dice wrote:Almost Retired wrote:ThisGuyFawkes wrote:This is one of the reasons why I don't have any social media accounts. There's too much on there that makes me angry. I do check Bleacher Report sometimes and if I see a tweet that I want to share, I'll copy/paste it here.
I don't want to get too much into politics, since this forum is one of my last refuges from that, but man do I hope that we don't move backwards as a country.
We've been going backwards for decades. No matter who is in nominal power. The politicians and the economic elites get ever richer, while we all see our standard of living dropping because we are losing out to inflation. Young people today have it far worse than I did at the same age. Huge student loan debt. Rents and housing prices out of control. They can't form families or buy houses like was once the case. This isn't a political observation. It's a statement of reality.
1) we (the non-elites) haven't been going backwards for decades. we've flatlined while the rich have gotten much richer. the national wealth has more than DOUBLED (adjusted for inflation!). and the wealthy have gotten all of it. DESPITE longer hours being worked
2) definitely harder for younger people debt-wise. the value of a degree has gone DOWN despite skyrocketing tuition. but they're starting out with higher salaries (again, adjusted for inflation). and, of course, society is much better in some ways than it was decades ago. but the wealth gap combined with out culture of wealth flaunting makes most people FEEL like they're going backwards
it largely comes back to union participation:
No argument on the growing disparity and the impact that declining union participation plays, but I think that a factor that you fail to mention is that much of the decline in union participation came with exporting of union jobs overseas. And I am a fan of the benefits that organized labor, but until we can solve for the impact that some other country with even more exploitable labor forces, the race to lower minimum pay will continue regardless of how many here join unions. The real issues with jobs going overseas are rising healthcare costs and pension costs (which came about because we keep living longer - so not all bad).
The same can be said for the highest paid people. If we create a big tax or cap disparity vs. other countries, those jobs/people will go overseas as well; although, IMO, there is still room there to do some leveling to be sure.
Now on your education point, while our Universities are the best in the world, their system is broken. There, the system is become too expensive with the pension plans for faculty outpacing inflation by a lot. I personally think, rather than the Gov't paying for the cost of college, it should create a massive online school that is free for all to compete with colleges. Technology is there. The cost would be a lot less and it could help a lot more people. My personal POV is that way too much of the cost of college is tied to "the college experience", which has gone way too upscale with student housing and meal costs, coupled with a party culture that works against the education side.
In an attempt to bring this back home. I will note that there is a non-zero correlation between jobs going overseas and the decline of the Bears.
