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Clinton, a Democrat, was in office from 1993 to 2000. And now Obama also a Democrat has been in office since 2008. There is more than just blaming two men, Reagan who is deceased, and Romney who never was President of the United States.
Two of your three dates are incorrect, and the philosophies associated with various individuals are not coterminous with either their biological or electoral limitations. I assume you've heard of Marxism, for instance, and I'll forego the option of offering here dozens upon dozens of further examples.
It is the increasingly anti-progressive, anti-inclusive, pro-business, pro-wealthy, pro-exploitation policies of the past 35 years or so that have undermined more and more of the nation's economy and greater and greater numbers of its people. Those policies are associated with Reagan and Romney. No one should be surprised by the despoiled landscape that has resulted from reliance on them.
Cognitive dissonance, anyone? This is what Reaganism and Romneyism produce. After 35 years of warnings, some inkling of the matter should have crept in here somewhere.
Clearly, you didn't see the presentation; it was fair in suggesting that both parties shared in the blame ("shared," because there were other things contributing to the financial distress other than party politics).
I thought it was sad how the divorced Mueller woman went to see the home she'd lost in foreclosure. She was invited inside by the new owners, and when she got to the kitchen it was particularly heart-wrenching. Interestingly, the grown Mueller kids all seem to have followed in their footsteps, with one glaring lesson: don't have kids until you can support them.
The Stanley family fared a little better, but the husband isn't going anywhere without a high-school education. His son, however, has a well-paying job. In local government.
Two of your three dates are incorrect, and the philosophies associated with various individuals are not coterminous with either their biological or electoral limitations. I assume you've heard of Marxism, for instance, and I'll forego the option of offering here dozens upon dozens of further examples.
It is the increasingly anti-progressive, anti-inclusive, pro-business, pro-wealthy, pro-exploitation policies of the past 35 years or so that have undermined more and more of the nation's economy and greater and greater numbers of its people. Those policies are associated with Reagan and Romney. No one should be surprised by the despoiled landscape that has resulted from reliance on them.
Clinton was in office from 1993 to 2001, and Obama from 2009 to the present day.
Clearly, you didn't see the presentation; it was fair in suggesting that both parties shared in the blame ("shared," because there were other things contributing to the financial distress other than party politics).
I thought it was sad how the divorced Mueller woman went to see the home she'd lost in foreclosure. She was invited inside by the new owners, and when she got to the kitchen it was particularly heart-wrenching. Interestingly, the grown Mueller kids all seem to have followed in their footsteps, with one glaring lesson: don't have kids until you can support them.
The Stanley family fared a little better, but the husband isn't going anywhere without a high-school education. His son, however, has a well-paying job. In local government.
That's not the lesson I saw from this.
These families would NEVER have had kids because they would NEVER be able to afford them. When they are poor the way these families were poor, one or three or four kids didn't make a difference.
How is being a single parent an improvement in their situation? To me, that is the big lesson. Don't have kids out of wedlock. They are supporting two households instead of one.
Two of your three dates are incorrect, and the philosophies associated with various individuals are not coterminous with either their biological or electoral limitations. I assume you've heard of Marxism, for instance, and I'll forego the option of offering here dozens upon dozens of further examples.
It is the increasingly anti-progressive, anti-inclusive, pro-business, pro-wealthy, pro-exploitation policies of the past 35 years or so that have undermined more and more of the nation's economy and greater and greater numbers of its people. Those policies are associated with Reagan and Romney. No one should be surprised by the despoiled landscape that has resulted from reliance on them.
If we didn't have capitalism, and we relied instead on Marxism, then these two families would have been guaranteed a job for life at the manufacturing plant in Milwaukee. They would have been entitled to share equally in the profits of the company, making as much money as the CEO. Is that correct?
We never had a system like that before Reagan or Romney, so why would you assign blame for the past 35 years to only two men?
We moved from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. Were there people who lamented that transition and mourned for the loss of agricultural jobs for industrial jobs? Yes. Times change and people as individuals have to progress as well. Individuals must be "progressive."
We moved from an industrial economy to a service economy. Knowledge workers with college degrees have had an easier time in this economy.
The American people wanted inexpensive cars and clothes and other goods, so companies manufactured those in other countries. The American people wanted cheaper labor in construction and agriculture and domestic, so Mexican immigrants were allowed to work here. How can you blame Reagan and Romney for that?
The Clinton era was a prosperous time for many American Baby Boomers, but not for these families featured in the documentary. Many Baby Boomers achieved higher status and wealth because goods and services were so inexpensive, which made it more difficult for the ones with jobs in manufacturing.
Cognitive dissonance, anyone? This is what Reaganism and Romneyism produce. After 35 years of warnings, some inkling of the matter should have crept in here somewhere.
Detroit has had continuous Democratic leadership since at least 1961. Look what Democrats produced in Detroit.
Clearly, you didn't see the presentation; it was fair in suggesting that both parties shared in the blame ("shared," because there were other things contributing to the financial distress other than party politics).
I have so far seen parts of it (including the scenes you found so poignant) as background to other endeavors. But the point I raised was not about partisan politics. It was about philosophy and social identification. If you want to assess blame by party for the specific state of current affairs, it all goes to Republicans, but the problems actually started long before 1994.
Clinton was in office from 1993 to 2001, and Obama from 2009 to the present day.
That's correct. It remains the case that Marx is dead, and that the increasingly anti-progressive, anti-inclusive, pro-business, pro-wealthy, pro-exploitation policies of the past 35 years or so are what have undermined more and more of the nation's economy and greater and greater numbers of its people. Those policies are indeed associated with Reagan and Romney, and no one should be surprised by the despoiled landscape that has resulted from these decades of reliance on them.
There's too much blaming of political parties here and not enough thinking about the changes that had fundamentally changed our world as we know it. No Democrat or Republican can protect people against:
1. Competition from Third World Countries. A company can choose to produce a product in America and employ Americans at $20 an hour or employee people in Thailand at $20 a day. If the quality of what is produced is roughly even, what do you think the company will choose?
2. Decline of Labor Unions. Labor union membership made up about 35% to 40% of all American workers in 1945. Today, that number is about 5%. People can whine and complain all they want to about unions. The truth is they will never have the bargaining power standing alone that the union has bargaining collectively for them.
3. Consumers who are more interested in price cuts than in keeping their neighbors employed. Walmart makes up approximately 10% of all retail sales in this country. What is Walmart's business model? Stack it deep, sell it cheap. More importantly, their model is one that has paid the very lowest wages to its employees and has not provided health insurance or benefits to ordinary workers. What else is true of Walmart? Its the most successful retail enterprise in America. The next time you drive past a Walmart out in the suburbs and into a blighted downtown area with no more functioning retail stores, think about that.
4. Illegal immigration. This problem is tapering a bit. However, the people hurt the most by illegal immigration are probably unskilled Americans who used to be able to count on abundant and reasonably paying jobs in construction, the fast food industry, and service occupations. Those jobs are no longer abundant or reasonably-paying because illegal immigrants are willing to do most of them for the bare minimum. This keeps market forces from working to the advantage of the low skilled worker. I suppose politicians could do something to strengthen the border with Mexico. However, that border is over a 1000 miles long. That's a lot of fencing and border patrol agents.
Those are the problems that need to be fixed. Some of them--like competition from overseas--are probably unfixable.
If we didn't have capitalism, and we relied instead on Marxism, then these two families would have been guaranteed a job for life at the manufacturing plant in Milwaukee. They would have been entitled to share equally in the profits of the company, making as much money as the CEO. Is that correct?
Clearly not. You disqualify yourself from serious answer merely by asking such a question. Start over and begin from an understanding that binary thinking is almost worse than none at all, and that "not-Reagan/Romneyism" does not somehow equate to "communism".
Quote:
Originally Posted by hot_in_dc
We never had a system like that before Reagan or Romney, so why would you assign blame for the past 35 years to only two men?
The system we had before Reagan was a product of those who had come and been brought together in opposition to the depression and the nazis. There was a sense of team, of mutual respect and even-handedness. Thus the rise of unions (that created the middle class) and the move toward greater and greater equality in employment, housing, and voting rights. Despite precursors from the likes of Wallace and Nixon, it was Ronald Reagan's choosing to espouse his flawed visions in Philadelphia, MS, that began our way down a latter-day trail of tears. We have been a poorer and poorer nation from that moment on.
[Duty calls. More later if I feel like it.]
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