by scorp on Sep 11, 2005 at 7:10 PM TFY:
Of course nobody owes you happiness. But do you really think that you are lazier than me if you take home less than I do? That is a crock. Someone has you brainwashed.
I’m trying to tell you that your chances of catching up are about the same as that lottery ticket paying off. There may be more millionaires this year than last, but it is a valid question as to how much of it stays in the family.
The wealthy reap the benefits of the natural resources in this country. The laws protect their investments. They benefit more from the infrastructure like good roads, telecommunications, subsidies, an available, educated workforce. Capital is emphasized in the “ownership society” and work is trivialized. The more that labor is de-emphasized, the lower the chance you are going to get amass that kind of cash.
The wealthy are always going to provide for their families and provide opportunities that you can’t even imagine. You think anyone is going to set you up with your own oil company or sports team? Hardly. Nobody is talking about knocking the rich back to the stone age, but it would be nice if they would chip in commensurate with what they take out.
Consumption tax? sorry. Suppose I am one one of the fat cats. If I buy more than you do, I pay higher taxes? Ok, fine. While a guy who makes barely enough to survive spends everything he has, I might spend only half of what I make. Seems fair to me. You going to tax my house payment too? Gee, that doesn’t seem fair, but ok. I still have a lot more choices than the poor guy. I win either way.I am not a communist, but I don’t see how this does anything for us. I do feel that progressive taxation has a chance if it is truly progressive.
By the way, our great nation was created on the backs of some people who suffered greatly before progressive ideas helped level the playing field.
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 11, 2005 at 7:40 PM Think said —
“What is the matter with globalization? Textiles used to be produced in the Northeast, then cheaper labor in the southeast caused textiles to move there and those in the industry lost their jobs. Did the Northeast fall apart? No, they learned new trades. ....Everyone in the world should be able to make money, and no one should have the right to say how/where that money is made. That is how we will help the poor of the world,...”
You apparently have a lot in common with my congressman — it’s not your job which is threatened. AND you are both willing to give anything away when it is someone else’s thing being given — other people’s money, other people’s jobs.Magnanimity at no cost to you.
There is one great difference this time — the speed with which this is happening. The transition from agriculture to industry took a generation or more. And yes, the Northeast did fall apart for scores of people.
We’re not just talking trades this time, architectural drawing, x-ray evaluation, and other professional jobs to India. I have been concerned about this since it was “only the low end jobs” we were supposed to lose, now that the white collar ones are also leaving you will possibly hear more people complaining.
All the textbook theories about comparative advantage are just that —theories. Wait til it hits your family. See whether you still give a crap for saving the world.
When a major employer leaves for China or elsewhere a whole town can be devastated. You can’t sell your home because everyone is selling and no one is buying. We were a manufacturing community. I am retired now, but only because nearly all the clients I had for forty years have left town. I watched my business slowly evaporate for the past dozen years. Even though I spent thousands of dollars and countless hours making the transition to computers.
The only people making out on this are the top execs who kite their company stock by laying off and closing down. Then they sell options they bought at a fraction of market price and double, triple and even more in one fell swoop.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 8:44 PM Posted by scorp on September 11, 2005 at 2:10 PM
“ A lot of our stuff is built overseas, the cost savings to us is tremendous, and this is a major factor in our economic well-being.”Think about this — If 2/3 of the US economy is dependent on the consumer and the consumer has a couple of part time jobs, no health insurance and a few kids what good is a low price for a can opener? How will the total economy do?
scorp says —“At any rate, the actual job availability has been very high,”You must be accepting government stats per TV delivery. They don’t necessarily lie, but neither do they tell the whole story. Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website and see how they tabulate who has/does not have a job. Read about the “new jobs” reports much of which is based on Birth/Death estimates — it is all eyewash!
Suggested Globalization Reading (and my impressions)“Global Squeeze,” by Richard C. Longworth, of the Chicago Tribune, 1998, gives, what is in my opinion, the best assessment of how globalization is affecting to the U.S.
For a much more optimistic view I recommend “The Lexus and the Olive Tree,” by Thomas L. Friedman. His goal appears to favor a one-world government. (Before totally buying into his ideas you should consider that he invested in Russian bonds. I’ll go with Milton Friedman.)
For an economist’s picture of what’s going on there is “Independently Wealthy,” by Robert Goodman. He states that the markets are not moral and we must keep that in mind.
Another pro account is “A Future Perfect,” by Micklethwait and Woolridge. This one seems to me to be the least well thought out view and I would have to switch the tense to “Past Perfect.”
“Maestro,” by Bob Woodward is a testimony to the media homage given to an ordinary guy in a position of extraordinary power. Chairman Greenspan’s fascination with and profound belief in increasing productivity is echoed almost daily by those who think our present economy is good and can only improve from here. (Note: Foreign labor is not expensed in these glowing gains. ie: Subassemblies produced in Asia or Mexico and installed in the U.S. count only the U.S. installation time.)
“Who will tell the people?” by William Greider A depressing account of how little an individual can do about the fate of America. A real downer, because it rings so true.
“Perfectly Legal,” by David Cay Johnston How business, lawyers and our congressmen have developed a system to favor the rich and powerful.
“Running on Empty,” by Peter Peterson — While very concerned about the indebtedness of the US and individuals, he avoids proposing any realistic solution to Social Security. (Like maybe taxing income other than just wages and salaries. How about including ALL income — stock options, bonuses, gratuities like apartments, cars, etc.
————
This one stands apart do to its personal nature. The specifics of how ordinary every day, minor events become major problems when the freedom provided by financial adequacy is missing.“Nickel and Dimed,” by Barbara Ehrenreich What is it like for a middleaged woman trying to get by on low end employment. Compressed in its 200 pages is a world of anxiety, embarrassment and futility. A first hand account of the American citizens trapped in a world of globalization. Every politician, economist and self-satisfied person should read it.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 9:07 PM wth -
Well, you have come a long way from my original point. Economically and politically, the people of almost every nation are worse off than people in the USA. I am certainly not saying the USA is perfect, there is no such thing as a perfect system involving people, but the material and non-material things we have are reduced considerably if our system is socialist in nature.
You seem to have a leftist envy of people who have things, but all successful businesses earn their way by providing goods and services that people pay for voluntarily. If these businesses were not satisfying needs, they would be unsuccessful businesses and the proprietors would go broke. Political interference, as from socialist schemes, does not produce more goods, but only produces inefficiency and waste, while the bureaucracy consumes vast amounts of assets. All of the leftist authors you have cited have produced nothing of worth in building our economy, but you seem to derive some satisfaction from them.
Posted by scorp on Sep 11, 2005 at 11:10 PM Hello WTH,
I will look up your article and respond afterward.
As for me being off-base, a closer reading of my tirade above will show that I was addressing TWO groups, socialistic types AND capitalistic types, i.e. ideologues of either stripe. Not lumping them together as one group, but expressing my frustration and annoyance, to both, at what appears to me to be selective attention and an overall refusal to admit the human costs (x2) of clinging to your ideologies and working toward their logical conclusions.
Actually, forget all the high-falutin’ talk. I’m pissed at the endless chatter of the American right and the American left. Nothing but talk, talk, talk, always rhetorical spin and never any real solutions to the problems that real-life people face. And yet the promises just keep on piling up.
Write it off as an unseemly gesture of anger at all the relentless head-smacking and lack of progress, if that’s how you perceive it.
Yeah, it’s an emotional reaction, it’s a spew of disgust. Whenever either of you (that’s two I’m addressing, eh?) have your unobstructed way with things, the cost to people and the planet (read: people again) soars. It’s either unfettered “free trade” and the concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, or, it’s managed “equality” and economic and personal stagnation.
If you think my criticism is only valid when applied to your adversaries, well, that’s part of my point.
I’m getting angry again. I’ll read your article and get back to you.
Posted by Kuya on Sep 12, 2005 at 12:09 AM When scorp evaluates the level of wealth in the U.S. as compared to western Europe, he is deceiving you. While the mean income in the United States is higher than that of western Europe, that is only due to outliers distirting the data. The U.S. has a very small collection of EXTREMELY wealthy people with the rest of the United States barely scraping by. For example, 75% of U.S. households survive on an annual income of $60,000 or less.
In addition, Germany calculates its unemployment rate differently. If the rampant unemployment in the former East Germany is accounted for, the unemployment rate is only about the equivalent of 6% in the U.S. In addition, scorp neglects to mention that the residents of Europe do not have to pay for healthcare out-of-pocket. If you subtract average healthcare and pharmaceutical expenses from the U.S. GDP per capita figures, the number drops significantly. Also, college tuition is FREE in western Europe as is child care. When these government-provided expenses are accounted for, one can see that the standard of living in these countries is quite high.
When it comes to caring for our fellow countrymen, we all know that America has never ranked very high. We are, of course, the only democracy in the developed world that doesn’t offer health care to its citizens as a matter of right. We rank 34th among nations in infant mortality rates, behind such rival superpowers as Cyprus, Andorra and Brunei.
Wow, what a great country….
Posted by Liberal on Sep 12, 2005 at 12:14 AM Hello yet again WTH,
Yes that was an interesting article. I’m happy someone was able to get off their asses and make good things happen to assist the victims of Katrina. Against the scale of the destruction it may not look like much of a difference to some, but I will grant the point that in comparison to the official agencies charged with preparing for and responding to such emergencies, the private sector has done much more.
Not being particularly socialist (I certainly don’t think criticizing the decision to make massive tax cuts and then to engage in two wars, nor criticizing the unethical practice of business in the US or abroad, to be socialist formulations), I’ve never been allergic to the business community per se.
When the private sector wants to mobilize its resources and get a job done, with the added element of the good will of the people at their tasks, there’s no denying the beneficial outcomes.
But a couple of questions: What happens when the business community does not consider a needed task to be worthy of their efforts? Also, since the motivations of those business people to get things rolling in preparation for Katrina was in large part a gesture of conscience and connectedness to people (which is the only thing that mitigates rampant, gluttonous acquisitiveness), what happens when those virtuous concepts are absent from business ethics?
Surely you’ll agree that the business community per se does not hold a monopoly on ethical or compassionate priorities. (Not to uphold bureaucracies as being a better example of such attitudes, mind you).
I look forward to your answer.
Posted by Kuya on Sep 12, 2005 at 12:38 AM liberal,
How is it that you can say, ” When it comes to caring for our fellow countrymen, we all know that America has never ranked very high”, when private donations are at almost a billion dollars for katrina.
I have to disagree whole heartily with this assertion, all one has to do is look at this site where we have the Right, Left and Center, and I would have to say we all care! Now some of us do more than others, but that does not mean they care less.
So, does it only count when the government redistributes money, at the point of a gun?
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 12, 2005 at 12:46 AM Gray,
No I do not think I am lazier than you if you make more money, I was reffering to those that do not try and make anything. Our poor are lazy though, any third world peasant would probably agree. As for me, I have no need to make anywhere close to six figures.
As for the fair tax you should really look into it at fairtax.org. Give me a second to explain the basis behind it. Cooperations do not pay any taxes, they pass all of them off to the consumer. With the Fair Tax we will buy goods that have ZERO imbedded taxes, because the IRS would be abolished, so goods will be about 22% less. Houses generally have up to 50% imbedded taxes in them, so new houses would cost less. So goods are cheaper, you get your whole paycheck, you get a rebate at the first of the month and you only pay taxes when you buy at the retail level. So if you do not want to pay taxes, you do not have too.
What if the bussiness’ do not lower there cost once they do not pay tax?
FREE MARKET! Once one company lowers their price all of them will.
You should think of all the benifits to the poor, instead of how it does not hurt the rich enough.Think
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 12, 2005 at 1:05 AM TFY:
John Stossel wrote an article recently that is illustrative of what the inbridled free market is supposed to do for us. If you will merely forgive that he is missing a few important variables in his model and overlook the possibility that he is off his meds, you might think he has a point:
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=jst
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 12, 2005 at 2:36 AM Liberal –
Well, no one will accuse you of parroting Liberal talking points. Not even Liberals could come up with the nonsense that you produce.
It would indeed be a wonderful thing if health care was free, education was free, and child-care was free. Alas, pharmaceutical manufacturers get paid, doctors get paid, professors get paid, and kindergarten teachers get paid. Who is doing the paying? The citizens, of course, in the form of higher taxes. But, woe, the aging and declining populations of Old Europe are coming up against a limit, and they will go broke, sooner rather than later, as more people draw retirement and fewer young people enter the system.
And the World Fact Book, from which I draw my data, adjusts income and GDP figures by applying Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), to assure that income figures for different states are equivalent. Europe and the first world countries have sufficiently good economic data to allow a quite accurate calculation of PPP.
This is not the first time that you have shot off your mouth with weird and unsupportable fictions. Are you an extreme form of lying Liberal, or do you have some pathological condition?
Posted by scorp on Sep 12, 2005 at 3:35 AM In answer to the question of any New Deal happening in the wake of Katrina: president stupidhead sure was johnny-on-the-spot in suspending the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act (as if he had ever even heard of it before) to allow contractors to pay less than scale in the rebuilding efforts. They don’t have a problem with doling out billions to private contractors in Iraq, where much of it remains unaccounted for, but when it comes to rebuilding here at home….
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/
Posted by Tim Christopher on Sep 12, 2005 at 4:20 AM Before the midnight hour passes, may I offer my heartfelt condolence to those who lost loved ones 4 years ago in New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
And may I also offer a damnation to the medievalists who brought down the WTC towers and authored the other events of 9/11/2001, including any who helped them.
And finally, I express my sad chagrin that those events have managed to push America around a psychological corner, toward generalized fear and an acceptance of abridged freedoms in pursuit of a mythical state of safety that didn’t much exist before that bad day anyway.
May we do as the courageous passengers of Flight 93 did when they stormed the cockpit and crashed the aircraft, denying the murderers their target. What they really want to destroy is our ideals, our energy, our creative and optimistic minds; let us deny them those targets as well.
Posted by Kuya on Sep 12, 2005 at 6:41 AM Hmm, well I missed midnight by more than an hour, but it doesn’t change the sentiment.
Posted by Kuya on Sep 12, 2005 at 6:42 AM I find it interesting that I have been labeled as a socialist by some and a capitalist promoter by others. There seems to be more labeling on this site than any other I visit.
I’ll try to keep this plain and simple…
Race relations: When I said, “equal” I meant NO SPECIAL TREATMENT for anyone, of any color, of either gender, or sexual preference. In other words let’s drop all labels here.
Left or Right leaning? Depends on the subject — I have voted Republican or Independent in all presidential elections, but often voted Democratic on a local issue. While I have never been a member of any political party, I have been an NRA member for decades.
Although I suggested a construction project (involving both the federal gov and private contractors) ALL the responses have been around the subjects of race or politics.
I have no plans to run for any elected office, but it seems obvious why we get such poor candidates to pick from — a candidate with no more of a track record than my comments on this site would have enough anti-left or anti-right sound bites to never have a prayer.
We know they can’t say what they truly think and get elected, but expect honesty after they are voted in — how realistic is this?
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 12, 2005 at 12:28 PM Kuya,
In no way do I think the business community has a monopoly on doing good — there are so many examples of individuals’ outstanding actions in Katrina’s wake, that it is encouraging above expectations. Neither do I think the business community is anything other than groups of individuals. The same goes for a nation. When any group does something compassionate, it is due to individuals who either have the means to do it or the talent to convince others it should be done.
I have worked with many top level corporate executives and found many to be truly moral, people genuinely concerned about their employees, customers and community. Others not carrying about much more than their own welfare. But the company’s behavior was very much tied to those at the top.
There is a tendency to give a nation a personality and hold it responsible over a period of time as if it were an individual. A society may have general tendencies and be somewhat predictable, but we are not a single entity. Example: The U.S. is at times called on the carpet for “stupid” policies or for proposing something the opposite of a past one. In Iraq “we” supported Saddam and then opposed him. The examples are endless.
As for motivation? If someone is helping you when you need help, why they do it doesn’t much matter at the time. If Bill Gates decides to give a billion dollars to charity and gets a tax benefit, or Oprah gets TV time while benefiting the hurricane victims — I don’t care.
I suggested a book to someone else yesterday — “Nickel and Dimed,” by Barbara Ehrenreich. One segment of this book paints a pretty bad picture of work at Wal-Mart. They have had a lot of bad press this past year and maybe they (the corporation) helped during Katrina to counter some of that, but that doesn’t diminish the good their people did, or mean that no one really cared.
By the way I sincerely recommend this book to everyone. Over the years I must admit to a lot of ignorance about how dificult it is to get ahead or even survive when you start at square one or lower. This is a truly enlightening story of real people in our current economic mess.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 12, 2005 at 1:09 PM scorp,
How did you make the jump to socialism? Having been a one man business for over forty years I am well aware of what people will or won’t pay for. I agree the U.S. is much better off than most countries. The 70 year Soviet experiment pretty much should convince most people that bureaucratic management is futile.
My current observation is that what is happening with recent administrations and more to the point congress is exactly what Lyndon Johnson proposed — “We will take from the haves and give to the havenots.”
The differences are these: Under the guise of FREE enterprise (which I have always favored) our economic policies are taking the jobs from our citizens and giving them to the third world countries at a mind boggling rate. The motivation? Greed at the top levels of business and government.
The is nothing free about this enterprise. Our trade deficits have soared. (Check out Mexico/USA post NAFTA.) We are encombered by OSHA, the EPA, Workman’s Comp, health care, etc. The savings on imports is useless if your paying big increases in health insuance or making less. (My own health insurance jumped 457 percent within two years of surgery. (Major med only —$10,000 deductible plus a copay) I paid $12,500 of a $14,000 bill.
The situations of the corporate elite and our “public servants” in congress are quite similar. Special retirement plans, special health care, and they control their own increases. Congress does it by no longer needing to vote for a raise, they will get it annually unless they propose not to get one.
Corporate “incest” puts buddies on each other’s boards and compensation committees to take care of salaries, bonuses, stock options — a real nice deal.
Congress passed a nice sounding piece of legislation — The 2004 American Jobs Creation Act. (There is nothing in it to make sure jobs are created in the U.S.) It does let businesses bring home foreign earnings at a reduced tax rate. A formerly local company (former client) got a tax break of $1,100,000 last year. The CEO got a $1,000,000 bonus. They added no jobs here, but may have in China where they have been operating the last 8 years.
This company had it’s one hundredth anniversary last year and marked the occasion by moving corporate headquarters out of town.
You referred to, “ All of the leftist authors you have cited…” Another huge conclusion leap. Actually, they are pretty evenly divided and are of differing opinions. You might try Amazon’s reviews of the books if you don’t care to read them. My comments are based on what they presented and how it squared with what I have experience and witnessed.
I would bet your opinion of our situation will change if you read, “Nickle and Dimed.”
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 12, 2005 at 3:07 PM wth -
“Our current economic mess” sure is bad. Very low unemployment, low interest rates, almost no inflation, high markets, and extremely high productivity. Terrible. Just terrible.
“Ah, but look at the deficit,” you say. “Look at the national debt.”
OK, I’m looking. So what?
We have run deficits most of the time for the last 230 years. Fall down, go boom? No.
The last three periods of untoward deficits were WWII, the 1980s, and the early 2000s. Each of these periods followed an economic crisis: the Great Depression, Carter’s stagflation (astronomical inflation and interest rates), and Clinton’s dot.com Bubble (NASDAQ fell 60% [5000+ to 2000-] during Clinton’s last year in office), respectively. Economic crises certainly do disrupt the economy, and something has to be done. But what? Aye, there’s the rub.
FDR did not know what to do about the economy; after eight years in office, the economy was stagnant and unemployment was still 17%. WWII jolted the economy and the nation. Massive deficits were incurred to pay for the war (the alternate was to surrender to the terrorists) and much of this borrowed money was invested in new factories, which created new jobs, which put money in peoples’ pockets. After 1945, the war industries quickly transitioned to peaceful purposes, and the recovery proceeded. But there was still no good grasp of the various factors that affected the economy.
President Kennedy was troubled by a stagnant economy in the 1960s, and he (of all people!) was the first President that actually acted to lower taxes, in order to provide investment, in order to improve the economy. This idea was highly controversial at the time, and remains highly controversial among Democrats (of all people!). But controversial or not, it worked like a charm. And the last decades of the Twentieth Century marked the development of economic philosophy and tools that allowed better control of the economy. The Republicans embraced these philosophies and tools. The Democrats rejected them in favor of higher taxes as a solution to all problems.
President Reagan’s response to the Carter economic crisis was to institute economic and tax reform, cut taxes, and incur a deficit; this laid the foundation for the outstanding economic performance of the 1990s and the fall of the national debt during that period. Then Clinton raised taxes and allowed the dot.com Bubble to get out of hand, and we were right back in the middle of shoddy economics with a recession in the offing.
President Bush (cut taxes) and Chairman Greenspan (lower interest rates) did exactly the right things to stimulate the economy and increase investment, and the economy is recovering nicely, thank you. But 09/11 and now Katrina have made hits on the economy that will cause further disruption. But not as much disruption as a Democratic tax hike, which is to be avoided at all cost.
Posted by scorp on Sep 12, 2005 at 4:04 PM scorp,
“Our current economic mess” sure is bad. Very low unemployment, low interest rates, almost no inflation, high markets, and extremely high productivity.
I guess our main point of contention boils down to our belief or disbelief in the government numbers definding good economy.
IMO they are all skewed to look better than they really are. Talking heads can keep this picture as the general perception for quite some time.
If you consider Greenspan as having done a good job you shouls like Bob Woodwards’s “Maestro” and “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 12, 2005 at 6:27 PM Is Rabbit oversimplifying things to take the following figures as some sort of economic performance indicator?
US BUDGET SURPLUS under Clinton +$523 billion
US BUDGET Deficit under Bushler -$523 billion
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 12, 2005 at 7:21 PM Scorp shows his true colors for attacking my character. I never did this to him, so why does he now feel entitled to employ pejoratives to describe my character? I think it is becoming quite clear what the fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals is.
Posted by Liberal on Sep 12, 2005 at 7:31 PM wth -
There are legitimate differences on some of the numbers we are discussing, and there are uncertainties in methodology, but there are absolutely no grounds for disbelief. For example, unemployment is officially determined by the Current Population Survey (CPS), but other figures are given for total unemployed and long-term (15 week) unemployed. If the economic situation is changing rapidly, some of these figures may lag behind reality, but that does not make them untrue.
I am far more concerned with faulty perceptions. In 1996, with the Dow at 6000 and rising rapidly, Chairman Greenspan warned about “irrational exuberance” in the markets. Everybody took note and nobody did anything. Specifically, Bill Clinton did nothing. Then the Dow continued rising to 12,000 over a four-year period, and the dot.com bubble carried NASDAQ to over 5000. This was alarming.
Greenspan is not given to casual comments on irrational market behavior. Millions of people (we won’t call them investors) were paying billion of dollars for stocks that had come into existence just weeks before, and that had never earned a cent, and that would never earn a cent. Everyone thought it was wonderful.
The NASDAQ fell from over 5000 to under 2000 during Clinton’s last year in office, and the Dow peaked at near 12,000 and started down during Clinton’s last months. Economically, the situation was a train wreck in motion, but the perception was that under Clinton, the markets rose and the debt fell. Lots of people still think that Clinton did a good job with the economy.
Too bad Gore didn’t win in 2000 and take the rap for Clinton’s mismanagement of the economy. Under the circumstances, it was a credit to the increased sophistication of the American people that George Bush was elected in 2000. Regardless, Democrats still strongly criticize Bush for the Clinton Recession, as for everything else.
Your personal hang-up seems to be NAFTA. NAFTA passed in 1992, with an effective date of January 1, 1994. In January 1994, the employment/ unemployment was 121,971,000/ 8,696,000, for an unemployment rate of 6.7%. In August 2005, the figures were 149,814,00/ 7,3091,000, for a rate of 4.9% unemployed.
So, since NAFTA went into effect, we have gained 28 million jobs and the unemployment rate has fallen. Not to mention the increasing numbers of jobs in Canada and Mexico. You simply cannot make a convincing argument based on the evidence. Your anecdotal arguments may reflect changes to the economy, but they certainly do not indicate a loss of economic vitality. On the contrary, there has been a tremendous and valuable gain in economic vitality in Mexico, the USA, and Canada. This strengthens the countries of North America, and is to be commended.
Posted by scorp on Sep 12, 2005 at 9:38 PM Scorp is wrong to assert that NAFTA has improved the economies of the United States and Mexico. Economic growth in Mexico has stalled to 0.5% over the past few years, the worst since the 1980s. Real wages have declined in Mexico as well, and immigration to the United States is at an all time high. If NAFTA was supposed to help Mexico, then explain these statistics please.
The U.S. trade deficit has exploded with Mexico since the enactment of NAFTA. The U.S. has lost nearly a million manufacturing jobs to Mexico. Ironically, those jobs that moved to Mexico have since left and gone to China, where an even cheaper labor force resides. NAFTA allocated a measly $56 million towards training and education for laid-off U.S. workers. The only entities to benefit from NAFTA are multi-national corporations.
Posted by Liberal on Sep 12, 2005 at 11:44 PM The following is a more accurate description of NAFTA’s consequenses from TomPaine.com:
“Ten years after NAFTA we find that NAFTA’s special protection for foreign investors did increase foreign direct investment in Mexico from $9.53 billion in 1995 to $24.73 billion in 2001 and Mexico was the world’s eighth-largest exporter in 2002. Yet, the standard of living for most Mexican has declined under NAFTA, with Mexico now ranking 54th in human development indices.
NAFTA’s agriculture rules have resulted in tons of corn being dumped into Mexico below the cost of production—costing 3 million campesino farm families their livelihoods. Economic theory says these poorest of the poor will find jobs in more productive economic sectors. In reality increasing numbers have been forced to attempt the dangerous migration to the United States or have crowded into Mexico’s cities where unemployment and underemployment is epidemic.
Mexican workers have not obtained the promised higher wages or better standards of living under NAFTA. About 25 percent of the country’s 40 million workers make the minimum wage of $4 a day; half of the workforce makes less than $8 a day. These wages are estimated to have lost 50 percent of its purchasing power over the NAFTA decade meaning, according to Mexican government estimates, the income of over half of the population does not cover the basics of food, clothing, housing, health care, public transportation and education.
Yet, in the global race to the bottom, Mexico’s starvation wages are too high for footloose multinational corporations. Over 500,000 of the 900,000 maquiladora factory jobs initially created under NAFTA have disappeared, as foreign production facilities have moved to China, Malaysia and Guatemala where labor is cheaper—often $1 per day.
Polls in Mexico show that, given NAFTA’s damage there, Mexicans assume that NAFTA must have benefited the United States. The Office of U.S. Trade Representative repeats endlessly that American households have gained $1,260 in annual savings per household under NAFTA and WTO. Public Citizen demanded information about this figure using the Freedom of Information Act. The figure is derived from a 1997 White House report that divides the total tariff cuts expected under NAFTA by 2003 by the number of U.S. households. It assumes that every cent of tariff cuts is passed on to consumers in lower prices and equates this with an annual tax cut of $210. The study then adds other assumed gains from greater ‘efficiency’ and other abstract presumptions to cook up the $1,260 figure.
Some of the families suffering from the loss of 2.5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs during the NAFTA era should bill the White House for this money. NAFTA has transformed the kinds of jobs available to the 75 percent of Americans without a college degree, contributing to stagnant wage levels that have destroyed millions of families’ economic security. From 1946 to ‘73, there was an 80 percent gain in median wages. Yet from 1973 to 2000, U.S. median wages have been almost flat, although trade now represents two times the share of U.S. economic activity in 1973. One result: growing disparities in income inequality unknown since the ‘Robber Baron’ age. And now the latest trend is loss of high-tech and professional jobs with a new Berkeley study estimating as many as 14 million U.S. service jobs are at risk of being ‘outsourced’ to cheaper labor countries.”
Posted by Liberal on Sep 12, 2005 at 11:52 PM g-love; class and race in America are inextricably linked; only in the case of a few “freaks” like Sleeza and Powell and Thomas is this not so.
g-love: DIDN’T YOU SEE all those POOR OLD WHITE LADIES who were waiting, dehydrated and out of medication, in the Superdome?? Or did that pass you by, dearie? I noticed that most of the white people who were affected, including those stuck in their houses, seemed to be old. And what about the cases where nursing homes weren’t evacuated and dozens were drowned - bet a lot of those were white as well. If I were the Democrats I would make a special effort to drum up support and indignation amongst old people - demographically they are very significant.
David Moberg - I certainly hope so! I like the idea that the 1927 flood was one of the factors paving the way for the New Deal. However, Southern Democrats like Huey Long always had to play to the white supremacists, didn’t they, or they wouldn’t have got elected. Hopefully nowadays things are different… the Democrats need a “Southern strategy”.. and I don’t think this should consist of middle-class people who aren’t religious pretending to be religious. Church-state divide, anyone?
Posted by Liz on Sep 13, 2005 at 7:47 AM The surplus was due to the dot com era, which Clinton did nothing to protect before the bubble burst.
The deficit is related to the dot com crash, the reccession, 9/11, and the war. The deficit is also getting smaller as government revenues are increasing.
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 13, 2005 at 1:18 PM Is Rabbit oversimplifying things to take the following figures as some sort of economic performance indicator?
US BUDGET SURPLUS under Clinton +$523 billion
US BUDGET Deficit under Bushler -$523 billion
———————————& —————Answer: Yes. That was an easy one.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 13, 2005 at 3:28 PM American Capitalism….ha ha ha!
Massive Government and Personal Debt!
US Infant Mortality Rate = Malaysia IMR!
Longest Work Week!
46 million people with no health insurance!
Fattest People on the Planet!
Total Energy Hogs….snort, snort!
Highest mental illness rate in the world!
Politically, historically, culturally Clueless!Hey, but I’ve got my SUV, my home entertainment unit, my perscription drugs, my McHouse, my cheap Chinese goods, and life is good….
Posted by magenta on Sep 13, 2005 at 5:47 PM Someone a few posts back was talking about median income going up and the economy improving, etc.
I’m a little troubled by the rosy attitude when juxtaposed with the poverty rate since Bush took office. The problem isn’t so much that it is outrageously high, but it is the trend. The rate has gone up every year that the current administration has been in power. The census table below couldn’t be easier to read.
Not to oversimplify things, but if everything is supposedly booming while the number of impoverished individuals and households is steadily rising, what does this say about the policies? “Booming for whom?” is a legitimate question.
Personally, I feel that using tax cuts to solve every economic malady is an over-simplification.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 13, 2005 at 6:54 PM scorp,
re: Presidential economic performance… I believe people wrongly credit/blame administrations for the economy — Republicans have a sorry habit of winning just at the wrong time — look at George H. W. Bush. The media (especially TV and internet Gurus) influence the herd with short term opinions. People seem to ignore the fact that most of these stock market guys have a personal benefit from being bullish — they are stock salesmen!
Clinton and Greenspan were (IMO) incredibly lucky. The Tech Bull Market Parade came along at just the right time for them to jump in front of it.
This is a condensation of a letter sent to my Congressman immediately following the 1992 Presidential TV debate. (Actually Clinton pushed NAFTA through Congress and it was still up for a vote in 1993 when I sent the following to my congressman.)
From the Gore/Perot NAFTA discussion hour…
Gore:
• NAFTA will lower the Mexican 16% tariff on U.S. imports.
• 70% of what Mexico imports comes from U.S.
• Mexico wants what we produce and will buy even more with NAFTA.
• U.S. companies are already going south of the border and costing us jobs, so NAFTA won’t make a difference.
Perot:
• In favor of free trade, but this agreement not good enough - we can do better.
• You trade with people who can afford to buy what you have to sell.
• Mexico treats its own people poorly and some U.S. companies already there are taking advantage of this fact.
• Not impressed that all the former presidents have come out in favor of NAFTA because they also made bad trading deals, ie: U.S./Japan trade situation.My Observations & Questions:
Having been in business for myself for nearly twenty eight years, Perot’s comments, generally
have a ring of truth. I don’t like to do business with people I neither like nor trust. If they don’t treat employees (citizens) right, what kind of treatment should I expect?
If Mexico wants our goods so much why the tariff? If our government can’t exert enough leverage to get free trade with a country on our border, who so desperately wants what we have to sell, no wonder the Japanese are taking advantage of us. We deserve it!Where does the tariff money go? To improve the working conditions? Job creation?
Which direction are the workers crossing the Rio Grande?I’ve been hearing that we’re only losing the “low-paying, low-skilled jobs” (doubtful) to foreign countries and that increased numbers of people here are functionally illiterate. If we remove the bottom rung from the ladder of financial independence where will these people work? In Mexico?
Conclusions:
NAFTA would probably be good for many businesses, for the short term. It would probably be good for stockholders. It will be good for the upper class Mexicans who, no doubt, must be the buyers of our goods. It would probably not be good for the unskilled worker and the middle class taxpayer, but then, what is ?NAFTA = Not A Fine Thing, America.
Sincerely,
xxx
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 13, 2005 at 8:36 PM scorp (continued)
Why I distrust government numbers: (If a person cares to take the time the info is available, but in a sound bite world it is not included.)
Job gains… What is the quality of those jobs? I realize not all service jobs are at fast food places. I know that here in the Midwest we are worse off than the two coasts. However, many are now taking jobs with few benefits. More households have more people working just to stay even.
In my city we have lost over 10,000 manufacturing jobs since NAFTA. My representative is quick to point out an increase of exports due to NAFTA. What he ignores is most of those go to expatriate US firms like GM Electro-motive Div., Johnson & Johnson, Avery-Dennison and others which used to be next door.
The birth/death index is applied to those monthly new job numbers — a totally unreal approach skewed to the upside. How do they count jobs? If a person babysat for pay once during a month it is counted as a new job. If I, as an entrepreneur, go out of business it is not going to show in the data, but— if a middle manager loses his job and becomes a consultant (rather than admit to having no work) he is a “new job”.
One of the service categories providing a lot of jobs is homes — both construction and sales. California doubled the number of agents in 2004 (49,000 new agents). Since you are a fan of Alan Greenspan, you must know he is finally concerned about a possible housing bubble.
The productivity numbers ignore foreign made subassemblies (installed here) as a part of the time. Prices for things like computers are adjusted unrealistically — a $1,000 machine with twice the speed of a prior one “costs only $500” according to the government’s hedonistic adjustment factor. Funny, I didn’t get to keep the extra money on any of those I bought.
Reports of wages improving never explain whose wages. How much of this is due to CEOs who make 500 times their employees? Over what time period? Most data is too short term. Average wages are definitely up, but mostly at the high end.
My list of 50 people that I know who have lost jobs, been forced to take early retirement or have gone out of business, is mostly from the area where I live, but it also includes my cousin’s husband in CA whose TV producer job went to Canada where Canada’s health insurance gave the company an edge by moving operations up there. In Michigan, a computer programmer has been unable to get work for over three years. (Unwilling to move because his wife has tenure at the university.) An architect in Green Bay, WI is now working as a sales clerk.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 13, 2005 at 8:37 PM scorp 3 (conclusion)
My life experience is with graphics. Computers put typesetters out of work. Retouchers were next — then photographers — now it’s the printing companies…
Because of globalization PRICE RULES! Secretaries are cheaper than typesetters. (Noticed the typos, wrong hyphenization and irregular word spacing in the Wall Street Journal?) Digital cameras and stock photos used by whoever works cheapest are in vogue. But, printing… In spite of spending $millions for frequent upgrades, going from film to digital imaging, computer-to-plate equipment, and now computer direct to press they cannot compete. China can deliver a job over here for 10 percent of a local US printer.
Retrain to something? What? At age 45 to 65 (What used to be prime earning years) where do you go? When a whole town is hit you can’t sell your home — no one is buying. Many of these folks have worked all their lives and have had to use money from what was their retirement fund to pay day to day living expenses. Once unemployment pay is gone what does your family live on while you retrain?
I know I am cynical, but I know too many people who are trapped right now in this “Goldilocks Economy” of low interest, low priced goods.
It is not a question of a glass half full or half empty. The reports of an improving economy are looking at a different glass entirely than the one in front of an increasingly growing number of our citizens.
Even though I think our economic laws and policies are largely to blame for this, I don’t see it as some universal long-term conspiracy. Rather I see it as genuine ignorance on the part of those in control. Wealthy people (like most Congressmen and CEOs) can’t imagine what it is like not to have the choices money brings. To quote an old Polish proverb, “What do horsemen know of tired feet?”
The plight of the poor left behind in New Orleans is a perfect example. Although perhaps not that extreme — if my son, who has only had part time work for two years, found a job in California, he would not have the funds to go to it. Unless or until he could sell his house he would not have the money to go to an interview for an out of town job. Luckily I could help him out, but many people aren’t able to get that help.
This is again why I am recommending “Nickle & Dimed” as a book for anyone who has not been truly strapped for cash. The author decided to go to a new city (she went to three) without money, find a job at which she had no experience, not give her real educational background (college degree) and do this for a year. (3 different cities and 3 jobs)
Some of the people she worked with could not go to a doctor without losing their job. One had only crackers and water for lunch. One job allowed no drinking on the job — we’re talking about water. When she developed an allergy to cleaning supplies she used her credit card (others had none) to contact her own doctor back home for a prescription. (Locally the doctor would not prescribe without examining her and she could not get time off work nor could she pay for the visit.
How will people in this kind of situation (and no backup credit) train for anything better? How can they keep up with rising health costs? How can a single mother (OK, let’s say a widow.) pay for child care on minimum wage or less?
We need a better economy than this, but I have little confidence the stock options will trickle down far enough.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 13, 2005 at 8:45 PM wth -
You went to some effort to articulate your position regarding globalization, and I do appreciate what you have to say and the time you took to make your points clear.
I can sympathize with your experiences on a personal level, but in the abstract, no more than I sympathize with the thousands of saddle makers and buggy whip manufacturers who went out of business one hundred years before. Where DID all those people go? Automobile manufacturing, of course, which pays more and pollutes less.
If we are sufficiently nimble in economic and job matters, the payoff from democracy and free markets is tremendous. The latest annual Economic Freedom of the World Report has just been released. WILLisms has posted the information in graphic form. Nations with greater economic freedom exhibit greater per cap income, growth, investment, and life expectancy, and lower unemployment. Some of the figures are startling; average incomes are almost twice as much in the first quintile (USA, New Zealand, Great Britain) than in the second quintile (France, Germany). Everybody else gets steadily worse. Check it out at http://www.willisms.com/.
Posted by scorp on Sep 16, 2005 at 2:05 AM Clinton helped create the telecommunications bubble. Research telecommunications deregulation act of 1996. That act in many ways failed under clinton and continues to fail and now is partly gutted by the FCC under Bush, but it benefited some libararies, shools and business owners. Most of all, it, along with the Internet, helped trigger a huge teleom rollout that lasted years but was the first to pop, a few months before the dotcom pop.
Posted by marge on Sep 17, 2005 at 2:06 PM there are a few gaping holes you should examine Scorp. I would suggest a few things: 1. Visit Chiapas, 2. research the effects of neo-liberal economic policies (especially comparing South Korea with Haiti)and 3. think long and hard about the national security implications of outsourcing everything from manuacturing to computer communications.
The globalization that is rolling out now is run by shortsighted corporate interests. It is not run by a free and autonomous US Congress, but one bought and sold thanks to campaign finances.
If the corporate dominence of this trend weren’t so great, I would be less wary of globilization. Afterall, any uptopian would envision a world without borders.
Posted by marge on Sep 17, 2005 at 5:14 PM Along with “Nickle and Dimed” suggested by whatheheck, and since we have come full circle and are talking about the New Deal: “How the Other Half Lives,” by Jacob Riis. Published in 1890. The book that helped spark the Progessive movement, which was capped off with the New Deal.
Maybe this is a good time to examine the head waters of the New Deal, and read both books to gain perspective.
Posted by marge on Sep 17, 2005 at 5:50 PM WTH something you said sticks out to Rabbit.
“Over the years I must admit to a lot of ignorance about how dificult it is to get ahead or even survive when you start at square one or lower.”
Now this is actually a very significant statement. Rabbit, perhaps like some others around here does not need to read a book to know about, not only how difficult but how there are barriers to advancement outside ones alloted state. The haves always fear they will be swamped by equality, so actively work to avoid it. The haves have the wrong view that they are fighting a defensive war, when all they are doing is enforcing poverty and inequality. Thus fomenting the very thing they most fear, as it happens.
Communism did not occur in a vacuum. There had to be a cause, and although communism is not the answer, a form of socialism is the only option you will be given if you are not prepared to share.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 17, 2005 at 6:59 PM The New Deal was about getting people back on their feet, not creating lifelong subsistence programs. Considering that the objections from the other side of the aisle has substantially been against the perpetuation of welfare states, and not against lifting people up, it would not surprise me in the least if we would finally get a more progressive conservativism out of a party that has been mostly about reactionary conservatism.
I hit a 4000 character wall on this one…
Here is an abbreviated version.
... the aftermath of Katrina destroyed much more (than a city). Katrina destroyed the social fiber of an entire community.
....
For any comparable moment of social upheaval we must go back to the Great Depression.
America’s response, FDR’s response, to the economic calamity that put a quarter of the nation out of work was to build new institutions, social safety nets that said to every American, you will fall no further than this. FDR’s New Deals widely succeeded, pulling the country out of the Depression and built a new foundation for a new society that emerged stronger and gave us strength to fight a global war against tyranny and oppression.
And, ultimately, this new society went wildly out of control. Instead of lifting people up out of misery, it institutionalized it; holding their misery at barely tolerable levels while offering little, if any, incentive to go beyond. A whole generation grew up in a welfare state. Building a brave new world, we forgot the lessons of our forefathers who created their own new nation and new form of government, of, by and for the people. We forgot the lessons of our forefathers who left their homelands and settled the Great Plains and the Western Frontier, on the sweat of their own brow and the labor of their own muscle.
In this brave new society, we left behind the individual.
Conservatives have long railed against the social programs of progressive liberals. Not because the policy was bad. The New Deal, The War on Poverty, Affirmative Action; all were good policy ideas. But they were implemented on a bad model, one that said the government knows best. Innovation, political and social innovation, suffered terribly. In fact, the only real innovative political policy that came out of this was enslaving and beholding millions to the Democratic Party with trillions of dollars in handouts and doles. Consequently, even talking about trimming back entitlement programs meant political suicide.
In the past ten or fifteen years, the progressive conservative movement has gotten off to a good start. The Welfare Reform Act of the 1990s succeeded, not in actually gutting a welfare state, but gutting a welfare state mentality. Honest debate on Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs now reaches the American people. And they are listening. But they are also hearing the Democratic rhetoric that paints conservatives as being “so much better at taking things apart than putting them together” as Thomas Friedman did in a September 7 piece for the New York Times. Which is unfair. To build a better house, you have to tear down the old dilapidated one first, foundation and all.
This, ultimately, is the legacy that Katrina washed away in New Orleans. Katrina cleared the land for redevelopment.
In his speech in New Orleans last Thursday, President Bush raised hope that we can build a new city in the ruins of the old.
...
This can be a model for the future of America, a model that can transcend the intrinsic weakness of FDR’s legacy. We have already demonstrated we can tear down outdated structures and policies.
It is now time to boldly build anew.
Posted by Jay Cline on Sep 19, 2005 at 5:34 PM scorp,
There are at least two big differences today as opposed to the days of switching from making buggy whips to autos, or from agriculture to manufacturing, or hunting and gathering to agriculture.
First, in prior situations the changes occurred over a generation or more. The second is perhaps even more important — the new jobs were in this country and, as you mentioned, they paid more.
In 1990 I bought my first computer. I had already run my illustration and graphic business for 23 years using the methods developed over the centuries — paper and pencils, paint and ink, photos and type, etc.
For the next dozen years I was able to hang on by spending a average of $10,000 per year for equipment and software upgrades. And in addition I spent hundreds of hours continuously learning the new software and troubleshooting glitches.
I did a self-study of my last ten years without a computer and my first ten with — I was spending 27.3 percent more non-billable time at work post computer. This for a one person operation — think about a medium to large company’s cost.
(more)
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 22, 2005 at 1:09 PM scorp (continued)
The replacement jobs many people are finding are often for less money, with fewer benefits, involve either relocating or longer commutes. They will likely be of shorter duration. I know one couple who both worked for a Fortune 500 company in Ohio, when the division was sold they chose to move where the new owner sent them. In less than two years that company was sold and they both lost their jobs again. She found another, he has not.
What is the incentive to get a degree or advanced education when companies are sending white collar jobs to India where someone with a masters or Ph.D is available cheaper than a grad here?
The new tech jobs require far fewer workers and prices are plunging. In 1993 I bought more computer memory at $45.50 per megabyte. In 2005 I bought at $0.27 per megabyte.
A recent graduate with a degree in graphic design called about a month ago looking for work. He is selling computers at CompUSA and is earning less than one half what I charged per hour in 1966. (I have no degree.)
As for comparisons to the other countries you mention, Great Britain, France and Germany are all much more into socialism than we are (so far).
I did go to http://www.willisms.com/ This is from their article, The Tragedy of Germany.
“On Sunday, Germany’s voters decided that, like that Frenchman, they can live with the stench of death as long as the government benefits keep coming.”
Perhaps the biggest single financial drain for Americans is medical costs. Millions of our people have no coverage. They cover everyone (although our good friends in London paint a dismal picture of it). I sincerely believe we will soon see demands for similar welfare here as millions continue to feel the effects of NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, IMF, GATT and other moves to a One World Governance.
I read CATO report, The Power of Economic Freedom. While I have to agree in principle, they are hardly objective in their comparisons. My eldest son has a degree in statistics and while working for a consumer research firm was in charge of data quality. When you are selling data from which companies wish to make major marketing decisions, you want to get as close to the truth as possible. Most of what we see as research (especially by political entities) is aimed at proving a foregone conclusion.
The countries sighted have so many variables which are not mentioned that we can’t really tell the accuracy of these graphs. They mentioned high taxes and trade restrictions, but ignore government subsidies, immigration policies and ethnic population mix, educational levels, geography — so many possibilities which can effect these data.
New Zealand is a different story. (New Zealand and Iceland have a major geographic protection — size and location.) They are extremely protective of their jobs. You cannot come in on other than a visitor status unless you have a job. That job must in no way endanger any New Zealander’s job. No exceptions. We have a friend who went there last year from England and did manage to find work, but came very close to being ejected first.
Some of the stories we seldom hear about our companies’ behavior in their foreign operations can only lead to increased resentment of the US. As far back as 1985 one of my clients (a fastener manufacturer) told me of how their supplier in Taiwan was dumping plating solution out the back door right next to a rice paddy. (We may now be eating that rice.) Much of the advantage our competitors have is due to having no OSHA, EPA, or other regulations which took us decades to create for the protect of us all.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 22, 2005 at 1:11 PM scorp (conclusion)
Delphi has a factory in Mexico whose employees live in a makeshift “suburb” of a small town. In order to provide sewers and water for them the mayor indicated a possible tax was needed. The management of Delphi gave an ultimatum in reply— if they were taxed they would simply move the operation to China where the labor costs are lower. The plant would just be abandoned.
According to the Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2004, the Delphi CEO made $6,745,000 in 2002, yet refused to care for the employees in his charge.
We like to believe we are benefiting those “developing countries” where our cheap products originate, but we are only passing through on the way to the next labor pool. Their people are losers and so are ours.
I hope I am wrong in my projections. I think we will see it come to pass and it, like everything else today, may be sooner rather than later.
———————-Thank you for your comments and the willims address.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 22, 2005 at 1:13 PM interesting reading. Is the Kool-aid good? I especially like the one where the 100 year anniversary of the company co-incided with leaving town, as the jobs had already been sold to China and the CEO got a nice bonus for improving the bottom line. I see lots of that. My wife is a school teacher, who substitutes, and has a schedule carefully crafted to not quite reach full time status,which would grant her health care. Her own doctor, from England, is aghast at the American system,in which health care is a privelege, not a right,as in the rest of the civilized world.Costa Rica, kids. They provide 3 levels of health service, but don’t bother with a military-industrial complex. The people come first, not as an afterthought. The United States ia already PAYING for Universal health care, they are just not getting it
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