I don’t even know where to begin. I can’t even comprehend how someone can take such a view to such…such…entitlement.
To create “progress” as you see it would take a magical black box (think Star Trek replicators), and labor infusing a substantially large amount of capital (which, btw, labor union do not do), and some sort of forced socialized distribution of wealth.
Despite my snarkiness, I do have immediate quibble with your post:
This is actually refers to true economic technical terms, and, no, they didn’t head south (well, they did, especially from 1977 (I’m guessing) to about 1981.) It’s been up and down ever since (mostly up, and mostly up particularly of late).
Central Florida economy is still doing well despite home values declining. There is work enough that applicants can be choosy, the tourist industry is booming as well as the health care industry. (Our two major employers.) Unemployment is 3.2%. Food and housing are reasonable, no state income tax, and very few homeless. Errrr, but don’t move here, traffic is bad enough.
The average poor person today has more than the average rich person did in 1973:
This isn’t GD so I won’t waste too much time on this. But that line about “401(k) crap” is too much. Are you against poor people becoming rich? I started earning money in the late 1970s and never earned that much until recently. I always funded my retirement plans to the max - about $32/day - and put the money in the stock market. Now I’m in my mid 50s and have more than enough to retire on.
Belfast is doing better than the rest of NI as far as I know, but on a whole that’s worse than most of the rest of the UK.
The government employs a lot of people in comparison to other UK areas, we’re being told to expect cut backs and a lot of redundancies as part of a rationalisation of our economy.
Call centres seemed to be booming for a while, but there’s not much hope on the horizon really.
I had a call for a job in Switzerland on Thursday (and half an hour ago, the call to say “the guy who was leaving is staying”… WAAAAAH!); another for a job in France on Saturday; one for the town where my mother and bros live today.
Can’t think of a single friend or relative of mine who’s currently unemployed.
The whole of Spain is kind of holding our breath and praying really hard that the construction keeps on building, but so far things seem to be going quite nicely, thank you for asking.
Australia is currently prosperous but teetery. Rising fuel costs, a housing crash, rising interest rates, a severe drought, and several other factors are having some pundits using the word “recession” for the first time in many years. It hasn’t happened yet and may well end up not happening, but folks be nervous…
Things are doing surprisingly well here in New Mexico. LOTS of folks moving in, our housing market hasn’t yet cooled off appreciably, and the jobs market and economy seems pretty strong from my perspective. Lots of large corporations (Intel, Lockheed Martin, Dell, etc) have moved into the area, providing lots of both high tech manufacturing and services jobs.
Another Michiganite here. Earlier this year, I received notice I was going to be laid off in a massive IT outsourcing/offshoring initiative by my company. Happily, I landed on my feet at another company, but in general, the economy in Michigan is heading south. Depending on where you live, houses are selling for the same price or less than they were 4 years ago, and many people in my neighborhood are turning to leasing out their houses since most of them have already committed to their new ones and can’t seem to sell off the ones in my neighborhood. 4 years ago when I moved here, you had to jump on a house quick or it was gone within days.
I can’t even comprehend how someone can take such a view to such…such…entitlement.