4 in 5 in US face near-poverty, no work

[boutons_deux]

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.

The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.

As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused — on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.

Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor."

The gauge defines "economic insecurity" as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.

"There is the real possibility that white alienation will increase if steps are not taken to highlight and address inequality on a broad front,"


Nationwide, the count of America's poor remains stuck at a record number: 46.2 million, or 15 percent of the population, due in part to lingering high unemployment following the recession. While poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are nearly three times higher, by absolute numbers the predominant face of the poor is white.

More than 19 million whites fall below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family of four, accounting for more than 41 percent of the nation's destitute, nearly double the number of poor blacks.

Sometimes termed "the invisible poor" by demographers, lower-income whites generally are dispersed in suburbs as well as small rural towns, where more than 60 percent of the poor are white. Concentrated in Appalachia in the East, they are numerous in the industrial Midwest and spread across America's heartland, from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma up through the Great Plains.

http://mobile.sfgate.com/sfchron/db_41685/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Z7VJkGWG&full=true#display

[boobie4three]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/obamavillewelcome_answer_5_xlarge_zpse2fb5e57.jpeg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/obamavillewelcome_answer_5_xlarge_zpse2fb5e57.jpeg .html)

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

:lol white alienation isn't gonna take place. They'll continue to be the corporate puppets that they have been for 30 years (:crywe made Reagan a two term president but 1987 sucks!:cry).

All those white people in Arkansas and Mississippi feeling "uncertain" about their economic status are never gonna abandon the white nationalism and jeebotardism the rich have instilled in them from birth in order to pursue their best economic interests. The only they'll do is go after the Mexican who makes less money than they do mowing lawns because they think he's the reason their lives suck :lol

[boutons_deux]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/obamavillewelcome_answer_5_xlarge_zpse2fb5e57.jpeg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/obamavillewelcome_answer_5_xlarge_zpse2fb5e57.jpeg .html)

Increasing poverty and economic inequality existed decades before Obama. Tell us about the numerous Repug jobs/economic plans and how Ryan's budget helps the 47%.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Increasing poverty and economic inequality existed decades before Obama. Tell us about the numerous Repug jobs/economic plans and how Ryan's budget helps the 47%.

Something about how if Willard pays less taxes (because the tax rate he pays is sooooo oppressive as it stands :lmao) the laffer curve dictates that he will be increasingly charitable and let his wealth twickle down to the middle class/working poor. There might be no empirical evidence supporting this, but it's why the Ryan plan will somehow help the poor by letting the rich become richer. A rising tide lifts all the boats, because comparing wealth distribution to ocean tide makes completely logical sense.

[BradLohaus]

What qualifies as poverty in America is a joke; there are plenty of poor no doubt, but the standard is BS. I've got about a half dozen cop friends who, of course, deal with people on the Lone Star Card all the time. DirectTV, internet, cell phones, nice clothes, cars... the friends are all Repugs now.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

What qualifies as poverty in America is a joke; there are plenty of poor no doubt, but the standard is BS. I've got about a half dozen cop friends who, of course, deal with people on the Lone Star Card all the time. DirectTV, internet, cell phones, nice clothes, cars... the friends are all Repugs now.

Nothing funnier than right wing anecdotal evidence about a bunch of god damn poor people!

[scroteface]

boutons stole this from drudge report :lol

[spursncowboys]

Something about how if Willard pays less taxes (because the tax rate he pays is sooooo oppressive as it stands :lmao) the laffer curve dictates that he will be increasingly charitable and let his wealth twickle down to the middle class/working poor. There might be no empirical evidence supporting this, but it's why the Ryan plan will somehow help the poor by letting the rich become richer. A rising tide lifts all the boats, because comparing wealth distribution to ocean tide makes completely logical sense.
So peoples earned money donated isn't good enough? How much money do you donate?

[spursncowboys]

What qualifies as poverty in America is a joke; there are plenty of poor no doubt, but the standard is BS. I've got about a half dozen cop friends who, of course, deal with people on the Lone Star Card all the time. DirectTV, internet, cell phones, nice clothes, cars... the friends are all Repugs now.

Go into any city's welfare office and see how many 11 and 12 year olds have $100 shoes and ipods. I don't blame people for running the system. Just shows how smart people are. But yeah the federal standard of "poor" is middle class in alot of areas of America.

[boutons_deux]

"What qualifies as poverty in America is a joke; there are plenty of poor no doubt, but the standard is BS. I've got about a half dozen cop friends who, of course, deal with people on the Lone Star Card all the time. DirectTV, internet, cell phones, nice clothes, cars... the friends are all Repugs now."


ah yes, the old ST Ronnie's "welfare queens in cadillac" shit.

of the 46M "poor" people on public assistance, how many do you think are really living well and/or defrauding public assistance?

how many are among 8M that lost their jobs in the Banksters Great Depression?

or among the 4M who had their homes stolen by the financial sector,?

or were suckered in to sub-prime loans by lying, fraudulent predatory lenders who violated all federal borrower qualification regs?

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

So peoples earned money donated isn't good enough? How much money do you donate?

Idk what the fuck you're talking about.

[BradLohaus]

Folks, when you add up everybody's anecdotal evidence it equals what happens. You must go to high class grocery stores exclusively to not see the welfare abuse.

Also...Breaking News!!! If you don't want to live in a poor household then don't be a single parent. It's that simple. This used to be common knowledge even among children back when the world was sane.

[boutons_deux]

"You must go to high class grocery stores exclusively to not see the welfare abuse."

so how many of the current 46M on public assistance are frauds?

got enough "anecdotes" to be statistically useful?

You saw one, or a few, and all 46M are frauds so cut public assistance by $100Bs as House Repugs want.

[Wild Cobra]

Increasing poverty and economic inequality existed decades before Obama. Tell us about the numerous Repug jobs/economic plans and how Ryan's budget helps the 47%.

Maybe we should admit defeat on the "war on poverty" before it drags everyone in.

[LnGrrrR]

Go into any city's welfare office and see how many 11 and 12 year olds have $100 shoes and ipods. I don't blame people for running the system. Just shows how smart people are. But yeah the federal standard of "poor" is middle class in alot of areas of America.

How often are you going to welfare offices?

[boutons_deux]

The Corporate Right-Wing Agenda Is Driving Thousands of Americans to Attempt Suicide

Virginia’s suicide rate is now the highest (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/07/30/2383521/virginia-suicide-rate-national-problem/) it’s been in the last 13 years; Virginians are now three times more likely to die from suicide than they are from homicide.
And Virginia is not alone.

Over the past decade, our nation’s suicide rate has been steadily climbing, rising a staggering 23 percent. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 700,000 emergency room visits in 2010 alone for self-inflicted injuries.

The fact is, America’s suicide rate is on the rise, and Conservative economic policies are to blame.

In a study released in May (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/opinion/how-austerity-kills.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0), Professors David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu of Oxford University in England found that suicide rates in both the U.S. and U.K. increase when working class wages and wealth decline.

The study calculates, for example, that there were 4,750 “excess” suicides during the recession period in the U.S., compared with suicide rates before the recession.

Stuckler and Basu conclude their report by saying that, “what we’ve learned is that the real danger to public health is not recession per se, but austerity.”

That’s right. The very same austerity policies that Republicans in Washington are constantly pushing on us are the same policies that are driving Americans to kill themselves.
And these findings are nothing new.

Australian research shows that suicides increase under Conservative governments (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2263690.stm).

Australian scientists found that suicides in that country increased markedly when a Conservative government was in power. And, they found similar results for the U.K.

The team of Australian scientists analyzed suicide statistics for the New South Wales area of Australia between 1901, when the Australian federal government was established, and 1998.

They then looked at which political parties had control in both state and federal governments in New South Wales, which have consistently been under either Labour (like the Democratic Party in the U.S.) or Conservative control.

And surprise, the scientists found that the highest rates of suicide occurred when Conservative state and federal governments were in power.

And then here’s another smoking gun: When Conservative-backed austerity policies began to ravage Greece in 2010, the suicide rate shot up by 18 percent (http://www.euronews.com/2012/04/05/austerity-suicides-climbing/).

In Athens alone, the suicide rate soared 25 percent.

Before austerity came to Greece, that nation had the lowest suicide rate in the entire European Union.

In other European nations hit with austerity, the results are the same.

In Italy, for example, the suicide rate has also increased thanks to devastating austerity policies.

So, if Conservative-backed austerity policies are driving suicides here in the U.S. and around the world, and we’ve known this for over a decade, what can be done to reverse this trend?

Going back to the study by Stuckler and Basu, they found that to stop the epidemic of austerity-driven suicides, we must invest more in our economy and country, not less.

They show that, during the Great Depression, each $100 per capita of “relief” spending from FDR’s New Deal ($1800 in today’s dollars) led to a decline in pneumonia deaths of 18 per 100,000 people; a reduction in infant deaths of 18 per 1,000 live births; and a drop in suicides of 4 per 100,000 people.

etc

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/corporate-right-wing-agenda-driving-thousands-americans-attempt-suicide

but your right-wing fuckers go ahead keep babbling out expensive shoes, relentlessly criminalizing the poor just for being poor. Suckered or not, you're shilling for the VRWC strategy of criminalizing the poor while forcing them into poverty, with NO HOPE for escape.

[boobie4three]

The Corporate Right-Wing Agenda Is Driving Thousands of Americans to Attempt Suicide

Virginia’s suicide rate is now the highest (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/07/30/2383521/virginia-suicide-rate-national-problem/) it’s been in the last 13 years; Virginians are now three times more likely to die from suicide than they are from homicide.
And Virginia is not alone.

Over the past decade, our nation’s suicide rate has been steadily climbing, rising a staggering 23 percent. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 700,000 emergency room visits in 2010 alone for self-inflicted injuries.

The fact is, America’s suicide rate is on the rise, and Conservative economic policies are to blame.

In a study released in May (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/opinion/how-austerity-kills.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0), Professors David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu of Oxford University in England found that suicide rates in both the U.S. and U.K. increase when working class wages and wealth decline.

The study calculates, for example, that there were 4,750 “excess” suicides during the recession period in the U.S., compared with suicide rates before the recession.

Stuckler and Basu conclude their report by saying that, “what we’ve learned is that the real danger to public health is not recession per se, but austerity.”

That’s right. The very same austerity policies that Republicans in Washington are constantly pushing on us are the same policies that are driving Americans to kill themselves.
And these findings are nothing new.

Australian research shows that suicides increase under Conservative governments (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2263690.stm).

Australian scientists found that suicides in that country increased markedly when a Conservative government was in power. And, they found similar results for the U.K.

The team of Australian scientists analyzed suicide statistics for the New South Wales area of Australia between 1901, when the Australian federal government was established, and 1998.

They then looked at which political parties had control in both state and federal governments in New South Wales, which have consistently been under either Labour (like the Democratic Party in the U.S.) or Conservative control.

And surprise, the scientists found that the highest rates of suicide occurred when Conservative state and federal governments were in power.

And then here’s another smoking gun: When Conservative-backed austerity policies began to ravage Greece in 2010, the suicide rate shot up by 18 percent (http://www.euronews.com/2012/04/05/austerity-suicides-climbing/).

In Athens alone, the suicide rate soared 25 percent.

Before austerity came to Greece, that nation had the lowest suicide rate in the entire European Union.

In other European nations hit with austerity, the results are the same.

In Italy, for example, the suicide rate has also increased thanks to devastating austerity policies.

So, if Conservative-backed austerity policies are driving suicides here in the U.S. and around the world, and we’ve known this for over a decade, what can be done to reverse this trend?

Going back to the study by Stuckler and Basu, they found that to stop the epidemic of austerity-driven suicides, we must invest more in our economy and country, not less.

They show that, during the Great Depression, each $100 per capita of “relief” spending from FDR’s New Deal ($1800 in today’s dollars) led to a decline in pneumonia deaths of 18 per 100,000 people; a reduction in infant deaths of 18 per 1,000 live births; and a drop in suicides of 4 per 100,000 people.

etc

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/corporate-right-wing-agenda-driving-thousands-americans-attempt-suicide

but your right-wing fuckers go ahead keep babbling out expensive shoes, relentlessly criminalizing the poor just for being poor. Suckered or not, you're shilling for the VRWC strategy of criminalizing the poor while forcing them into poverty, with NO HOPE for escape.




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/didnt-read-lol-chicken-gif_zpse8dfa8c7.gif (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/didnt-read-lol-chicken-gif_zpse8dfa8c7.gif.html)

[TDMVPDPOY]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/didnt-read-lol-chicken-gif_zpse8dfa8c7.gif (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/didnt-read-lol-chicken-gif_zpse8dfa8c7.gif.html)

you wouldnt happen to be black?

[boobie4three]

you wouldnt happen to be black?

Busted!

[boutons_deux]

How Iceland handled their Banskters and their Banskters Great Depression

"Despite all of this, rather than take the Conservative approach that we took here in America, bailing out the banks and slashing funding to crucial government programs, Iceland decided to say no to austerity, and rejected major cuts to its social safety net programs.

As a result, there was no significant increase in suicides during Iceland’s economic collapse."

Unlike USA, Iceland also prosecuted and convicted some of their bankers. Being an Iceland banker is now lower than being a drug dealer.

Unlike "Bowling Alone" America, Iceland is small enough to have considerable social, cultural cohesion and civic participation.

We'll see if Ireland manages to prosecute/convict their bankers for Ireland Banksters Great Deprssion, who were caught on tape laughing about lying to the govt about how many $Bs were needed to bail them out. Sorta like dubya's extortionist Henry Paulsen pulling out of his ass "give me $700B, in 7 days max, keep me out of reach of legislature and judiciary, or else"

otoh, Fabulous Fabrice, convicted fraudster, is a hero on Wall St for pulling off a huge $1B fraud, suckering the Muppets, while co-fraudster and beneficiary John Paulsen skated free.

[Bill_Brasky]

It might have something to do with letting big banks literally do whatever they want and screw everyone over, destroying all gains the middle class has made in recent years and then not punishing the scum responsible.

[AntiChrist]

It might have something to do with letting big banks literally do whatever they want and screw everyone over, destroying all gains the middle class has made in recent years and then not punishing the scum responsible.

What gains have the middle class gained in recent years?

[spursncowboys]

How often are you going to welfare offices?
They have the best hand sanitizer

[boutons_deux]

Do the Math: People Don't Choose to Be Poor or Unemployed

And unemployed. That's the good life. Poor and unemployed.

I mean, just look at all the cool stuff you get. Medicaid and welfare. Food stamps and unemployment insurance. And don't forget public housing.

This stuff is so awesome that it's like a "hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives." That's what Paul Ryan says (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/opinion/krugman-galt-gold-and-god.html), at least, and as the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, he's supposed to know these things, right?

According to Ryan and his fellow Republicans, if I have unemployment insurance, I'll never want to work again. Senator Rand Paul says (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/republicans-jobs_b_4514001.html) it will cause me "to become part of this perpetual unemployed group." With an average benefit of $269 per week, I'll be living on Easy Street.

This is a common belief. There's an email (https://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/obamacare-political-power-buying-votes-and-redistribution-of-wealth-tax-and-control-monterey-county-ca-example-enabling-subsizdizing-and-expanding-the-lefts-political-power-base/) making the rounds from a 54-year-old consulting engineer who makes $60,000 a year and has to pay $482 a month for health insurance under Obamacare, but that's not his biggest complaint. He's really upset that his 61-year-old girlfriend who makes $18,000 a year only has to pay $1 a month for health insurance.

He thinks she has it so easy that she can afford to pay more, but he's wrong.

On average (http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2012/04/who_pays_taxes_in_america.php), Americans earning $18,000 a year pay more than $3,000 in taxes, so she really only has $15,000 leftover to pay her expenses. She lives in Monterey, CA, where the average rent and utilities add up to $15,000 a year (http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=Monterey%2C+CA). So, after paying taxes, rent, and utilities, she's completely broke. She doesn't have money for food, let alone health insurance.

The consulting engineer thinks people will choose her lifestyle over his. "Heck, why study engineering when I can be a schlub for $20K per year?" he asks. (Nice way to talk about your girlfriend, by the way.) To which I'd like to reply: If being a "schlub" is so attractive, why don't you do it? Why don't you quit your engineering job and join the "$20K per year" club?

For that matter, why don't we all quit our jobs right now and start collecting unemployment insurance? How far do you honestly think we can stretch $269 a week?
I'll tell you how far: It would cover less than half (http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2013/Issue-Brief-Federal-Unemployment-Insurance-Job-Search-Poverty.pdf) of the basic necessities for the average American family.

That's why unemployment makes you (http://www.anthonyworlando.com/2011/09/16/an-ode-to-the-unemployed-someones-gotta-write-it/) more likely to have to borrow money from a friend, withdraw money from your retirement savings, and have trouble paying your medical bills, rent, and mortgage. It makes you more likely to have a stroke or heart attack, lose self-respect, have difficulty sleeping, and seek professional help for anxiety and depression. It makes you (http://prospect.org/article/path-high-wage-society-0) more likely to kill yourself, kill others, and drink yourself to death.

And if you've been unemployed for more than a few months, most employers won't even look (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/07/the-senate-is-debating-unemployment-benefits-here-are-seven-things-they-should-know/) at your résumé. It doesn't matter how qualified you are. It's like you don't exist anymore.

The last time (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/07/the-senate-is-debating-unemployment-benefits-here-are-seven-things-they-should-know/) it was this bad, with long-term unemployment close to 3 percent of the workforce, was the peak of the 1980-81 recession. Back then, the federal government kept extended unemployment insurance in place for almost two more years, until the long-term unemployment rate fell close to 1 percent. In fact, that's been standard operating procedure for every recession in the modern era, including 1990-91 and 2001. But now, with long-term unemployment as high as it's been since World War II, Republicans have killed the emergency unemployment insurance program, and they're fighting Democrats' efforts to restore it.

They don't seem to care that there are 2.9 applicants (http://www.epi.org/press/ratio-job-seekers-job-openings-holds-steady/) for every job opening. They don't seem to care that people on unemployment insurance actually spend (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/15/390426/study-unemployment-insurance-work-harder/) more time searching for work than their fellow unemployed who are ineligible for benefits. They're sticking to their story.

On the 50th anniversary (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/on-fighting-the-last-war-on-poverty/) of the War on Poverty, many Americans are still operating under the assumption that people choose to be poor and unemployed, that they'd rather be lazy than rich, that they can afford the basic necessities of life. But the numbers tell a different story.

I don't wish I were poor. Or unemployed. And I sure don't wish it on anyone else. If you did the math, neither would you.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-w-orlando/do-the-math-people-dont-c_b_4578856.html

[BradLohaus]

If working (and even middle) class real wages have been stagnant for a generation+, which they have been, then why in the world did we increase the labor supply by 10s of millions of immigrants? How would that not suppress wages? And the big corps - especially agribusiness with the Latin Americans and the tech corps with Asians - have been all for it. Look at how hard Zuckerburg and the rest of Silicon Valley are pushing for amnesty. They must have big hearts, ROFL.

If 80% of the US faces near-poverty or no work then that sounds like a labor disaster. The first thing I'd do is... look out for the American worker and shut down immigration. There's no difference from the worker's prospective if his job is shipped out or if somebody is shipped in to take it. The only conclusion I can come to is that racism now trumps all in the Left's mind and this line of thinking is unacceptable.

[boutons_deux]

"don't be a single parent. It's that simple."

this is just another lie by Repugs. Plenty of households contain a married couple where there are no kids and neither person has a (good) job.

So baby mama and her two kids have an unemployed baby papa in the house, but he's unemployed, how does they fix unemployment? how does that kill her public assistance for her 2 kids?

[boutons_deux]

"look out for the American worker and shut down immigration"

American companies have been killing mfg and jobs (that illegal immigrants weren't working at) for 35 years. Illegal immigration takes jobs at the very bottom of the pay scale. Illegal immigrants aren't taking shitty jobs from retail, junk food, wal-mart.

If the median salary had kept up with GDP since 1975 (about the time the VRWC got organized after the PROGRESS of the 1960s), it would be in the low $90Ks, not in the low $50Ks.

btw, Ms of MXs were pushed off their MX-govt-subsidized, subsistence farms by NAFTA, which forbade MX from subsidizing its farmers so MX would be a market for US-taxpayer-subsidized corn and wheat. Yes, NAFTA's "free trade" caused Ms of desperate MXs to come to US to feed their families.

[BradLohaus]

NAFTA was an international scam, just as all "free trade", supported by both parties and the international corps/bankers who own them. Agreed.

Too bad Perot wasn't elected 20 years ago.

But you can't seriously argue that the increase - the huge increase in the post WW2 generations - in single motherhood has had no effect on children and families.

[boutons_deux]

NAFTA was an international scam, just as all "free trade", supported by both parties and the international corps/bankers who own them. Agreed.

Too bad Perot wasn't elected 20 years ago.

But you can't seriously argue that the increase - the huge increase in the post WW2 generations - in single motherhood has had no effect on children and families.

the Repug "single mothers making babies to live well" racist scam is aimed at blacks, but:

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by#detailed/1/any/false/867,133,38,35,18/10,168,9,12,1,13,185/432,431

[BradLohaus]

A quarter of whites, 2/3 of blacks, 2/5 of Hispanics, and 35% overall. It will only increase, and single mothers are a net cost. I don't get how this is a good thing, unless the goal is to socialize the cost of raising children as much as possible by taxing men and married women - those that can afford it, that is.

I can only assume that this is the goal. The big winner of course is the state, who becomes the prime educator of young minds, which was Marx's goal from the get go. So it's no wonder that leftists defend - and even promote - single motherhood. It's probably the best tool they have.

[boutons_deux]

"becomes the prime educator of young minds, which was Marx's goal from the get go"

taxpayer-funded public and mandatory education has been the goal and practice of the US govt, Repug and Dem, local, state, and Fed, almost from birth. Why don't you call that Marxist?

"Government-supported and free public schools for all began to be established after the American Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution). "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States

Having a man in the house is no damn good if he has no job, or a low-paying part-time job. The family, like 100Ks now, would still be poor and on public assistance.

Poor women CAN'T work because for-profit day care consumes all their earning. Some advanced, adult countries provide tax-payer funded day-care so parents can work.

[boutons_deux]

Marx Was Right: Five Surprising Ways Karl Marx Predicted 2014

Marx's analysis of capitalism correctly predicted more than a century ago:

1. The Great Recession (Capitalism's Chaotic Nature)

The inherently chaotic, crisis-prone nature of capitalism was a key part of Marx's writings. He argued that the relentless drive for profits would lead companies to mechanize their workplaces, producing more and more goods while squeezing workers' wages until they could no longer purchase the products they created. Sure enough, modern historical events from the Great Depression to the dot-com bubble can be traced back to what Marx termed "fictitious capital" – financial instruments like stocks and credit-default swaps. We produce and produce until there is simply no one left to purchase our goods, no new markets, no new debts. The cycle is still playing out before our eyes: Broadly speaking, it's what made the housing market crash in 2008. Decades of deepening inequality reduced incomes, which led more and more Americans to take on debt. When there were no subprime borrows left to scheme, the whole façade fell apart, just as Marx knew it would.

2. The iPhone 5S (Imaginary Appetites)

Marx warned that capitalism's tendency to concentrate high value on essentially arbitrary products would, over time, lead to what he called "a contriving and ever-calculating subservience to inhuman, sophisticated, unnatural and imaginary appetites." It's a harsh but accurate way of describing contemporary America, where we enjoy incredible luxury and yet are driven by a constant need for more and more stuff to buy. Consider the iPhone 5S you may own. Is it really that much better than the iPhone 5 you had last year, or the iPhone 4S a year before that? Is it a real need, or an invented one? While Chinese families fall sick with cancer from our e-waste, (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/osu-rnc012213.php) megacorporations are creating entire advertising campaigns (http://lazytechguys.com/news/virgin-mobile-wants-you-to-throw-away-your-phone-video/) around the idea that we should destroy perfectly good products (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzjN9QDbUsg) for no reason. If Marx could see this kind of thing, he'd nod in recognition.

3. The IMF (The Globalization of Capitalism)

Marx's ideas about overproduction led him to predict what is now called globalization – the spread of capitalism across the planet in search of new markets. "The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe," he wrote. "It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere." While this may seem like an obvious point now, Marx wrote those words in 1848, when globalization was over a century away. And he wasn't just right about what ended up happening in the late 20th century – he was right about why it happened: The relentless search for new markets and cheap labor, as well as the incessant demand for more natural resources, are beasts that demand constant feeding.

4. Walmart (Monopoly)

The classical theory of economics assumed that competition was natural and therefore self-sustaining. Marx, however, argued that market power would actually be centralized in large monopoly firms as businesses increasingly preyed upon each other. This might have struck his 19th-century readers as odd: As Richard Hofstadter writes, "Americans came to take it for granted that property would be widely diffused, that economic and political power would decentralized." It was only later, in the 20th century, that the trend Marx foresaw began to accelerate. Today, mom-and-pop shops have been replaced by monolithic big-box stores like Walmart, small community banks have been replaced by global banks like J.P. Morgan Chase and small famers have been replaced by the likes of Archer Daniels Midland. The tech world, too, is already becoming centralized, with big corporations sucking up start-ups as fast as they can. Politicians give lip service to what minimal small-business lobby remains and prosecute the most violent of antitrust abuses – but for the most part, we know big business is here to stay.

5. Low Wages, Big Profits (The Reserve Army of Industrial Labor)

Marx believed that wages would be held down by a "reserve army of labor," which he explained simply using classical economic techniques: Capitalists wish to pay as little as possible for labor, and this is easiest to do when there are too many workers floating around. Thus, after a recession, using a Marxist analysis, we would predict that high unemployment would keep wages stagnant as profits soared, because workers are too scared of unemployment to quit their terrible, exploitative jobs. And what do you know? No less an authority than the Wall Street Journal warns (http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/05/08/number-of-the-week-294-million-in-industrial-reserve-army/http:/blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/05/08/number-of-the-week-294-million-in-industrial-reserve-army/), "Lately, the U.S. recovery has been displaying some Marxian traits. Corporate profits are on a tear, and rising productivity has allowed companies to grow without doing much to reduce the vast ranks of the unemployed." That's because workers are terrified to leave their jobs and therefore lack bargaining power. It's no surprise that the best time for equitable growth is during times (http://www.cepr.net/documents/Getting-Back-to-Full-Employment_20131118.pdf) of "full employment," when unemployment is low and workers can threaten to take another job.

In Conclusion:

Marx was wrong about many things. Most of his writing focuses on a critique of capitalism rather than a proposal of what to replace it with – which left it open to misinterpretation by madmen like Stalin in the 20th century. But his work still shapes our world in a positive way as well. When he argued for a progressive income tax in the Communist Manifesto, no country had one. Now, there is scarcely a country without a progressive income tax, and it's one small way that the U.S. tries to fight income inequality. Marx's moral critique of capitalism and his keen insights into its inner workings and historical context are still worth paying attention to. As Robert L. Heilbroner writes, "We turn to Marx, therefore, not because he is infallible, but because he is inescapable."

Today, in a world of both unheard-of wealth and abject poverty, where the richest 85 people have more wealth (http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-en.pdf) than the poorest 3 billion, the famous cry, "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains," has yet to lose its potency.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/marx-was-right-five-surprising-ways-karl-marx-predicted-2014-20140130?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

[BradLohaus]

I remember taking this Rolling Stone sociology class when I was 19: "Marx was right, but the Soviets and Mao filled in the blanks wrong. Gulags and 100 million dead... Next time, comrades!"

Our (the Western) government doesn't do the duties that they were set up to do. Keep manufacturing from being shipped off shores, and keep foreign labor immigration from suppressing wages. Whoops. That was by accident of course; purely an obvious flaw of capitalism.

I'll give you 2 predictions that came before Marx:

De Touquville's prediction

Franklin's prediction: America as a land of cheap and seemingly endless land vs a relatively small population, therefore naturally high wages, so restrict immigration. Wait, America's a land of immigrants!

Then you'll say that I haven't proven Marx wrong. And I haven't, because he's not wrong on these topics. That's because Marx viewed all economies as a member of the global economy. Sound familiar? Funny that Marx and the central bankers/global corps sound the same. Remove the nation - state and Marxist economics rules. Think they don't know this today? ROFL. But don't worry, the useful idiot Marxists from Rolling Stone will save you from the genius Marxists at the global banks/corps.

[boutons_deux]

"Funny that Marx and the central bankers/global corps sound the same."

:lol WTF?

Marx placed the power of the economy and wealth in the hands of The People (c), while the financial sector wants to, and mainly does, control the financial system, excluding, exploiting, wealth-sucking The People.

Chomsky is an admitted "anarchist" because he sees anarchy as breaking down of exploitative power systems as the one now dominating the world financial system, NOT as the world being a post-apocalyptic anarchy, with Ms of Mad Maxes and his enemies running around.

[BradLohaus]

Marx placed the power of the economy and wealth in the hands of The People (c), while the financial sector wants to, and mainly does, control the financial system, excluding, exploiting, wealth-sucking The People.

"The People" Run by "The Party", or whatever name the elite want to give themselves. Same game, different name. A global economy run by... well me, of course. Cause We know best. And We've got the guns. Call it Marxism or Globalism. Do the international bankers dine with Marxists? Two roads to the same place.


Chomsky is an admitted "anarchist" because he sees anarchy as breaking down of exploitative power systems as the one now dominating the world financial system, NOT as the world being a post-apocalyptic anarchy, with Ms of Mad Maxes and his enemies running around.

Yes, Marxism assumes that at the end of the global revolution the government will become unnecessary, superfluous and will fade out once it has destroyed capitalism. Not Mad Max anarchy, but a natural egalitarian evolution to a classless global society. It's a religion.

[TDMVPDPOY]

4in5 in poverty

how many unemployed that cant get unemployed benefits?...the ones that dont get recorded part of the unemployment rate...the forgotten people

[BradLohaus]

If anybody thinks that 80% of the US lives in poverty then you are dumber than a sack of bricks.

[boutons_deux]

Half Of All Uninsured Americans Live In Just 3.7 Percent Of U.S. Counties (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/05/3250711/study-uninsured-counties/)Half of all uninsured Americans live in just 116 of the country’s 3,143 counties, according to a new analysis (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEALTH_OVERHAUL_FINDING_THE_UNINSURED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT) by the Associated Press. That trend also holds for the young and uninsured — half of whom live in just 108 counties — making outreach and enrollment efforts in these counties particularly important for the Affordable Care Act.

Many of the counties with the largest numbers of uninsured Americans are in high-poverty regions. For instance, nearly one in five of Los Angeles County’s 10 million residents have incomes below the Federal Poverty Line (FPL) (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06037.html), and about five percent of all uninsured Americans live in LA.

a Commonwealth Fund study (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2013/Sep/1702_Rasmussen_in_states_hands_tracking_brief_v41. pdf) found that 42 percent of Americans living below the poverty level are in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid. Texas, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia all have uninsurance rates significantly higher than the national average, and approximately 20 percent of Americans residing in these states have incomes below the poverty line. These states are also at the bottom of public health rankings, leading one doctor to call existing economic and health disparities in America “death by zip code.” (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/07/11/2286431/us-health-disparities-zip-code/)

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/05/3250711/study-uninsured-counties/

[boutons_deux]

why in the world did we increase the labor supply by 10s of millions of immigrants? How would that not suppress wages?

If 80% of the US faces near-poverty or no work then that sounds like a labor disaster. The first thing I'd do is... look out for the American worker and shut down immigration. There's no difference from the worker's prospective if his job is shipped out or if somebody is shipped in to take it. The only conclusion I can come to is that racism now trumps all in the Left's mind and this line of thinking is unacceptable.

Dear Xenophobe, corporate-pushed NAFTA forbids MX govt from subsidizing subsistence MX farmers so BigAg could flood MX with cheap, subsidized corn.

Ms of those US-corporate-victimized poor MX farmers fled to USA to try to support their families.

The stagnation of US household income is not from downward pull of undoc immigrants from the downward push by employers in the war on employees to benefit capital.

[boutons_deux]

"have been all for it. Look at how hard Zuckerburg and the rest of Silicon Valley are pushing for amnesty."

maybe so, link?

the big tech companies have been pushing hard to raise the qty of H1b visas so they can import highly educated Indians and other Asians to take the jobs of higher paid Americans.

Again, corporations wage their relentless War on (US) Employees so capital can have a higher return. Bottom-end undoc immigrants are not the primary problem, except for nativists, xenophobes.

[BradLohaus]

Dear Xenophobe,

The stagnation of US household income is not from downward pull of undoc immigrants from the downward push by employers in the war on employees to benefit capital.

I am xenophobic, as I am a rational person. To your last sentence, both can be true.

[boutons_deux]

I am xenophobic, as I am a rational person. To your last sentence, both can be true.

undoc immigrants fill mostly nasty, manual labor jobs, like imported labored does in any industrialized economy. The US has long been a service economy. The dominant factor in stagnation of incomes has been from employer downward push.

[Th'Pusher]

I am xenophobic, as I am a rational person. To your last sentence, both can be true.
xen·o·pho·bic
/,zēnә'fōbik, ,zenә-/zenә'foʊbɪk/
▶adj.
having or showing an intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries:
the xenophobic undertones of this argument.
New Oxford American Dictionary © 2010 Oxford University Press

[boutons_deux]

Closing the gap

America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20140215_FNC346_0.png

Listen to the numbers

Even so, recent research suggests the unemployment rate is saying something important. It’s just that the message is a depressing one: America’s labour supply may be permanently stunted. If so that would mean that the economy is operating closer to potential—using all available capital and labour—than generally thought, and that there is less downward pressure on inflation than the Fed has assumed.

Figuring out the gap between actual and potential output is tricky because potential, always hard to discern, is more uncertain than usual. In a recent report Lewis Alexander of Nomura Securities, a bank, calculated the output gap using three different labour market indicators (see chart). The proportion of people with jobs plunged from 63% of the population in late 2007 to below 59% in 2009. It has barely budged since, suggesting the output gap has not closed at all. The unemployment rate, in contrast, is 1.1 percentage points above its estimated “natural rate” of 5.5%, suggesting most of the output gap has disappeared. Finally, if one looks just at those who have been unemployed for less than six months, the output gap appears to have closed completely.

Deciding which measure to use involves determining why so many people have left the labour force. The labour participation rate (measuring those in work or looking for it) is down to 63% from 66% in 2007. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) attributes just a third of that decrease to discouraged workers who have temporarily stopped looking for jobs. The remainder it ascribes to demographics, as ageing baby boomers retire early, or to people who have gone jobless for so long they have permanently given up looking. This is one reason the CBO has sharply revised down its estimate of America’s potential, and with it, the size of the output gap, which it now puts at a little over 4% of GDP. Had its estimates of the economy’s potential not shrunk since 2008, that gap would be 10% of GDP.

Thus, with each passing month, more of the unemployed are drifting to the fringes of the labour market than re-entering it. More monetary and fiscal stimulus may have saved them a few years ago, but are of much less help now.

Policymakers will need to put more effort into making the long-term unemployed once again employable. Barack Obama recently persuaded several hundred companies to pledge not to discriminate against them.

Unfortunately that will probably not be nearly enough.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21596529-americas-labour-market-has-suffered-permanent-harm-closing-gap (http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21596529-americas-labour-market-has-suffered-permanent-harm-closing-gap)