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What's worse, is that this economic and individual stagnation is an entrenched cultural facet of French society. There is as much chance of changing it as there is of the volcanoes ending in Hawaii...
By comparison, I'd MUCH rather live here.
Neither my parents, nor my wifes parents had any degree of any kind. My father had just 5 years of grade school, and he started it not knowing a word of English. Nor any of the previous generations of our families. We grew up dirt poor and stayed that way.
Of my family, only my oldest brother has a degree. Of my wife's family, only she has a degree - four to be precise. We made a decision a long time ago together that her interests were more financially viable and I worked a full time job and odd jobs to help pay for her first degree.
Now she has an AS, BS, and two MS degrees, soon to get her PhD.
2 or 3 of our 5 kids will get degrees of some kind. Maybe 4.
My father logged or did manual labor. My wife's parents were medically incapable of working much of her life, they were in dire poverty almost all the time.
Does "anecdote" make "data"? Only in that it proves that generalizations of there being no "mobility" economically are absolutely false.
The "there is no mobility" argument cannot be proved by how many don't achieve mobility. It (the argument) is a statement of a lack of opportunity - and those who do prove the "lack of opportunity" doesn't exist. It isn't as good as it was when I was young, but it does still exist. The existence of the ability to move from one economic condition to another cannot be defined by the lack of doing so by many - one would be far better served to figure out why they choose not to, than to compile their numbers and claim it's proof you cannot.
Good post.
My father was so poor growing up that people would leave food and clothes on their front door out of charity. He is the first to get a college degree - had to hitchhike home on breaks - had to be an RA and work through college -- now he makes 6 figures.
My maternal grandfather was a 4th generation lumberjack.
I was born into a trailer park and saw my father rise up in economic stature through working hard and taking some risks. He has a nice house now with beautiful views of forest and sand dunes.
I am a college graduate and my household income is in the 6 figure range.
As a teacher, I see teachers telling students that they have it worse or worse because they are a minority, etc... I have literally had to argue with bright talented students that yes hard work increases your odds for success. What are we doing wrong as a society when some gifted students literally think that hard work has no bearing on future success?
This is a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. Hard work won't increase my odds of success, because the man and system hold me back. Look - I didn't try hard and I didn't find success - darn the system!
That professor is straight up an idiot if he thinks there is a real comparison.
In the middle ages 97% of all people were serfs - darn near slaves who didn't own land and were bound to nobility.
The difference between serfdom and capitalism is the ability to OWN things. Without the permission or assent of others, and without it being taken from you.
But we have attacked ownership and all but destroyed it here, leaving ownership to a class of people with "money" who can pay the taxes. We are re-instituting serfdom by taxation.
Ahh yes social mobility. The guys correct. the 1970's was the last time kids were almost guaranteed to be doing better then their parents. The times have changed.
median incomes have flatlined for the most part since mid 1970s.
And yet the standard of living continues to rise. Interesting.
And yet the standard of living continues to rise. Interesting.
LOL. define standard of living.
How much of that is from technology?
Do you deny the FACTS I provided? Or do facts and reality interfere with your narrative that we should not complain that all of the actual income gains are going to the top 1%?
Of our approximately 320 million people, approximately 317.5 million do NOT have a PhD. Does this prove you can't get a PhD?
Of course not. Why? Because about 2.5 million DO.
Proof of possibility is not provided by those who do not. It is provided by those who DO.
Dear Lord. We're discussing intergenerational earnings mobility, and the fact that it's lower in the US than most OECD countries. You know - facts? - those things that don't go away even if you wish otherwise?
If you're born in the lowest quintile in the US, chances of you staying there is higher than in most other OECD countries - fact. Saying that some do break out doesn't actually change that fact - social mobility is measured in "possibility", it's measured in actual mobility.
I laugh my as* off when I hear this liberal defeatists (who actually support the submission of the lower classes and the concept of enlightened liberal elite rulers) rhetoric.
Such contentions, of course, are total BS. Beyond incidental events, the norm in the US seems to be elevation to a social and economic status beyond that of your parents. Beyond the advent of liberalism, this HAS BEEN the norm in US society.
Liberalism attempts to keep a large componant of society dependent and reliant upon the government, thus securing the power of a few elites in the federal government over the masses. Liberalism, of course, is akin to totalitarianism and opposes social and economic movement. The more poor/dependent citizens, the more democrat voters are created. Thus the goals of liberalism is to create more dependent citizens.
My father ran a paint store and my mother was a secretary. My brother, sister, and I are very well to do physicians ( No one in our family, since they arrived in American in 1632, had ever gone to college). My younger brother is a concert violinist. My older brother and I are millionaires many times over.
The notion that you cannot rise in US society is complete BS. If you have accepted the notion that there is no social/economic mobility, then you are already defeated and might as well give up.
I live a life that I never dreamed of when I was a poor, rug rat kid. I own a good deal of property and can buy whatever the hell I want, all due to the mobility offered in the US. Had I been born somewhere else, I would probably still be a bum.
Oh wow! May I kiss the hem of your robe? You had industrious parents, one of whom ran their own small business along with a second income from Mom. Not a bad start. If that's the equivalent of growing up in a "poor, rug rat" type family, there are about a zillion Americans who would love to have had your place. And I bet this happened in the 50's or 60's before the US sold its soul to Wal-Mart and outsourced every last American manufacturing job to Communist China.
You give us quite the pedigree on yourself and your family and then you have the effrontery to sneer at the difficulties faced by today's working class and lower middle class Americans. You are so divorced from the realities of life in America today that I am astounded, sir. Whatever made you decide to drop in to stand in judgement of those whose lives you have no ability to even imagine? I'm certainly glad you're not MY doctor. Blech! My real doctor is a dedicated rural physician who could have been a big shot like you but instead chose to provide outstanding medical care to the working class people in a little Colorado town. My doctor understands what it is to be fighting to make ends meet or having lost your job and can't find a new one. He is one of the most compassionate people I have ever met and I figure one of him is worth about a thousand of you, millions of dollars and all.
And you wanna do dueling American pedigrees? Well, I double dog dare you to match mine. My family also arrived in this country in the 1600's. They were probably a bunch of Welsh cattle thieves who got sentenced to be indentured servants. Once they got THAT over with, they lit out for the Eastern Kentucky mountains where they became small farmers and occasional moonshiners on my Grand Daddy's side. My Grand Ma came from the local quality folk. Her father owned the local general store and was known for being the only person in town who subscribed to a newspaper which came all the way in the mail from Lexington. I don't believe my Grand Ma's Mom was a secretary, however. When my grand parents got married, my Great Grand Dad gave them a loan to leave the poverty of the Kentucky Mountains behind and buy a small tobacco farm in blue grass country. They had 6 children, one of whom was my Dad who used to plow the fields with a mule. In depression era Kentucky, my Grand Parents managed to send all six of their children to the University of Kentucky. One became a nurse, one became a teacher, and my father's older brother got a PhD in chemistry and was head of the Chemistry Department at Iowa State University. The youngest brother got a PhD in Education and was head of the Education Department at the University of Boston. My own father - tah dah - went to medical school and specialized in pediatrics. Are we having fun yet? One of my cousins became the first woman president of the University of Michigan. Go Google it and read her bio. Not bad for a bunch of Appalachian hillbillies.
However, unlike your family, my own family never forgot their own roots. There was none of this semi-contempt for those less fortunate that Royal You have no trouble expressing. However, guess what Mr. MD millionaire? Times and circumstances change. You obviously haven't poked your head out of your limo or stepped out of your exclusive gated community in quite some time. I suggest you stick to your chat room with your buddies at Goldman Sachs and spare us peasants your grand and completely invalid observations.
Humblely yours,
Colorado Rambler, Emeritus Professor and Librarian, Fort Lewis College (and Four Corners community activist for those less fortunate than either you or I).
Oh and PS, In my eyes you're still a bum, pal. Now go play in your off shore bank instead of with the great unwashed masses on the CD Politics Forum.
Last edited by Colorado Rambler; 11-30-2014 at 02:20 AM..
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