Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Indeed, I felt the same way when you revealed your image of America: driving to Disney World with all their new cars and high tech gadgets. You really do live in a bubble of wealth and privilege, and while you might read stories about the rest of America, you really have no idea what is going on.

Here's a clue you won't catch on to if you haven't yet: we're going broke and busting our asses so your trust fund can stay intact. We're sacrificing the position of the workers so families like yours can stay rich for generations to come.

I can understand that.

However, the reality is that the medium American income of around $50K (by the way, far below the upper limit for subsidies under Obamacare) is in the top 1% of incomes on a global basis. That doesn't mean I am comfortable with the medium or how the distribution curve stretches out from there.

Again, my argument isn't whether the American dream is still traveling down the road, parked or even perhaps moving backward. Let's break it down and analyze that.

My problem is from where we start. I think an honest benchmark is more likely to be truly revealing than obfuscating the issue with horseshit from the get-go.


___________________________________________
And speaking globally here, I want to share this because it is really haunting me and I need to disperse the bad karma. Please, nobody click on this if you are not prepared for a big kick in the gut. Enough said.

http://lightbox.time.com/2013/05/08/...-bangladesh/#1

A Final Embrace

Originally Posted by playwrite

The reality is that the medium American income of around $50K (by the way, far below the upper limit for subsidies under Obamacare) is in the top 1% of incomes on a global basis. That doesn't mean I am comfortable with the medium or how the distribution curve stretches out from there.

Ok, your interpretation of these statistics butchers the reality. $50,000 is the median for a household, and the median household has about 2.6 people in it. Go plug that back in to your global rich list and suddenly you're down to the top 5% globally. 20% of the population makes just half of the median: about $9,500 per person, or down in the top 15% globally. Adjust the Human Development Index for inequality, and suddenly 15 countries rate better than America in terms of opportunity, income, education, and access to healthcare (behind basically all of Europe and eastern Asia).

We cannot underestimate such a rapid fall, and we certainly cannot waste time debating whether or not it happened. I guess we could navel-gaze and compare our lot to the caveman, but civilization wasn't built by people who said "Hey, we've got it pretty good already." That certainly wasn't the mentality that built America or once made her great.

This idea that we have it better than anyone ever before is REALLY outdated and it reflects your education.. from like.. grade school.. in the 1950s.

My problem is from where we start. I think an honest benchmark is more likely to be truly revealing than obfuscating the issue with horseshit from the get-go.

Hi, Pot? It's Kettle.

Guys, guys... Serfs had way more time off and were under far less scruitiny and pressure to preform than we are. Being Bonded to the land was just as much a protection as a curse. Sure, it sounds all horrible, but think about it:

They're bound to the land the Lord lives on and owns. So the Lord can only go so far because when Duke Huffandpuff or Lord Bagginstoke show up for a week long excursion of drinking and whoring, he can't exavtly have a bunch of peasants just starving in the streets. Modern high income earners learned their lesson and live around other rich people and if the swelling ranks of huddled masses yearning to break free start to encroach on the wealthy's Randian utopia... Eff 'em, they have a yacht.

It bears a striking similarity to indentured servitude, peasantry, the company store, and every branding of exploitation you can think of, the key difference is that the masters have absolutely no responsibilities to their underlings and no bond either. So more or less, left alone as things stand, we'll be worse off than every in another 70 years.

Indentured servitude? Company Store? I'm already living it. Speaking of company stores:

I did buy a stuffed stagecoach pony, when I took a short job at The Horsey Bank. Note to PW: John Stumpf just lost another round in arbitration vs the former AG Edwards brokers who bailed after the second takeover they had to live through. The monstrosity at Jefferson and Market Street is a snake pit of resentment and backstabbing.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Guys, guys... Serfs had way more time off and were under far less scrutiny and pressure to preform than we are. Being Bonded to the land was just as much a protection as a curse. Sure, it sounds all horrible, but think about it:

They're bound to the land the Lord lives on and owns. So the Lord can only go so far because when Duke Huffandpuff or Lord Bagginstoke show up for a week long excursion of drinking and whoring, he can't exactly have a bunch of peasants just starving in the streets. Modern high income earners learned their lesson and live around other rich people and if the swelling ranks of huddled masses yearning to break free start to encroach on the wealthy's Randian utopia... Eff 'em, they have a yacht.

It bears a striking similarity to indentured servitude, peasantry, the company store, and every branding of exploitation you can think of, the key difference is that the masters have absolutely no responsibilities to their underlings and no bond either. So more or less, left alone as things stand, we'll be worse off than every in another 70 years.

It's certainly possible that we are passing through a 4T that resolves nothing. If so, then the current imbalance will continue to grow, probably in fits and starts as it has for the last 40 years. The Millies already know they’ve been screwed, and won’t be shy about saying so. Their children will come of age full of anger, making the next 4T really nasty.

Of course, getting the issue resolved in this 4T is infinitely better.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

It's certainly possible that we are passing through a 4T that resolves nothing. If so, then the current imbalance will continue to grow, probably in fits and starts as it has for the last 40 years. The Millies already know they’ve been screwed, and won’t be shy about saying so. Their children will come of age full of anger, making the next 4T really nasty.

Of course, getting the issue resolved in this 4T is infinitely better.

Whaddya mean nothing is resolved? Bush resolved to expand the empire and declare the richest investors too big to fail. Obama confirmed this with the Geithner appointment and transformed his personal legacy in to "health insurance lobbyist."

Whether the 4T started in 2001 or 2008, our response to the financial panics has been the same in as much as it further concentrates wealth in the hands of a few. This is very different from the 1930s, but it is certainly an aspect of our 4T today.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

It's certainly possible that we are passing through a 4T that resolves nothing. If so, then the current imbalance will continue to grow, probably in fits and starts as it has for the last 40 years. The Millies already know they’ve been screwed, and won’t be shy about saying so. Their children will come of age full of anger, making the next 4T really nasty.

Of course, getting the issue resolved in this 4T is infinitely better.

Well 2001 or 2008, we're certainly taking our time in even trying to accomplish anything of note. To me this implies either a revolutionary sort of saeculum or it implies that we're just not doing anything.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Well 2001 or 2008, we're certainly taking our time in even trying to accomplish anything of note. To me this implies either a revolutionary sort of saeculum or it implies that we're just not doing anything.

I don't think it's fair to say we're doing nothing. We've transferred a large part of the nation's wealth to the new oligarchy, and we're creating a militarized surveillance state to thwart those who might try to resist this revolution.

There have also been huge breakthroughs in the art & science of propaganda.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Whaddya mean nothing is resolved? Bush resolved to expand the empire and declare the richest investors too big to fail. Obama confirmed this with the Geithner appointment and transformed his personal legacy in to "health insurance lobbyist."

Whether the 4T started in 2001 or 2008, our response to the financial panics has been the same in as much as it further concentrates wealth in the hands of a few. This is very different from the 1930s, but it is certainly an aspect of our 4T today.

It's hard to consider making things worse as resolution. Is this merely a case of too little too late? I honestly don't know. We'll see soon enough. If this is a linear progression, and the 2014 and 2016 elections build-in more gridlock, then we're in for a tough 1T and a 2T that will be extreme. You're 35 years my junior. If this goes bad, and that's the current path, it will impact you directly. I have to rely on people your age to find a solution, because whatver it is, I'll be gone before it takes hold. Good luck.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

It's hard to consider making things worse as resolution. Is this merely a case of too little too late? I honestly don't know. We'll see soon enough. If this is a linear progression, and the 2014 and 2016 elections build-in more gridlock, then we're in for a tough 1T and a 2T that will be extreme. You're 35 years my junior. If this goes bad, and that's the current path, it will impact you directly. I have to rely on people your age to find a solution, because whatver it is, I'll be gone before it takes hold. Good luck.

Worse for you, worse for me, maybe. But the nature of 4T conflict isn't that my side always wins, just that some side wins rather decisively.

In this specific case, there's really only one group fighting, and the group they're fighting against is too divided to coordinate a counter.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Worse for you, worse for me, maybe. But the nature of 4T conflict isn't that my side always wins, just that some side wins rather decisively.

In this specific case, there's really only one group fighting, and the group they're fighting against is too divided to coordinate a counter.

I was thinking more about stability. Look at Europe. Greece and Spain have over 50% uemployment among youth. If the GOP solution is implemeneted in the US, similar misery will happen here too. The big difference in the US: we lack sufficient support systems to permit 50% unemployment with social peace.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

That's the thing, I am a medieval history geek. Misuse of the term was causing me near-physical pain. As far as the decline of the middle class and the bifurcation of society into haves and have-nots, I'm with you. Given time, these things could progress into something very much like serfdom. Just, if you could, as a favor to me if nothing else, ease up a little on the hyperbole and speak to the issues themselves, as they exist today.

Indeed such abuse of language must grate upon people who see words in use more for their visceral connotations than as depictions of reality. So it is with you, me, and our buddy George Orwell who recognize the debasement of language as the destruction of the capacity for thought. Words are more than their emotional impact, but if we get the emotional impact while they are so distorted that their original meaning vanishes, then words become tools of control. Just think of the use of the word slavery, a word that denotes the worst possible denial of the humanity of another person short of outright murder. When I see it I want it to connote people who either have lost or never had choice in whether they work or rest, whose toil largely serves someone else who keeps the slaves in gross deprivation, and who are obliged at all times to display deference toward masters on the threat of being beaten. Such suggests plantations of the Old South or labor camps in Nazi Germany in which conditions fit the conventional definition of slavery. Losing a war and having to pay reparations and having constraints upon military procurement and activity as a nation ... or having to pay interest to a Jewish lender who advanced money hardly compare to being a field hand in the Old American South -- yet Hitler called both slavery.

Serfdom somehow differs from slavery in that one is compelled to toil for little, although one has more choices. Maybe a serf can keep some of his earnings and might have some consumer choice... but cannot change his employer. To compare modern constraints of a political order that imposes or even enables such -- like the Soviet Union under Stalin (one could work for the State but in practice for the Communist hierarchy, and one could not easily change employment because such might interfere with the Plan) or Nazi Germany (in which a worker could not change employers without consent of the employer) might fit many of the characteristics of serfdom. So does the Apartheid system in the former racist South Africa. I take no offense at Friedrich Hayek using the title The Road to Serfdom to describe a perverse form of socialism that first takes away property from business owners and then destroys job choice and consumer freedom.

As I said in an earlier post, owing a lender for a student loan that allows one to participate in a high-paying profession such as medicine or law is hardly serfdom. Some other countries have government-paid education as far as one is qualified to get it -- even through the completion of professional school (but obviously high taxes to support that). Debt or taxes? Take your pick. Both constrain one, but not getting to be a physician because one is not born into a privileged family seems like a greater loss of freedom. Having an owner-occupied house but a mortgage loan to pay and such terms as the obligations to keep the property taxes and insurance coverage upon it suggests that one has at the least a compensating, countervailing asset. So it is with loans that start or maintain a business. The typical public utility has taxes to pay and and huge loads of debt, but it is still profitable.

If one is getting an income that affords a level of income decidedly higher than that of a serf, then one is not a serf.

Plenty of room at the bottom. And who says other countries would want to bail us out, or could even if they wanted to?

Why would any other country bail out America for the bad habits of its elites of management and ownership with the knowledge that so doing would serve only to enable those bad habits?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

... like the Soviet Union under Stalin (one could work for the State but in practice for the Communist hierarchy, and one could not easily change employment because such might interfere with the Plan)..

A myth, though one often repeated.

Under the Soviet system (I learn, having freshly consulted with a person born a Soviet citizen), you could change work as often as you liked. Decided you don't like being a mechanic? Head over to any other business and sign on with them. As an apprentice, if you were new to the work, of course. Generally you were a year at most before you were trained-and-experienced up to full salary. The restrictions on jobs were, broadly, twofold.

First, being without a job at all was not permitted -- there were plenty of infrastructure-crews that were always happy to take you on as an employee if you got caught indigent by the cops. You would work for them for some set period (generally on the order of a couple weeks) and then you would be free to move on to another job as you saw fit.

Second, certain jobs required credentialing. Can't be a surgeon without a med school education and whatever credentialing the professional organization (naturally, with a good commie name like the Union of Medical Professional Named In Honor of Akademik Pavlov and His Puppies). Or an engineer or an accountant without whatever respective education and credentials. If you lacked those for a particular job, then for sure that job wasn't one you were going to be able to get. Then again, since education was free, going out and getting those credentials was not necessarily an impossible task.

Anyway...

Speaks for itself.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Speaks for itself.

Speaker of the House John Boehner has frequently insisted upon the idea that Congress "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act. The left side would probably achieve both and get the signature of Barack Obama.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

O not at all, I think they are very serious problems, and worth talking about and (eventually, when people get a lot more serious) doing something about. It's just that I am a bit of history geek, and the word "serf" is not a generic synonym for peasant, it is a very specific legal institution that has no real parallel to contemporary American life. At least not for citizens who are not felons.

We probably need to work our way back through sharecropping and company stores and debtor's prisons before we have to worry about serfdom again. Give 'em time. Rome wasn't burnt in a day.

Serfdom as practiced in the Middle Ages was a specific and carefully defined role. But some form of peonage has filled that niche before and since, usually without the complex protections of medieval law. In that view I'd say the sharecroppers and debtors to the company store were in peonage, at the very least.

Someone made a useful distinction: a dolphin's flipper and a bat's wing are different in many ways. However, if you look at their structure, they are both forearms, though highly specialized. Just so - a socioeconomic niche can be filled with a good many specialized forms, but underneath its the same niche and a similar status.

Hint - for extra credit on your final - what would an educated Hindu say was once America's equivalent of India's Dalits? Hint: the Dalits were once called Untouchables.

Serfdom as practiced in the Middle Ages was a specific and carefully defined role. But some form of peonage has filled that niche before and since, usually without the complex protections of medieval law. In that view I'd say the sharecroppers and debtors to the company store were in peonage, at the very least.

Oh, they were absolutely in peonage, but they were not in serfdom. People today with shitty jobs and mortgages are in neither. That being said, I absolutely agree that there are negative trends, I just wanted to speak to them directly without using flawed analogies that serve little other purpose than to evoke "cold & prickly" feelings in their listeners, to borrow a phrase from John Michael Greer. The term serf refers to something very specific and utterly alien to the experience of me or you or Kepi, and referring to our situation as being worse is comical at best. Poor laws and sharecropping systems fit the definition much better (though not perfectly), as the defining feature of serfdom was the status of being bound to the land.

Someone made a useful distinction: a dolphin's flipper and a bat's wing are different in many ways. However, if you look at their structure, they are both forearms, though highly specialized. Just so - a socioeconomic niche can be filled with a good many specialized forms, but underneath its the same niche and a similar status.

The example is flawed. The relation between a dolphin's flipper, a bat's wing, and a human forearm is one of common origin, not function. Homology, not analogy as you are trying here.

And if you really wanted to look at the positions in our society most analogous to serfdom, you would have to look at the status of illegal immigrants and guest worker programs. Which is not what I think people have been referring to.

Hint - for extra credit on your final - what would an educated Hindu say was once America's equivalent of India's Dalits? Hint: the Dalits were once called Untouchables.

Black people, particularly between the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. And American Indians could be Adivasis.

PS Attempts to play a gotcha moment, where the answer is "women" or "gay people" or something else that does not fit the description will result in negative performance reviews.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Ok, your interpretation of these statistics butchers the reality. $50,000 is the median for a household, and the median household has about 2.6 people in it. Go plug that back in to your global rich list and suddenly you're down to the top 5% globally. 20% of the population makes just half of the median: about $9,500 per person, or down in the top 15% globally. Adjust the Human Development Index for inequality, and suddenly 15 countries rate better than America in terms of opportunity, income, education, and access to healthcare (behind basically all of Europe and eastern Asia).

We cannot underestimate such a rapid fall, and we certainly cannot waste time debating whether or not it happened. I guess we could navel-gaze and compare our lot to the caveman, but civilization wasn't built by people who said "Hey, we've got it pretty good already." That certainly wasn't the mentality that built America or once made her great.

This idea that we have it better than anyone ever before is REALLY outdated and it reflects your education.. from like.. grade school.. in the 1950s.



Hi, Pot? It's Kettle.

Dumbass, the comparison I made is households to households. And guess what? Households in China, India, etc. sure have a lot more people living off that household income than just 2.6 people.

In case you skip that day of statistics in 5th grade, it means that 1/2 of ALL American HOUSEHOLDS have income above $50K - that's over 60,000,000 HOUSEHOLDS. Talk about butchering - you diced the whole cow!

Furthermore, this -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Househo...ates#Quintiles

- has the lower limit income for 80% of American HOUSEHOLD incomes being slightly more than $20k - that puts 80% of American households still up in the stratosphere on a global basis.

As I said from the start, I'm more than willing to discuss whether our society has achieved enough and whether it is still achieving or moving backwards for most; I've just insisted on starting with a honest benchmark of where we are now not some idiotic hysteria that we are all living as serf bullshit. Pretty sophomoric attempt by you to turn it around on me what you and Justin have dishonestly attempted to do. Maybe you should apply to the RNC or Faux News?

Why can't you guys attempt an honest debate over your positions instead of resorting to dishonest hyperbole and other parlor tricks???

One can only conclude that, consciously or not, you recognize how weak the horseshit you spew.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Dumbass, the comparison I made is households to households. And guess what? Households in China, India, etc. sure have a lot more people living off that household income than just 2.6 people.

In case you skip that day of statistics in 5th grade, it means that 1/2 of ALL American HOUSEHOLDS have income above $50K - that's over 60,000,000 HOUSEHOLDS. Talk about butchering - you diced the whole cow!

Furthermore, this -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Househo...ates#Quintiles

- has the lower limit income for 80% of American HOUSEHOLD incomes being slightly more than $20k - that puts 80% of American households still up in the stratosphere on a global basis.

As I said from the start, I'm more than willing to discuss whether our society has achieved enough and whether it is still achieving or moving backwards for most; I've just insisted on starting with a honest benchmark of where we are now not some idiotic hysteria that we are all living as serf bullshit. Pretty sophomoric attempt by you to turn it around on me what you and Justin have dishonestly attempted to do. Maybe you should apply to the RNC or Faux News?

Why can't you guys attempt an honest debate over your positions instead of resorting to dishonest hyperbole and other parlor tricks???

One can only conclude that, consciously or not, you recognize how weak the horseshit you spew.

Playwrite, do you seriously ever look at the violence of your words in many of your posts? Name calling and slurs appear to be your typical response to those with whom you disagree. Maybe it's time to take a chill pill.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

Oh, they were absolutely in peonage, but they were not in serfdom. People today with shitty jobs and mortgages are in neither. That being said, I absolutely agree that there are negative trends, I just wanted to speak to them directly without using flawed analogies that serve little other purpose than to evoke "cold & prickly" feelings in their listeners, to borrow a phrase from John Michael Greer. The term serf refers to something very specific and utterly alien to the experience of me or you or Kepi, and referring to our situation as being worse is comical at best. Poor laws and sharecropping systems fit the definition much better (though not perfectly), as the defining feature of serfdom was the status of being bound to the land.



The example is flawed. The relation between a dolphin's flipper, a bat's wing, and a human forearm is one of common origin, not function. Homology, not analogy as you are trying here.

And if you really wanted to look at the positions in our society most analogous to serfdom, you would have to look at the status of illegal immigrants and guest worker programs. Which is not what I think people have been referring to.



Black people, particularly between the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. And American Indians could be Adivasis.

PS Attempts to play a gotcha moment, where the answer is "women" or "gay people" or something else that does not fit the description will result in negative performance reviews.

Actually, I would go with The Homeless personally. They're everywhere, and I mean everywhere, but they get shoved out of sight, nobody wants to interact with them. Often times, there's no legitimate way out of the condition, and there's no way to get somewhere where you can go to get help. It's like being a leper, but it speaks worse of us as a people, because at least lepers were sick.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Playwrite, do you seriously ever look at the violence of your words in many of your posts? Name calling and slurs appear to be your typical response to those with whom you disagree. Maybe it's time to take a chill pill.

When you call out JohnMc82 for telling me that I "butcher reality" while "naval gazing" I might take your suggestion in consideration.

Otherwise, I'll caulk-up your post as me being a stand-in for your usual narrow-minded attacks on Obama.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Playwrite, do you seriously ever look at the violence of your words in many of your posts? Name calling and slurs appear to be your typical response to those with whom you disagree.

But fortunately, the people he slurs and name-calls are just his imaginary friends -- and all evidence thus far seems to indicate that those particular straw phantoms aren't the super-sensitive types. I've yet to see him express coherent disagreement with something an actual poster has actually posted on more than a tiny number of occasions.

pw's sort of self-regulating that way...

Originally Posted by Deb C

Playwrite, do you seriously ever look at the violence of your words in many of your posts? Name calling and slurs appear to be your typical response to those with whom you disagree. Maybe it's time to take a chill pill.

Deb, The Street (Wall) talks like that. Wall Street has been described as having a graveyard at one end, the river at the other, and a *really* obnoxious kindergarden in the middle. Not a place for the faint-hearted.

Adult supervision is millennia overdue, but not likely. These guys are compulsive gamblers, who make Phill Hellmuth look like Pollyanna.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Actually, I would go with The Homeless personally. They're everywhere, and I mean everywhere, but they get shoved out of sight, nobody wants to interact with them. Often times, there's no legitimate way out of the condition, and there's no way to get somewhere where you can go to get help. It's like being a leper, but it speaks worse of us as a people, because at least lepers were sick.

No, that doesn't fit, because the equivalent to homeless people in America are homeless people in India. Likewise with women or gay people or other people who have been treated poorly in the past. Before using a model (which is what an analogy is), you should first check to see if there is one that fits better.

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

Deb, The Street (Wall) talks like that. Wall Street has been described as having a graveyard at one end, the river at the other, and a *really* obnoxious kindergarden in the middle. Not a place for the faint-hearted.

Adult supervision is millennia overdue, but not likely. These guys are compulsive gamblers, who make Phill Hellmuth look like Pollyanna.

And they usually defend the corporate bought president to the hilt.