I agree with Mordecai on the origins of the current GOP and current democrats. But Liberalism is not the solution to this. Instead I believe Restorationism is the wave of the future.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

1.

Strong, militant, worker-responsive unions. For obvious causes Big Business has done everything possible to eviscerate labor unions. The plutocratic ideal is to allow the employer to seek out and exploit the bargaining weaknesses of employees and drive those to compel the lowest possible wages no matter how profitable the firm. Collective bargaining is the biggest benefit of working under a union contract.

"Worker responsive unions". One of the biggest problems of the union movement has been that unions have acted to protect the interests of existing workers and their families rather than organizing as many people as possible. In other words, become closed guilds. This was the approach of the AFL crafts unions as opposed to the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) that DID organize people in workplaces, often unskilled people.
Which is why unions like SEIU (Service Employees International Union) and Unite Now! had to break with AFL-CIO in 2006. And why so many unions (which are mainly public sector employees) particularly the teachers unions are comfortable with Hillary. They have no problem with other workers remaining unorganized as long as THEY are under contract. They only start to feel the pinch when states that previously were union strongholds (Michigan, Indiana) pass "right to work laws". Which is why Michigan and Wisconsin went for Bernie and why Indiana looks set to go for Bernie .

As far as I see things, Big Business would bring back chattel slavery if it could get away with it. At the least, industrial peonage (not the most infamous characteristic of Nazi Germany) is a possible desire of the economic right. (You may not quit except with the consent of the current employer; you must accept whatever terms of employment are offered; you may not disobey an order of an employer; if you fall short of expected norms you may be subjected to physical punishment). 4Ts can bring about the achievement of nightmares as well as great and unambiguous triumph.

Good points! The entire thrust of American conservatism has been to slowly slowly get American workers willing to accept those terms. Which by the way, already exist for convicts. Criminalizing large segments of the population could fit this agenda. Poor whites may very well be next.

2. We the People need to beat the cheat in economics. Gerrymandering has ensured that America is no longer a representative democracy. Political life has been distorted to favor economic elites who know no limits to their own selfish greed other than overall productivity. The Millennial Generation may be just the people to make gerrymandering ineffective.

Redistricting by commissions rather than legislatures (now approved by the Supreme Court) is one way to accomplish this in the next census. So is automatic runoff elections which can be brought in trough citizen's initiatives, which most states have. Bernie has shown us that special interests can be outspent with crowdfunded money. It might even pass constitutional muster to start electing state senators at large by party, which would really give smaller parties a chance at power. What has to change here is that Millennials have to become as interested in state and local races as they are presidential races.

3. We need question the basic assumption of globalization -- that cheap stuff creates happiness no matter what else is wrong in life. Technological wonders are exactly that, but we are close to the end of the time in which greater productivity of stuff has any further relevance to mass happiness. Even with services, 200 channels of cable TV are not that much more precious than 15 channels of desirable TV if the other 185 are schlock. We may need to tax consumer excess heavily to support single-payer healthcare.

Automation may make globalization obselete. What use are these global supply chains when robots can manufacture anything anywhere from simple feedstocks? And since when is it in the interests of ordinary people if rich people can send their money untraceably anywhere in the world.We need to start moving more toward self-sufficiency and yes, even autarky (as a goal that is probably as unattainable as complete free trade but a direction for people to move toward). Whatever the cost of goods, the people have an interest in what they buy being produced by companies that do the bulk of their business in country and are beholden to customers in country. And with automation and 3-d printing, this is now feasible. And necessary. If goods can be produced inexpensively and automated with relatively few, highly skilled workers then workers have an interest in protecting what few jobs are left and not sharing them with people in other countries.

4. Finally we need to recreate a different moral climate among potential leaders, one in which crass indulgence, bureaucratic power, sex, and booze are not the objectives of life. It's back to the liberal arts in undergraduate education except for extremely technical and vocational types.

We actually had this in the last 1T, in the 50s and early 60s. CEOs made only 30 to 50 times what the employees on the shop floor made. They lived in a way that we would call upper middle class. The very rich, except for movie stars, kept a very low profile. They were not only afraid to stick their heads up and live large, they were largely ashamed to. And boy did a lot of them hate it!
Of course we don't get something for nothing. As we know, the 50s were a very tightly controlled time, in terms of social mores. Which sparked an Awakening backlash toward indvidualism which loosened strictures on behaviour but also on wealth seeking. What you are describing is very cyclical and tied to the generational cycle.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

We actually had this in the last 1T, in the 50s and early 60s. CEOs made only 30 to 50 times what the employees on the shop floor made. They lived in a way that we would call upper middle class. The very rich, except for movie stars, kept a very low profile. They were not only afraid to stick their heads up and live large, they were largely ashamed to. And boy did a lot of them hate it!

And almost as a rule, they had worked on the shop floor and had some idea of what it was like. The typical executive was approaching retirement age and was in no position to divorce his wife for someone twenty years younger. He was too old to have any use for a sports car, and his spending habits were set. Of course the executive was a "he", reflective the pervasive male chauvinism of the time.

Of course we don't get something for nothing. As we know, the 50s were a very tightly controlled time, in terms of social mores. Which sparked an Awakening backlash toward indvidualism which loosened strictures on behaviour but also on wealth seeking. What you are describing is very cyclical and tied to the generational cycle.

Red scare. Jim Crow still prevailed in the South. Being a sissy was the worst thing possible short of being a Commie. The ceiling was very low for blacks. The culture was insipid. Cancerweed manufacturers were seen as models of corporate citizenship.

...The next 1T will likely have its parallels. I have yet to figure what Millennial culture will be like. If it is the insipid "Easy Listening" schlock or something similar becomes the norm, then one can expect the next Idealist generation to show some cultural rebellion. Maybe some people will know -- maybe this time Generation X won't be rushed to the "rest home" as it was.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

And almost as a rule, they had worked on the shop floor and had some idea of what it was like. The typical executive was approaching retirement age and was in no position to divorce his wife for someone twenty years younger. He was too old to have any use for a sports car, and his spending habits were set. Of course the executive was a "he", reflective the pervasive male chauvinism of the time.

CEOs might be approaching retirement age, but GI "men in grey flannel suits" below them definitely were not. GIs wouldn't divorce their wives, but they commonly cheated on their wives and it was an accepted thing. Remember, this was a time when women were not only kept out of the workforce but could be locked up in mental hospitals, if wayard and in some cases, like Rosemary Kennedy or Frances Farmer, lobotimized into developmental disability.
Which did not stop these "human relations" managers from working with labor unions on the shop floor. For that to stop, a whole "new breed" of Boomer managers had to replace them.

Red scare.

The Red Scare, the overblowing and provoking of the Soviet threat was the beginning of the conservative "fightback" against the New Deal. Businesspeople and CIA people started behaving in exploitative ways abroad that at the time, they couldn't get away with at home.

Jim Crow still prevailed in the South. Being a sissy was the worst thing possible short of being a Commie. The ceiling was very low for blacks. The culture was insipid. Cancerweed manufacturers were seen as models of corporate citizenship.

Yes, this was the socially conservative part of the New Deal. The compromises needed to sell the New Deal in the 30s. Crisp sex role differentiation. Unions for me but not for thee. This is the kind of thing that we see in 4Ts and 1Ts. Economic change paid for in the coin of social conservatism. It's probably too much to expect of people going through an economic revolution and who are economically insecure or have recent memories of economic insecurity to go through a social revolution at the same time. It's like telling someone going through a nervous breakdown (or a recovering alcoholic) to stop smoking.
Insipid cultures are hallmarks of 1Ts. The early Gilded Age culture post Civil War amounted mainly to living off the creativity of surviving Transcendentals like Walt Whitman. There was not much American Literature to speak of pre Second Great Awakening either. Hard to have much creativity when huge segments of the public are working hard to rebuild from and nursing PTSD from the traumas of the last 4T. So in the 1950s we get Hollywood Technicolor extravaganzas. And the new medium ofTV that isn't sure what to show.
..

.The next 1T will likely have its parallels. I have yet to figure what Millennial culture will be like. If it is the insipid "Easy Listening" schlock or something similar becomes the norm, then one can expect the next Idealist generation to show some cultural rebellion. Maybe some people will know -- maybe this time Generation X won't be rushed to the "rest home" as it was.

That depends on a lot of variables. How hard the upcoming 4T is. How long the upcoming 4T lasts. And who wins the upcoming 4T (and it might not be the United States). We will have a much harder, much more repressed 4T if China comes out on top and sets the agenda the way the US set the agenda of the last 4T.
The other variable is the way 4Ts jump start new technologies. Everything from radar to jet aircraft to television to antibiotics got jump started by WWII. This time around, besides drones and robots and nanotech we may see brain to brain communication--the next step of the Internet after the Internet of Things jumpstarted by upcoming wars. We could be looking at something like Ray Kurzweil's "singularity" or something like Borg Collectives developing. Scary thought.

Originally Posted by radind

Cruz is too narrow to win a national election.
I am opposed to secession, but it is interesting that talk of secession seems to comes from progressives.

The talk is on both sides. We are so polarized now (as I predicted long ago that we would be now) that secession seems the only option for some people if the other side wins.

For myself, Cruz is unacceptable. I don't know if I could emigrate. It would be time for making revolution or secession.

No-one except XYMOX here is tougher on Trump than me. I am a boomer, and mockingbird suggested that Boomers like Trump better than Cruz and Xers like Cruz better than Trump. I don't know if that's true, but although I am pox on both, this Boomer IS rooting for Trump, I think. Not only is his collection of views more moderate, but I have some hope from his horoscope that he might do an OK job despite his excess rhetoric. It just seems unlikely though; there's no doubt that Cruz would be more a serious man of business, and Trump would likely be a reckless clown. It's the business that Cruz seriously wants to do that is repulsive; while Trump is more flexible, if also more ignorant and inexperienced. Both would have strong authoritarian tendencies, though Trump would be more likely to overstep his authority. One reason to hope Trump wins is the current polls that show him the surer loser. But that could change.

I hope and trust that either one will lose. But if Trump should win, I probably won't want to immigrate or secede-- just because it will be more fun to watch, and because actions are more important to me than offensive or correct rhetoric-- although as others point out, it matters what you say when you are president. If Trump screws up, in fact, there will probably be no place to run anyway; given the kinds of ways he might screw up.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

That depends on a lot of variables. How hard the upcoming 4T is. How long the upcoming 4T lasts. And who wins the upcoming 4T (and it might not be the United States). We will have a much harder, much more repressed 4T if China comes out on top and sets the agenda the way the US set the agenda of the last 4T.

Think of what life was like in the German Democratic Republic. Someone will closely prescribe what politics are possible.

The other variable is the way 4Ts jump start new technologies. Everything from radar to jet aircraft to television to antibiotics got jump started by WWII. This time around, besides drones and robots and nanotech we may see brain to brain communication--the next step of the Internet after the Internet of Things jumpstarted by upcoming wars. We could be looking at something like Ray Kurzweil's "singularity" or something like Borg Collectives developing. Scary thought.

We cannot assume that technology will save us from our worst tendencies. We cannot even assume that it will be benign. If we are not handling the end of material scarcity well (we are making ourselves mostly poorer!) how can we be certain that we will well handle any supposed bounty well. Are we as a nation the equivalent of a drug addict who just got a windfall?

Only the biggest fools can turn blessings into curses.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The surest way to create a labor shortage is to grossly underpay workers. At the extreme there has never been a slave system, whether the pre-Civil War South or the Third Reich, that did not have to bring in even more workers.

Unskilled and lightly-skilled workers have always found employment precarious at best, with frequent layoffs and with having to be very resourceful to find and coordinate seasonal work.

You just got an F in Economy 101. I think you did not even read the article.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

You just got an F in Economy 101. I think you did not even read the article.

Anecdotes are the antithetical to Econ 101

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

You just got an F in Economy 101. I think you did not even read the article.

I didn't read the article. The link failed.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Anecdotes are the antithetical to Econ 101

So is a fifteen dollar minimum wage.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

I didn't read the article. The link failed.

I knew it.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

So is a fifteen dollar minimum wage.

I think a rise to $5,000/hr would be great, don't you?
$5,000/hr! Woo-hoo!

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

I knew it.

Fascinating guy, that Pbro!


Prince

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

So is a fifteen dollar minimum wage.

Not if you have to work for a living

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

I think a rise to $5,000/hr would be great, don't you?
$5,000/hr! Woo-hoo!



Fascinating guy, that Pbro!


Prince

5000 Indonesian Riyals an hour!

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Not if you have to work for a living

Wow, 30K becomes the new poverty line.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Think of what life was like in the German Democratic Republic. Someone will closely prescribe what politics are possible.



We cannot assume that technology will save us from our worst tendencies. We cannot even assume that it will be benign. If we are not handling the end of material scarcity well (we are making ourselves mostly poorer!) how can we be certain that we will well handle any supposed bounty well. Are we as a nation the equivalent of a drug addict who just got a windfall?

Only the biggest fools can turn blessings into curses.

Technology, like global warming is a challenge to be met. Or not. Which is why we really do need to expand out to the rest of the Solar System instead of being confined to a global village. So that humanity's eggs are not all in one basket and there remain alternatives to whatever society we build Earthside.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

I think a rise to $5,000/hr would be great, don't you?
$5,000/hr! Woo-hoo!



Fascinating guy, that Pbro!


Prince

I'd hold out and force Hilary to toss in a home with all expenses paid and a pretty young Clinton supporter to use a wife.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Not if you have to work for a living

Some of us do, andf they have to pay others. Some people haven't proven that they are worth fifteen dollars an hour. Some never will.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

I think a rise to $5,000/hr would be great, don't you?
$5,000/hr! Woo-hoo!



Fascinating guy, that Pbro!


Prince

Good point! Why not fifty dollars an hour?

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

5000 Indonesian Riyals an hour!

Indonesian Riyals? Did you mean Rupiahs?

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

I'd hold out and force Hilary to toss in a home with all expenses paid and a pretty young Clinton supporter to use a wife.

Egads! I'd pay just to not be married to any Clinton supporter(regardless of how she looked).

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

Good point! Why not fifty dollars an hour?

Hey, man. Get with the program. We just want 'free stuff'(however worthless it is),
and that 'free stuff' has to be paid for by the 'Greedy Rich'^TM, 'cuz, well, just 'cuz.


Prince

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

Some of us do, and they have to pay others. Some people haven't proven that they are worth fifteen dollars an hour. Some never will.

Those who are not worth a sub-standard wage of $15 an hour, can still be fired. Get The Donald to fire them.

Working for slave wages is slavery.

The CEOs that you and The Cat and Classic support GET that $5000 an hour, plus house and pretty girl. Do they earn it? NO. But Republicans pretty much want to ensure that the class they represent get their minimum wage of $5000 an hour.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Wow, 30K becomes the new poverty line.

$15 an hour is less than the minimum wage was in the sixties. And there was still poverty in the sixties. Poverty declined after LBJ, but rose again after Reagan. And here we are today; most people not getting paid enough to pay the sky high cost of living, and a few living high on the hog.

It varies depending on the state, of course. In coastal CA, $15 an hour guarantees that you will have to rent substandard housing, and probably commute 50 or 100 miles every day. In Detroit or Appalachia it might go a lot farther. But few people enjoy living in those places.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Technology, like global warming is a challenge to be met. Or not. Which is why we really do need to expand out to the rest of the Solar System instead of being confined to a global village. So that humanity's eggs are not all in one basket and there remain alternatives to whatever society we build Earthside.

Settlement of space is technologically and economically absurd, at least for the next few centuries. In the meantime, global warming threatens to inundate some of the most densely-populated areas and some of the richest farmlands in the world.

To the theme song of C.O.P.S. :

Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat!

What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when it comes for you?

Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat!

What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when it comes for you?

Inundation gives you... no break.
Heat wave's gonna make you bake...

Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat!

What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when it comes for you?

-----

I have my idea of a space-based drama, basically "Little Space Pod on the Prairie"... a place where one modern technology after another slowly fades into oblivion as a lives revert to Victorian norms because such is as far as one goes with some modicum of self-sufficiency. Raising grain will be essential to survival. Internet access won't be.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Settlement of space is technologically and economically absurd, at least for the next few centuries. In the meantime, global warming threatens to inundate some of the most densely-populated areas and some of the richest farmlands in the world.

To the theme song of C.O.P.S. :

Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat!

What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when it comes for you?

Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat!

What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when it comes for you?

Inundation gives you... no break.
Heat wave's gonna make you bake...

Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat! Bad Heat!

What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do when it comes for you?

-----.

Indeed, and the bad heat is created by all the hot air of the deniers and delayers.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

So is a fifteen dollar minimum wage.

That's what they said about the $7.50 and before that the $3.25.