[WasWinM]

benellis58, on 2025-May-30, 15:22, said:

Not surprising that a convicted felon like Donnie Dumbass is pardoning other criminals while making life a living hell for many decent people. Trump is pure garbage, pure filth of the worst sort. The only question is whether all the harm he is causing will be temporary or permanent. Shame on the voters who put this trashcan BACK into the White House for a SECOND time, even after the utter trainwreck of his first regime.

The chilling thing is that according to polls his approval rating is still around 45%. These are not the people I thought I knew; These are not people I want to know.

[thepossum]

I guess people who hate on elite schools and those who go to them are the majority. Sad but that is how the world is

And what is worse, if you are non elite and get to an elite school you are now on your own. The eilte hate you and so do everyone else

SorrI am breaking my own rule on what elite means. But if you are elite enough to be one of the few to earn your place at an "elite" school etc

And you can;t really beat standing in front of a load of steel workers having just upped the price of their competitors by 50%

I forgot they had clearly all been given brand new work gear. Not a spot of factory dirt to be seen

Apparently also allies of the USA despite being terrified are supposed to massively increase purchase of US weapons too

Apparently USA is doing it so tough they need to almost forcibly suck every other worker's capital out of their savings into the pockets of Americans

I forgot the capital left behind by deported workers too

Win win with the TACO

Talking peace but beating up conflict and nationalism

Lucky to be big enough to be able to do it and maintain domestic support

[kenberg]

WasWinM, on 2025-May-31, 15:51, said:

The chilling thing is that according to polls his approval rating is still around 45%. These are not the people I thought I knew; These are not people I want to know.

I keep thinking that this support for DT has to drop. I guess it has, some, but slowly and not by much. My country has become some sort of cross between a pariah and a joke.

Nonetheless, I do not think that 45% of the US citizenry is stupid or nuts, I doubt that we as a people are somehow more bonkers that elsewhere, so we really have to think a bit as to how this came to be and what might change it. Of course a great deal of damage has already been done, but better late than never.

So I agree with you in spirit, but I do not want to just leave it at that.

[WasWinM]

kenberg, on 2025-June-01, 14:03, said:

I keep thinking that this support for DT has to drop. I guess it has, some, but slowly and not by much. My country has become some sort of cross between a pariah and a joke.

Nonetheless, I do not think that 45% of the US citizenry is stupid or nuts, I doubt that we as a people are somehow more bonkers that elsewhere, so we really have to think a bit as to how this came to be and what might change it. Of course a great deal of damage has already been done, but better late than never.

So I agree with you in spirit, but I do not want to just leave it at that.

When you listen to them or read what they are saying you find all they do is regurgitate what they have told by the right wing propaganda machine. If is sophisticated propaganda and almost impossible to penetrate.

The only way I know is how my own bubble was pierced in high school by way of a question that created an awkward hesitancy in my thought processes. A bit of doubt. It still took years to change but it was a start.

For Trumpsters it may be an example of an immigrant or asylum seeker who has done enormous good while he or she has been here then pose the question: don’t they deserve to live here?

[barmar]

WasWinM, on 2025-June-01, 20:09, said:

When you listen to them or read what they are saying you find all they do is regurgitate what they have told by the right wing propaganda machine. If is sophisticated propaganda and almost impossible to penetrate.

Exactly. The middle class sees that their life now is not as good as their parents'. In previous generations, a middle class job could easily support a family that owned a home with a decent lifestyle. There were several decades where it was expected that our children would do better than we did -- upward mobility was the norm (for white people, at least).

That hasn't been the case for a while, though, and people are upset. Trump and the GOP have provided convenient scapegoats, and these people accept it.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2025-June-02, 08:48, said:

Exactly. The middle class sees that their life now is not as good as their parents'. In previous generations, a middle class job could easily support a family that owned a home with a decent lifestyle. There were several decades where it was expected that our children would do better than we did -- upward mobility was the norm (for white people, at least).

That hasn't been the case for a while, though, and people are upset. Trump and the GOP have provided convenient scapegoats, and these people accept it.

Yes, I agree with you, just as I agreed with Winston, but I still ask "What do we do?"

Let's look at your statement: The middle class sees that their life now is not as good as their parents'.

That's a true statement.

Did I grow up middle class? I think so. Maybe. Not upper middle class. Maybe middle middle class. Modest house, safe neighborhood, we drove a Chevrolet, not a Buick, the Chevvy was paid for. Walk half a block, cross a street, I am at a playground. Walk half a block the other direction, cross both streets at the intersection, I am in the schoolyard. I had a bike, a pair of skates, a sled. And friends.


Short version: A good childhood. Middle class? Seems so.

My parents: My father had a very, and I mean very, difficult childhood, he finished eighth grade and went to work. My mother had a little high school but successfully ran away from home when she was 14 so maybe a year of HS. My father did not rob banks, win a lottery or invent things, he installed weatherstripping. My mother was a stay-at-home mom.

Ok, a question. How do we fix society so that an orpaned immigrant, married to a woman who ran away from home at age 14, can provide their child with opportunities like I had? Trump is a disaster. Got that. But then what? Tough question, I think. Also an important one.


Times have changed. We agree on that.

[johnu]

barmar, on 2025-June-02, 08:48, said:

Exactly. The middle class sees that their life now is not as good as their parents'. In previous generations, a middle class job could easily support a family that owned a home with a decent lifestyle. There were several decades where it was expected that our children would do better than we did -- upward mobility was the norm (for white people, at least).

That hasn't been the case for a while, though, and people are upset. Trump and the GOP have provided convenient scapegoats, and these people accept it.

A quote from LBJ that I've used in the past:

Quote

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

Of course, the Dementia Don has now also singled out non-white immigrants, legal or not, for his white supremacist "special" treatment. Note how he and his administration welcomed a bunch of "white" South African immigrants, and even repeated a made up story about genocide in South Africa as a reason for letting these people into the US.

[mycroft]

kenberg, on 2025-June-02, 11:41, said:

Ok, a question. How do we fix society so that an orpaned immigrant, married to a woman who ran away from home at age 14, can provide their child with opportunities like I had? Trump is a disaster. Got that. But then what? Tough question, I think. Also an important one.

I don't know the answer (it might involve being the only major unravaged economy in the world and getting a 20-year head start); but we might look at Eisenhower tax rates. I'm sure, even with tax lawyers and accountants, more loopholes, and all the rest, there might be more money available to "everybody" if the base rate on every dollar over 3.4 million/yr was taxed at 92% (and from 1mm up at over 50. And corporate tax rates.)

[akwoo]

barmar, on 2025-June-02, 08:48, said:

Exactly. The middle class sees that their life now is not as good as their parents'. In previous generations, a middle class job could easily support a family that owned a home with a decent lifestyle. There were several decades where it was expected that our children would do better than we did -- upward mobility was the norm (for white people, at least).

That hasn't been the case for a while, though, and people are upset. Trump and the GOP have provided convenient scapegoats, and these people accept it.

I played 11 sessions at a regional a few weeks ago with a software engineer who recently retired from Amazon.

He makes the point that each year, his team of 10 engineers improved Amazon warehouse efficiency by around 200 employees. There are many such teams of engineers at Amazon. Amazon can pay each engineer 15 times the wages of a warehouse worker and still come out well ahead. At current rates, it seems like that engineers can keep improving efficiency of warehouses until, in fifty years (or sooner - technological advances may accelerate), a warehouse will just be a "manager" pushing buttons ordering around the robots, and maybe an onsite technician fixing the robots as necessary.

The warehouse worker will never be able to buy a house, because the software engineer with cash to burn can buy 10 houses, demolish them all, and build a mansion. In the past, people building mansions weren't too much of a problem for the real estate market because there weren't too many of them. If 10% of the Bay Area can afford a mansion, that's a problem, because those 10% can basically buy up all the land.

We've never before in all of human history had a society where a significant group of people can do 10 or 20 times as much work (in terms of effect) as the average person.

We can (and should) tax all the software engineers (well the good ones who are making $250K) at much higher rates and distribute that money to the untalented - not just so warehouse workers will have more money but also so that software engineers can't afford 10 houses. Sure that will mean software engineers will retire younger, but needing more warehouse workers, even if it's objectively wasteful, might not be such a bad thing. More of a problem is all the warehouse workers who are out of a job and feeling depressed about their lives even if they have money. Switzerland has a neat fix - they subsidize more labor-intensive ways of doing things in the name of preserving traditional crafts, but while it's easy to justify having 50 farmers growing crops by horse, it's harder when your population is 10 times as big and you're justifying having 500 farmers growing crops by horse.

Also a problem with the tax scheme is the worry that China (or whatever the bogeyperson of the year is) will let the engineers run their country and exterminate all the no-longer-necessary warehouse workers as useless mouths to feed, creating a more efficient society that will outcompete us.

In conclusion, I think we're doomed.

[pilowsky]

In 1960, in the USA 40 (~61%) million people were employed in ‘services’, 21 (32%) million in manufacturing and 4.5 (7%) million in agriculture.

In 2015, the numbers were 118 (83%) 21 (15%) 2.3 (1.6%).

OurWorldInData.




The collapse in farm labor happened in the UK as well.

[WasWinM]

akwoo, on 2025-June-02, 19:19, said:

I played 11 sessions at a regional a few weeks ago with a software engineer who recently retired from Amazon.

He makes the point that each year, his team of 10 engineers improved Amazon warehouse efficiency by around 200 employees. There are many such teams of engineers at Amazon. Amazon can pay each engineer 15 times the wages of a warehouse worker and still come out well ahead. At current rates, it seems like that engineers can keep improving efficiency of warehouses until, in fifty years (or sooner - technological advances may accelerate), a warehouse will just be a "manager" pushing buttons ordering around the robots, and maybe an onsite technician fixing the robots as necessary.

The warehouse worker will never be able to buy a house, because the software engineer with cash to burn can buy 10 houses, demolish them all, and build a mansion. In the past, people building mansions weren't too much of a problem for the real estate market because there weren't too many of them. If 10% of the Bay Area can afford a mansion, that's a problem, because those 10% can basically buy up all the land.

We've never before in all of human history had a society where a significant group of people can do 10 or 20 times as much work (in terms of effect) as the average person.

We can (and should) tax all the software engineers (well the good ones who are making $250K) at much higher rates and distribute that money to the untalented - not just so warehouse workers will have more money but also so that software engineers can't afford 10 houses. Sure that will mean software engineers will retire younger, but needing more warehouse workers, even if it's objectively wasteful, might not be such a bad thing. More of a problem is all the warehouse workers who are out of a job and feeling depressed about their lives even if they have money. Switzerland has a neat fix - they subsidize more labor-intensive ways of doing things in the name of preserving traditional crafts, but while it's easy to justify having 50 farmers growing crops by horse, it's harder when your population is 10 times as big and you're justifying having 500 farmers growing crops by horse.

Also a problem with the tax scheme is the worry that China (or whatever the bogeyperson of the year is) will let the engineers run their country and exterminate all the no-longer-necessary warehouse workers as useless mouths to feed, creating a more efficient society that will outcompete us.

In conclusion, I think we're doomed.

You didn’t get the memo? God will save us.

[kenberg]

mycroft, on 2025-June-02, 18:55, said:

I don't know the answer (it might involve being the only major unravaged economy in the world and getting a 20-year head start); but we might look at Eisenhower tax rates. I'm sure, even with tax lawyers and accountants, more loopholes, and all the rest, there might be more money available to "everybody" if the base rate on every dollar over 3.4 million/yr was taxed at 92% (and from 1mm up at over 50. And corporate tax rates.)

And it wasn't just the taxes. I was 13, a freshman in high school, when Ike beat Stevenson in 1952. I know we have to be careful not to romanticize the old times, but maybe the contrasts can be a little useful. As mentioned, freshman in high school was farther than my dad's education went. I was starting to ask myself about possibilities. I was placed in College Prep in HS. Nobody asked me, they just put me there. By my senior year, college sounded right. My father had had a stroke and he was recoverng, but slowly, and I would have to handle all the costs of college. Ok, tuition at the University of Minnesota was $72 a quarter. I could do that! And buy the books. As it turned out, I got a scholarship, making college easier but even without it, the cost was doable. Harvard? Can'r afford it. Can't get in. Who wants it? The U of M was fine.

In my previous post I had a little trouble deciding whether I was or was not middle class while growing up. Who cares? I bought a car when I was 15 with money I had made on my own, and tuition at the U was such that I could pay my own way through college, so who cares what class that made me.

It seems life has gotten tougher. This is supposed to be a rich counry I am living in. What the hell has gone wrong?

[mycroft]

I wonder what happened in 1970? (from here, and a million other places).

[kenberg]

mycroft, on 2025-June-03, 09:31, said:

I wonder what happened in 1970? (from here, and a million other places).

An interesting graph. The hourly wage graph rises more slowly after 1970 and then starts to decline, for a while, around 1980. I am vague about dates but I recall it was somehere around then that we were being assured that the US economy was changing from a manufacturing economy to a service economy and, we were told, this will all be fine. I recall being skeptical.

[kenberg]

And now for a little comic relief I offer a column by Dana Milbank in WaPo.

https://www.washingt...nions_p001_f015

If you cannot get to that link, the idea is this: Milbank has been going through the vast number of suggestions as to how the Democratic Party should change. Here are a few of his favorite suggestions.

Quote

"Democrats need to reconnect with 'young men' who just want to 'get laid and have fun.'"

"Democrats need to mirror how a herd of elephants at the San Diego Zoo responded to a recent earthquake."

"Democrats need to point out that Florida Republicans support tooth decay."

As he then says
With such a sound strategic plan, how could Democrats lose?

[WasWinM]

kenberg, on 2025-June-04, 06:51, said:

An interesting graph. The hourly wage graph rises more slowly after 1970 and then starts to decline, for a while, around 1980. I am vague about dates but I recall it was somehere around then that we were being assured that the US economy was changing from a manufacturing economy to a service economy and, we were told, this will all be fine. I recall being skeptical.

It’s obvious: John Galt was born in 1950 and became CEO in 1970.

[pilowsky]

SHOCKING NEWS, Trump and Musk aren't friends any more.
Who would have thought such things could happen in our lifetimes?

[WasWinM]

pilowsky, on 2025-June-05, 15:44, said:

SHOCKING NEWS, Trump and Musk aren't friends any more.
Who would have thought such things could happen in our lifetimes?

Musk is only a naturalized citizen; I smell a trip to El Salvador in his future.

[shyams]

If you want your Party to win the 2026 midterm elections "bigly", it's time to start loving Teslas again.

Go electric, buy Tesla. Who knows! Your vehicle purchase decision might help Dems regain both the Senate and the House.

[thepossum]

Sometimes I feel I am watching a previously undiscovered Shakespeare tragedy

Shame we are all part of it