Have we progressed?

Printable View

Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

October 8th, 2004, 06:04 PM
reason

Quote:

And with all this, the Democrats are telling me that the middle class is not as financially well off as we use to be.

I'm not sure where to begin, but the gap between rich and poor has been growing since the early 80's, and the middle class is bearing a greater portion of the tax burden in the last four years. And record numbers of people are ininsured.

But there is always the other side of the story. More people today are uninsured than ever before, but a higher percentage were uninsured under Clinton, around 1996. The problem is that the trend under Bush has been steadily up and it appears Bush will surpase Clinton's record if the status quo is maintained..

Then there's the issue of the wealthy middle class. True, the middle class has more things. Growing up, the automatic dishwasher was me, my two brothers and my sister. We had no air conditioning, despite me and my two brothers sleeping in a stifling attic. We had one car (no airconditioning), we rarely ate out - even fast food. A trip out of town was a big deal.

Yeah we buy more today, but a lot of things are cheaper. Adjusted for inflation the cost of food is dirt cheap and takes up a smaller portion of our income. Automobiles are less expensive than they used to be, adjusted for inflation. The same is true for all sorts of other goods - electronics, clothing, etc. That's the beauty of increasing productivity - we can buy more with less.

[ October 08, 2004 04:35 PM: Message edited by: reason ]
October 8th, 2004, 06:26 PM
gae

Quote:

Yeah we buy more today, but a lot of things are cheaper. Adjusted for inflation the cost of food is dirt cheap and takes up a smaller portion of our income. Automobiles are less expensive than they used to be, adjusted for inflation. The same is true for all sorts of other goods - electronics, clothing, etc. That's the beauty of increasing productivity - we can buy more with less

I'd like a show of hands here. Who (besides Trav) was given a car on his/her 16th birthday? Who has been past a high school parking lot lately? Way back in the day when I was in HS, the kids who had cars had clunkers. Now, it's damned near criminal for a kid to drive last year's SUV.

In my mind, the middle class has pretty much decided that things my parents saw as luxuries are now necessities.

For as much as we watch it, Trav and I don't need the TV we have. We don't need the dish. Or the DVD player. Or two computers. They're wants, not needs.

Going back a few posts, I will equate the Civil Rights movement with illiteracy. Before LBJ told everyone that all American's should have the same standard of living, and before welfare was created, poor people in this country were proud and worked hard. They may have had litte to show for it at the end of the day, but there was still pride in a job well done.

<s>Satan</s> LBJ came along and decided that everyone should be equal, and ByGod, if you didn't want to work, you shouldn't have to. Black, white, green, purple, whatever... welfare promotes dependency on the gubmit.

Prior to the Civil Rights movement, poor folks took great pride in being able to read. Since the 60's, there is a "so what" mentality. The check will come very month, so why bother?

I KNOW whereof I speak. My last husband was from an Applacian white trash family. Why work when you can get "paid" for doing nothing?
October 8th, 2004, 06:27 PM
travelinman

I disagree. It's a choice you make. Right now there are 3 or 4 design firms I could call and have a job with a minimum of a 40% increase before I got off the phone. Why don't I do this you may ask, especially since I think Cincinnati is such a backwater.

Because they are all located in the Philly and New York area. I would be expected to maintain a certain life style, attend evening business functions, work 60 hour weeks, cut my hair and put on a suit every day. It's all BS. It's a great big rat race that most Americans have bought into.

Take a look around most Americans homes and tell me that need all the crap they have laying around.

[ October 08, 2004 03:49 PM: Message edited by: gae ]
October 8th, 2004, 07:40 PM
reason

Quote:

Originally posted by travelinman:
I disagree. It's a choice you make. Right now there are 3 or 4 design firms I could call and have a job with a minimum of a 40% increase before I got off the phone. Why don't I do this you may ask, especially since I think Cincinnati is such a backwater.

Because they are all located in the Philly and New York area. I would be expected to maintain a certain life style, attend evening business functions, work 60 hour weeks, cut my hair and put on a suit every day. It's all BS. It's a great big rat race that most Americans have bought into.

Take a look around most Americans homes and tell me that need all the crap they have laying around.

[ October 08, 2004 03:49 PM: Message edited by: gae ]

You would need to make double in NYC to maintain the your material lifestyle. Your house alone could bring maybe $160,000 on the market. To buy something similar 15 minutes from midtown Manhattan would cost at least six or seven times that amount.

What you say reminds me of a salesman from Morgan Stanley who visited my company. At lunch, he explained why he moved to Chicago from New York City.

He bought a million dollar home in Connecticut - it was ancient...and it was a fixer upper.

The ride into the city was 2 hours. Of course, so was the ride back. Then there was the after hours obligations that would keep him in the city well into the evening.

It was all a quality of life thing.

[ October 08, 2004 04:45 PM: Message edited by: reason ]
October 8th, 2004, 10:56 PM
LanDroid

Trav claims he was merely stating facts in his first post.

Quote:

Before the gay/lesbian movement gays and lesbians were discriminated against, but most people never thought about it and gays and lesbians didn't get raked over the coals in divorce court. Once gays and lesbians can marry (it will happen someday) someone will be paying alimony. Is this progress?

However this glosses over past sins in saying "most" people didn't think about it. Correct, but it just means common folk didn't give a shit about fags getting beaten up every weekend outside of gay bars. Remember one of the favorite trix of the Cincy Police Dept. was to arrest a drunk for jaywalking across the street from a gay bar, then beat the crap out of him for "resisting arrest". That shit stopped only when AIDS came a calling.

The talk about gay divorce is not factual, it is pure speculation since it has not happened. I hope it does one day, why should they avoid the pain others enjoy?

I'm jealous, wouldn't it be great to be able to say to the chick that is bugging you to marry, "Hon, I'd love ta marry you, but it's friggin illegal!" [img]graemlins/angel.gif[/img]

I could be wrong, but the following smells like the right wing propensity for MSU. (Making Shit Up)

Quote:

Before the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, blacks were discriminated against but had an 80% literacy rate. Now while discrimination still exists, it's much less and the literacy rate is somewhere around 35% .
October 9th, 2004, 12:32 AM
gae

Quote:

Originally posted by LanDroid:
Trav claims he was merely stating facts in his first post.
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Before the gay/lesbian movement gays and lesbians were discriminated against, but most people never thought about it and gays and lesbians didn't get raked over the coals in divorce court. Once gays and lesbians can marry (it will happen someday) someone will be paying alimony. Is this progress?

Remember one of the favorite trix of the Cincy Police Dept. was to arrest a drunk for jaywalking across the street from a gay bar, then beat the crap out of him for "resisting arrest". That shit stopped only when AIDS came a calling. <hr /></blockquote>Source???

Quote:

I could be wrong, but the following smells like the right wing propensity for MSU. (Making Shit Up)



Quote:

Before the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, blacks were discriminated against but had an 80% literacy rate. Now while discrimination still exists, it's much less and the literacy rate is somewhere around 35% .

[/QUOTE]

Year Total White Black and other
Total Native Foreign-born
1870 20.0 11.5 - - 79.9
1880 17.0 9.4 8.7 12.0 70.0
1890 13.3 7.7 6.2 13.1 56.8
1900 10.7 6.2 4.6 12.9 44.5
1910 7.7 5.0 3.0 12.7 30.5
1920 6.0 4.0 2.0 13.1 23.0
1930 4.3 3.0 1.6 10.8 16.4
1940 2.9 2.0 1.1 9.0 11.5
1947 2.7 1.8 - - 11.0
1950 3.2 - - - -
1952 2.5 1.8 - - 10.2
1959 2.2 1.6 - - 7.5
1969 1.0 0.7 - - 3.6*
1979 0.6 0.4 - - 1.6*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Based on black population only
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970; and Current Population Reports, Series P-23, Ancestry and Language in the United States: November 1979. (This table was prepared in September 1992

Source

I'm sure those stats are part of the vast right wing conspiracy, aren't they Lan?
October 9th, 2004, 02:23 AM
Lew

Oh, to be sure, there has been some fantastic development. I think of sanitation, for example. Think about how much better of a job we do in handling waste now than say even 20 years ago.

Medicine, of course, has made unbelievable strides. Look at how commonplace lasik surgery has become, which makes us forget just how remarkable a procedure that it is.

But as for our SOCIETAL development....yes, there has been progress in many areas, but a lot of failures, too, and they are inexcusable. My mom taught for 38 years in the hood, and she can vouch that the kids in the early 60s were better students than any of the subsequent decades. You walk around the UC campus today, you see so many mindless drones. Yeah, they all know how to log-on, but try asking them articulate a well-reasoned argument, supported by logic. Dum bastards.
October 9th, 2004, 03:18 AM
travelinman

Reason,

Please read my first post. I didn't say anything. I posted facts and asked questions.

I put the gay question in just for you, it really doesn?t apply [img]wink.gif[/img]

[ October 08, 2004 12:20 PM: Message edited by: travelinman ]
October 9th, 2004, 03:38 AM
travelinman

Quote:

Originally posted by LanDroid:
As to folks requiring two incomes to get along, keep in mind our standard of living is much higher than it was 50 years ago. One bedroom per child, not 3 children per bed, one car per parent and child over 15, air conditioning in house AND cars, college funds for children, massive entertainment centers, large music and video collections, cable TV internet telephone and cellphone services, and so on.

Eschew all of these modern conveniences, move your family into a two bedroom apartment without air conditioning, take the bus to work, and you can live on one income just like they did in the 50's...

I keep hearing about how the gap between the middle class and the rich keeps getting larger, how the middle class is getting poorer. It all BS. Growing up my parents were in the higher middle class. I had a boat when I was 8, but it was a 10-foot wood rowboat with a 3 hp engine that I had to spin around to go in reverse. We had one car, one black and white TV no AC and I wore Converse sneakers. My Mother was there when I got home from school and the only way to call her was with a pay phone. I had a home cooked meal with my family almost every day.

Move forward 43 years. I would have an 18-foot ski boat with a 200 hp engine $1000s of ski and wake board equipment. We would have a car for my Father and a minivan or SUV for my Mother. We would have three TVs (one home theater) and I would be wearing the latest Air Jordan?s. I would be home alone after school calling my dealer from our air-conditioned hot tub because my Mother wouldn?t get home from work with the fast food until 6:30. I would never see my Father because he would be working all the time when he wasn?t on the golf course or out with his mistress. And with all this, the Democrats are telling me that the middle class is not as financially well off as we use to be.

Give me a fucking break.

[ October 08, 2004 02:55 PM: Message edited by: travelinman ]
October 9th, 2004, 09:29 PM
LanDroid

Those stats are good, GAE, but I think you're reading it backwards. The title is "Percentage of persons 14 years old and over who were illiterate (unable to read or write in any language), by race and nativity: 1870 to 1979". The chart means the illiteracy rate for blacks in 1979 was only 1.6%! This proves my assmumption about Trav's statement being yet another case of right wing MSU (MAKING SHIT UP!).

Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page