When will things stop sucking?

[Wesley_Clark]

@Dr.Love

This is a mindset that I absolutely cannot comprehend. The vast majority of Americans are wealthy by the standards of the world, and obscenely wealthy when compared to human history. On my graduate student’s salary I am well within the top 15% riches people on the planet, and probably inside the top 2-3% richest in human history. So when someone complains, what is so wrong with reminding them that their cushy life is NOT the norm? Honestly, what would you say to those who started and ended the decade in the top 2-3% of the US, if they were here complaining about how unbearable their life is?

Things suck for a great many people. However, things have been improving for quite some time now. One estimate for when lives that don’t suck will outnumber lives that do suck (for the first time in human history I might add) is 2048. In fact, the past decade has been quite good economically for more than 2.5 billion people. These people are not morally inferior to Americans. Their success more than makes up for the hardships of 300 million Americans. Let me be clear about that: for every one of us going through an economy in recession, there are more than 8 of them in an economy doing well.

But maybe you, Der Trihs and others that agree with you, are right. Perhaps Wesley Clark is right, and the improving lives of these billions of people is one of the great horrors currently besetting our nation. That certainly seems to be a common enough opinion. I just don’t understand it.

When did I say lifting the rest of the world out of poverty was a horror? I said the growing global middle class of 60-100 million new members a year is a reason to be optimistic. Resource depletion is going to be a problem, but hopefully cornucopian economics helps people deal with that. If you want to have a debate, have a debate. Not a strawman argument.

As far as your statement about us having it good, we do have it good. A person can live a life for $500 a month that would make a person in the 19th century full of envy. For $500/month you can share a bedroom in a decent bunk bed in a decent apartment in a low crime neighborhood (assuming you have 4-6 people in a 2 bedroom apartment that costs $500/month); get internet, electricity, clean water, sanitation, TV & a phone; never go hungry or suffer vitamin/mineral deficiencies; have tons of free time; have a fairly corruption free police force; be free of almost all microbial infections; have tons of leisure activities; be exposed to almost no pollution; get basic medical care; etc.

Our lives are much better. I’m not disagreeing with that.

However in the last 30 years we have seen productivity constantly go up, but almost all the economic growth has gone to the top 5%. And almost all the tax cuts have gone to the top 5%. The federal income tax rate was cut from 70% to about 35%. Dividend and capital gains tax rates were cut in half too.

That is a problem. The fact that our society is becoming more and more plutocratic is a problem.

You talk about the rise of Asia, which is great. However plutocrats in the US almost collapsed the global economy and sent the world into a depression. China is desperate to keep its economic growth above 8% for fear of mass social instability if they go below that. The fact that plutocrats in the US are firmly in control almost destabilized China’s record economic growth because we almost brought down the global economy.

But in the US we probably won’t get the financial reform needed to stop the next Great Recession because we are a plutocracy, and the plutocrats do not want to be restrained.

Life is better, but it could be better than it is now. A person with a broken foot is better off than someone with a broken leg, but someone with a broken toe is better than both.

We have it better than those in the past. But an alternative universe where the US is not so plutocratic and where the tax rates and productivity gains are distributed evenly among the people would be better than the world we have today. And a world where the plutocrats cannot block reforms necessarily to prevent the world from sinking into depression would be nice too. Had we lived in that world, the world economy wouldn’t be in a global recession right now. The reason is regulations would’ve stopped the risky investments and a stronger middle class would’ve weathered this recession better since we would have a better safety net, more savings and higher incomes.

The world of 1900 wasn’t better than the world of 1800 because people spent the entire 19th century bragging about how much better their lives were than cavemen. They spent that century pressing their limitations, growing their economies and reforming their societies.

[Malthus]

@Der_Trihs

And what makes you think the average American is that well off? Much less poor Americans? You are a member of a pampered group patting yourself on the back about how great America is, while other Americans root through garbage cans. Or work multiple jobs to get just enough to eat and a leaking roof over their head.

But then hunger’s good for kids, right? Helps them learn.

The issue is “well off” - compared with what. No question some folks live in truly desperate cirumstances - that’s true here in Canada as well; but there has never been a time in history when poverty has been less pressing here than now.

[mswas]

@Boyo_Jim

There is a song that goes “… in the sweet bye and bye…”

Personally I think it will be centuries, at the earliest, until things don’t suck.

And even then people will still be unhappy with what they’ve got.

[Wesley_Clark]

@mswas

So what? You’re still stuck on the myth of the perpetual growth model. Being stuck at a middle-class level isn’t so bad. Your linear mindset regarding economics is a very limited way of looking at things.

I’m not sure I understand this. I thought the argument you and others were making was based on a perpetual growth model and how our species is constantly becoming richer, more informed, more scientific, etc.

What do you mean by linear mindset? I don’t understand that.

Either way, the US has undergone perpetual growth. Productivity and GDP have grown at 3-5% a year for decades. However the benefits have not been distributed evenly, they have congregated at the top. This is a problem.

My problem isn’t that growth isn’t occurring, it is that the benefits are not being shared. All the income gains and tax cuts are being given to the top 5%. We are becoming a wealthy version of a Latin American country.

Back in 1993 about 75% of jobs offered health care as a benefit. Now about 53%-ish do. And of the ones that do the benefits are usually tied to higher copays, deductibles and less coverage. True, health care on the whole is better in 2009 than in 1993. But people have less access to it. So it is a trade off. But if we moved our country in a less plutocratic direction we could have access and high quality care right now.

[Malthus]

@Wesley_Clark

We have it better than those in the past. But an alternative universe where the US is not so plutocratic and where the tax rates and productivity gains are distributed evenly among the people would be better than the world we have today. And a world where the plutocrats cannot block reforms necessarily to prevent the world from sinking into depression would be nice too. Had we lived in that world, the world economy wouldn’t be in a global recession right now. The reason is regulations would’ve stopped the risky investments and a stronger middle class would’ve weathered this recession better since we would have a better safety net, more savings and higher incomes.

The world of 1900 wasn’t better than the world of 1800 because people spent the entire 19th century bragging about how much better their lives were than cavemen. They spent that century pressing their limitations, growing their economies and reforming their societies.

It will always be true that society could be improved; it will always be true that there are problems; it will also always be true that reasonable people can disagree about the solutions to those problems.

I tend to agree that our societies are facing stresses - in particular I am concerned about the bifrucation of society into “haves” and “have-nots” (I disagree very strongly that the “haves” are all “plutocrats” btw. I’d be in the top 5% earnings-wise if I were American and I’m no “plutocrat”).

However, pointing out stresses and problems isn’t the same as claiming that the times “suck”.

[Wesley_Clark]

@mswas

And even then people will still be unhappy with what they’ve got.

We’ll have better anti-depressants by then.

[Boyo_Jim]

@mswas

And even then people will still be unhappy with what they’ve got.

Yup. In the meantime, the forecast contines to be moderate to heavy suck.

[Dr.Love]

@Der_Trihs

And what makes you think the average American is that well off? Much less poor Americans? You are a member of a pampered group patting yourself on the back about how great America is, while other Americans root through garbage cans. Or work multiple jobs to get just enough to eat and a leaking roof over their head.

But then hunger’s good for kids, right? Helps them learn.

This is ridiculous. Find me a cite that a significant proportion of Americans (say, 10%) get the majority of their calories from garbage cans. What percentage get any of their calories from garbage cans (George Costanza-esque situations don’t count)?

[Wesley_Clark]

@Dr.Love

This is ridiculous. Find me a cite that a significant proportion of Americans (say, 10%) get the majority of their calories from garbage cans. What percentage get any of their calories from garbage cans (George Costanza-esque situations don’t count)?

1/8th of adults are on food stamps and so are 1/4 of children.

One in Four Children on Food Stamps, One in Eight Overall; Weekly...

It isn’t ‘rooting through the garbage’, but it is a bad sign.

[Deeg]

There’s a book about this: The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.

[Dr.Love]

@Wesley_Clark

When did I say lifting the rest of the world out of poverty was a horror? I said the growing global middle class of 60-100 million new members a year is a reason to be optimistic. Resource depletion is going to be a problem, but hopefully cornucopian economics helps people deal with that. If you want to have a debate, have a debate. Not a strawman argument.

Calling globalization part of a “perfect storm of shit.” One of the most significant effects of which is the global middle class. Doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement to me.

Not quoting the rest of your post because I basically agree with it. I’m not advocating that we stop economic or any other type of growth. I disagree with mswas in that I believe that economic, scientific and even moral growth will continue for a very long time to come. I just believe that we should keep some kind of objective perspective on how things actually are.

I agree, it’s a bad sign that 1/8 of adults are on food stamps. But that’s not the kind of ridiculous claim that Der Trihs is making. But is there any evidence that it’s part of a long term trend, or will it subside as the recession ends? My money is on the latter.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@BrainGlutton

Not for quite a while, in the opinion of James Howard Kunstler.

Kunstler’s message is one that deserves to be heard, but not without at least a small grain of salt. I don’t think he’s wrong in principle–e.g. Peak Oil is bound to happen sometime, and reconfiguring our infrastructure accordingly will be painful–but he does exaggerate quite a bit. A few months ago in this blog, he asserted that Craigslist was flooded with ads by desperate people trying sell their consumer electronics goods to survive. That could happen someday, but it’s not happening yet.