Socio-economic class mobility in the US.






The Pew Economic Mobility Project

Economic mobility is a huge deal for me, I just do not buy into all of the causes you cite - or most of your solutions.

It is also worth noting that California has a massive Welfare State. Again, also worth noting in passing that Cali and Florida both suffered greatly under the housing collapse that was made possible and encouraged by a combination of "progressive" lending and regulation policies, corruption in Congress regarding govt funding and treatment of GSAs ( bipartisan ), and shenanigans at the Federal Reserve.

Conservatives certainly do no get off scott clean by any stretch, ( Gingrich lobbied for Fannie/Freddie, Fed Reserve was Bushite ) but "progressive" policies also were shown to be ineffective.

I respect the fact that we will disagree on causes and solutions, and glad that you acknowledge economic mobility as a problem. I agree with you that some of progressive initiatives attempting to address this issue were/are ineffective, but at least there is an effort to dos omething. What about conservatives?

As far as conservatives go, Greenspan was one of the primary adherents to the idea that home ownership for everyone was good for society and encouraged people to put down roots and be positively engaged in society.

His intentions were not off the mark, however the results certainly were.

U.S. Income Inequality: It's Worse Today Than It Was in 1774
By Jordan Weissmann

Income Inequality Crisis in 16 Charts

The Recession's Toll: How Middle Class Wealth Collapsed to a 40-Year Low

Economic mobility and income inequality are very different issues.

The downward trend in economic mobility was apparent and reported on in the early 2000's. While the housing collapse may have exacerbated the problem, the trend was well established previously. Further, current low economic mobility is analyzed in the context of being low compared toward other western countries (sans Japan) instead of being low in the absolute sense. The crux of the issue is that America, the land of opportunity, is increasingly less so.

Contributing factors:
- High cost of college locks out many from the lower strata from getting an education. Not an issue in Europe.

- This high cost creates a lot of student debt. A student saddled with debt cannot take risks to get a "dream job," therefor under-utilizing their skill set.

- Depressed wages for skilled labor in America.

- Rapidly decreasing locational mobility. The rate of people moving from one state to the next is much lower than historically. While it may not sound like a big deal, many economist site being able to move for the best job as a great economic good. The unification of the Euro presumably had the opposite effect.

- Golden parachutes and extreme capitalization reward failure, which prevents downward mobility.

Others. Solutions? I guess start with education.

The End of Labor: How to Protect Workers From the Rise of Robots

TED: Wingham Rowan - A new kind of job market

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1...-social-welfare

TL:DR
The argument is wrong. Who cares how much other countries spend on social welfare? The question is: Where should the line be drawn between forcing your neighbors to pay for you and personal responsibility?

No, the question is how much are you responsible for your own fate, and how much of it is out of your control. American Dream is to build yourself up from poverty with hard work and smarts. Is this even achievable these days?

Rags to riches stores are about as common as lottery winners, this means that hard work and smarts are no longer reliable way out of poverty. This means that as society we are failing our poor, and in process making more of them.

Actually I would say it is fairly common. The distortion of perception at work here, is between working hard and being successful or working hard and becoming Bill Gates.

Though it is true that it is becoming more difficult. Of course the only real long term remedies are transparency of govt and rule of law - which have both been breaking down at an accelerating rate in recent years.

"Though it is true that it is becoming more difficult. "


Even more so if the government has it's way. Considering how much
of your compensation they want to give away to everyone else means
you have to work that much harder to achieve the same goals.

It's like overtime. If you work enough of it, at some point you're
being taxed so heavily you're basically working for straight
pay again. Most just don't realize it.

Yeah. And the irony is, by and large those in power including and especially the Dems arent even giving it to the poor and needy. They are handing it to govt bureaucrats and other rich people.

I think the core issue is the body politic of the USA has become not a body of discernment, but a body of fanboys. There is no word more befitting an Obama supporter at this point than "Fan". It has nothing to do with reasoned understanding of what has or will likely actually transpire in the halls of govt - just blind loyalty to the "team".

The same could be said during the G W B years as well - I hardly consider it a partisan problem.

Once again you misunderstand something that the rest of us know at a visceral level. The American Dream is not about money. The American Dream is about being able to take care of your family and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Sometimes that is measured in money for some people but for most it has more to do with happiness which is not measured with dollar bills.

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!

1600 people on average per year win more then 1 million dollars.

As for the rags to the rags to riches

http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/22/billionaires-gates-winfrey-biz-cz_ts_0626rags2riches.html

Forbes: Rich Are Staying Richer, Poor Poorer



News at 11.

I made 0 in 1987 now I make above the area medium.

News at 11, proven wrong again.

Its not the trends we disagree on, its the causes and solutions.

I am surprised I have to explain this.

Your specific situation has very minute influence on such large-group averages calculated over whole US population.

What these numbers mean, is that average have-not is now poorer, and average haves is richer. This includes all have-nots that got richer and haves that got poorer despite the trend.

1 in 5000 sample is minute. You say those that were poor stayed poor. I gave you one example out of 5000 that disproved that.

We can go ahead and say this is true. What could be some reasons why the poor stay poor. Other then me as I didn't stay poor.

How about the progressive stance of giving people more reasons to not work their way out of poverty.
If you keep giving more and more money to people and increase the amount of people that will get free money, more and more people will get lazy and stay poor. \
Trust me I grew up with welfare people, they new all the tricks to keep on welfare and how to increase it.

This is a concept that progressives know well, they wish to keep a large portion of people on welfare.

Progressives make me sick, they wish to keep people poor instead of really helping them.
Makes for good election ads.

You will have to accept my word that your specific situation does not disprove anything. I am sorry, but I am not qualified to educate you to the point where you can reach that conclusion on your own.

Your the last person I want to educate me.

Keep the minimum wage low, healthcare out of reach, and taxes low on the rich, while cutting programs that lift people out of poverty. Are these conservative or progressive agenda items?

Hele, did you hit your head or something?

What taxes are low????? Anything over 15% is high. Anything under 60% is to low for the progressives.

Healthcare is not out of reach, but make a good lie into a good progressive headline.

Keeping programs that keep people in poverty is the hallmark of progressive policy.

I didn't hit my head on anything I just don't use the blinders that many seem to find easy to use.

Taxes are at historical lows, just because you want them even lower does not mean that they are not already low.

Healthcare is out of reach, anything above 5% uninsured is too much.

The only programs that keep people in poverty is reckless safety net slashing program of conservatives. Safety nets are cheaper than jail, and allow 2nd or 3d generation a shot of getting out of poverty.

No, you are suffering from right wing swamp fever. As a result you keep spewing obviously false statements that do not stand up to even most basic fact-checking.

Try Google. It is amazing technology. Type in following: "US Tax rates over past 50 years". "Social Spending and Poverty in Western Nations". "US health coverage rate".

Be careful, it might blow your mind.

Your a Progressive so any taxes not above 50% is to low.
Any opinion not in line with yours is autofail
Yes taxes are to high.
Yes the poor you keep taking about pay no payroll taxes.
Yes you are the reason for the swamp fever that kills the cure.
Yes you are completely ignorant of anything that is real.
Healthcare is accessible to anyone even the illegal immigrants.
Yes you don't understand that constant giving to people that do not have to do anything for it will not do anything to get on their own two feet.
Yes you don't know what the fuck you are talking about, I have seen and lived with it, I unlike you know what I am talking about.
The only thing that would blow my mind is if you said something productive.

Not only are you a progressive(what a fucking joke name, only social elitist would come up with that name)
you are living in a fascist wonderland dream state where all your social elitist fanboys pat you on the back with every idiotic idea you retell
from your Stalin playbook. Please go find a Central European town to burn your books
and pass new laws to destroy your followers as a test run for your evil plan to take over and destroy the known civilized world.

Helemoto and reality finally decided to part ways after years of unhappy and contentious relationship.

Fuck you.

This is what I imagine Sini doing when he reads that last post.

No, just

Well if he is going to be rude why cant I.

This is good point, but at least be creative. The very least you could do is compare me to Hitler.

Trotsky, closer to Trotsky I think.

So, when you can't refute any of his claims you just point fingers and say "look at the crazy person" in an attempt to get him to lose his shit and go off on you? Red, does that sound familiar?

You mean this?



Yes, we are fascist-stalinists that burn books and Hele caught us red-handed in our evil plan to take over the world. What else is there to say?

Mock all you want but the policies you espouse are the ones he's accusing you of promoting. So, your attempt to turn this around on Helemoto because you can't say that his claims are demonstrably false is as transparent as the window behind me.

Yes, policies I believe in are the ones I promote. Doing anything else would be disingenuous. If you actually wanted to somehow support Hele, you'd claim exactly opposite.

Now thanks to Fox hysteria a bunch of troglodyte mouthbreathers were trained to incorrectly see anything outside of right-right spectrum as facist-stalinist-elitist-Agenda21 plants to take away your guns and take over the world.

Since you appear to share Hele's opinion on this matter, please do tell how anything I say is a) fascist b) out of Stalin playbook c) leads to book-burning d) is evil plan to take over the world e) social elitist (and while at that define the concept).

The Fox news thing is kind of played out now. Really they are just as bad as any other American media outlet these days. You can go down the list of major news networks and check the same boxes next to their fallacies.

I barely even read the news anymore to be honest. If I do I generally take what they say with a grain of salt.

I keep up with major current events but anyone who needs talking heads on a TV to make up their views on the world deserve whatever garbage they fill their heads with.

I like how he thinks I watch any news at all.

Anyone who promotes that the federal government should have most of the control over the people should look at a history book.

sini

Nah, I already asked you to clearly state the policies you support and you always change the subject, just like now. So, I have no interest in putting forth the effort to point out your socialist tendencies for you. Besides that, if you need me to tell you which of your views are statist, then it won't make any difference to you. I will point out for you that you keep separating socialism, communism and the nazis when the reality is they are all stops along the same leftist road. One is more severe than the other and one puts more emphasis on "nationalism" rather than the "people" but they all lead to the same destination. The fact that you don't know that kinda says it all doesn't it?

The simple fact that you are seriously trying to defend Hele's rant tells me you are probably dying hats in the same shop as he is.

Rant it may have been, but its how you are viewed.
BTW rants can be done with a smile.

You just keep right on dodging.