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Old 04-07-2009, 02:32 PM
 
Location: Castle Hills
1,172 posts, read 2,622,810 times
Reputation: 656

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A joke for Randomdude. Well not really a joke... more like what would happen if we turn into a socialist country.


An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same
grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the
first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that...
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Old 04-11-2009, 03:50 PM
 
Location: El Paso, TX
3,503 posts, read 4,531,336 times
Reputation: 3026
Thomas Sowell does bring up some very good points in his book "Economic Facts and Fallacies".

A couple of chapters address the shrinking middle class and the gap between the rich and the poor fallacies people tend to believe.

You have a great day.
El Amigo
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Old 04-11-2009, 04:50 PM
 
Location: Under a bridge.
3,196 posts, read 5,376,493 times
Reputation: 982
Quote:
Originally Posted by elamigo View Post
Thomas Sowell does bring up some very good points in his book "Economic Facts and Fallacies".

A couple of chapters address the shrinking middle class and the gap between the rich and the poor fallacies people tend to believe.

You have a great day.
El Amigo
According to the book what are the fallacies regarding the gap?
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Old 04-11-2009, 04:57 PM
 
Location: El Paso, TX
3,503 posts, read 4,531,336 times
Reputation: 3026
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley View Post
According to the book what are the fallacies regarding the gap?
I am reading it right now. Please let me go back to those two chapters and will get back with you. In my opinion are very good points he makes.
I will cover them. Please bear with me a little so I can re-read them.

You have a great day.
El Amigo
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Old 04-11-2009, 05:08 PM
 
48,505 posts, read 96,489,188 times
Reputation: 18301
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley View Post
Lou Dobbs is an unbiased journalist???

No ;Lou Dobbs is a upper middle class talkinghead that makes his money preaching to the maddening crowds like so many others in society.Before hye started doing this is was a lower middle class reporter working at some station somewhere in the outbacks of america wandering if he would ever make it to the elite class of reporting.
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Old 04-11-2009, 05:36 PM
 
Location: Under a bridge.
3,196 posts, read 5,376,493 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by texdav View Post
No ;Lou Dobbs is a upper middle class talkinghead that makes his money preaching to the maddening crowds like so many others in society.Before hye started doing this is was a lower middle class reporter working at some station somewhere in the outbacks of america wandering if he would ever make it to the elite class of reporting.
Well, IMHO, he made it to the elite class of entertainment--but not of reporting.
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Old 04-11-2009, 06:08 PM
 
27 posts, read 51,328 times
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I would have said - very strongly - that the middle class was alive and well!
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Old 04-12-2009, 06:49 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,160,638 times
Reputation: 16936
Quote:
Originally Posted by texdav View Post
No ;Lou Dobbs is a upper middle class talkinghead that makes his money preaching to the maddening crowds like so many others in society.Before hye started doing this is was a lower middle class reporter working at some station somewhere in the outbacks of america wandering if he would ever make it to the elite class of reporting.
As someone who grew up solidly middle class but has seen it shrink as I understand it to be all my life, I find his ideas quite realistic. As for saying that we just "revised" it upwards (the mcmansion with the two cars and boat) that isn't what it means to me. And subtract debt from those with mcmansions and stuff and see what they leaves. When the cost of a 900 sf home built in the 1950's in socal got to 200k, that means that the average family could not afford that home without very unfortunately creative financing. True, it could be gotten for a lot less now, but then there are many fewer who could buy it. And this is the typical house of the middle class as I remember it to be.

The middle class worked in offices and as managers and the lower side worked in upper level manufacturing jobs. They didn't work at Walmart. They worked in skilled jobs. Where are these jobs now? China? India? Where are the technical jobs that my dad had (he was an aerospace engineer)? Not here...

You can't have a middle class if you don't have jobs that can sustain it and as more and more of the jobs that kept bills being paid dissapear the fewer of us can be called middle class. How many out there wonder and worry about what awaits their kids in the world, and fear their kids will not have the (perhaps diminishing) life you have?

This is the kind of stuff I hear from Mr. Dobbs. He is passionate about it as well. He is strongly anti illegal immigration too and if that rubs you the wrong way perhaps that is what you dislike.

But his mission to remind those in power that the shrinking middle class is losing the battle is hardly contriversal or unrealistic.
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Old 04-12-2009, 11:24 PM
 
Location: Under a bridge.
3,196 posts, read 5,376,493 times
Reputation: 982
Quote:
Originally Posted by nightbird47 View Post
As someone who grew up solidly middle class but has seen it shrink as I understand it to be all my life, I find his ideas quite realistic. As for saying that we just "revised" it upwards (the mcmansion with the two cars and boat) that isn't what it means to me. And subtract debt from those with mcmansions and stuff and see what they leaves. When the cost of a 900 sf home built in the 1950's in socal got to 200k, that means that the average family could not afford that home without very unfortunately creative financing. True, it could be gotten for a lot less now, but then there are many fewer who could buy it. And this is the typical house of the middle class as I remember it to be.

The middle class worked in offices and as managers and the lower side worked in upper level manufacturing jobs. They didn't work at Walmart. They worked in skilled jobs. Where are these jobs now? China? India? Where are the technical jobs that my dad had (he was an aerospace engineer)? Not here...

You can't have a middle class if you don't have jobs that can sustain it and as more and more of the jobs that kept bills being paid dissapear the fewer of us can be called middle class. How many out there wonder and worry about what awaits their kids in the world, and fear their kids will not have the (perhaps diminishing) life you have?

This is the kind of stuff I hear from Mr. Dobbs. He is passionate about it as well. He is strongly anti illegal immigration too and if that rubs you the wrong way perhaps that is what you dislike.

But his mission to remind those in power that the shrinking middle class is losing the battle is hardly contriversal or unrealistic.
As discussed previously, the statistics don't support your thesis. One easy way to see that is to ask yourself, "why has the standard of living increased, and unemployment is as low as it is, if the manufactuing and help desk jobs that are overseas truly damaged our economy"
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Old 04-13-2009, 12:29 PM
 
Location: Chino, CA
1,458 posts, read 3,273,087 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley View Post
As discussed previously, the statistics don't support your thesis. One easy way to see that is to ask yourself, "why has the standard of living increased, and unemployment is as low as it is, if the manufactuing and help desk jobs that are overseas truly damaged our economy"
Oh, that's an easy one... household and total public and private debt increase.


Nice it went past disposable income since Q1 2000... so, I guess we spend more than our incomes?


And in the larger trend, we spend more than we produce since close to forever

Will the Dollar Rally Survive? -- Seeking Alpha


Standard of living, and false unemployment based on debt based growth really doesn't mean much as we are seeing today with a significant reduction in credit availability.

OH NO! Our credit availability is gone!

The Slippery Slope, Commodities Boom, Consumer Deleveraging, Poor Man’s Gold and More! | 5 Min. Forecast

and the economy crashes... with -6.48% annualized GDP growth in the 4th quarter and falling.
BEA National Economic Accounts

I don't really understand the guys that think things are going alright... and that the middle class in the US is strong and that the US growth in the last 20+ years was actually based on something sustainable and substantial instead of just pumping credit and dumping productive resources overseas.

I guess you like drinking the koolaid... but sooner or later... the cuts in education, government, and healthcare are also going to dent more wallets.

-chuck22b
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