THE REAL REASON THE AMERICAN DREAM IS UNRAVELING

Marketwatch posted an article this week titled Why the American Dream is Unraveling, in 4 charts. As usual, the MSM journalist and the liberal Harvard academic can create charts that reveal a huge problem, but they completely misdiagnose the causes and offer the typical wrong solution of taking more money from producers and handing it to the poor, with no strings attached. This has been the standard operating procedure since LBJ began his War on Poverty 50 years ago. Do these control freaks ever step back and assess how that war is going?

The poverty rate had plunged from 34% in 1950 to below 20% before LBJ ever declared war. It continued down to 15% just as the welfare programs began to be implemented. The percentage of people living in poverty hasn’t budged from the 15% range since the war began. This war has been just as successful as the war on drugs and the war on terrorism. Any time a politician declares war on something, expect a huge price tag and more of the “problem” they are declaring war upon.

The Federal government runs over 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. Over 100 million Americans received benefits from at least one of these programs. Federal and state governments spent $943 billion in 2013 on these programs at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient (not including Social Security & Medicare). That is 27% of the total Federal budget. Welfare spending as a percentage of the Federal budget was less than 2% prior to the launch of the War on Poverty.

In the 50 years since this war started, U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs. Adjusted for inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare) is three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution. In terms of LBJ’s main goal of reducing the “causes” rather than the mere “consequences” of poverty, the War on Poverty has utterly failed. In fact, a large proportion of the population is now completely dependent upon government handouts, incapable of self-sufficiency, and enslaved in a welfare mentality that has destroyed their communities.

The primary cause of their poverty and dependency on government are the policies implemented by liberal politicians which have destroyed the family unit, promoted deviant behavior, encouraged the production of bastard children, eliminated the need for personal responsibility, provided no consequences for bad life choices, and bankrupted the nation. The rise of the welfare state has coincided with the decline of the American state. The proliferation of welfare programs has broken down the behaviors, social norms and cultural standards that lead to self-reliance, generating a pattern of growing inter-generational reliance upon government handouts. By undermining productive social norms, welfare creates a need for even greater succor in the future.

So let’s get to the four charts that supposedly reveal why the American dream is unraveling. The Marketwatch article makes the following claim:

The upper-middle-class families Putnam profiles separate themselves into affluent suburbs, with separate public schools and social spheres from those of their poorer counterparts. As a result, the poorer children not only face greater hardships, but they also lack good models of what is possible. They are effectively cut off from opportunity.

The faux journalist makes the laughable argument the reason poor children don’t succeed in life is because people who have studied hard, graduated college, succeeded in life, and moved out of poor neighborhoods have left the poor children to face hardship and lack of opportunity. This is a classic liberal storyline. Blame those who have succeeded through their own blood, sweat and tears for the failure of those who languish in poverty due to their own life choices, lack of respect for education, and lack of work ethic. Chart number one reveals one thing to the Harvard academic Robert Putnam and another to me. He believes kids of people who have a college education have some sort of unfair advantage over kids of lesser educated parents:

“The most important thing about the experience of being young and poor in America is that these kids are really isolated, and really don’t have close ties with anybody. They are completely clueless about the kinds of skills and savvy and connections needed to get ahead.”

Why are poor kids isolated, with no ties with anybody? Isolated from whom? They don’t have ties to their family? That is a ludicrous contention, supported with no facts. All kids are completely clueless. You don’t get ahead in life through savvy and connections. You have the best chance to get ahead in life through opening a book, studying hard, and getting good grades, all with the support of concerned involved parents. There are no guarantees in life, but education, involved parents, and working hard dramatically increase your odds of success. It’s not a secret formula. Putnam believes the chart below reveals that kids in households with college educated parents have an unfair advantage over kids in households without college educated parents. To me it reveals the complete and utter failure of LBJ’s Great Society programs and the feminist mantra that men aren’t necessary to raise children.

The percentage of children living in single parent households with a college educated parent is virtually the same today as it was in the early 1960’s, just under 10%. The percentage of children living in single parent households with a high school educated parent in the early 1960’s was 20%. Today that number has risen to 65%. Liberals purposely misdiagnose the problem because admitting the true cause of this disastrous trend would destroy their credibility and reveal the failure of their beloved welfare programs. The key point is that prior to LBJ’s War on Poverty less than 10% of ALL children grew up in a single parent households. Today, that number is 33%. The lesson is you get more of what you encourage and incentivize. The liberal academic solution is for college educated households to give more of their money to the high school or less educated households. Academics with an agenda never ask why their solutions haven’t worked in 50 years.

The number of households in the U.S. in 1960 totaled 53 million and there were 24 million traditional married couple with children households, or 45%. There were 3 million single parent households with children, or 6%. Today the total number of households in the U.S. is approximately 122 million and there are only 25 million with traditional married couple with children households, or 20%. Meanwhile single parent families with children households have skyrocketed to 13 million, or 11%. The war on traditional two parent families by the government, liberal mainstream media, Hollywood, feminists, and academics has been far more successful than the War on Poverty.

The drastic increase in households with fatherless children, especially in the black community, is the primary reason the poverty rate hasn’t dropped over the last 50 years. It is the primary reason poor children remain poor. It is the primary reason why every urban enclave in America continues to degenerate into dangerous, filthy, lawless ghettos.  The statistics tell the story of decline, depravity, failure, and an endless loop of poverty.

  • An estimated 24.7 million children (33%) live absent their biological father.
  • Of students in grades 1 through 12, 39% (17.7 million) live in homes absent their biological fathers.
  • 57.6% of black children, 31.2% of Hispanic children, and 20.7% of white children are living absent their biological fathers.
  • Among children who were part of the “post-war generation,” 87.7% grew up with two biological parents who were married to each other. Today only 68.1% will spend their entire childhood in an intact family.

Annual divorce rates are only marginally higher today than they were in the early 1960’s. So that does not account for the drastic increase in fatherless households. But, the differences among races is dramatic. Blacks divorce at a rate twice as high as whites and three times as high as Asians.

Marriage rates of Asians are almost three times higher than marriage rates of blacks. Marriage rates of whites are two times higher than marriage rates of blacks. Is it really surprising that Asian children score the highest on all educational achievement tests?

The facts prove that people (no matter what race) who marry and stay married offer their children a tremendously better opportunity to succeed academically, thereby giving them a much higher chance of moving up the socioeconomic ladder. This doesn’t mean that children from a single parent household can’t succeed. It just means they have a better chance with two parents. It’s just simple math. Two adults working together can provide higher income, more help with school work, and offer a more stable environment for the child. The liberal media and those with a social agenda scorn the traditional family as if it precludes people from living however they choose. The results of the war on families can be seen in the chart below.

The unwed birth rate stayed below 5% from 1945 through the early 1960’s. As soon as the government began incentivizing people to not get married and to have children out of wedlock, the rates skyrocketed. Today, four out of ten children are born out of wedlock. Seven out of ten black children are born out of wedlock. Only two out of ten black children were born out of wedlock in 1964. These births out of wedlock are not the result of dumb teenagers making a mistake. Almost 80% of these births are to mothers over the age of 20, with 40% of the births to mothers over the age of 25. And these horrific results are after the 55 million abortions since 1973. This didn’t happen because of women’s rights or women feeling empowered to raise children on their own. Knowledge about and access to contraceptives is not a reason for unwed pregnancies. Poor women and the men who impregnate them receive more welfare benefits by remaining unmarried and receive additional benefits by having more children out of wedlock.

Children Living with Mother Only-bwh graph

So all of the data confirms the fact children who grow up in two parent households do better in school, are far less likely to be enslaved in poverty, and have a chance to succeed in life, not matter what the educational level of their parents. In the early 1960s there were very few households with college educated parents. My Dad was a truck driver and my mother was a stay at home mom until we were in high school. We were lower middle class, but all three of their children attained college degrees by studying hard, working part-time jobs to help pay for their education, and having the support of concerned parents. Could we have gotten college degrees if we had been raised by only my mother? I doubt it.

Harvard Professor Putnam prefers to ignore the politically incorrect fact that a return to traditional families would begin to reverse the 50 years of damage caused by the War on Poverty. He believes it is in the moral interest of wealthier families to help improve the economic prospects of poorer children. Liberals also don’t think the $13,000 spent per student per year is enough to educate them properly. He actually believes taking more money from producers and handing it to non-producers will boost the U.S. economy.

“The U.S. economy would get a major boost if the opportunity gap were closed. We cannot continue to live in our own bubbles, or compartments on a plate, without consequences. What I hope people take away is that helping poor kids, giving them more skills and more support would economically benefit their kids.”

The country has spent $22 trillion on the war on poverty and spends approximately $1 trillion per year, but liberal academics think if we just spend more, the complete and utter failure of their solutions will be reversed. They ignore the fact a Democratic President (Clinton) and a Republican Congress instituted welfare reform in 1996 that temporarily stopped the increase in spending, halted the rise in unwed births, and put poor people back to work. Today only one welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), effectively promotes self-reliance. Reforms that created TANF in 1996 moved 2.8 million families off the welfare rolls and into jobs. Those gains were reversed as the Obama administration and congressional leadership undid the employment and training requirements enacted 14 years ago. Liberals think it is cruel and inhumane to make poor people work.

Putnam’s final three charts just reinforce the fact traditional families, involved parents, and higher education lead to higher incomes and upward mobility for children in these settings. The reason children in households with college educated parents get more daily attention is because those households are far more likely to have two parents. The time was equal in the early 1970s when two parent families were more prevalent. Having strangers raise kids in government subsidized daycare centers as a substitute for fathers hasn’t worked out so well.

In another shocker, poor children, who are predominantly from single parent households, without a role model to replace their missing fathers, score far worse in tests that predict success in college. The key attribute to educational success is not the educational level of the parents, it’s the need for poor, middle class or wealthy households to have two parents invested in the future of their children.

Attributing obesity rates of children from non-college educated households to the parents’ eduction is quite a reach. In the early 1970’s the obesity rates were very close between high school educated households and college educated households. So why has it surged? The liberals claim the poor go hungry and don’t have enough food. Shouldn’t that lead to higher malnutrition rates and not higher obesity rates? Maybe the surging obesity rates are due to the government lunch programs, the fast food culture in urban ghettos, no fathers around to encourage outside activities, and using food stamps to buy junk food rather than healthier foods. Bad choices generally lead to bad outcomes. Obesity is a choice. Of course liberals now classify it as a disability which needs to be subsidized by the government.

The American dream has unraveled for many reasons. Not spending enough on welfare programs is not one of the reasons. The welfare/warfare state is bankrupt. We spend $1 trillion on welfare programs, $1.4 trillion on Social Security and Medicare, and over $1 trillion on the military/surveillance apparatus. It’s a bipartisan bankruptcy, as Republicans agree to increase the welfare state as long as the Democrats agree to increase the warfare state. The only thing sustaining this debt based house of cards is a Federal Reserve which provides zero interest financing and a never ending willingness to debase our currency to keep the status quo in power. The current rate of spending on the welfare/warfare state is unsustainable. We could voluntarily reduce the spending before the financial collapse or the spending will stop abruptly when our country undergoes a catastrophic financial implosion that will make 2008 look like a walk in the park.

Voluntarily putting the country back on a path of self reliance could be done if there was a will to do so. Reversing the culture of dependency would require a major dose of tough love that would upend the entire ideology of liberalism. Able-bodied, non-elderly adult recipients in all federal welfare programs would be required to work, prepare for work, or at least look for a job as a condition of receiving food stamps or housing assistance. This would promote personal responsibility and provide the recipients with some self respect.  Obama is a big proponent of national service, why not national service for recipients of welfare?

Anti-marriage penalties should be removed from welfare programs, and long-term steps should be taken to rebuild the family in lower-income communities. Marriage penalties occur in many means-tested programs such as food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, day care, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The welfare system needs to be revamped to reduce these counterproductive incentives. The appeal of welfare programs as an alternative to work and marriage could be reduced by requiring able-bodied parents to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid. Today government advertises in an effort to get more people to sign up for food stamps and dozens of other welfare programs. Government should be promulgating the facts on how marriage prevents social ills – poverty, poor education, juvenile crime – associated with children born to unmarried women.

Lastly, we need to cutoff the illegal influx of low-skill immigrants from the South, whose children will receive far more in welfare benefits than they pay in taxes, if they pay any taxes. The country must reject blanket amnesty or “earned citizenship” for millions of illegal immigrants who then could access the welfare system. The welfare system is already unsustainable and adding millions of illegals into the system would be the tipping point.

Lyndon B. Johnson’ s goal was not to create an ever increasing welfare state, but to give the poor a helping hand towards self-sufficiency. His idealistic aim was to cure and prevent poverty. But, once a program is put into the hands of politicians looking to get re-elected every two years, the unintended negative consequences expand exponentially. $22 trillion later the American Dream is virtually non-existent for the 47 million Americans languishing in poverty and the once prosperous middle class who have seen their real wages stagnate due to Federal Reserve created inflation and taxes increase to pay for the ever expanding welfare/warfare state. One chart provides a major explanation of why the American Dream has unraveled, but you won’t see Obama, liberals or the mainstream media talking about it. Traditional married, two parent families are the antidote to poverty, not government welfare programs.

The debate on how to help the poor has raged for centuries. A wise Founding Father told us how the war on poverty would unfold.

“I am for doing good to the poor, but…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed…that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” Benjamin Franklin

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Bostonbob

TPC,
I figured you were just busy with that beautiful wife. When I saw your moniker I wanted to make sure I sent you greetings. Fortunately both my kids go to UMass which has a huge offering of majors. My son actually went in as a Chinese major, but switched to Chem E which is notoriously hard at UMass and will graduate from the honors college. I will say he did bust his ass as well as being quite smart. Nice to see you around.
Bob

TE
TE

@dc, I raised/am raising (22 years between) BOTH kids to work, devote to family, live a life of the Golden Rule and staying out of trouble.

I have a very specific reason WHY I want my daughter to be able to take care of herself: becoming financially trapped in a marriage with a man that is abusive is the WORST thing that can happen. Then you are not only being harmed – physically or mentally – but you are, by all intents and purposes, especially if raised with a hatred of living off others largesse, in prison and firmly stuck.

I was stuck for years in my first marriage. He held all the power and I had to both skill/train/educate myself while fighting his constant degradation and out and out attempted destruction of my jobs and schools, plus figuring out how not to die from Aids, or gonorrhea (allergic to penicillin, doctors didn’t have much hope for my survival if I got syphilis or gonorrhea) in gifts from his coke whores, or from trying to defend myself when he went off the rails and decided I looked like a sparring partner.

While I had a mom & dad that “loved” me, thanks in large part to their Christian background, I didn’t have their help and support to fall back on. Contrary to popular mythology, two married parents don’t always mean great kids and supporting, loving, families. Amazing how messed up so many are and can’t see they came out of married households. Nope, only “single” (impossible, btw) parents have bad/screwed up kids.

Meanwhile, most other mothers I know are telling their girls to get educated then settle down and marry, ship their kids off to daycare, and “have it all.”

Which means killing themselves as it is nearly impossible to have a challenging career and be a great mom/wife. (NOT impossible, just really, really, hard, especially if you can’t afford full time help).

Men should know that (it seems) the majority of girls raised in the past 30 years are being raised to be “independent” in thought, but act like a total dependent when it comes to everything else. I can’t tell you how many times I had a heart-to-heart with my son about the STRONG scent of baby-craving and future dependence coming off his dates. Twice, and I’m being literal, within two months of his ending the relationship, the ex was pregnant and living with some other guy.

That won’t be my daughter, and my son didn’t get trapped either. He has been with his (wonderful) girl for over 6 years, my grandgift is 2.

I also love the Phil Donahue (my mom worked with him at a newspaper in Adrian Michigan) and Ayn Rand reference.

Here’s the problem, Ayn wasn’t taking into account the total and complete loss of property rights that has taken place since 1991. You may not be “poor” today, but the elite and government already have the absolute methods in place to change that for you, instantly, and without crime or even charges.

You, and Llpoh, remind me of my hub and his small-manufacturing/biz owner brothers. None of them will admit the very real arbitrage that went on with the globalization (and btw, $120 for American made jeans that last as long as they did 25 years ago would be GREAT compared to the cheaply made shit with the same tags that cost $50-$60 anyway. So freaking what we would have less clothes, what a horror!).

The WAGE issue is a herring. The REAL issue is while we threw open the doors, allowing the Chinese GOVERNMENT to run our industries out of business, we piled trillions of dollars of costs onto the remaining American businesses in regulations, fees and taxes.

So WHAT about global wages. I can’t import my freaking bolts to China without paying taxes to the Chinese government. But China can provide GM with the SAME (spec’d) bolt, with NO import taxes, next to no quality expenses, NO oversight, NO OSHA, no EPA, no employee health insurance, hell, many times not even limits to their work days or requirements for paid time off.

HOW can you “compete” with THAT? We can’t. And eventually, the remaining successful little guys, will be destroyed and their assets gifted to the same guys that gained from the destruction of all the rest.

@TPC, glad to see you around! Miss your wit and youthful enthusiasm around here.

geo3
geo3

For almost 15 years I toiled in the non-profit sector dealing with disabilities, hunger, mental health, and racism. For all the dollars, nothing solved, just perhaps a brief respite. The most interesting was the adult disabled community, who when surveyed about basic needs not being addressed, the number one response was sex.

Non-profits are very self serving, and God-forbid their cause ever be solved.

TPC
TPC

@TE – global “competition” has been one of the larger contributors to the current decline of the middle class.

Llpoh will be quick to point out that such a thing is quick to happen, however my viewpoint is from a high skilled labor position, yet I am still suffering from severe wage deflation. Not only that, but I do more than a masters level chemist 15 years ago.

A lot more.

“Globalization” has GUTTED our ability to compete in any industry, want to start righting the ship? There’s your first step.

PS: I missed being here. The past 6 months have been rough, my wife had to get another job, and I’m actively trying to land another one as well.

Oh, and she started her own small business, and as soon as she starts her new job I’ll begin work on my own.

Fuck the system man, people understand diversifying their retirement portfolio, but never bother to diversify their present as well. Being beholden to one sole company as your source of income is a big risk, and not one I’ll take one second longer than I absolutely have to.

TE
TE

@TPC, when I look at government and academic and top 5% of the big corporations pay packages, and the real change between Clinton throwing open the doors and today, I am hard pressed to continue to believe our current McJobs and OverRegulationJackBoots is accidental in anyway.

If I were the rich and connected, and I was gifted the ability to triple my standard of living while turning millions/billions into lives of want and desperation, the first way would be to pit the people in a productive war they can’t win.

We will wipe ourselves out. Which is also why race, gender, age and sexuality is being ramped up and set at odds.

Or, it is all just a mistake, accidents, unplanned. Just real lucky the middle is being gutted, their businesses and futures destroyed, and the government and 0.1% accidentally find themselves richer in proportion to the common citizen.

Sorry to hear about your wife’s job, I wish her luck in her new endeavors, and you too. How many other companies near you have employees with your skill set and education? Good luck my friend!

IraK
IraK

The real reason the American dream is unravelling is because Americans don’t trust their government and won’t follow its lead.
Americans want to be independent, creative, entreprenurial, and successful on their own.
That American attitude is anti-social, anti-American, and harms the State.
Americans should accept their role in society. Americans shoud work for the State and its goals. Americans should be good followers. Trying to be independent and working for oneself and family is un-patriotic and un-American.
Do what’s best for your country, accept your role in society, work for the State and its leaders.
I do and I’ve been enornously successful. You should too and your role will be best for you.

Jack Worthington
Jack Worthington

I wish everyone could read Murray Rothbard’s For A New Liberty as he exposes the fallacies in commonly and widely held opinions. Rothbard was a proponent of the non-aggression philosophy, although he doesn’t seem to explain how the seizure of land from the indigenous American Indians was justified; in fact he neglect to deal with this issue (well, I’m only up to p. 70, so maybe he will explain later.) Also, I highly recommend the following:

No Treason No. 6, The Constitution of No Authority (http://praxeology.net/LS-NT-6.htm)
The NoStateProject blog by Marc Stevens (http://marcstevens.net/) or
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNuFxsBow8k&feature=youtube_gdata_player)
Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt http://www.fee.org/library/detail/economics-in-one-lesson-2)
The Inflation Crisis, and How to Resolve It by Hazlitt (http://www.e-booksdirectory.com/details.php?ebook=1686)
The Law by Frederic Bastiat http://www.fee.org/files/doclib/20121116_TheLaw.pdf
Or http://mises.org/books/thelaw.pdf )
That Which is Seen and That Which is not Seen (http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html)
Stephen’s Guide to the Logical Fallacies (http://www.onegoodmove.org/fallacy/toc.htm)

TPC
TPC

@TE – “@TPC, when I look at government and academic and top 5% of the big corporations pay packages, and the real change between Clinton throwing open the doors and today, I am hard pressed to continue to believe our current McJobs and OverRegulationJackBoots is accidental in anyway.”

It galls me to look at how much government sector colleagues make. I hate it to the point I’m seriously considering trying to grab my own job there. The pay is just not comparable. My role in government is a 6 figure job.

Private sector? Most want to pay me 60k. Luckily our CEO realizes thats not a good idea, though my boss is an ass about pay. Trying to get himself that big bonus by keeping his department costs down.

As for my wife’s job, they fired her boss, then handed her his job responsibilities but none of the pay or more resources to make up for it. She did it for 6 months, then reached out to some friends and now is going to work for as a marketer for Berkshire-hathaway. Slight reduction in pay, great gains in freedom.

The pay loss sucks, but I’ll be happy to have my wife back. Her current employer thinks salary means “on call 24/7”.

We are both ramping up on the private side of things because our goal is to achieve financial independence by the time we are having kids….so a few years from now.

llpoh
llpoh

TPC – you say “by the time we are having kids”. I gather that it will take you that long to figure out the process!

Glad to see you TPC! We need smart young folks to post more often.

TPC
TPC

@LLPOH-

Dont worry man, we’ve been practicing >=D

ZombieDawg
ZombieDawg

Another dose of reality for you yanks from your own country people..

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2010/08/17/death-and-joblessness-how-suicide-dogs-long-term-unemployed

Here’s a fucking hint – vote for someone who DOESN’T want to be your president.
ie not some simpering, pathetic, self-serving, paid-off, wanking cunt scumbag like your Obama.
Look where he GOT YOU ALL.
Yeah, that’s right – the people WORTH electing DON’T run for office do they.
So work out what’s coming in your future…

flash
flash

Pissy, god to see you back around ,and as you well know , hard work and degrees don’t jack in the new We Are The World ( of slave labor) economy. On one hand the banks work feverishly to sell suckers high dollar advanced degrees, (i.e a lifetime of debt servitude) while using the back of that same hand to bitch slap those same debtors to the back of the bus by lobbying for one pro-slave labor bill after another ….we don’t have enough trained technicians they say..sheesh…just more evidence that We the People no longer have effective representation in government. American workers have become the proverbial red-haired stepchild when it comes to competing with foreign born competition for jobs.

When formulating immigration policy , legislators only care to hear what their corporate campaign contributors want and that is cheap labor.

Study Finds No Shortage of High-Tech Workers in U.S.

Despite the clamor that there is a perpetual shortage of American high-tech workers, the number of foreign workers with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) degrees that the United States imports annually alone exceeds the number of available STEM jobs, making it tougher for Americans to move up the economic ladder by getting good-paying jobs in those professions.

A Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report released on Tuesday ahead of a panel on the subject at the National Press Club found that from 2007-2012, STEM employment averaged “averaged only 105,000 jobs annually” while the U.S. admitted about 129,000 immigrants with STEM degrees. That means “the number of new immigrants with STEM degrees admitted each year is by itself higher than the total growth in STEM employment.” During that time period, the number of U.S.-born STEM graduates grew by an average of 115,00 a year.

Authors Steven Camarota, CIS’s director of research, and Karen Ziegler, a CIS demographer, wrote that these numbers are “truly extraordinary” and “it should not be surprising that most STEM graduates (immigrant or native) do not have STEM jobs.”

The report, titled, Is There a STEM Worker Shortage? A look at employment and wages in science, technology, engineering, and math, is consistent with research from Georgetown University, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the Rand Corporation, the Urban Institute, and the National Research Council that have also found no evidence that America has a shortage of high-tech workers. And its findings concluded that America “has more than twice as many workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs.” When combined with slight wage growth in the STEM fields for more than a decade, the authors concluded that “both employment and wage data indicate there is no shortage of STEM workers in the United States.”

“When formulating policy, elected representatives need to consider the actual conditions in the U.S. labor market, rather than simply responding to pressure from employers in industries that wish to hire large numbers of foreign STEM graduates,” the authors suggest. “While employers may find this situation desirable, it is difficult to argue this is the interest of American people as a whole.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/05/20/report-u-s-has-surplus-not-shortage-of-high-tech-workers/

flash
flash

‘Murica !

#2 In more than half of all U.S. states, the highest paid public employee in the state is a football coach.

#4 Almost half of all Americans (47 percent) do not put a single penny out of their paychecks into savings.

#5 In 2014, police in the United States killed 1,100 people. During that same year, police in Canada killed 14 people, police in China killed 12 people and police in Germany didn’t kill anyone at all.

#9 When LBJ’s “War on Poverty” began, less than 10 percent of all U.S. children were growing up in single parent households. Today, that number has skyrocketed to 33 percent.

#10 In 1950, less than 5 percent of all babies in America were born to unmarried parents. Today, that number is over 40 percent.

#25 There are more than 4 million adult websites on the Internet, and they get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.

#29 The average American spends more than 10 hours a day using an electronic device.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-25/33-strange-facts-about-america-most-americans-would-be-shocked-learn

TPC
TPC

@flash – Unfortunately its completely true. I mean, STEM degrees are still better off than computer programmers and the like, but pay has been stagnant/falling since 2007.

The other “sure-fire” job field was nursing/healthcare, but with the number of healthcare organizations dropping (Obamacare drove everyone into mega conglomerates) the number of nurses has actually leveled off, and they are seeing severe wage deflation as well.

Things are going to get a helluva lot worse before they get any better.

flash
flash

We all hear the incessant sophistry claiming that if not for Cheap Chinese Crap (CCC) , compliments of a post manufacturing America , then most of America would not be enjoying the fruits of foreign slave labor , which is to say American’s wouldn’t have access to affordable consumer goods, which is unadulterated bullshit.

I find it strange that it’s only in the past three decades that American consumers found themselves unable to afford our own manufactured goods , which necessitated -according the international banksters – not only the off-shoring of American jobs , but a massive increase in credit/debt based money with which to finance the great off shoring and to put purchasing power back in the hands of the now underemployed/paid American worker. After all one can’t sell goods’ ,even Cheap Chinese Crap (ccc) to a nation of people with no jobs or poor paying jobs, hence the corporate push to make easy credit access able to all American, employed or not.

So , in a nutshell , we had a criminal conspiracy masquerading as Federal money policy creating massive inflation that naturally led to increased wage demands which was interpreted by self-serving banksters and crony corporations as justifiable reason to abandon the suddenly too expensive to maintain American manufacturing labor force in lieu of the Asian slave labor markets.

Off-shoring allowed the investment bankster houses(also highly leveraged , btw) to increase returns of an average 3% on a mature US manufacturing market to a staggering 30% ROI in the Asian slave labor markets , but at what cost to American employment and national sovereignty?

I don’t know if anyone has put a figure to the monetary amount the US government in collusion with global banking interests have cost American towns, cities and States in loss tax revenue and other costs associated with people lacking meaningful employment e.g. crime , poverty ,disease , drug addiction and suicide , but if any were available I’m sure the figures would be would be staggeringly disgusting .

So , what I’m trying to say here is , the American worker became unaffordable mostly due to a Federal money policy that most blue collar workers never knew existed. And if the purposeful destruction of the American economy thus the welfare of all US citizenry is not high treason, then nothing ever can be.

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Jeff
Jeff

Flash …

in a word , DEBT …. and in two words DEBT CREATION . We need assets to circulate.

DC Sunsets

I’m debt free.
Other than home mortgages, so are my sons (for all practical purposes.)
It can be done.

As to STEM fields, my three sons: Comp Sci, Mech Eng, Comp Sci. Both computer grads work for the same Big Corporation, middle son works for BIG Corporation. All do fairly well.

Youngest son explained something to me: He said,”We off-shore pretty much all the programming. My job is to know what information we have, and in what form it sits, and when our business people want to undertake a new project or offer a new product, I know what can and can’t be done, and largely how to accomplish it. Then we turn the programming over to code monkeys overseas.”

Oldest son explained to me why the curriculum at universities is a waste of time. He said, “They’re teaching people how to code, line by line, and write programs from the ground up. No one does that any more. There are entire libraries of open-source code available, and when you have a project, you simply go out and find pre-existing code someone else has written, and you incorporate it into your project. The old way of teaching programming is largely irrelevant to how projects are done now.”

We sail into an uncertain and tempest-filled future. One thing I know: Far too many people think STEM fields or Medical Fields are sinecures. The truth is that nothing is guaranteed.

This is why only crazy people go to college without a very firm plan on how the vast investment is likely to pay off. I figure that maybe 1 out of 100 college students have done that math.

Jeff
Jeff

Good for you dc.sunsets …. so am I , but that can’t be done by all, even in terms of technical possibility on the basis of the current debt based system. Too much debt … more debt that there is liquidity , which is exactly why the only way to purge the existing debt is to add assets into actual circulation.

Bullion is currency. Just add assets and stir.

flash
flash

Sorry, DC, I generally agree with most you post , but you, ike US all, are in no way free from government obligation i.e. You pay the obligatory tax to work, live, travel and communicate just like every other debt slave cultivated by the State.

I’m happy for you and yours to be able to find gainful employment in this crony controlled economy , but that’s your situation and is in no way indicative of the general situation amongst those of employable age.

debt
[det]

noun
1.
something that is owed or that one is bound to pay to or perform for another:

2.
a liability or obligation to pay or render something:

3.
the condition of being under such an obligation:

flash
flash

“Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away.

You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives.

All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you.

Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves?

You sow your crops in order that he may ravage them, you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust; you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows — to be led into his battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made the servants of his greed and the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labor in order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in order to make him the stronger and the mightier to hold you in check.

From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.

Étienne de La Boétie

Constman54

Flash, agreed. We are all debt slaves. Once we gave the power to tax (especially income) we handed the keys of our freedom over to the Great Grand Government of the USA. Income taxes & property taxes have made us all debt slaves. the only moral tax (if there is such a thing) is a consumption tax or a tariff on imports. Other than that ALL taxes are immoral and so is fiat money. We can say we have been born into it, but then it is up to us to change it.

Without income taxes there would be no industrial-military complex. The 2nd amendment is there to protect the USA. A well trained local militia will keep all things in check. There is NO NEED for a standing army or militarized police force. If there was no standing army we could not so easily go to war in foreign lands,.If we simply had a well armed citizenry NO ONE would dare attack us, from within or without..

And then property taxes. A man cannot even own land outright. The Gov’t lays claim to own it and tell you what you can and cannot do with it. If you don’t pay your property taxes you will not “own” your land for very long………

Nixon was the WORST president EVER and not for Watergate. he opened the flood-gates to all kinds of shenanigans. From fake money to the EPA…………..

DC Sunsets

@flash, I’m not arguing with you, I’m just saying that we can and should attempt to follow the path that reduces as much as possible the chains we otherwise must wear.

You quoted Boetie so you know. There is no avoiding the world to which our foolish, covetous neighbors consent. All we can do is lean as far as possible to a direction that minimizes (but cannot eliminate) the baleful influence of their folly on our lives.

TE
TE

@TPC, good luck with the public sector man.

My first accounting professor, an owner of a small CPA firm (I had a great education from guys that actually did the job, not just taught theory), told me to take my ass and get a government job. His quote, “you will put in 20/25 years and retire a young women with a guaranteed salary for nothing. Then you could take another pension job, or do your own thing.”

I was young and idealistic and convinced that I could make much more money on the private side of life. For a few years, I was right, and also worked a few union-connected gigs that made me realize I am not the person for that life. I have a justice thing, and rewarding the corrupt, lazy and dangerous makes me insane.

That all changed in 2000. Best laid plans and all that crap. I wish I could convince myself to just ignore the insanity and take the perks.

Funny thing is that I find my marriage the exact same situation. I’ve tried to convince myself to just accept and be happy, instead I feel dead inside.

And that is no way to live, so I’ll avoid public service. Not being sarcastic because I know what a good gig that is, I hope you are the sort that can live with it. If so, you will thrive, good luck, my friend.

Homer
Homer

YOU ALL CAN MAKE A LIVING DOING EACH OTHERS LAUNDRY. hahahahahah!

Homer
Homer

TE–Get the book “There is a River” by Thomas Sugrue and read the damn thing.

Homer
Homer

TE–The reason that you feel dead inside is a spiritual thing. Your thirsting, you have lost the meaning of
life and therefore your direction. It’s at Amazon, and cheap, too.

Homer
Homer

Constman54—You’re wrong the worst president was Abe Lincoln. Followed by a slew of other notables.

Obama
FDR
Nixon
Clinton
Bush II & I
Woodrow Wilson
Grant

It’s a fact s**t floats to the top of the toilet.

God
God

TE—–Listen to Homer!

God
God

TE—-Ye are not alone, I Am That I Am is with you always. If I AM for you who could stand against thee.

Homer
Homer

WOW!!! A message from God. How lucky you are TE. Don’t give up hope. Hope is the acknowledgement of things unseen.

TE
TE

Homer, while I appreciate your caring, I have to tell you, I am not dead inside because of spirituality, or a lack of, either.

God and I are just fine. Thanks for asking.

I’m dead inside because I can see, and read, the writing on the gd wall, but my “better half” spends all his time washing off the message and believing the liars.

Thank you though, and I’ll check out the book. What a constant reader needs is one more book to add to the pile that I probably will not have the physical moments left to read. But I’ll give it one helluva try.

ps- Thanks God. Nice to get a definite message for a change.

Homer
Homer

TE–If you want to change your “better half’, change yourself first. A good place to start is ‘read the book’.

I have seen miracles with many in more dire straits than you. Some with the same complaint. Can’t hurt to try.

TE
TE

Thank you Homer, and I have been “trying,” going on ten years now.

Ok, I lie, trying changed to surviving about five years ago.

I am reading the good book and do believe in miracles.

I also believe that if I smack my head into a wall and it hurts, I should quit smacking it, not read a book about some other guy not feeling pain.

Homer
Homer

TE–Off the subject. I kinda think that your relationship with you husband is karmic in nature. That is not uncommon in marital relationships. Difficult relationship issues need be met with patience and loving understanding. This doesn’t mean that you have to denigrate your feelings. You should prepare as best as you can with what you have as to what you know. Not to be argumentative or critical, but as a helpmate.

TE patience is the operative word here. A lot of what transpired in the book happened during the ‘Great Depression’. People called it ‘hard times’, it was called ‘hard times’ for a reason. If you read the book and don’t find helpful value in it, I’ll buy you a 15 cents soda at the drugstore soda fountain.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

Homer says: TE–If you want to change your “better half’, change yourself first. A good place to start is ‘read the book’.

Sage advice, Homer. TE is a lost cause. You would do better to smack your head on the wall til it hurts. All we can do is love her for the wonderful person she is and curse the darkness that envelops her mind/spirit.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

A song to cheer you up, TE

Homer
Homer

EL Coyote—Nice! Jimmy Durante was one of my all time favorites. I use to lay at the foot of the radio (there wasn’t tv back then, to speak of) and listen attentively. Jimmy Durante made people laugh even though he has a big handycap. He just laughed with them.

Jack Benny–We’re going to have a special guest tonight on the show, Jimmy Durante.

Rochester–Mr. Benny, Jimmy Durante will be her in 2 minutes.

Jack Benny–Well, how do you know?

Rochester– His nose just showed up.

TPC
TPC

@TE – I’ve been looking into Pub sector, unfortunately the ones that I meet the the qualifications for require moving to Colorado or the like. Good jobs, but pay is the same as I get now, and in more expensive areas.

I’m at the unfortunate age where I have too much experience to get entry level positions, but not enough managerial experience to walk into middle management.

Maybe I should just do my own thing…..

BREAKING BAD???

J/k, for the love of god don’t report me. I DIDN’T MEAN IT NSA!

FreePDFBook.com

thanks

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