The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[redpoint5]

Yeah, I grew up in a single income family and thought it was great. Then again, McDonalds was a once a year luxury because it was expensive "eating out". Nowadays we complain that McDonalds is all poor people can afford. The local pizza chain is always busy on the 1st when food stamps are distributed.

Women entering the workforce has a lot to do with stagnant wages. This goes back to economic theory... that when the supply of workers goes up, the value of labor goes down.

Here's the unemployment history, and we're at a near all-time low. If you can't make it in the US, you can't make it anywhere.



The drug and suicide problem has more to do with a crisis of meaning than it does a crisis of economy. Those comparatively low well off are angry that they aren't better off and those that are well off are depressed that their achievement hasn't made them happier, or that they aren't at the very top. These all have to do with having wrong values and a lack of meaning.

We have structural problems (there's always room for improvement), but the real problems are always much more difficult than "not enough money". That's a symptom, not a cause.

[freebeard]

Plenty of people lived in the 70's, so we don't need to check any fact to see if they are better off today or not. Just ask yourself if you'd rather be whisked away from the standard of living we enjoy today and trade it for that of the 70's. No more internet, no more fuel injection, no more Amazon... you name it, and basically everything we enjoy doesn't exist.

I saw a picture of my grandparents (on my mother's side) standing next to their new 1940 Studebaker in Willamina, OR. They seemed genuinely happy, something I don't remember from the 1950s.

Personally, everything peaked in the mid-1990s. I was living in a geodesic dome, working for a major corporation and knew the truest friend I've known in my life. Also Usenet.

As for an alternative to capitalism — a Design Science Revolution. It's advancing well. Roll-to-roll graphene, liquid metal batteries, etc. More interest in open sourcing and replicating best practices would advance things faster.

https://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski?language=en

[sendler]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Women entering the workforce has a lot to do with stagnant wages. This goes back to economic theory... that when the supply of workers goes up, the value of labor goes down.
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The number of "jobs" may be up but the quality and the pay is way down. The bottom 70% of Americans makes 8% less than they did in 2000 and owns only 3% of the wealth. Wages are still completely stagnant. Per capita GDP is up but so is inequity. There is more money out there but it is more and more concentrated at the very top world wide. The system is broken for labor. If it ever seemed to work at all ,only due to constant growth. But there are limits to growth on a finite planet and we are about to run into them.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth..._United_States
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[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by sendler

The number of "jobs" may be up but the quality and the pay is way down. The bottom 70% of Americans makes 8% less than they did in 2000 and owns only 3% of the wealth. Wages are still completely stagnant. Per capita GDP is up but so is inequity. There is more money out there but it is more and more concentrated at the very top world wide. The system is broken for labor. If it ever seemed to work at all ,only due to constant growth. But there are limits to growth on a finite planet and we are about to run into them.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth..._United_States
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We live in an increasingly global economy, and the price for labor is increasingly distributed around the world. It's inevitable that we would be competing not just among others in our town, but among all living people. I expect globalization alone to account for a significant amount of stagnant or reduced wages.

There is a looming problem on the horizon of work requiring increasing skill, yet our cognitive abilities aren't increasing, or not increasing at the same pace. That leaves people at the bottom with nothing to do (thanks minimum mandate by government force). Inequality is inevitable because we aren't all the same, but that is a problem when wealth accumulates too heavily at the top; and I don't have any reasonable solutions to that problem at the moment, or know exactly when inequality becomes a problem. As I say, inequality is a feature of the universe; not unique to humanity, so unequalness is not a problem itself.

[litesong]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

What are you going to do when trump gets reelected?

Even when "don'T rump" ISN'T re-elected, I've already made my moves. I made my moves, even before "don'T rump" was first elected. Altho america was always in the mud, "don'T rump" has made sure america is even DEEPER in the mud. "don'T rump" lost by 3 million votes (would have been more, but southern re-pubic-lick-uns were taking votes away from minorities). Some people said they were fooled by the lies of "don'T rump". Since the lies of "don'T rump" are now widely known, the re-election of "don'T rump" would mean the majority of people(even church people) have fallen to "don'T rump" moral low. As in life, america can NOT cleanse itself of mud, while staying in the mud.

[freebeard]

Even when "don'T rump" ISN'T re-elected, I've already made my moves

Now there's a forward-looking statement, if a little hard to parse.

I made my moves, even before "don'T rump" was first elected.

Care to share what those moves might be?

"don'T rump" lost by 3 million votes (would have been more, but southern re-pubic-lick-uns were taking votes away from minorities).

I looked at this claim. Three million appears to be the number of illegal votes (prolly Democrat). So Donald (J. for Justice) Trump may have won the popular vote as well as the one that counts.

Since the lies of "don'T rump" are now widely known...

Some people can't take a joke. How about promises kept?

[redpoint5]

Hate isn't a virtue; it's weakness of character and humility.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Inequality is inevitable because we aren't all the same, but that is a problem when wealth accumulates too heavily at the top; and I don't have any reasonable solutions to that problem at the moment

Progressive tax rate, rent control, world labor unions, ect. Those that have had the good fortune to do well in the current system should feel compelled to chip in more.

[redpoint5]

Rent control harms everyone. Economists have a consensus that it's a terrible reaction to high housing prices. Most things done to help the poor have unintended consequences worse than the problem they are trying to solve.

The benevolent people of many large cities have vastly expanded the drug and homelessness problem with their good intentions. They hand money directly to people on street corners; participating in the well-being of drug dealers and demise of the addicted.

We don't have crazy wards for the crazies anymore either. Somehow it's more humane for them to sleep on sidewalks naked and poop in public.

The problem is way more complex than "the poor don't have enough money". That's a symptom of many complicated problems, not a problem itself. If that were the problem, then the solution would be to simply give money. That doesn't work.

[oil pan 4]

I would burn my rentals and collect insurance on them before losing money renting at fixed prices.
If the government is obsessed with running housing at a net financial loss they should do it.
If the government built S-hole housing projects and ran them at a net loss that would likely lower rent for an area. They can effect prices with out seizing total control.

But I feel like the government and the cult of climatology total control is all they ever wanted.