<<Curious how a working class family can make it in NYC these days. How we got to this point I'd like the answer to. NYC was the greatest city in the world, full of opportunities for anyone who had the animal spirits 50 years ago and has been putting the squeeze on J6P as costs far outpace incomes especially once Reaganomics and trickle down were implemented. But the 2M on the dole had its roots with LBJ's Great Society I am sure you know the devastation in the 'projects' by 1981. Nice to raise taxes on the high earners but $1k a year spread around will do little for the average family needing $125-150k just to lead a working class lifestyle. Better to be on the dole or a plutocrat instead? Guess if you bought in to the right gentrified hood before it took off you are feeling good too? America didn't used to be a casino like this. It valued labor and what your hard earned dollars bought much more.. What went wrong?>>
Message 29443985
I decided to answer your question here since it is inflation related and it was not possible to respond to you on the Obama groupie thread.
<<How did we get to this point>>
Clearly, you must know the answer to this question because it is obvious: the rise in the stock market since August 1982 from under 1000 on the Dow to over 16,000 today has been highly inflationary. J6P has hardly profited from this rise. The Rich have gotten much richer primarily from the rise in the stock market. A good salary helps to contribute to wealth, but it is participation (not cheap short term trading) in equities at the right time (over a long period of time) that multiplies wealth.
There are many definitions of inflation. I view inflation primarily as an increase in the money supply which pushes prices up by chasing to few goods and services. Today, the chase continues for equities.
Sure, Reagan's tax breaks were a hand out to the rich. But there were other factors as well. I'm thinking primarily in terms of the transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. That's what left Blue collar J6P behind the eight ball. Creative manipulative intelligence won out. It was the perfect environment for the entrepreneurial Ph.D. I can vividly remember when I was in Graduate school at Colombia in 1975, pursuing a Ph.D. in Philosophy, just about everyone was telling me (especially, J6P), that I would end up driving a cab with my Ph.D. J6P had no vision where the economy was headed and was left behind. Joe would, of course, bitch and moan that the world owed him a good paying job. But as a real liberal, I can tell you that the world owes you nothing and it is up to you to be forward looking and make it happen for yourself. J6P was backward looking and suffered the consequences.
Consciousness is everything and those who don't have it lose.
<< America didn't use to be a casino like this>>
It is a big recession for the vast majority of Americans. Don't expect the media, which is a big business to tell you that.
When I went to College in 1971, I was amazed at all the business majors. I use to tell the business majors that if you want to make money you should stay away from studying Fortune 500 business and marketing. I was screaming back then that big business was dangerous and all they cared about was making money and that they would screw you in the process. I was considered a madman that no one took seriously. Yet at reunions, they all tell me now that they wished they listened to me.
I'm a young Hegelian who fell in love with Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach and the young humanistic Marx. Everything Marx said about capitalism and the way big business operates has come true. I owe my wealth to Marx's insights into capitalism. I learned to think out of the box. I depart from Marx in that I don't believe in a "Utopian Society". It is just not possible, but we can make it better. I'm a strong proponent of Socialized Medicine. And I am a big dove when it comes to Foreign Policy. Some will say that is not realistic, but I love life and rebel against Death and War.
Sure, there were world events that helped push prices up. Oil quadrupled in 1974 and quadrupled again in 1979 as a result of the Iranian reactionary revolution.
I voted for DiBlasio because the "stop and frisk" Bloomberg/NYPD policy had to go and it has. DiBlasio kept his word there. The income inequality and tremendous discrepancy is so tremendous that I don't believe anything can be done to rectify it through reform. Perhaps J6P will not consent to the next bailout of the Banks. I know Joe does not like the bailout now, but he kept quiet (for the most part) when it first took place.
J6P needs to do something for himself and get off his ass and stop bitching.
There's a underground economy filled with lots of good people who provide great services and who are under the radar. They have never worked for a big company and/or Wall Street and they have always known the score.
On another, but related level, I would like to say that I have never in my 61 years of living, read such absolute junk as I have on the political threads of SI. These threads are primarily cheerleading groupie threads, whether they be left or right. They are a disgrace. I am proud to be banned from every political thread I have ever posted on SI, except the original Left Wing Porch from the 90s. |
