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I never said family planning is something government should "provide." I said government should have policies that allow people who CHOOSE to plan their families to have the ability to do that. Passing laws that make insurance companies not cover family planning (something many in the GOP are in favor of) does the opposite of that. Nowhere did I say, and I will never say, that government should be paying for birth control. They should just get out of the way when someone wants to practice it.
President Obama was "supposed to change" the fact that young people vote in statistically poorer numbers than the elderly? How is that possible? He was youngish, vibrant, and articulate in 2008, attractive to many. So it seems some young people were inspired to register for the first time and might have put him over the top to be elected over Sen. McCain, who presented the image of the elder statesman, more popular with conservatives. The same could be said of John Kennedy in 1960. Neither changed historic behavior from a statistical perspective.
My message is that young people need to vote in ALL elections, not merely presidential elections. Presidents are in a position to suggest policy and set a tone. They do not pass laws. Congress does that. Therefore, if someone wants to have a REAL voice in government they need to vote for senators and representatives (at the state and national level), not only the president. One's representative in the U.S. House votes for bills that have an influence on our lives from day to day. They determine everything having to do with domestic policy. People who vote AGAINST their own economic interests, as you obviously have done if you are 28 and voting Republican, totally confuse me. You are one of the young people who was forced to MOVE to find a decently paid job. In a just world, that shouldn't have had to happen. But you have Republicans making laws that have caused the economic situation where you are from. It's certainly within your right to vote for conservatives, but if you do it, please don't complain if you are saddled with student loan debt, are treated unfairly by lending institutions, have to leave friends and family behind to find a job with a living wage, can't plan an adequate retirement, can't get affordable healthcare, and will have to watch your children live in on a planet that is dying.
I don't want the government interfering in things like family planning, R or D. If there is a demand in the market for plans with family planning benefits, let the insurance companies put this forward. I don't want Democrats passing laws forcing companies to provide these benefits, but neither do I want Republicans outright prohibiting it. If there is enough demand to make a market, great. If not, tough.
I thought Obama was little more than an empty suit with platitudes in 2008, but given the financial crisis and a bad last few years under Bush, people were ready for something different, and a little "hope and change" didn't sound bad. I wasn't sold on McCain, especially on his economic competence, but I held my nose and voted for him. I had considered Obama. I was much more favorable to Mitt Romney, but he never caught on. Neither candidate was popular with the conservative base. Go listen to any talk radio show and most of the base has disdain for McCain/Romney.
People have been forced to move for their livelihood since time immemorial. Primitive man followed herds of animals to hunt. Sometimes you want to follow a career path that simply is not available in certain areas. Can you be an oceanographer if you want to live in Kansas permanently? Of course not. You're not going to reach the top levels of tech in northern Maine or southern MS. I am not a fan of what has gone on where I'm from in east TN, but right now, small towns and rural areas are not viable places to live.
We keep seeing posts that the poster cries about the boomers sent all those jobs overseas. Lets look at the true picture.
1: Some companies had two choices to make. Due to the fact they built products that had to sell cheap due to international competion and lots of hand labor, they were given two choices. A--Close the facility and go out of business and lay off 500 people plus lose all the money they had invested in the business. B--Move the manufacturing overseas, and only have to lay off 200 people, and still employ 300 people. CHOOSE 1--In that position which would you choose.
2: Other companies moved their production to the U.S. hiring millions of Americans. As these companies were producing higher priced goods, they paid a lot more than the companies that closed U .S. manufacturing facilities in #1 above. Example 10 foreign companies have opened auto manufacturing plants in the U.S., and Chrysler was bought by Fiat for a total of 11 foreign owned auto companies in U.S., vs 2 American owned. Remember, foreign owned companies make more cars on the U.S. than the American owned auto industry.
Actually foreign owned companies that onshored their manufacturing to the U.S., are the only reason the economy is in as good a condition as it is.
CHOOSE 1: A: Force American companies to stop sending jobs overseas. This would cause foreign companies to pull their factories and other facilities out of the U.S. in retaliation. Results: A huge unemployment problem in this country, mostly hitting the middle class. B: Keep encouraging foreign companies to build factories in the U.S.
When people complain about U.S. sending jobs overseas, they never consider other countries are sending jobs to the U.S., building and owning factories here including Chinese owned companies.
Most of those that complain about sending jobs overseas, live in states that are unfriendly to business and make it too difficult and time consuming to open factories in the state. They don't realize what is happening. Other states such as North Carolina are business friendly and attracting all kinds of factories and jobs to the state. In fact, those business unfriendly states are seeing companies and jobs leaving the state for other states not overseas, such as Toyota leaving California.
People who vote AGAINST their own economic interests, as you obviously have done if you are 28 and voting Republican, totally confuse me. You are one of the young people who was forced to MOVE to find a decently paid job. In a just world, that shouldn't have had to happen. But you have Republicans making laws that have caused the economic situation where you are from.
I hear you saying, if the Decrats were in power everyone would have a high paid job. If the Democrats were in power, young people would not have to move somewhere else, to find a decent job.
Lets take a Democrat controlled state. California. How come it has a high unemployment rate. How come people are leaving the state, to find decent jobs. How come companies such as Toyota are fleeing the state, to go to where the Republicans are in power. It seems that state alone, blows your theory of how good it is, if the Democrats are the ones running the state or country.
Im seeing a lot of baby boomers still clinging and clutching to their power positions despite many of them living a nice comfortable life outside of work it appears.
They continue to hold these high money making positions and STILL WON'T RETIRE
What is the problem? How do you expect the younger folk in their 20s and 30s to move up the ladder if the older folk won't call it a career and continue to enjoy the good money and perks?
Haven't they saved any money? Are their lives so empty, they wouldn't know what to do unless they went to work every day?
The only way positions are going to open is if the older folk retire.
What really bothers me are these execs or Managers who have had a nice 6 figure a year income or better for 2-3 decades that still won't retire? What the hell did these people spend their money on that they can't afford to retire by their 50s-60s?
OK Einstein....I am a NURSE, with a DEGREE and 30+ yrs of experience....retiring in 123 days....SOOOOOO....if you have the QUALIFICATIONS, email me and I will help you get my job....but if you have NO degree, NO experience, and NO qualifications, quit your whining and get some skills that will keep you employed longer than you want to have ever been (as in my case!)
Im seeing a lot of baby boomers still clinging and clutching to their power positions despite many of them living a nice comfortable life outside of work it appears.
They continue to hold these high money making positions and STILL WON'T RETIRE
What is the problem? How do you expect the younger folk in their 20s and 30s to move up the ladder if the older folk won't call it a career and continue to enjoy the good money and perks?
Haven't they saved any money? Are their lives so empty, they wouldn't know what to do unless they went to work every day?
The only way positions are going to open is if the older folk retire.
What really bothers me are these execs or Managers who have had a nice 6 figure a year income or better for 2-3 decades that still won't retire? What the hell did these people spend their money on that they can't afford to retire by their 50s-60s?
A very large percentage of people born in the 80s and 90s will never be able to retire or will retire with a pension that will not be able to support them. In Sweden around 30 percent of those who go to college will never hold a professional job – instead they will work in non-skilled service jobs which mean very low security and very low salaries. Thirty years ago – almost all college graduates would be able to secure a professional job with a livable salary. The current center-right government seeks to rise the retirement age to 75. The average life expectancy for Swedish men is 78.86 years – which means that Swedish men will work until they die. Swedish women will lives on average a few years longer. The consequence is that young people will have it more difficult to enter the job-market and a lot of people will have a terrible pension because they will not be able to work to 75 years of age.
A lot of people in the upper middle class and even a lot of the wealthy have a lifestyle which is beyond what they would be able to up-keep if they retire. The wealthy often own a very nice and expensive home. They have in most cases a second, third and even a fourth home. Often it nicely decorated with expensive furniture and art. They own sailing yachts and motorboats. They drive expensive full-size executive cars. They do expensive trips to exotic countries or weekend to world metropolitans for Christmas shopping. They go skiing in the winter to the Swiss Alps. They can afford to take a few weeks extra times of a year. In the weekends you play golf, watch a show, shopping at expensive places, work out at an expensive gym and eat dinner at fancy places – while “the help” come in clean your home. Some of the wealthy put their children to private schools or even boarding schools. They built up a good trust fund for their children and can significantly contribute to their children’s first home after college. This is how the wealthy spend their money regardless if they live in the Americas, Asia or Europe – but most of the wealthy have to work to keep up this kind of life-style – end if they get fired they lose everything.
A lot of upper middle class families do the same thing but they buy smaller houses, cheaper cars, cheaper cloths, cheaper boats, go to cheaper restaurants or eat out more seldom, don’t have a housekeeper and don’t put their children on boarding schools, skip to shopping trips to London – still they have an life-style which breath exclusiveness and expense. Instead of picking up their children after soccer practices in a Jaguar XJ they pick them up in a Volvo S60 instead. It is still a “nice” car but a compact executive car. Instead of owning that house in St. Anton they rent an apartment or take in at a medium-expensive hotel instead.
A lot of these “upper-middle class” children will end up in the gutter anyway because there are so many of them that are told that instead of becoming a doctor as “mommy” or an engineer as “daddy” – they get an degree in journalism or something like that and end up working at KFC the rest of their life. There will also be a lot of “mommy” and “daddy” that will lose their jobs. A lot of upper-middle class Americans and Europeans lost everything in the financial crisis in 2007. A lot of people, around the planet currently make their social trips downward rather than upward. The child of a wealthy family often ends up as middle class. The child of the middle class ends up among the working poor. The working-class children do interestingly pretty well because they have been told that they cannot be anything they want so instead they get an education that actually is still wanted on the market – which the middle class kid was never told. She was told that it didn’t matter if she read journalism or political science in school – she still would get job – but she ended up in a coffee shop and in her parent’s basement in a Boston suburb instead.
There are two funny or sad movies about this. One is called “The Company Men” and the other is called “Margin Call”. The first movie is about three people. The first one is a 42 year old junior executive, a typical upper-middle class careerist with a pretty wife, two children in primary school, a filthy expensive house outside Boston with a high mortgage and an expensive car to show of the neighbors. The second man is a senior executive with an even nicer house and that has done 30 years for the corporation. A typical wealthy person but that is also bounded by his income from work. The third person is a billionaire vice president with everything. They all get fired but the two other end up on the street – he get is still rich and can upkeep is lifestyle. The other movie is Margin Call – which is about Lehman Brothers. The young analysts that dream of becoming at least upper middle class and parts of the wealthy management get fired while the upper management with billions in their pockets stays on the boat even though they were responsible for the destruction of the company.
This is actually so sad because both of these movies actually show how United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe have become. Once flourishing countries with a well paid working class, well to do middle class and a rich but never super-rich upper-class. Now everyone goes to the bottom except the super-rich and the some of the wealthy and upper-middle class that lies for them – just to get to own that weekend-home on Marta’s Vineyard, drive an executive car and own a small townhouse in Brooklyn. Sad world we are living in. My parents and half of my relatives are “upper-middle class” – they don’t understand anything about how the world looks like outside their bubble of consumption – but they slowly start understand now when their children are doing class-trips downward and that their “elite” education they have bought for their kids isn’t worth a dime on the market.
We keep seeing posts that the poster cries about the boomers sent all those jobs overseas. Lets look at the true picture.
1: Some companies had two choices to make. Due to the fact they built products that had to sell cheap due to international competion and lots of hand labor, they were given two choices. A--Close the facility and go out of business and lay off 500 people plus lose all the money they had invested in the business. B--Move the manufacturing overseas, and only have to lay off 200 people, and still employ 300 people. CHOOSE 1--In that position which would you choose.
2: Other companies moved their production to the U.S. hiring millions of Americans. As these companies were producing higher priced goods, they paid a lot more than the companies that closed U .S. manufacturing facilities in #1 above. Example 10 foreign companies have opened auto manufacturing plants in the U.S., and Chrysler was bought by Fiat for a total of 11 foreign owned auto companies in U.S., vs 2 American owned. Remember, foreign owned companies make more cars on the U.S. than the American owned auto industry.
Actually foreign owned companies that onshored their manufacturing to the U.S., are the only reason the economy is in as good a condition as it is.
CHOOSE 1: A: Force American companies to stop sending jobs overseas. This would cause foreign companies to pull their factories and other facilities out of the U.S. in retaliation. Results: A huge unemployment problem in this country, mostly hitting the middle class. B: Keep encouraging foreign companies to build factories in the U.S.
When people complain about U.S. sending jobs overseas, they never consider other countries are sending jobs to the U.S., building and owning factories here including Chinese owned companies.
Most of those that complain about sending jobs overseas, live in states that are unfriendly to business and make it too difficult and time consuming to open factories in the state. They don't realize what is happening. Other states such as North Carolina are business friendly and attracting all kinds of factories and jobs to the state. In fact, those business unfriendly states are seeing companies and jobs leaving the state for other states not overseas, such as Toyota leaving California.
All of the above rambling notwithstanding, the ultimate act of the matter is the lack of government regulation (by politicians elected by Boomers as a collective whole) over foreign trade has led to a net loss in jobs for the US.
The rest of the word was destroyed after WWII, so someone along the line began in earnest the negative feedback loop of offshoring we have now.
I think a lot of people WANT to work. People are living longer now, many are healthy into their 70s and beyond. They don't seem to want the boring life of retirement.
My MIL retired happily a few years ago at the age of 62. My FIL tried to retire, but he was going CRAZY. So he went back to work. My mom will probably always work. I can't ever see her puttering around the house waiting for bingo night.
All of the above rambling notwithstanding, the ultimate act of the matter is the lack of government regulation (by politicians elected by Boomers as a collective whole) over foreign trade has led to a net loss in jobs for the US.
The rest of the word was destroyed after WWII, so someone along the line began in earnest the negative feedback loop of offshoring we have now.
That would have been the Truman Administration (1945-53). Part of the plan to rebuild the industrial base of our former enemies. Let me see the Boomers would have been, oh, unborn to 8 at that point.
Perhaps it was not viable for you, but many others, including the people who produce everything you eat find it very "viable".
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