Message to all Americans: your time is up

[killersheep]

Just look at the data Warren provides at the 22 to 30 minute mark. American families have 2 parents working and spend massive proportions of their income on transportation, healthcare, mortgages, taxes and childcare. I am not disputing that there is a middle class and that some are doing very well for themselves. Of course that would be the case, but in general standards of living for middle class people have declined economically over recent decades. For those in the lower end sectors such as long term manufacturing, they have been eradicated and many others will clearly be struggling.

The only way families have survived is by making sure that more women work and in turn that means children are being raised very differently to generations past too. With two parents working families have LESS money that when there were largely single earning families. Now what will you say to disagree with the data that Warren provides? Elizabeth Warren is well respected and your ancedotal 'evidence' is clearly just that. America is a very big country and nobody denies that there are rich people or people with a spare room. I have one too, but that isn't really relevant to a bigger picture.

I equate this phenomena with various things, of course the fact that we have more things as a rule of thumb has a lot to do with it. Just look around your apartment, put yourself in the place of your grandparents at your age and ask which of these things would they have? Even the lower classes have more stuff than prior generations. Here in Phoenix if someone were to live a very simple lifestyle (much akin to generations past) they could live on a minimum wage job, there would be a lot of sacrifices and extra work, but it's not unlike how people in the past lived. The more complicated our lives are the more expensive and the more we think we "need".

The bigger picture here is that I am offering to show you first hand how Americans live in the really real world (and of course I offer a room to my guests, I'm not bragging it's the purpose of the room) I can take you to the ghettos out here, I can take you to the elite neighborhoods. I am offering you the opportunity to examine what your studies are showing first hand. I am offering to show you how amazing and resilient people can be.

[Gandalf]

Just look at the data Warren provides at the 22 to 30 minute mark. American families have 2 parents working and spend massive proportions of their income on transportation, healthcare, mortgages, taxes and childcare. I am not disputing that there is a middle class and that some are doing very well for themselves. Of course that would be the case, but in general standards of living for middle class people have declined economically over recent decades. For those in the lower end sectors such as long term manufacturing, they have been eradicated and many others will clearly be struggling.

The only way families have survived is by making sure that more women work and in turn that means children are being raised very differently to generations past too. With two parents working families have LESS money that when there were largely single earning families. Now what will you say to disagree with the data that Warren provides? Elizabeth Warren is well respected and your ancedotal 'evidence' is clearly just that. America is a very big country and nobody denies that there are rich people or people with a spare room. I have one too, but that isn't really relevant to a bigger picture.

I equate this phenomena with various things, of course the fact that we have more things as a rule of thumb has a lot to do with it. Just look around your apartment, put yourself in the place of your grandparents at your age and ask which of these things would they have? Even the lower classes have more stuff than prior generations. Here in Phoenix if someone were to live a very simple lifestyle (much akin to generations past) they could live on a minimum wage job, there would be a lot of sacrifices and extra work, but it's not unlike how people in the past lived. The more complicated our lives are the more expensive and the more we think we "need".

The bigger picture here is that I am offering to show you first hand how Americans live in the really real world (and of course I offer a room to my guests, I'm not bragging it's the purpose of the room) I can take you to the ghettos out here, I can take you to the elite neighborhoods. I am offering you the opportunity to examine what your studies are showing first hand. I am offering to show you how amazing and resilient people can be.

In the past a single income would pay for the 5 five neccessities of home, taxes, child care, health and transport and still leave you with more than half of your income as disposable. The data Warren provides shows that those same things which most would argue they have a right to cost a lot more today and 2 breadwinners are spending 3 quarters of their income on them. That is a numerical decline.

Food, clothing and so on are cheaper today, but those things are always flexible. Having a home, paying taxes, and having the means to get to work are not flexible and that flexibility has been largely taken away.

Sure, many fritter away their money on trivial things, but on the whole money is gobbled up by rents, mortgages, health, tax and children. The same has largely happened in the UK too and I think it is incredibly unfair. People are enslaved by those burdens and of course education is a more recent addition to the burden.

People don't really have a choice and it is partly propaganda to be blaming the scroungers as Lyle does or say that America has plenty of opportunities when inequality in America is at peak levels and the numbers prove that the middle class is declining. There are scroungers and there are successful people, but it is also true that those in the middle are largely falling further behind. The statistics show it and it is real.

In the post WW2 period American quality of life was improving economically up until the 1960's and it has been in decline since. You cannot tell me that the Internet and a few gadgets makes up for the loss of freedoms, less disposable income, and the massive increase in cost for the neccessities. The peak of oil production is only going to destroy the tens of millions living in the suburbs in the future too which will be an additional crushing burden.

People should be able to earn enough to give them half their income to do what they want with as a minimum (not fact, just opinion). If you fritter it away then you deserve what you get, but you cannot just increase the neccessities 76% and apply the same rules. It is unfair and I just wonder where it will end. The increases cannot carry on without increasing inequality and reducing the middle classes. The increases alone make freedom an impossibility for many people, if you are not free to earn enough to save and be independant, then a few gadgets are not going to make up for that.

[brocktonblockbust]

sorry killersheep but there is no revival anywhere, no time, no where, in the usa. Smoke and mirrors, yes, you have plenty of that there, smoke and mirrors and shell games as I am trying to educate Kirkland Laing about----you know Kirkland, the guy who believes everything the govt accounting office and the admin tell him about employment and inflation stats, etc.

[killersheep]

Miles, I was just trying to be polite and put the offer out there, no harm, no foul.

[Gandalf]

Miles, I was just trying to be polite and put the offer out there, no harm, no foul.

No, I am not trying to be rude either. It's just that the numbers are so outrageous and I think of you as a smart person, so find it odd that you don't see the decline when it seems quite clear, numerically speaking. I am only really paraphrasing Warren whose lecture is really very succinct and interesting. I always get labelled as the man who hates America (largely by Lyle) but I don't hate it. People are just people, it is the politics that I will admit a genuine dislike of. However, you are right in that I am not in the heart of it and go largely on observations from media and people like Warren. America is a huge country and I imagine many probably do much the same. It is different that way to somewhere like Britain which is so compact and easy to observe.

I would love to come to America one day as it looks like a beautiful place and New York and San Francisco are home to my favourite films, but I often reverse my intentions to visit as I get frightened and upset by the politics. Needless to say though, if I ever did visit, I would be up for a Saddo's meetup. I think only you with Mick, and me with MarkTKO, are the only people of recent times to have met up.

[Beanz]

You should be sure to meet up with Mick if you do visit killersheep Miles. That would be so ubbergay that a giant glittery worm hole would open up in the Universe as an army of pink stormtroopers, beautifully choreographed by Busby Berkley marched through.