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That's a confusion of cause and effect. There are plenty of countries with no social welfare systems to speak of which have far higher birthrates and rates of poverty than the US (the US birth rate has dipped to around 1.83 per woman of childbearing age, which is below the replacement rate of 2.1).
The economic trends in question have been going on for decades and are fundamental in nature rather than temporary or based in mere government policies. They seem to exist across the developed world, which transcends the political system of any individual nation.
You framed this global picture better than my attempt.
If there was a sustainable gimmick that could mitigate these trends, that card would have played, by now.
In the mean time, the SUP PACs, cable news and pay for radio folk keep us on the edge of our seat with the daily outrage report and spin cycle.
The blame needs to go where the blame belongs. Not where you'd like it to belong. Liberals use emotion instead of logic too much. They like to think of themselves as being intellectual and scientific, but much of the time they aren't. They develop a worldview first and then try to fit reality into it, instead of looking at reality and developing a worldview from it.
There should be no judgment value attached to blaming the poor instead of the rich. If someone chooses not to develop any marketable skills, then they are to blame. Walmart isn't to blame for not paying someone $15 an hour to stand in a doorway and say to people who walk in, or for taking an item out of a box and setting it on a shelf. Labor like that isn't worth more than minimum wage. People don't "deserve" a living wage. They should earn a living wage. If you are doing a job that any able bodied person on the planet could learn to do in 5 minutes, then you don't deserve a wage that will pay for food, rent utilities, insurance, a car, internet, and all the rest. Nobody is entitled to a comfortable life simply by virtue of having been born.
Someone else shouldered all the risk and did all the work in inventing, developing, producing, and marketing a product. But somehow they owe you a living wage just to put it on the self? There's no sense in that. If you want money, go earn it. Make something of yourself with your time and energy instead of using that time and energy to whine about evil rich people.
And by "you" I don't mean the person I'm responding to, I just mean people in general. Take some responsibility for yourself.
Are't marketable skills usually developed through education and training?
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that low-/no-income earners are outbreeding higher income earners by a rate of 3 to 1. The population of low-/no-income earners is growing exponentially faster than the population of higher income earners. It is a mathematical inevitability that the result of such WILL be consistently declining median incomes.
It's a mathematical certainty. What do you not get about that?
Check out how expensive it is to live in Australia.
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
This is for the average, across the entire nation of Australia. You will see a CPI of 110.93 for Purchasing power, but this index is in comparison to NYC . That's right, it is 10.93% more expensive than NYC to live in Australia. How far does $18 really get you then?
The $18 minimum AU wage is a common topic on this forum. Those who advocate for it, do not understand the relationship of this wage to the cost of living in AU.
You're talking about long-term dysgenics, which is certainly possible. But that doesn't account for the trends we are seeing today, since they have taken hold much more rapidly than on a generational timeline. Focusing on the uneducated underclass also ignores the massive problems the economy currently has absorbing younger people with educations, even in "STEM" disciplines.
These are people whose work, skills, and test scores would have gotten them a job with a pension at IBM right out of school in the 50's or 60's. Dysgenia does not account for their current struggles. For that, we have to look at structural economic shifts.
The concept of the Activist Shareholder began in the 80's and grows stronger by the day.
People ALWAYS spend their money more wisely than does the government or how other people would spend their money.
That applies to both liberals and conservatives.
We see the utterly miserable effect of Obamanomics that can best be described using Brian Westfall's analogy. We have a "plowhorse" economy. Just trudging along but not ready to keel over either.
Can anyone truthfully state they feel good about this economy? If so hold up your hands but don't expect to see a lot of hands. It has been my impression for a long time that we are in the middle of a watershed moment in our nation where we have a true socialist in the WH who believes that government is the cure-all for our economy. This can't all be laid at the Republican's doorstep. One can look back to the "Community Reinvestment Act" where free money was ladled out to people who couldn't afford to pay the mortgages. And then it got completely out of hand in the mid 2000s with the "liar loans" and non-existent lending practices.
As the Bible clearly tells us, we reap what we sew. This is the bitter fruit of economic illiteracy.
Are't marketable skills usually developed through education and training?
Yep but the Right Wing thinks those are things that are easy to get and once you get them there will be a job for everyone who gets education and training. The Right Wing are delusional
I favor NOT financially incentivizing bearing children one has not planned to provide to care for.
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