Are things really that bad ?

[Jhhnn]

Topic
Are things really that bad?

dullard
We have peace and stability.
But what we don't have is even distribution.

For a moment let's forget "even" distribution. How about we settle for the distribution of the 60s and 70s? You see, without the golden America that was, our labor market is closing more doors than opening. Current distribution failure means fewer people have the time or money to meet the ever growing market requirements. "People" are an ever decreasing asset value.

dullard
You have to help yourself.

Compared to cost of living, a lot of people don't make !@#$ for money these days. And you think they don't get trapped down there? Every year it just gets worse. Wealth is accumulated in Wall Street and then shipped overseas into their global investments where they take slave labor to produce and then ship products back over here where the American consumer buys the cheapest product. That cycle puts more Americans out of work. Or into lower quality, lower paying work.

I say people helping themselves first need a boost. Far as I see it they are sinking under the weight of the global economy.
And the next few decades are going nuclear with automation. This is just the beginning of income inequality.

And just WTF do you think Trump & the Repubs intend to do about it?

 

[nickqt]

F*ck politicans.

I take full responsibility for my life. This is America dammit. If I want an exceptional life than its up to me to get it. If I want t wealth it's up to me. Hillary, Trump, Obama or any other politician isn't going to do it. I need to invest in me first.

With that said, many people don't take responsibility for their lives. They wait on the politican whose going to make it all better. Look at Trump. What's he doing? His campaign has been nothing but fear mongering. And, he says that only he can make your life better. So people buy it. They let go of control and hive it to the politicans.
Obama was the same. Free health care for all! Well what if I don't want your health care. I'll make enough money that I can afford my own health care. The same with retirement. I don't need your 401k. I don't need anything from you. I'll do it on my own. IMO, that's freedom.

No politician is going to make your life better.

Obama didn't promise free healthcare for all. He retooled a conservative market-based health insurance marketplace idea, along with prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage to certain people.

The government isn't going to do solve all of the problems, but it can work more, or less, to ensure that everyone who wants to work and puts in the effort is able to succeed.

By the way, the government is us. Instead of getting worked up about how the government is the problem, vote for the people who want to make the government function, not just people who talk cryptically about drowning it in a bathtub so that the richest people in the solar system can give more money to Wall St. criminals to shuffle around to inflate bubbles and collect Fees, Bonuses and Commissions.

The sad thing is that even if Clinton wins, if there aren't at least 51 Democratic senators/votes, then the US government will continue in deadlock because the Republican party has chosen not to govern unless it has all three branches of government. And while you may cheer about that, you shouldn't then bitch that problems go unsolved.

Because government isn't going to solve all the problems. With Republicans owning Congress, it will continue to work less to ensure that everyone who wants to work and put in effort is able to succeed.

Because Freedom. And Benghazi. And of course, emails.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The candidates are pretty bleh and an inability to control government spending isn't comforting in the long term, but in terms of personal liberties and availability of information, we've basically never been better, and even if wages are stagnant-ish and costs of living not the best they've ever been, we still have it better than we did in the 30s through the 50s. If you look on a worldwide scale, things are unbelievably better now than they were 20-30 years ago, countries once struggling to even have clean water and food now have the largest middle-class growth. Unless we really do have some kind of worldwide collapse and WW3, I'm pretty happy living in this time period and wouldn't change a thing to be born earlier.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

"People" are an ever decreasing asset value.

They have themselves to blame for that (assuming they don't exist in a backwards redneck part of the country that hates birth control). Labor is the one product you can't destroy when you have an excess of it. People should be aware of the long-term costs of creating more people.

 

[TeeJay1952]

I am 8 years closer to death. My son is smoking pot, getting D's and is involved in nothing that indicates he will be a successful adult. My wife lost her tongue to cancer. So objectively I would say I am clearly way the fuck less well off than I was 8 years ago. How much of this can I blame on Obama though?

For some, quite a bit. As in all that and more.

For others, You and yours survived. The 8 years would have occurred no matter who was Pres. Your wife had the Health Industry save her. Your son has found a way to get by in a manufacureless society. The explosion of Pot and the money it makes and brings to table are not to be sneezed at. It may be the Green Revolution that prods advancements in agriculture.

 

[dullard]

For a moment let's forget "even" distribution. How about we settle for the distribution of the 60s and 70s? You see, without the golden America that was, our labor market is closing more doors than opening. Current distribution failure means fewer people have the time or money to meet the ever growing market requirements. "People" are an ever decreasing asset value.

What I wrote wasn't intended to mean that I want perfectly even distribution. Instead, I think we need more even distribution than what we have. We were doing pretty well in the 50s to mid-90s when the distribution was far flatter than it is now.

A perfectly even distribution gives no incentive to work harder, since you gain nothing with more work. But a very uneven distribution also gives no incentive to work harder, since all gains go to the wealthy few and not you.

A distribution where working harder gives you more, but not so much more that others get less, is what we need. A (CEO) : (Lowest paid employee) ratio of about 10 : 1 has been about the historical sweet spot. You can make your life 10x better by working harder, getting more education, leveraging assets, etc. But as we are now with many CEOs getting 100x or more, those in the middle and at the bottom just don't get to reap the rewards of their hard work.