Posted on 07/22/2013 7:31:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If proverbial Martians descended on Earth and toured America's crowded shopping malls, traveled its congested highways and sampled its technological marvels - from the many cable channels to ubiquitous smartphones - these visitors would be hard-pressed to describe the United States as poor or its economy as failing. The truth is that, even in its current unsatisfactory condition, America is an immensely wealthy society. It produces $16 trillion in annual goods and services, provides 136 million jobs and supports a median household income of $50,000.
I do not cite these facts to excuse our economic faults. But it's important to keep perspective: For most Americans, the economy is performing adequately, though obviously not spectacularly. Despite a woeful 7.6 percent unemployment rate, it remains true that 92.4 percent of workers have jobs (counting discouraged workers who've left the workforce would reduce this to about 90 percent). We have two distinct economies: one that inflicts acute pain on a minority of Americans but inspires mass political and media criticism; and another that creates huge wealth for the majority but is virtually ignored. Though distress is concentrated, unhappiness is widespread.
The standard explanation for this is well-known. We expected better. The recession was (after all) the worst slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Millions of Americans lost their homes. Long-term unemployment exceeding six months reached post-World War II highs. Financial institutions once thought impregnable (Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch) collapsed or were saved by shotgun mergers. These surprising events weren't supposed to happen. People were scared, and they remember.
Up to a point, I believe this story. Indeed, I've peddled it repeatedly in print. But on reflection, I don't think it fully captures what happened. Something beyond dashed expectations has amplified fears and anxieties.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
Socialism is all about shared misery.
Shared misery isn’t misery!
How about hopeless. Because all we see around us is idiocy.
A shift is coming, or a SHTF... :)
Not only will people slide down the economic ladder,
but the ladder will slide as well.
What it MEANS to be “middle class” will mean far less than it does today.
economic faults. But it’s important to keep perspective: For most Americans, the economy is performing adequately, though obviously not spectacularly. Despite a woeful 7.6 percent unemployment rate, it remains true that 92.4 percent of workers have jobs (counting discouraged workers who’ve left the workforce would reduce this to about 90 percent). ...........and another that creates huge wealth for the majority but is virtually ignored...”
Libs must try harder....not there yet
Rome didn't collapse overnight.
Detroit didn't fail the day after the 1967 riots.
History shows us that it usually takes time to destroy immense wealth.
But when you are on a downward trajectory there are only two options: continue to the bottom or change your ways.
There is not the slightest indication that our government will change its ways - in fact, they are doubling down on the same failed policies that changed success into decline in less than 50 years.
The Roman Empire lasted almost 1,500 years, the Ottoman Empire existed for more than 600 years. Our leaders are destroying the Republic after less than 240 years.
We now live in a country where the solution to every problem is more government and more government dependency. Bigger government is only possible through higher taxes. Higher taxes reduce our prosperity. To say we will be less prosperous is a tautology. There can be no other result.
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Barack Obama
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/barack_obama.html#VpVsMHHdWeII41kS.99
Now I know the following statement doesn't apply to all poor folks. (I know - I grew up poor.) But it seems to me a lot of "poor folks" in this country take a lot of public assistance and help from charities, but can somehow still manage to have money for cell phones, tatoos, piercings, and so forth.
Oftentimes, they are "poor" because of their own foolish choices, or because they are just plain lazy.
Poor folks in this country don't really know what it means to be poor.
Indeed. Too much of what’s depicted as “poverty” is the direct consequence of bad decisions. Hard to live well if you won’t at least clean up after yourself and not wantonly damage possessions.
It's all because of socialism, the democrats and the gutless Rino’s.
I was just telling a friend, if you want to become wealthy today, become a politician.
We have sunk to the depths of the banana republic countries that we used to show disgust at. The countries where the politicians siphoned a large chunk of the money off for themselves.
The achievement of a free market in labor, which includes both freedom of competition of employers for workers,and freedom of money wage rates to fall when necessary, plus a 100% reserve gold standard, which would help both to prevent instability of the money supply and to reduce severity of boom bust cycles,would mean the elimination of one of modern life's greatest anxieties, the fear on loosing ones's job and not being able to find another, and thus on being deprived of the ability too support oneself and one's family.
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