It’s the “Greatest Economy Ever,” right? Well, it depends on who you ask.
For instance, a new report sheds light on 53 million Americans, or about 44% of all US workers, aged 18 to 64, are considered low-wage and low-skilled.
Many of these folks are stuck in the gig economy, making approximately $10.22 per hour, and they bring home less than $20,000 per year, according to a Brookings Institution report.
An overwhelmingly large percentage of these folks have insurmountable debts if that are student loans, auto loans, and or credit card debt. Their wages don’t cover their debt servicing payments as their lives will be left in financial ruin after the next recession.
While the top 10% of Americans are partying like it’s 1999, most of whom own assets, like stocks, bonds, and real estate, are greatly prospering off the Federal Reserve’s serial asset bubble-blowing scheme and President Trump’s stock market pumping on Twitter.
Today’s artificial economy isn’t working for everyone as the wealth inequality gap swells to crisis levels.
The US is at the 11th hour, one hour till midnight, as the wealth inequality imbalance will correct itself by the eruption of protests on the streets of major metro areas, sort of like what’s been happening across the world in Chile, Hong Kong, Lebanon, and Barcelona.
An uprising, a revolution, people are waking up to the fact that unelected officials and governments have ruined the economy and has resulted in their financial misery of low wages and insurmountable debts.
The report shows almost half of all low-wage workers are clustered in ten occupations, such as a retail salesperson, cooks and food preparation, building cleaners, and construction workers (these are some of the jobs that will get wiped out during the next recession).
Shown below, most of these low-wage workers are centered in areas around the North East, Mid-Atlantic, and Rust Belt.
As we’ve detailed in past articles, millions of these low-wage and low-skilled jobs will never be replaced after the next recession, that’s due in part to mega corporations swapping out these jobs with automation and artificial intelligence.
The solution by the government and the Federal Reserve, to avoid riots in the streets, will be the implementation of various forms of quantitative easing for the people.
There’s a reason why you already hear the debate of universal income, central banks starting to finance green investments, and other various forms of short/long term stimulus, that is because the global economy is grinding to a halt — and the only solution at the moment is to do more of the same.
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Hey Zero hedge, why don’t you use current numbers instead of using 2012-2016?
Not to mention it’s from the Brookings Institute.
Wages have been low for many for a long time. Inequality? No, I realize that other people went to school or made better choices. Complaining about it or expecting higher wages for a low skill job is stupid.
But for the low-income person(millions of them) A home or buying a new car is out of the question.
This why all this socialist talk is going on. when an apartment and groceries are a strain and you have no health insurance because you can’t afford it. (think Obama care) It makes people seek change.
Almost like 2 different worlds simultaneously. One refuses to recognize the other. Underachievers are non deserving. Let that gap grow, as it has, people will get desperate. Need to show them a way for success based on hard work and achievement. Show examples for support of that. Today’s missing piece.
Another reason is the hordes of third world immigrants, legal and illegal, suppressing the wage base.
I’ve known a lot of grocery-baggers with respectable college degrees. Doesn’t mean a thing anymore. And no, the degrees aren’t always in basket weaving. Although there are a couple of those. There are just too many people with the same credentials—more or less—chasing the same lure.
And the people running things brag about the fact that soon robots will replace them all. How much more denigration will people be willing to accept before they walk away?
A person who has “a job” is the 20th/21st century equivalent to serf/slave.
A job is a noose you place around your neck voluntarily because you do not trust your own abilities and aptitudes. The odds of success in life are directly tied to the amount of risk you are willing to take. A job is not a risk, it’s a false sense of security that minimizes risk. Why anyone would expect a job to bring them success, happiness and wealth is beyond my ability to comprehend because it never has been. It was a trade-off for as long as it has been available.
Think back to the beginning of the industrial era. Where did all of those employees come from? Either the immigrant class with no options, or people fleeing “hard work” of the farm. They abandoned risk for security, traded hard work for drudgery and the unpredictability of Nature for the mind-numbing repetition of the assembly line.
I predict that within the next century people will look back on jobs the same way we look back on slavery today. It will seem odd that people were willing to put their own lives in the hands of corporations simply to avoid standing on their own two feet.
Of course all of mankind has existed in those two states for as long as we have had complex societies; Freedom or Slavery. There are no other options.
The problem now is if you’re not already ON the farm it takes a hell of a lot of money to get back onto one.
HSF – many times on TBP I have said that the entire idea of “jobs” is wrong. people do not need jobs – they need to make a living. but the vast majority of people are indoctrinated into the idea of having to have a “job”. Politicians talk and crow about “job creation”.
People have come to believe they not only have a right to a job, but to a high paying one at that. Of course, having such a right would confer on others an obligation to provide such jobs. And clearly, there are zero private businesses that are buying into the notion that they have an obligation to provide jobs. That is evidenced by the fact that businesses are running away from employing people, and instead are automating.
Here it is from a businessman’s perspective: I HATE employing people. I hate it with a purple passion. If given a choice, I would sooner put my nuts on an anvil and pound them with a hammer than employ a person. Having employees sucks, and I will do anything financially viable to not have employees.
Why is that? Because a largish percentage of people are pains in my ass. They miss work, they make stupid mistakes, they do not follow instructions, they are drug and alcohol affected.
Further, the fucking government makes me responsible for employees. I have to pay their taxes for them, their SS, etc. I have to pay to train them and pay for their mistakes. I have to suffer through their personal issues as it affects their performance. I am responsible for their safety, even when they screw up personally. Etc etc etc.
Llpoh you berate working people about their skills abilities and attitude a great deal . Experience should have taught you by now “ you get what you pay for”!
You are either not paying enough for quality people or you burn out good people with unrealistic expectations .
You generally have the same complaint so you are doing something critically wrong or your are a narcissistic wind bag living in your moms basement with little or no real world experience in how to work and operate a business of substance with good dedicated people .
Anon – I am responding to the article which says there are 53 million low skilled workers out there. I do not want any of them as employees. That said, the problems I described apply to all employees – employers do no want to employ even skilled workers, if there is a financially viable option. I berate working people, and all types of people, because, like the population in general, most people are fucking idiots.
You are clearly a moron. You do not “get what you pay for”. Go read up on Maslow’s theories and get back to me. Trying to buy good employees is a fool’s game. What you have to do is meet the market rate, and take your chances. There is no other criteria.
I have been successfully managing and owning businesses for over 40 years now. Just what the fuck have you been doing, asshole?
Making money for my company for longer than you claim to be at it . Resorting to the type of name calling you use proves my point . Everybody is an idiot asshole but you , go back to your moms basement and try again
So, what you are saying is that you work a job. Hahahahaha! Know nothing twat is all yo are. “Yassah massah” is all you know.
Llpoh still at it with the mouth , proving my point ! What did mommy make you for dinner ?
QE for the people= moar tats.
Remember, low-wage employment only works because we the taxpayers provide SNAP, Section 8, public transportation, and other public benefits that keep that worker & family going. We are essentially subsidizing private sector payrolls with our tax money. If you’re a low-wage employer relying on tax funded programs to keep your employees alive, then Obama was right, “you didn’t build that”.
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages/
Sort of. Correlation isn’t causation. It’s true that if wages were high enough to force people off of SNAP and Section 8, we’d save some money on those programs, but if increased automation reduced the need for workers, that might increase the so-called need for those programs. People will take advantage of free stuff when they can. It’s not like increasing the amount of free stuff would allow employers to pay only $1 an hour. People will work for money when they have to. What’s suppressing wages isn’t so much the fact that citizens can get SNAP or Section 8, but the fact that illegal aliens will work for low wages precisely because they can’t easily access government handouts. The exception to that is California, which treats illegals like citizens and – accordingly – has half of the country’s welfare recipients. Over the last thirty years, the sectors of the economy where real wages have fallen have been those where illegals now do most of the work.
Marsh – fucking horseshit. Even if the it were somewhat true, this would happen: if wages for the unskilled ramped up, automation would increase, and there would be fewer jobs, the competition for the unskilled work would be greater, and wages would reduce down again. Not to mention of course that the “subsidies” pay for themselves via reduced cost of goods and services.
Look at it this way, Marsh: Are most employers concerned with whether their employees are happy and well-fed, with their essential needs met? Of course not. They’re “evil corporations”, right? So it’s not like they say to themselves “I was going to pay my employees $20/hour so that they would be healthy and self-actualized, but since Uncle Sugar is helping them, I’ll only pay them $11”. No. The employer only wants to pay his workers enough so that they’ll show up on time and get the work done. It’s pure supply and demand. In fact, since the government is making it easier for people to get by without earning any money, the supply of willing workers is suppressed, which would naturally put upward pressure on wages. What suppresses wages is an endless supply of willing workers – which is why the big corporations love illegal immigration.
Iska – right you are.
My reading of this article leaves me with the impression that the rich have some responsibility for creating the poor. There’s some truth to that because their accumulation of wealth removes a certain amount of currency from the society as a whole and sequesters it in investments, etc resulting in less liquidity available at the lower end. Fair enough.
The article also mentions automation / and AI, aka computerization as a source for jobs lost. True again. But is this a negative development; one that should be curtailed? I don’t think so. The Ludites of old didn’t accomplish anything lasting and any modern attempt at slowing what is essentially progress hasn’t a chance of succeeding.
The ‘middle class’ is not mentioned at all, just the extremes at both ends.
That the super wealthy have an unfair advantage is self evident. The system as a whole is designed for their benefit. However, I believe the poor are poor due largely to their own deficiencies whether by choice or genetics.
“You can’t fix stupid” – Ron White
What’s to be done with people at the low end of the IQ spectrum? The US military has an IQ minimum because they’ve determined that below a certain level a person can’t do even the lowliest job and the military is forever looking for bodies. Their rejection of a portion of the population is telling and should be viewed soberly.
What’s to be done with people that may have a sufficiently high innate intelligence, but never got a proper education for whatever reason or are just plain lazy and have learned to game the system? Families have been on gov’t support for generations because they’ve learned to vote for a living instead of working for a living. The entitlement mentality pervades the society and has been catered to in ever increasing support levels. Tens of millions are on some form of gov’t assistance paid for largely by working people, aka the middle class, or debt monetization that helps destroy the value of the currency, equally as deleterious.
Leaving out Social Security recipients that are living up to their end of the Ponzi bargain and are truly owed what was promised because they paid for it and the truly physically incapacitated that can’t work for a living still leaves millions of people that are barely productive or are already consuming more resources than they contribute.
Whatever you subsidize you get more of.
Replacing the word ‘poor’ with ‘unproductive’ changes the tenor of the discussion, doesn’t it? It’s the unproductive that aren’t making it. Should we keep supporting the unproductive that are growing in numbers? I don’t think so because it doesn’t somehow make them productive. It doesn’t fix the underlying problem. Supporting them increases their numbers.
The knee jerk reaction will be to keep increasing support for the unproductive up to the point when the economy crashes. Once that happens, either the checks stop, the amounts decrease, or the value the checks represent lose purchasing power. I see no other options.
In a sense, the US economy is in the life boat situation. The life boat is already somewhat overloaded and hauling more people into the boat will sink it and everyone in it. The super rich will be just fine. The middle class, not so much, as they will become the legitimate poor through no fault or deficiencies of their own.
Although the desire to do no harm is a noble instinct, a tough love approach might make some people productive because they have no alternative but to die. There are no medium term solutions as too much time and too many resources have been squandered. The long term solution to rebuild should include only one short term bite at any welfare apple in a life time and then it’s sink or swim.
Solutions : thanks for pointing out those of us collecting Social security disability are merely being awarded an insurance benefit we paid for ! I worked full time for 42 years and was hit with a near death illness through no fault of my life style or choices . After a year of attempts to go back to full time work I was ashamed to pack it in . The old boy is too weak and worn down . The doctors on my case and the coordinator where I was hospitalized exclaimed why are you still working full time , you were eligible for disability 3 years ago !
I took them up on it but I still dabble in some part time stuff , been working since lawn cutting snow shoveling and a paper route ! Taught a work ethic a long time ago and it stuck !
I’m going to work till I die.
Doing the stereotypical retirement shtick is too boring.
Pyramid schemes really aren’t that hard to figure out. You got what was promised because you were an early investor. Current investors won’t be so lucky.
Just as the money you paid in was given away to even earlier “investors”, the money you receive is the money that current workers are being scammed out of today. Were I you, I’d be praying that when the current workers get stiffed they don’t ever figure out where their money went (hint: to you) just as you haven’t figured it out.
Ignorance is Strength.
anon – if you are receiving SSDI you sure as hell are unlikely to have ever contributed anywhere near the amount you paid in. SS is a fucking tax, not a bank account, and so sorry, the money taxed has been spent.
How about the other money (taxes) also known as theft did he pay in 42 years? So fuck off with your high and mighty attitude.
Carry on…
What, exactly, was promised to anyone about Social Security?
Like most promises made by con-artists, the original promise of social security is a total LIE.
You may be right, but what – EXACTLY – was “promised”? That you’ll get some unspecified amount of money later? That you’ll get enough to buy 30 pounds of potatoes each month? If everybody gets $100 / month in Social Security would that be a kept promise?
My reading of this article leaves me with the impression that the rich have some responsibility for creating the poor. There’s some truth to that because their accumulation of wealth removes a certain amount of currency from the society as a whole and sequesters it in investments, etc resulting in less liquidity available at the lower end. Fair enough.
The article also mentions automation / and AI, aka computerization as a source for jobs lost. True again. But is this a negative development; one that should be curtailed? I don’t think so. The Ludites of old didn’t accomplish anything lasting and any modern attempt at slowing what is essentially progress hasn’t a chance of succeeding.
The ‘middle class’ is not mentioned at all, just the extremes at both ends.
That the super wealthy have an unfair advantage is self evident. The system as a whole is designed for their benefit. However, I believe the poor are poor due largely to their own deficiencies whether by choice or genetics.
“You can’t fix stupid” – Ron White
What’s to be done with people at the low end of the IQ spectrum? The US military has an IQ minimum because they’ve determined that below a certain level a person can’t do even the lowliest job and the military is forever looking for bodies. Their rejection of a portion of the population is telling and should be viewed soberly.
What’s to be done with people that may have a sufficiently high innate intelligence, but never got a proper education for whatever reason or are just plain lazy and have learned to game the system? Families have been on gov’t support for generations because they’ve learned to vote for a living instead of working for a living. The entitlement mentality pervades the society and has been catered to in ever increasing support levels. Tens of millions are on some form of gov’t assistance paid for largely by working people, aka the middle class, or debt monetization that helps destroy the value of the currency, equally as deleterious.
Leaving out Social Security recipients that are living up to their end of the Ponzi bargain and are truly owed what was promised because they paid for it and the truly physically incapacitated that can’t work for a living still leaves millions of people that are barely productive or are already consuming more resources than they contribute.
Whatever you subsidize you get more of.
Replacing the word ‘poor’ with ‘unproductive’ changes the tenor of the discussion, doesn’t it? It’s the unproductive that aren’t making it. Should we keep supporting the unproductive that are growing in numbers? I don’t think so because it doesn’t somehow make them productive. It doesn’t fix the underlying problem. It increases their numbers.
The knee jerk reaction will be to keep increasing support for the unproductive up to the point when the economy crashes. Once that happens, either the checks stop, the amounts decrease, or the value the checks represent lose purchasing power. I see no other options.
In a sense, the US economy is in the life boat situation. The life boat is already somewhat overloaded and hauling more people into the boat will sink it and everyone in it. The super rich will be just fine. The middle class, not so much, as they will become the legitimate poor through no fault or deficiencies of their own.
Although the desire to do no harm is a noble instinct, a tough love approach might make some people productive because they have no alternative but to die. There are no medium term solutions as too much time and too many resources have been squandered. People will probably die during the next downturn (read depression). The long term solution to rebuild should include only one short term bite at any welfare apple in a life time and then it’s sink or swim.
“Whatever you subsidize you get more of.” So True. If left alone, nature culls the unproductive, organically.
“The super rich will be just fine. The middle class, not so much, as they will become the legitimate poor through no fault or deficiencies of their own.” I wonder about this. Or will Slave become Master? I don’t see the super rich fixing their plumbing or milking a cow….or even making their own coffee? They need minions. Seems to me, it will be an opportunity for the middle (or productive) class to shine once again.
“The long term solution to rebuild should include only one short term bite at any welfare apple in a life time and then it’s sink or swim.” I believe this was the original “intention” of public assistance.
Slave isn’t intelligent or ruthless enough to become master. The rich will purchase allegiance and protection from slaves wanting to move up in the world and wanting crumbs from masters table. That story has been repeated time and time again over the ages. If you want to call that ‘shining’ I won’t argue, but it’s really just a reflection from a very dim bulb.
I’d bet some ‘warlord’ types will be created for a short time, not necessarily among the rich, but among the hungry rabble. They’ll get taken out by their competition or just some stubborn individual that’s not going to take any shit from anyone any more.
Anyone wearing a gov’t costume is going to be a target. Cops will be the first responders to ‘maintain order’ and thus will be the first to suffer some serious casualties. They will quickly quit en masse to guard their families as every one of them has probably abused their authority and those manhandled on previous occasions will see this as payback time.
The military might want to create a dictatorship – a naked totalitarian police state. That’s happened before in the world and I see no reason the attempt can’t be made by some opportunistic thug. I doubt the troops would cooperate for very long, but you never know given the low character of the mercenaries in the all volunteer forces.
“Slave isn’t intelligent or ruthless enough to become master. The rich will purchase allegiance and protection from slaves wanting to move up in the world and wanting crumbs from masters table.” Tell that to Tsar Nicholas and Marie Antoinette.
I never claimed it to be a smart strategy.
The rich will get eaten if their within range.
Seebee.
Not very good examples. In both cases they were funded by groups with nefarious motives.
I’ll see you, but raise you…what murders do not involve nefarious motives?
Savant,
The OBVIOUS SOLUTIONS weren’t exercised when the times called for them. Why? Because the rich, the elite take care of themselves. Example: the last economic shitstorm.
Tarp. You cannot have capitalism or fiat currency system without bankruptcy.
The Federal Reserve thinks that Economics is real. They believe in this nonsense to make their ‘decisions’. From my perspective they make their moves relying on junk models based on a faulty understanding of how the world works. That’s why they NEVER get anything right; they’re always behind the curve and their predictions are always off, many times severely off.
They are a reactionary body that’s good at bullshitting Congress to provide the appearance of learned geniuses. In plain English they’re a bunch of schmucks who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, but they have the control.
Because they work for the banks, ALL their decisions are made in the best interests of their client. They could care less about the US population. For them, what’s good for the banks has to be good for the population / economy because that is true by DEFINITION in their twisted minds. The banks ARE the economy and from the banks, the trickle down theory supplies the peons.
I don’t know what the definition of ‘the elite’ is. That term gets used a lot but is poorly defined. Again, from my perspective who ever is closest to the Fed’s currency fire hose get the most benefit. That would be the major financial institutions and, of course, all the major players that work at those institutions. I really don’t think that those player are in constant collusion with each other to screw over the population. I think the system is just tilted / rigged / designed so they get the most benefit naturally. These rich guys spend their time making sure they can position themselves to take full advantage of the next flood of liquidity. They’re in the right place at the right time and take full advantage of their position.
It’s going to stay this way or worse until we MAGA. The bankers started hollowing out America around 1980. White traitors sold their souls about then. MAGA is not an endorsement of Trump. He just appropriated it for his own purposes. MAGA will be a painful process even if it succeeds.
Jews admitting they are a ‘corrosive’ force and they are behind the push to wreck western society by importing hordes of turd worlders:
The unionized industrial jobs that created the tax base for everything from policeman to fireman to schoolteachers all with retirements in their 50’s has been murdered by a continuous and economically treasonous effort by the circle jerks of Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street . Now tell me who got bailed out when their shit was spread so thin it was on the verge of collapse ! Not the tax paying working stiff who’s pension and defined benefits got flushed down the memory hole ! Who got bonuses for their royal bankrupting shenanigans ? The circle jerk that’s who ! Who got handed the debt to pay off to infinity ? The working stiffs who were pink slipped ! Who still expects their defined benefits like mid 50’s retirement ? Government minions in all venues ! Guess who is going to get fucked continuously while the connected few with bankrupted plans will still get paid and guess who still profits from all this swap & swindle ?
The Circle Jerk that’s who ! Now guess who gets worked and taxed or indentured thru debt to death ? Average Americans who have been financially tossed overboard or under a bus for the last 40 years !
This will end badly !
anon – bullshit. You said “The unionized industrial jobs that created the tax base for everything from policeman to fireman to schoolteachers all with retirements in their 50’s has been murdered by a continuous and economically treasonous effort by the circle jerks of Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street .”
What a load of shit. Steady productivity killed those jobs. Manufacturing/industry has become continuously more productive over the last 75 years. Those industrial jobs were wiped out by productivity improvements, not some evil cabal. same as happened to ag workers, that were 505 of the workforce in 1900 and are now 1.5%.
The Federal Reserve Note (FRN) is not a just measure. It should not be unreasonable for one to expect that a dollar earned years ago would still have the same or nearly the same purchasing power today.
What this country needs to do is get back to basics. Heavy manufacturing, coal power plant building, nuclear plant building, aerospace, refineries, steel mills. The heavy duty jobs that formed the back bone of this country. Get your head out of your collective asses and get to it.
I thought President Trump was pushing that agenda right up to the point of the news cycle dropped out cameras left and on to some other issue for working people that won’t happen .
I was expecting millions entering apprenticeship programs for pipe fitters ,Steam fitters , electricians , iron workers , welders , ship fitters , sheet metal mechanics , mill rights , machinists & tool & die makers a real industrial revolution on steroids !
That would require scale wages and benefits comparable to those of government employees after all the union workforce salary and benefits copied then surpassed for government employees as those required to cover the cost to supply those working in government .
Equal protection under the law , if one is taxed for a government worker to retire fully supported in their mid 50’s so should those forced by the confiscatory tax system to be indentured to cover such a lucrative life style .
That is of course if you truly believe in equality of all American citizens under the law .
FYI such is not the case now !
Eventually a reckoning will come sadly most likely by force !
The article says: “For instance, a new report sheds light on 53 million Americans, or about 44% of all US workers, aged 18 to 64, are considered low-wage and low-skilled.”
Well, there is a fucking monumental surprise. Low-skilled workers are low-wage.
I am stunned, simply stunned I tell you.
Many people too stupid to understand that low skilled people are highly likely to be poor, and that somehow that is unfair. It is unfair that low skilled people are low wage? Seriously, you cannot make this shit up.
You would agree that low skilled workers had it better, financially, 50 years ago or no? Now what?
Now what? The period of time when low-skill workers had it better – ie what we generally consider a US middle class lifestyle – was very short, and was a function of the fact that the US was left intact while the rest of the developed world was in ashes. It was an unique situation, and is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.
The now what is this – the income and lifestyles of low skilled workers will continue to contract back towards its natural state – low income and lifestyle to match. Low skill people cannot and will not be compensated well. It is that simple. I am not one who believes that everyone deserves a good standard of living. Such standard must be earned, and the US and other nations must compete vigorously for those standards of living.
Any artificial attempts to pay them well will result in automation rapidly increasing, or work being off-shored, etc.
Low skilled people will get low pay. The government should in no way attempt change this reality. This is the natural state of affairs. Incentives must exist – and poverty is the key incentive – for people to educate and skill themselves. The consequences of being unskilled must be made incredibly obvious to the generally blinkered masses so that they change their behavior.
What the governments can possibly do is offer the chance of attaining some skills, via the primary and high school systems, and via trade schools, etc. The success of these systems rely on the students being incentivized to attain skills.
Third worldism and bad things man. A great society will be an ownership society. Pride in ownership. Can’t have that with only 2 classes. IMO, of course.
Who said only 2 classes? And class has nothing to do with anything – people should get what they earn, and nothing more nor less.
I am saying that any attempt to intervene in the natural order of things makes things worse – far worse. That people with skills will and should be rewarded, and people without should not be rewarded, and that incentives – natural incentives like the prospect of poverty – should exist so as to encourage people to skill up so as to be able to earn a high standard of living. If people are unwilling or unable to attain such skills, or to apply them, them the natural circumstance of that is a poor standard of living. It is natural that they do not like that situation, but too bad.
What are you suggesting? Redistribution from the productive to the non-productive? That we do stupid shit because the poor might uprise?
Since when is there some kind of right not to be poor? And since when should there be incentive for people to be unskilled, poorly educated, lazy, drug and alcohol addled?
Yes, there is plenty wrong. The market should be allowed to function, and government should get out of the game of picking winners. But insulating unskilled and thus poorly productive people from the reality of being unskilled is a very bad idea.
I don’t want to take from those who made it honestly. Too much fraud. TARP being a good example.
Well, Donk my friend, if we are not going to take from those that earn their income honestly, then it leaves really only one option: Make it, and keep it. Make it well depends on one’s skills and efforts, and let’s face it, luck. Don’t make it well and the world is a harder place. It is the natural order of things.
Trying to overthrow that order, which the left is trying to do, means that those that produce will ultimately diminish their efforts, and the unproductive will run out of other people’s money.
It happens every time. Every. Time.
I’ve said, for a very long time now, you and I agree on almost every single thing. I am still just a bit unsure if/how we disagree on this. If income/wealth inequality leads to the masses voting to take and the elite keep buying politicians in order to make more (fraudulent), how does that serve the nation? Borders have been established for eons. Why? Borders do play into this discussion.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say these exact words but, I believe you adhere to the motto the strong survive. If that’s the case, you cannot have a nice country. Why? Because connected law makers/breakers will take all. Then what do you have? Ultimately, in the end, a 4th turning shitstorm is my bet.
Donk – you are right, we largely agree. But what I see happening is that what should happen will not happen. There will be a creeping, perhaps even fast running, toward socalism and that will cause an implosion eventually. Hell, the trillion a year in deficits, the 23 trillion total fed deficit, and the $200 trillion unfunded liabilities make it a dead certainty.
So I expect the system to implode, and it will stay imploded until such time as they revert to some semblance of the strong survive, the productive keep what they make, etc.
I doubt that they are smart enough or willing enough to stop the derailed train in its tracks. So it will keep moving until it hits the rock face.
We cannot be the only ones to know what is actually going on. But there is no will to even try to change things.
Hopefully, not too many millions world-wide will die when it all goes south.