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America divided – this concept increasingly graces political discourse in the U.S., pitting left against right, conservative thought against the liberal agenda. But for decades, Americans have been rearranging along another divide, one just as stark if not far more significant – a chasm once bridged by a flourishing middle class.
Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, believes the ongoing death of “middle America” has sparked the emergence of two countries within one, the hallmark of developing nations. In his new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Temin paints a bleak picture where one country has a bounty of resources and power, and the other toils day after day with minimal access to the long-coveted American dream.
In his view, the United States is shifting toward an economic and political makeup more similar to developing nations than the wealthy, economically stable nation it has long been. Temin applied W. Arthur Lewis’s economic model – designed to understand the workings of developing countries – to the United States in an effort to document how inequality has grown in America.
The 2017 World Economic Forum had the answer: "The people who have not benefited from globalization need to try harder to emulate those who have succeeded," and, "'People have to take more ownership of upgrading themselves on a continuous basis.'"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:23PM (3 children)
Bollocks. The school district with the highest per-student budget in the US (Washington, D.C., no surprise there) is also among the lowest-achieving in the western world.
Are you merely stupid, or another shill for the education establishment?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:45PM (2 children)
The point was that it depends on how it is spent. Guess that plane took off a little early, try looking up next time.
Many countries have proven that providing safety nets for all citizens results in better life outcomes and successful economies. The US mismanages the minimal social programs it does have and spends a ton of money on unnecessary bureaucracy. Thank you GOP for slowly destroying everything good. The UK is having a similar problem, their conservative party has taken an hard austerity line and is busy trying to ruin the NHS so they can privatize it and make tons of money for some rich people.
You bigoted retards have such simple minds, you can only see the most superficial layers of societies problems. Gee if they just stopped buying iPhones they wouldn't be poor!! God DAMN you types are just a little too smart for your own good.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:26PM (1 child)
You are full of shit.
Many? Name few. Better life outcomes? How better? what metric are you using? Longevity? Life-satisfaction? You are just babbling and saying nothing. You are full of shit.
Yes of course, that is what big government does.
No, you have the wrong party. It is the DNC that always increases the amount of social programs, i.e. the big government. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=democrats+increase+social+security [duckduckgo.com]
Yes because NHS was doing so fucking well before Conservatives came into power. Here is a handy article from 2001 about "NHS on Verge of Collapse" https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-75669477/gp-service-on-verge-of-collapse-warn-doctors [questia.com]. If you must know Tony Blair (Labour) was the PM then. As a matter of fact you can find an article with a headline "NHS on Verge of Collapse" or some amalgamation of those words for every fucking year. If NHS is so great, why is it always almost failing?
Oh of course, the refuge of a failed ideology. When you can't counter the truth with facts resort to attacking the individual.
Yes in essence this is 100% correct. If they stopped making bad financial decisions, they could amass wealth. It may be a bit abstracted to the "iphone" widget, but that is so it is simple for a unsophisticated minds to comprehend. But first, they would be able to realize how to maximize their earning potential. Then if they found it to be insufficient for wealth generation, they would invest into increasing their earnings potential. And I'm not talking about a PhD in Multi-cultural Trans-actualism or some other bullshit with meager job prospects, I'm talking about things that are in demand, or will be in 5 years.
Main reason poor are poor is because they are terrible at playing the economic game. This is where the disconnect comes between the mostly Right and silly Left comes from. If a player is losing a game because they are too dense to understand the rules, changing the rules won't help them. They will fail with the new rules, and you will just make everyone else, who knows how to play the game and worked hard really fucking mad. But because they succeeded before, they will succeed again, even with your stupid new rules.
Giving people who squander limited resources more resources only leads to more squandered resources. NOTHING MORE. If we gave every poor person in the U.S. $100K tomorrow for example, by year's end their bank accounts would be back at 0, and they will have tons more of debt, this I can guarantee.
My good is just fine, thank you. As is the good of my family, because I work very hard to ensure it is so. Also, I think I am only sufficiently smart, or perhaps just smart enough to know how much smarter others are. It would be extremely hard to be too smart.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:51PM
As per usual all the conservative tool can do is tear things down without actually having anything to support the argument.
US is #13, lots of heavily socialized countries ranking near the top: http://www.sciencealert.com/the-world-happiness-index-2016-just-ranked-the-happiest-countries-on-earth [sciencealert.com]
US #17 for economic freedom: http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking [heritage.org]
Heeey, we come in #7 with US News https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/overall-full-list [usnews.com]
But still behind quite a few countries with socialized healthcare... So lets see, who fits the bill for crazy conservative?
Oh right, that would be yoouuuuu! I attacked an entire group of people. A large percentage of conservatives are open bigots, a larger percentage have some serious latent bigotry, and a massive percentage have blatant hatred for people they think are sub-human. You guarantee that every poor person in the U.S. would completely squander $100k in a year? Wow, way to slam the point home.
As for the "too smart for you own good" it refers to being smart enough to see some things, bring up arguments that might sort of work, but just not smart enough to see your own bullshit. Thus, you fall for propaganda that gets tax breaks for the rich, protective regulations rolled back at the expense of consumers, the environment, workers, etc. You vote in evil shitbags and think its some sort of righteous fight for morality where you get to fuck over all the people you're told to hate. Hence, too smart for your own good. Just smart enough to convince yourself the bullshit is real, just dumb enough to not taste it as you crash into a truck full of it.