What are America's interests?
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 17:48
VIEWED: 19030
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Quote:My list is both older and newer than that. I've been posting about bits of it for years - during Occupy in 2011, for example- as I noodle on the topic, and I can tell you very plainly that the answer is NOT Trump. So if you were to have a Trump Tourette's moment, you can choke that outburst down.
SIGNYM:I've provided MY list about what I think we need, to seed the discussion. It's not the end-all and be-all of possibilities.
SECOND:Your list is 3 years old: March 5, 2017
www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60986&mid=1025569#
1025569
Ask yourself why none of the tasks on your list have been finished. Once you discover who has been very efficiently vetoing/roadblocking/sabotaging/suing/underfunding/delaying your plan, you need to decide what to do about them. Once you've done it, then your plan can start moving forward. Or you can take it easy, do as little as possible, and give up.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Are you going to argue that wages have not been stagnant in the last 20 years and have not even gone up with inflation?
Are you going to argue it's untrue that health insurance has become unaffordable for most people, and that homeowners insurance isn't far behind?
Are you going to argue that a college education has not become a life-long burden for most future adults to pay off the rest of their lives?
Are you going to argue it's untrue that credit card interest rates are more than double what they were 20 years ago despite the fact that the FED interest rate is near zero?
Are you going to argue it's untrue that after outsourcing most of our manufacturing jobs overseas we have now manufactured most of our tech jobs overseas and the majority of jobs left for us to fight over are low paying service jobs?
Are you going to argue it's not true that nearly 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck in 2020?
If the answer to any of those questions is no. Then plug them into the graphs and use your goddamned brain for once instead of needing a fucking link to do your thinking for you.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
SIX, ask yourself WHY this is true.
"Boomers", as a group, aren't in charge. They aren't the ones who offshored manufacturing and who hollowed out the economy until nothing was left but McJobs. THEY aren't the ones who, by policy, substituted debt-based speculation for a real economy of production and consumption, savings and investment.
Do you think that things will get better when the oldsters die off and the next oligarchs come to power? Bezos? Zuckerberg? Do you really expect to see an improvement?
There is a saying Show me the incentive and I will show you the behavior
So, what incentives are at play that caused this to happen? And what incentives do you think should be embedded in society instead?
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, ask yourself WHY this is true.
Simple. Collective Greed and Collective Stupidity.
Humans are great as individuals, but terrible as groups.
If it wasn't the Boomers, it would have been GenX.
Be that as it may, it was the Boomers who raided the economy without any thought as to what the future costs were. And here we are.
Sitting on the sidelines does not excuse your behavior. Especially when you reaped the rewards.
Quote:
So, what incentives are at play that caused this to happen?
Money. 'nuff said.
Quote:
And what incentives do you think should be embedded in society instead?
We could start by teaching kids how to save a dollar and balance a checkbook in school instead of cramming Algebra and Trigonometry that they're never going to use down their throats.
That might be a good start.
Maybe have some leadership that at least pretends like debt is something that we shouldn't be getting into and setting a good example?
But it really doesn't matter anymore. Too little, too late.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Hmmm...
SECOND:
Is there anything left that would bring liberals and conservatives together to demand some kind of sacrifice from the American public? And even if that happened, would the public respond? I’m starting to wonder.
CC: Sure, there definitely could be. But not with this orange sh*t head in office. He's a divider, scorched earth sales person who values winning and subservience (I was going to say loyalty, but he doesn't give a sh*t about that - only what it might bring him). He's has done more to divide this country than any other leader in the history of this planet could.
Calling people "Russian trolls" is not being a divider?
Why did you do that? You KNOW I'm not a Russian troll. So why were you so inflamed that you went off the rails? Why were other people so inflamed that they went off the rails in the other direction?
Polarization has been happening for DECADES. TEA Party? Occupy?
Why is this happening?
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Quote:Where do people learn to be stupid? It's not like we're born stupid.
SIGNYM: SIX, ask yourself WHY this is true.
Simple. Collective Greed and Collective Stupidity.
Humans are great as individuals, but terrible as groups.
Quote:I don't understand what you mean by "raided the economy". Can you please explain?
SIX: If it wasn't the Boomers, it would have been GenX.
Be that as it may, it was the Boomers who raided the economy without any thought as to what the future costs were. And here we are.
Quote:I'm supposed to feel some collective guilt for doing something that I don't understand what you're posting about? Please let me know in detail what I've done.
SIX: Sitting on the sidelines does not excuse your behavior. Especially when you reaped the rewards.
Quote:
SIGNY: So, what incentives are at play that caused this to happen?
SIX: Money. 'nuff said.
SIGNY: And what incentives do you think should be embedded in society instead?
SIX: We could start by teaching kids how to save a dollar and balance a checkbook in school instead of cramming Algebra and Trigonometry that they're never going to use down their throats. That might be a good start.
Maybe have some leadership that at least pretends like debt is something that we shouldn't be getting into and setting a good example?
But it really doesn't matter anymore. Too little, too late.
Agreed. Debt at all levels... trade deficit, government deficit, financial debt, business debt, personal debt ... is truly a bane. But in order for somebody to borrow, there must be somebody lending. So, what's their incentive to lend?
In any case, it may be too little too late, but why should that stop us from understanding what's going on?
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:So in your opinion, technology is the defining feature of our society? But earlier you said it wasn't, that people behaved the way they behaved because of the stories they told themselves about how people are.
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
To answer, I think one needs to delve into 'what are people's interests?' We are people before we're citizens.
But at the start I have to reject nearly all arguments based on 'human nature'. For just about every supposed rule about human nature, I can provide many exceptions. And studies of non-monetary cultures still in existence today show that there's no correlation between environment, technology, means of survival (hunting, fishing, gathering, ad hoc agriculture) and resources v social or economic organization, or the reason why cultures give to answer why they do what they do. Groups of people do what they do because that's what they tell themselves people do. (And people who don't do what they do are also defined as either not people, or not proper people - they're some lesser existence.)
That said, no peoples set their infants out to survive on their own - all peoples understand the need to care for the young. And the young are demanding of attention and interaction! or they grow up severely mentally stunted. No peoples live as isolated individuals (like bears or tigers). No peoples live without language. And no peoples live without at least rudimentary tools and technology.
But even things we assume are 'natural', like nursing mothers caring for their infants, aren't universal as they can be substituted with other mothers or animals that provide milk. Nuclear families are not the norm across peoples. Pair bonding is optional. Even the role for males is up for grabs. All that needs to happen is that males don't exist in fatal competition for resources with females and offspring. It's not how 'fit' the males are that determines species survival - sterility beats virility. But it's not even fertitliy that determines species survival. Those offspring need to survive long enough themselves to have offspring of their own that then survive ... in at least replacement numbers. If not, the species dwindles and dies. Offspring mortality beats fertility. (As a separate group, the Spartans ignored that and met their demise.)
Also, technology makes up for a lot of human frailties. Technology allows human survival at numbers greater than the immediate resource limits.
So for me, the questions are - what kind of technology do we want, and, how do we want to arrange ourselves to ensure survival? It's pretty much up for grabs, I think.
So I don't understand your point, I guess. Please elucidate!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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JACK is basing his spiel off of phony numbers and a serious case of entitlement. He think that just because there are a lot of boomers who've worked 45+ years out of their lifespan that they shouldn't have those earnings. ... Or that he should be entitled to everything they've worked decades for RIGHT NOW!!!
What he can't admit is that average wage from 1975 (the approximate year the middle of the boomer generation entered the workforce) - adjusted for inflation - is nearly exactly on par with 2019 .
$10,000 1975 average annual wage, adjusted for inflation is $48,791.17 in 2019
$48,672 2019 average annual wage
Silent generation 1928-1945
Baby boomers 1946-1964
Gen X 1965-1979
Millennials 1980-1994
The Silent Generation was that group of people born during the Great Depression. The baby boomers were born during the US post-war boom. Gen X was that group born as US global dominance was beginning to be eroded by recovering and emerging nations around the globe. Millenials were born into voodoo economics (also called trickle down or peed-on economics).
These graphs are misleading though, because they're driven by NUMBERS of people in each generation as well as money. Obviously there's very few of the Silent Generation left, so as a group they have very little of the total wealth in the country. AS INDIVIDUALS though, they're far wealthier than any other generation.
Quote:The Baby Boomers still have large numbers left. Subsequent generations are smaller in size because the birth rate has been below replacement.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2018/03/16/the-graying-of-wealth
/#76d3ec7c302d Faring the best were the 75+—an age bracket largely occupied by the Silent Generation (born 1925 to 1942). This group experienced a 32% increase in median household net worth and a 60% increase in mean net worth. Today, the net worth of a typical retiree is $264,750. This amount shrinks moving down the age ladder: The Silent hold roughly 1.3 times the amount of wealth as Boomers, more than twice that of Xers, and 23 times that of Millennials.
One reason why the Silent Generation fares so well in median comparisons is that its wealth is more evenly distributed than younger generations (i.e., its Gini coefficient is lower). One quick indicator of inequality is the ratio of mean to median. Among 75+ households, the ratio is 4.0. Among younger age brackets, it rises—to a peak of 6.2 and 5.8 among 55-64 and 45-54 households, respectively.
On top of that, Baby Boomers have had a full lifetime of work, while later generations are decades behind.
A PER CAPITA YEARS-ADJUSTED accounting would be FAR more accurate.
Bonus graph.
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Quote:Even so-called primitive societies have technologies that go beyond human fingernails, muscle, and teeth. For example they have fire, pouches or bowls, digging sticks, breaking and grinding stones, and shelter and/or clothes at the very least. So IF people manage their numbers, they can have a fairly secure and comfortable existence not always at the edge of whatever survival their bodies directly afford them at the moment, unlike animals. (Animals will survive only up to the limits of starvation, which is directly related to the immediately available food source they can naturally access.)
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So in your opinion, technology is the defining feature of our society?
Quote:I think it's this even minimal technology that divorces the shape of human society from its environment.
But earlier you said it wasn't, that people behaved the way they behaved because of the stories they told themselves about how people are.
So I don't understand your point, I guess. Please elucidate!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:OTOH, I think that the generations past mine are facing diminished expectations. There are fewer jobs available, and the kinds of jobs available are worse than before. If you look at the chart of wealth growth, aside from the fact that boomers (of course) start at a higher level because they've been in the workforce longer, their RATE of growth is higher. (But if the chart isn't per capita then it's misleading.) It may not be anything the "boomers" have done, it may be larger economic trends at work.
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
JACK is basing his spiel off of phony numbers and a serious case of entitlement. He think that just because there are a lot of boomers who've worked 45+ years out of their lifespan that they shouldn't have those earnings. ... Or that he should be entitled to everything they've worked decades for RIGHT NOW!!!
What he can't admit is that average wage from 1975 (the approximate year the middle of the boomer generation entered the workforce) - adjusted for inflation - is nearly exactly on par with 2019 .
But that's why I would like SIX to explain, in detail, what he thinks boomers have done to rob the next generation of wealth. His resentment isn't unique, it's pretty widespread
Hubby is an early boomer. I'm a late boomer. Between the two of us we have worked hard AND SAVED our entire lifetimes, and I feel perfectly justified with whatever we have managed to scratch together.
But maybe we're not typical boomers? I don't know. He posted about boomers using their homes as piggy banks, insurances and other "Ponzi schemes" that he think unjustly rewarded boomers, so I'd like to dig into this with him in detail.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Just fyi, I looked at wage specifically, not income, because rich people's incomes are so high they jink the overall income averages, even though there are a crap-ton more of everyone else's numbers 'averaged' in.
Average wage is average wage. While there sure are a large number of shitty McJobs and gig work out there, there are some high-paying jobs that make the average what it is.
And hardly anybody enters the workforce at the average wage either then or now. Even as a blessed boomer, I didn't work fewer than 56 hours a week, and worked evenings, weekends and nights, until I was 33. That 'average' wage as I entered the workforce included of the silent generation with decades more seniority and far higher paychecks than me. I came in at the low end with the shitty hours. Very few boomers just stepped into their 'good' jobs at 'average' wage right as they entered into the workforce. It took years to get there.
Anyway, I hope you get some interesting feedback from JACK.
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