Re: American dream now a pipe dream


hal@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Here ya go wingnuts, here's your conservative philosophy at work.
Hourly wages of average workers 11 percent lower than 1973, while CEO
pay has skyrocketed 30% in 2004 ALONE.

There are plenty of liberal business owners who pay minimum wage to
their employees - and plenty of liberal CEO's who make just as much as
conservatives. This isn't a conservative philosophy - it's how ***
works in the world of business. And it always will.

The conservatives dream is to return us to the days of lords and
serfs, and guess which one all you dumb drones are going to be.

Well, according to your rantings, I'll be a lord along with my fellow
conservatives. We are, after all, the ones who are doing all of this
stuff to enslave you poor liberals, right?

2/23/2006
American dream now a pipe dream
Mountain Mail
by Holly Sklar

The American dream doesn't need to go on a diet in the New Year.
It's been shrinking for years.

Funny... because I see people becoming successful every single day.
Thing is, these people *work* for what they want. They don't whine
about what other people have - they figure out how to get it for
themselves. Truth is, anyone can be a success in this country - that's
why people have been coming here and are *still* coming here from
everyplace else in the world.

The only people who can't seem to make it are the ones who spend all
their time pissing and moaning about how everyone else seems to have it
better than they do. Could there be something to that?

We are becoming a nation of Scrooge-Marts and outsourcers - with an
increasingly low-wage workforce instead of a growing middle class.
Even two-paycheck households are struggling to afford a house, college,
health care and retirement.

And yet, somehow, there are millions of *one* paycheck households who
manage to pay their bills, send their kids to school, and even set
aside something to retire on. The thing is, these people *work* for
what they need.

The American Dream is becoming the American pipe dream. "The vast
majority of American workers (70 percent) think 'the American
Dream' has been or will be harder for them to financially achieve
than it was for their parents' generation," according to the
Principal Financial Well-Being Index.

And they're wrong. They've been mislead. The American Dream is - and
has always been - simply this: If you work hard, you can have a good
life. You can be successful. You can make something of yourself.
It's never been "You'll have everything you want whether you work for
it or not.'

The problem is really twofold. First, people think that life owes them
something. They don't understand the simple fact that success requires
hard work. They want everything handed to them. They've allowed
themselves to be convinced that society owes them a living whether they
work for it or not. Second, people have a distorted idea of success.
They gauge success by the size of their house and car; how extravagant
their vacations are. They don't realize that "their parents
generation" didn't generally have every luxury - or even expect it.

We are living the American dream in reverse. The hourly wages of
average workers are 11 percent lower than they were back in 1973,
adjusted for inflation, despite rising worker productivity.

The job market was very different in 1973.

CEO pay, by contrast, has skyrocketed - up a median 30 percent in
2004 alone in The Corporate Library survey of 2,000 large companies.

Which should be expected if you know anything about business. Most
successful companies - in terms of numbers - are *growing* companies.
Growth and success, in the world of business, go hand in hand.

Median household income has fallen an unprecedented five years in a
row. It would be even lower, if not for increased household work
hours.

Blame the baby-boomers for flooding the job market; this isn't a
"conservative" problem.

Americans work over 200 hours more a year on average than workers in
other rich industrialized nations.

But not the successful ones. The Japanese, for example, work many more
hours than we do.

We are breaking records we don't
want to break. Record numbers of Americans have no health insurance.

Yeah, that's a problem - what makes you think it's a "conservative"
problem?

The share of national income going to wages and salaries is the lowest
since 1929.

Sure - because more money is being pumped into business investments.
The higher CEO salaries - while certainly high - are peanuts when
compared to the big picture. Business today spend a ton more money
than they did in 1929. There are more taxes, more regulatory fees,
healthcare costs - it's apples and oranges.

And in any event, isn't a "conservative" thing.

Middle-class households are a medical crisis, an outsourced job or a
busted pension away from bankruptcy. The congressional majority voted
the biggest cut in history to the student loan program at a time when
college is more important, and more expensive, than ever.

If a middle-class household is sent to bankruptcy over a single
emergency, then they are living beyond their means.

Public college tuition has risen even faster than private tuition,
jumping 54 percent over the last decade, adjusted for inflation.

And yet people are still going to college - filling them, in fact.
People from all segments of society - rich, poor, middle class - are
all managing to go to school. Has something to do with that "work"
thing we talked about earlier...

Our shortsighted government, beholden to powerful campaign
contributors and lobbyists, is cutting rungs from the ladder of upward mobility
while cutting taxes for the superwealthy. That's not the American
dream.

Hehe... typical liberal bullspit. Where to begin?

Are you really suggesting that lobbyists are a "conservative" problem?
No liberal politicians listen to lobbyists? No liberals politicians
have large campaign contributers?? Really?

Tax cuts for the rich... do you realize that the upper 10% in terms
of income *still* pays about 80% of the income tax in this country?
This, despite the supposed "cuts for the rich" that you libbies keep
blathering on about?

Contrary to myth, the United States is not becoming more competitive
in the global economy by taking the low road. We are in growing hock to
other countries. We have a huge trade deficit, hollowed-out
manufacturing base and deteriorating research and development. The
infrastructure built by earlier generations has eroded greatly,
undermining the economy as well as public health and safety.

Do you know why large manufacturing companies are off-sourcing to other
countries? It's not entirely wage costs, it's taxes. It's regulatory
fees. It's simply cheaper to operate in other countries in many cases.

Households have propped themselves up in the face of falling real
wages by maxing out work hours, credit cards and home equity loans. This is
not a sustainable course.

The big question is, what are they *buying* with these credit cards and
loans? Why are so many people out there able to live on almost
nothing, while "middle-class" people with dual incomes end up maxing
out credit cards and taking loans? Here is a hint people - if you
can't afford it, don't buy it. Wait until you can.

The low road is like a "shortcut" that leads to a cliff. We will
not prosper in the 21st century global economy by relying on 1920s
corporate greed, 1950s tax revenues, pre-1970s wages, and
global-warming energy policies.

But... according to your numbers, life was *better* back then! Which
is it? On the one hand you're comparing now to back then and
complaining that now is worse. And at the same time, you point at back
then as being the culprit?

We will not prosper relying on disinvestment in place of reinvestment.
We can't succeed that way any more than farmers can "compete" by
eating their seed corn.

Nor will we prosper by making people dependent on their government for
living expenses, or rewarding people for not getting off their asses
and working. We won't prosper by convincing people that they're owed a
high standard of living no matter how little they're willing to earn
it.

As "Business Week" put it in a special issue on China and India,
"China's competitive edge is shifting from low-cost workers to
state-of-the-art manufacturing. India is creating world-class
innovation hubs, and its companies are far better performers than
China's."

Of course. China is a failing communist system pretending to be
capitalist. Their economy cannot support what they manufacture, and
all of their money is spent on improving their manufacturing processes.


The United States will not succeed by shifting increasingly from
state-of-the art manufacturing and world-class innovation hubs to
low-cost workers.

No, it will not. But as long as our students are encouraged to be
stupid and lazy, that's where we are heading. Innovation requires
education. We live in a society where you're not allowed to fail a
student anymore because it might make him feel bad.

Contrary to myth, many European countries are better positioned for
the future than the United States, with healthier economies

In a word, bull***. Europe has even higher unemployment, and even
greater crisis regarding how they're going to actually *pay* for all of
the people who will be retiring. The European economy is pitiful
compared to ours - to even compare the two is laughable.

and longer life expectancies,

True - how is this a conservatives fault?

greater math and science literacy,


I hear that students there who can't get math and science actually
*fail* math and science... could that be a factor?

free or affordable education from preschool through college and universal health care.

None of which is really "free" since they're paying for it in taxes
whether they use it or not.

Among the world's 100 largest corporations, just 33 are U.S.
companies, while 48 are European. In 2002, 38 were U.S. companies and
36 were European. CEO-worker pay gaps are narrower at European
companies than U.S. ones.

Which means nothing. Companies merging, for example, can explain the
"loss" of American companies. CEO-worker pay gaps are irrelevant.
What a CEO makes has no bearing on what you make. You don't deserve
more because Joe CEO has more.

The United States dropped from number one to number five in the global
information technology ranking by the World Economic Forum. The top
four spots are held by Singapore, Iceland, Finland and Denmark.

Mostly by buying it from the United States... good for them.

Instead of pretending the problem is overpaid workers and accelerating
offshoring, we need to shore up our economy from below and invest in
smart economic development. Let's make that our New Year's
resolution for the American dream.

Better yet, let's resolve to get off our collective asses and work.
Stop buying *** we can't afford, stop coddling our kids, stop
threatening to sue teachers for trying to make them learn. And stop
blaming other people for our own f'king problems.

.