Posted on 04/16/2017 3:25:57 PM PDT by TBP
Americans are stuck. Locked into our jobs, rooted where we live, frozen at our income levels. More than at any previous point in our history, we’ve stopped moving — whether moving up the income ladder or packing up a truck and finding another home. We’ve grown ossified, rigid.
The flip side is that we’re stable. If we weren’t so content, we’d be more willing to gamble, to shake things up, to start a new firm or join one. Maybe we’re fine where we are. But maybe this period of stasis cannot last. Maybe it even portends a period of massive disruption.
In “The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream,” economist Tyler Cowen presents an X-ray of societal sclerosis. This isn’t merely another exercise in nostalgia, a sentimental yearning for a bygone era (when, for instance, crime and pollution were higher, people were highly likely to marry someone who lived within five blocks and you would buy an album containing 10 lousy songs because you liked one track). Something has changed in the American character and in the American economy, and the two seem to be reinforcing each other.
For instance, parts of the country (New York City, Silicon Valley, Texas) are doing extremely well, yet able-bodied adults sit idle in other areas. Why don’t the unemployed, and the large numbers who have dropped out of the labor force, move to the boom towns? Wouldn’t it be better to drive an Uber in Brooklyn than to get by on welfare in West Virginia?
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Obamunism.
Bingo.
Working for Uber is not moving up the ladder of success as the article portrays. When my husband lost his job about 7 years ago, he tried it. All he got was hit by a deer which caved in the side of his car. The money was negligible. Why would anyone move to NYC - a place that has some of the highest rents in the world - and get a job with Uber?
Wouldn’t it be better to drive an Uber in Brooklyn than to get by on welfare in West Virginia?
What say the wisdom here?
Obamunism and government over-regulation in general do crush the entrepreneurial spirit and upward mobility and are certainly in play, but there are other factors at work here, too.
In just the past year, just my unit of the company I work for has hired two remote employees in other states. 10 years ago, they would have needed to move to our corporate headquarters to perform the role and functions they can do from their home offices without needing to pack up and relocate.
America is now Canada. Yay.
False dichotomy. Staying on welfare in West Virginia and driving for Uber in Brooklyn are both poor life choices.
If you are young and able, there is still opportunity. Join the Navy and see the world, etc.
I would move if I had the same job at the same pay.
Getting up there in years to quit and move and start over.
No excuse for younger people. I moved at 30 to another state. I should have moved sooner.
Apparently this person is not familiar with West Virginia or West Virginians.
Joining the service is not the opportunity it used to be as the services have become very picky as to who they will accept.
And who they will retain.
Perhaps the person in WV has no desire for anything better. Most people who live in WV are country folk. They may think a gig driving an Uber in Brooklyn to be a living Hell.
Living in God’s Country rather than DeCommieo’s Brooklyn? Easy Peasy.
I don’t know if anyone noticed, but Obama destroyed upward mobility on purpose. The stats we hear about unemployment are false. FInancially, we haven’t really escaped the “Great Depression” and those who have jobs know how hard it would be to get another and don’t want to be “starting over” at a time when businesses are struggling.
I also wonder if tv and entertainment - basic electronic addiction - are pacifying people. They are “okay” in their electronic bubble now that big screen TV’s came down in price and everyone walks around with smart phones etc.
health insurance problems. One question I face as I think about moving out of state is how on earth am I going to get health insurance now?
Yes, I know I can buy a policy for $1000 a month or whatever.
Little to do with contentment, lots to do with fear. Boomers are generally too old to take chances, Xers are still struggling under onerous regulations and the "gig" economy, and Millennials who aren't snowflakes are stuck in low-end jobs, without the self-discipline that comes from, e.g., military experience.
“Wouldn’t it be better to drive an Uber in Brooklyn than to get by on welfare in West Virginia?
What say the wisdom here?”
Yes, providing for oneself is always best. Better yet, drive a cab :)
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