1. When are they going to get rid of that Rusky problem problem permanently? It’s only going to get worse!!
2. Chris Christie as President?? After his morbidity obese self backed all of Trump’s stupidity, not the least of it his pandemic maskless non-plan? Christie who got covid & used Trump privilege to get expensively healed of Covid & …
1. When are they going to get rid of that Rusky problem problem permanently? It’s only going to get worse!!
2. Chris Christie as President?? After his morbidity obese self backed all of Trump’s stupidity, not the least of it his pandemic maskless non-plan? Christie who got covid & used Trump privilege to get expensively healed of Covid & Likely on taxpayers dime?!
He can suck giant popsicles through his nostrils.
3. No kidding trickle-down economics doesn’t work.
I’m White & college-educated.I grew up with Middle Class privileges (a stay-at-home mom, two cars, a father with a white collar job, & a pet).
But since I graduated college, I live in increasingly tiny apartments which cost more than half my monthly income and where I now feel fortunate it has a toilet that I don’t need to share with a stranger and it has a tiny range. I’m one lost week’s pay away from disaster.
I can’t afford to pay into 401K and my only retirement plan is to die before my employers push me out for being too old to work to their desired capacity.
I haven’t had a raise, not even a cost of living increase in almost a decade, yet costs of rent, utilities, food, cars, gas, etc have all gone up significantly. Even my employers product still makes profit because they continually raise the cost.
The upper managers always have nice new cars and get bonuses.
(Please don’t say get a 2nd or different job. I worked 2 jobs for years until my health started to fail and I tried several times over the years to change industries, but didn’t find one when the economy wasn’t in crises and which didn’t start with same or higher salary and was terrified of having to wait 4-6 months to accrue enough time for health benefits to kick in. )
I still feel privileged because it is so much worse for Blacks & Latinx.
It just doesn’t have to be this way. Why are the majority of citizens paying for military, government, & infrastructure and not the wealthy and big corporations?
The bottom 60% on the income scale has suffered by far the most from the greed and corruption of the top 1%. Those of us who have fought to gain advanced degrees, fought to keep our jobs, fought to help and train the following generations are losing every day. EVERYONE--including Reagan and Gingrich--knew from the beginning that "trickle down" was a scam. They wanted the scam because they decided that the only way to enrich themselves was to train their under-educated (white) followers that the wealth at the top was more important than the pennies they distributed at the bottom. And then they could call anyone who objected by the dreaded S word to further demonize humane economic policy.
Right there with you Linda. These days, I think about community living such as I have read about in Europe where, in one case, a group of women created independent living situations in a community space. I like the idea of independence within the greater circle of interdependence. Can be all ages, married, single, etc., with the intention of community, however that be defined.
The ‘trickle-down’ theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.
I used to read Bill Blum until I found the only empire he was opposed to was the American one. He praised Russia/USSR and Stalin and China too. I am opposed to ALL empires.
Companies like IBM started increasing the differences between "Director-Level" staff and those below in 1990.....when they were hitting the wall and had to hire a cost cutter to run the show. That meant little or no raise for those not in that elite and big raises, paygroup improvements, pension increases, stock-options and major bonuses for those within the ruling group. Result....loss of purchase power by the former and bonanza for the latter.
It’s so stupid too. We’re a big part of the economy. If the 60% can’t afford to purchase things other than mainly necessities, they’re crippling themselves.
They’ve farmed out so many of our jobs to foreign countries to keep up the profit, but now we’ve declined again and further.
The pandemic economy proved how precarious our economy is by baring all of our weaknesses.
We’ve experienced this before and the people who are traditionally in power know this and scream ‘Socialism’ when smart people want to protect ALL of us from repeats.
I commented earlier that Americans seriously need better education which includes a detailed Civics program and Economics. I can only assume it’s by design that such information is only glossed over when I can now see it is literally Life & Death to understand how our government works and how to make changes.
I’m grateful beyond words Dr Richardson for all that you’ve taught me through your Letters From An American posts.
In 1998 Raytheon ran into some problems because of mistakes made by upper management. Therefore, only upper management got raises that year. The CEO's raise was equivalent to a software engineer's yearly salary.
I posted this elsewhere, but I thought you might be interested (even if it has been several days).
XKCD graphic, “Money: A chart of (almost) all of it, where it is and what it can do.” See the worker/CEO compensation comparison between 1965 and 2007 (reported in 2011 dollars). (Zoom to the lower right corner of the green DOLLARS section.)
I’m so sorry to hear of your struggles, Lisa. A college degree should carry with it the promise of a better life along with an increased income. My gifted granddaughter has been applying to colleges, and I now fear for her future as your story is, unfortunately, an often common one. I hope that better days are ahead for you..
I hope that policies the Democrats will restore (especially if they win two Senate seats in Georgia) will help you. What galls me is that milliions of Americans in the same boat as you continue to vote for Republicans and even supported Trump. Ignorance on the part of voters has been the trump card for the G.O.P. since Reconstruction. This is a flaw in American democracy which the Founding Fathers recognized and upon which Andrew Jackson capitalized.
A recent study looked at the average age at which men left Mamma's place in Italy.....38yrs old. It's not just the cooking etc but the inability to afford an appartment in major cities without at least 2 salaries...if not 3 or 4! Average purchase price per Sq Ft in Paris approx $1200...minimum monthly wage approx $1450. The mass of workers cannot afford much if any space anywhere near their work and have to spend hours travelling to work. The average annual Income in Paris is actually $65,000 because of the preponderance of outlyers which average $300,000......they have a little less of a problem and tend to form a rich ghetto driving the non-elite into the furthest suburbs.
Lisa, I started to laugh at the image of Chris Christie with a pair of popsicles up his nose....then I read on and got thoroughly depressed. You wrote "It...doesn't have to be this way", but it always has been this way. There have always been the Kelly Loefflers, who I sincerely hope will soon lose her "job", and there have always been the homeless. The difference now is that the gap has become greater and the people at the "top" are not getting 50 times the income of those at the bottom, but 500 times.
Can anybody justify the chairman of a company making a bad decision which puts 1,000 employees out of work with 4 weeks' pay; then he gets fired for this decision and gets $20 million in bonuses?
I really intended for just snark, but my anger over middle class decline has really reached its peak these past four years. I thought Obama would have made better inroads, but I’ve learned a lot since Trump took office and see the games and roadblocks.
Yes, it’s always been this way. It’s because of Survival of the Whitest ”gene”. It kicks in to ensure its survival, at any cost, whenever it feels threatened.
Only time, persistence, education, strength, integrity & fairness (after a fashion) can change that.
And you’re right, there’s no justification (moral or ethical, that is).
I honestly feel for you & everyone else in this "boat". My daughter is right there with you. I worry about her & help her when she lets me, but one paycheck away - oh yeah. Hopefully when she gets her taxes back (!) next year - she will make arrangements to move back up here in NY - where, if nothing else, she & my granddaughter will be close enough to (hopefully) be able to see them. It will be a year Chrismas since I have. I'm so lucky my son is close by - thank god. I'd be in a different "boat" if he wasnt. So believe me I feel you!
I appreciated the "suck giant popsicles through his nostrils" --- Heather's flock can be really rough...and laughed at that moment. I quickly sobered up by your description of our reality and our continued colonial capitalism which really has swung way too far on the pendulum. Time for a change.
Thanks for appreciating my snark and sharing my concerns over the state of our economy.
It has just occurred to me that we as a society really don’t discuss our economic situations. While understand most people are loathe to share such private information, this has really helped cover up a robbery by our own government.
Same thing about not discussing salaries. It covers up a lot of sneakiness.
Lisa, I shall refrain from replying, not because I agree or disagree with you, but any discussion of United States history (which I have both studied and taught) in relation to "survival of the whitest" and treatment of the non-whites would take up volumes.
Obama was a disaster as President, unfortunately, because the cards were all stacked against him by the intransigent Republicans, just as HCR has often said. He also suffered from the Carter Syndrome; a micro-manager is not a good decision maker.
Amen, to this, Lisa. I wrote that graf not because the information was news to anyone paying any attention, but because the fact that Bloomberg was running the story seemed to me a big deal.
That's truly awful, what you are going through. Clearly the system that grinds people down into poverty has to change! We must find a way to put that message across. Biden has to listen to the message and act to change the way things work. The wealthy people who are holding back change have to understand that it can't go on this way.
1. When are they going to get rid of that Rusky problem problem permanently? It’s only going to get worse!!
2. Chris Christie as President?? After his morbidity obese self backed all of Trump’s stupidity, not the least of it his pandemic maskless non-plan? Christie who got covid & used Trump privilege to get expensively healed of Covid & Likely on taxpayers dime?!
He can suck giant popsicles through his nostrils.
3. No kidding trickle-down economics doesn’t work.
I’m White & college-educated.I grew up with Middle Class privileges (a stay-at-home mom, two cars, a father with a white collar job, & a pet).
But since I graduated college, I live in increasingly tiny apartments which cost more than half my monthly income and where I now feel fortunate it has a toilet that I don’t need to share with a stranger and it has a tiny range. I’m one lost week’s pay away from disaster.
I can’t afford to pay into 401K and my only retirement plan is to die before my employers push me out for being too old to work to their desired capacity.
I haven’t had a raise, not even a cost of living increase in almost a decade, yet costs of rent, utilities, food, cars, gas, etc have all gone up significantly. Even my employers product still makes profit because they continually raise the cost.
The upper managers always have nice new cars and get bonuses.
(Please don’t say get a 2nd or different job. I worked 2 jobs for years until my health started to fail and I tried several times over the years to change industries, but didn’t find one when the economy wasn’t in crises and which didn’t start with same or higher salary and was terrified of having to wait 4-6 months to accrue enough time for health benefits to kick in. )
I still feel privileged because it is so much worse for Blacks & Latinx.
It just doesn’t have to be this way. Why are the majority of citizens paying for military, government, & infrastructure and not the wealthy and big corporations?
The bottom 60% on the income scale has suffered by far the most from the greed and corruption of the top 1%. Those of us who have fought to gain advanced degrees, fought to keep our jobs, fought to help and train the following generations are losing every day. EVERYONE--including Reagan and Gingrich--knew from the beginning that "trickle down" was a scam. They wanted the scam because they decided that the only way to enrich themselves was to train their under-educated (white) followers that the wealth at the top was more important than the pennies they distributed at the bottom. And then they could call anyone who objected by the dreaded S word to further demonize humane economic policy.
Yup.
Bingo
Right there with you Linda. These days, I think about community living such as I have read about in Europe where, in one case, a group of women created independent living situations in a community space. I like the idea of independence within the greater circle of interdependence. Can be all ages, married, single, etc., with the intention of community, however that be defined.
The ‘trickle-down’ theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.
— William Blum
I used to read Bill Blum until I found the only empire he was opposed to was the American one. He praised Russia/USSR and Stalin and China too. I am opposed to ALL empires.
I had never heard this. It's GREAT.
Perfect. Best & most accurate description I’ve ever read. I’m going to share that quote everywhere.
Companies like IBM started increasing the differences between "Director-Level" staff and those below in 1990.....when they were hitting the wall and had to hire a cost cutter to run the show. That meant little or no raise for those not in that elite and big raises, paygroup improvements, pension increases, stock-options and major bonuses for those within the ruling group. Result....loss of purchase power by the former and bonanza for the latter.
It’s so stupid too. We’re a big part of the economy. If the 60% can’t afford to purchase things other than mainly necessities, they’re crippling themselves.
They’ve farmed out so many of our jobs to foreign countries to keep up the profit, but now we’ve declined again and further.
The pandemic economy proved how precarious our economy is by baring all of our weaknesses.
This was the big discovery of the Great Crash in 1929. No one had any money to restart the economy.
That is horrifying to me.
We’ve experienced this before and the people who are traditionally in power know this and scream ‘Socialism’ when smart people want to protect ALL of us from repeats.
I commented earlier that Americans seriously need better education which includes a detailed Civics program and Economics. I can only assume it’s by design that such information is only glossed over when I can now see it is literally Life & Death to understand how our government works and how to make changes.
I’m grateful beyond words Dr Richardson for all that you’ve taught me through your Letters From An American posts.
God bless you and send good things your way.
I feel your pain. There are so many of us who would dearly love to stop being hand to mouth.
In 1998 Raytheon ran into some problems because of mistakes made by upper management. Therefore, only upper management got raises that year. The CEO's raise was equivalent to a software engineer's yearly salary.
Wow.
OMG...
I posted this elsewhere, but I thought you might be interested (even if it has been several days).
XKCD graphic, “Money: A chart of (almost) all of it, where it is and what it can do.” See the worker/CEO compensation comparison between 1965 and 2007 (reported in 2011 dollars). (Zoom to the lower right corner of the green DOLLARS section.)
https://xkcd.com/980/huge/
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money.png
So many knowledgeable people here in this group. Its an education.
I’m so sorry to hear of your struggles, Lisa. A college degree should carry with it the promise of a better life along with an increased income. My gifted granddaughter has been applying to colleges, and I now fear for her future as your story is, unfortunately, an often common one. I hope that better days are ahead for you..
Good luck to your granddaughter!
Yes Lisa, I hope your difficult circumstances ease up and get a whole lot better soon.
I’m so sorry you are struggling like so many!
Thanks!
I hope that policies the Democrats will restore (especially if they win two Senate seats in Georgia) will help you. What galls me is that milliions of Americans in the same boat as you continue to vote for Republicans and even supported Trump. Ignorance on the part of voters has been the trump card for the G.O.P. since Reconstruction. This is a flaw in American democracy which the Founding Fathers recognized and upon which Andrew Jackson capitalized.
True. We seriously need to educate people about civics and economics. Our ignorance is Republicans bliss.
With Trump being the most heinous Trump Card of all.
Right there with you, except living with parents due to no husband.
A recent study looked at the average age at which men left Mamma's place in Italy.....38yrs old. It's not just the cooking etc but the inability to afford an appartment in major cities without at least 2 salaries...if not 3 or 4! Average purchase price per Sq Ft in Paris approx $1200...minimum monthly wage approx $1450. The mass of workers cannot afford much if any space anywhere near their work and have to spend hours travelling to work. The average annual Income in Paris is actually $65,000 because of the preponderance of outlyers which average $300,000......they have a little less of a problem and tend to form a rich ghetto driving the non-elite into the furthest suburbs.
I’m sorry you’re in a similar position. I kind of wish I had the option to live with my parents, at least for a couple years to get ahead of bills.
*same or lower salary
Lisa, I started to laugh at the image of Chris Christie with a pair of popsicles up his nose....then I read on and got thoroughly depressed. You wrote "It...doesn't have to be this way", but it always has been this way. There have always been the Kelly Loefflers, who I sincerely hope will soon lose her "job", and there have always been the homeless. The difference now is that the gap has become greater and the people at the "top" are not getting 50 times the income of those at the bottom, but 500 times.
Can anybody justify the chairman of a company making a bad decision which puts 1,000 employees out of work with 4 weeks' pay; then he gets fired for this decision and gets $20 million in bonuses?
Sorry about the depressing parts!!
I really intended for just snark, but my anger over middle class decline has really reached its peak these past four years. I thought Obama would have made better inroads, but I’ve learned a lot since Trump took office and see the games and roadblocks.
Yes, it’s always been this way. It’s because of Survival of the Whitest ”gene”. It kicks in to ensure its survival, at any cost, whenever it feels threatened.
Only time, persistence, education, strength, integrity & fairness (after a fashion) can change that.
And you’re right, there’s no justification (moral or ethical, that is).
I honestly feel for you & everyone else in this "boat". My daughter is right there with you. I worry about her & help her when she lets me, but one paycheck away - oh yeah. Hopefully when she gets her taxes back (!) next year - she will make arrangements to move back up here in NY - where, if nothing else, she & my granddaughter will be close enough to (hopefully) be able to see them. It will be a year Chrismas since I have. I'm so lucky my son is close by - thank god. I'd be in a different "boat" if he wasnt. So believe me I feel you!
Best of luck to you both!
I appreciated the "suck giant popsicles through his nostrils" --- Heather's flock can be really rough...and laughed at that moment. I quickly sobered up by your description of our reality and our continued colonial capitalism which really has swung way too far on the pendulum. Time for a change.
Thanks for appreciating my snark and sharing my concerns over the state of our economy.
It has just occurred to me that we as a society really don’t discuss our economic situations. While understand most people are loathe to share such private information, this has really helped cover up a robbery by our own government.
Same thing about not discussing salaries. It covers up a lot of sneakiness.
Lisa, I shall refrain from replying, not because I agree or disagree with you, but any discussion of United States history (which I have both studied and taught) in relation to "survival of the whitest" and treatment of the non-whites would take up volumes.
Obama was a disaster as President, unfortunately, because the cards were all stacked against him by the intransigent Republicans, just as HCR has often said. He also suffered from the Carter Syndrome; a micro-manager is not a good decision maker.
Well said
Amen, to this, Lisa. I wrote that graf not because the information was news to anyone paying any attention, but because the fact that Bloomberg was running the story seemed to me a big deal.
That's truly awful, what you are going through. Clearly the system that grinds people down into poverty has to change! We must find a way to put that message across. Biden has to listen to the message and act to change the way things work. The wealthy people who are holding back change have to understand that it can't go on this way.