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Every once in a while I look at my family and I say, "You know how rich we are? We've got a roof over our heads, clean water, food in our bellies, a comfy bed to sleep in tonight, and beer to sip on. We are richer than 75% of the world's population, don't ever forget that."
We live very comfortably, but we aren't rich by America's standards. My husband and I are a young couple. But we have realized that growing up in the United States you really don't need to buy anything because all the people you know already have so much junk. Almost all of the stuff in our house was given to us for free because people were cleaning out a junk room and didn't need this or that. We save our money instead of buying things. We are trying our best to not be consumers.
That's admirable, and tough in our capitalist society, it promotes spending beyond means. We are encouraged to buy as a lifestyle, it keeps our societies ball rolling. Without spending, consuming more than needed our work force suffers, we lose jobs our system starts to collapse. We give tax breaks in hopes of spending, we rate achievement by ranking holiday sales. Our shopping list include our healthcare and our education as wants and wish for lists. Jobs are lost from attempts at our frugality or fear of spending, yet homes are lost from our spending and debt.
It can be very confusing morally. On one hand you are doing what's best for your family, saving money, on the other you are not participating in our capitalist system. All countries enjoy economic freedom but ours is separated by a capitalist based government, we don't usually trust them to represent us, we don't have a socialist government enacting societies needs as a staple separated from our economic freedoms. Our needs are purchased in a capitalist fashion as well, it sets us apart. When we spend we create opportunity for others in our country. We create income needed for healthcare and education. In a way what you buy at the mall helps others afford their needs, not just wants their wants.
It's a tough place to control spending, my hats off to you. Going against any system is tough.
But America is headed on a long-term path to which will dramatically cause inequality to increase. The deindustrialization of America has ravaged the Black populations of almost every big city in America. Manufacturing jobs once performed by working class Blacks in big cities decades ago are now performed by slave labor in China. The problem with complete deindustrialization in big cities and the marginalized Black urban underclass it effects is extremely pronounced in post-industrial cities like Detroit and Baltimore. These cities will continue to decay as there is no reason to gentrify Detroit, Baltimore or New Orleans.
A huge percentage of suburban dwelling middle class Whites have long abandoned blue collar work en masse and now dominate white collar professions; many of which are a complete joke (especially many government jobs) that involve nothing but surfing the internet all day pretending to work. The current economic downturn has put millions of Americans out of work. Rising unemployment among the American populace is a long-term trend as automation and outsourcing continues to put people out of work, illegal immigrants come to dominate manual labor positions depressing real wages as well as thousands of once lucrative small businesses being regulated to death or killed by the sharp multi-million dollar funded tactics of omnipresent global corporations.
It doesn't help that the college degree has become the new high school diploma and the fact that college is more expensive than ever while not guaranteeing any type of employment upon graduation. Young people starting off nowadays are at a disadvantage and may never be able to own homes or live as comfortable as their parents. Young folks end up being in debt to the government for life even before they begin their lives with fewer and fewer legitimate employment opportunities for anyone but the exceptionally intelligent and talented.
These days, millions of people depend on the government to give them money and food stamps to eat every month. More people are receiving money from the government in some shape or form than at any given time in U.S. history. Not just welfare recipients receive disproportionately large sums of money from the government. Today, federal workers are paid roughly double the salary of their equally skilled private sector counterparts.
The national debt continues to balloon into the trillions. This national debt literally could not be reasonably paid off in two thousand years. Pretty soon, it is likely that the American economic system will completely collapse in on itself. Other countries that don't really like America, like China, are doing us a huge favor by buying up our debt. We can't rely on this forever. It is possible that soon millions of upon millions of Americans will be truly poor like the people are in third world countries. If kids in the ghetto are rioting over Air Jordans, expect complete pandemonium that make the riots of the past look like a walk in the park when everyone's EBT card refuses to process and those welfare checks stop coming on the first and fifteenth. It doesn't help that we have 90 guns per 100 people in America. Of course all of this is an absolute worst case Y2K-esque scenario that we may never witness in our lifetimes, but doom-and-gloom recession columnists sure make a good case sometimes.
Bad side effects from capitalism nobody wants to address. When a capitalist society turns the corner of wanting to make more money to afford what they can't have to saving/lack of spending to live within their means of employment or lack of then bad side effects occur, like the ones you've listed. IMO.
I think most people in other first world countries feel they are lucky as well. It's not an exclusively U.S. thing. In fact, some like myself, are quite content where we live.
I don't think the U.S. when trying to feel good about itself should be comparing itself to third world countries. Compare yourselves to first world countries and the myths start to disappear...such as standard of living. The U.S. does rate high but the numbers are so close to many other countries that you can't say " Americans, by far, enjoy the highest standard of living in the world"
It's not by far and some list put the U.S. down to sixth.
However standard of living means different things to different people. Do others really care that one country has five toilets per household when another has three?
Quality of life indexes are a bit more telling as are happiest lists. The U.S. does not fare well in either.
As for safety, again don't compare yourselves to war torn countries or third world places.
I understand the need to feel good about where you live, we all do it, but by having rose coloured glasses on, as I think you do regarding poverty in the U.S. is not going to solve the problems.
I understand the need to feel good about where you live, we all do it, but by having rose coloured glasses on, as I think you do regarding poverty in the U.S. is not going to solve the problems.
But its all relative. You live in Canada. There are no major cities made up mostly of neglected run-down areas like New Orleans or Baltimore in Canada. Baltimore looks like it got hit by a bomb. This is coming from someone who lives less than twenty miles outside of Baltimore city limits.
Rural poverty in America often isn't as bad as urban poverty. Why? Poor people living in the sticks are often more self-sufficient. Many of them know how to grow their own food and don't lust after conspicuous signifiers of material wealth like city dwellers. People in the city need jobs, period. Also, Whites living in remote rural areas don't face the same type of racial discrimination that Blacks (as well as many Latinos and Asians; the latter is common in urban areas in California) living in the city experience in looking for work. Where I'm from in San Francisco, it is damn near impossible for a Black person living in the ghetto to find work. Black people, in general, are heavily stigmatized where I'm from in SF. In SF, you pretty much have to be able to speak Chinese or Spanish even to get a job at McDonald's. Public transportation is scarce in many of the remote ghettoized Black neighborhoods in many big cities in America. It is just as bad even in predominantly Black cities, like Baltimore, where all the factories shutdown and or relocated overseas decades ago and most of the jobs exist way-out in the suburbs where Blacks from the city are less likely to be hired for jobs in the first place.
Overpriced higher education sets itself as a barrier to keep many minorities poor living in the hood as public schools in minority-majority neighborhoods are inferior quality with a whopping dropout rate.
Could this be a coincidence that most white collar businesses in America are overwhelmingly owned and operated by White people? People with ethnic sounding names on their resumes have been known to be less likely to be called back for job interviews according to a few studies. Also, some studies have concluded that a Black man with a clean record is equally likely to get a job as a White man who is a convicted felon.
It is no coincidence that one of the largest employers of Black America is the federal government. Independent businesses can be picky as they want about who they hire, even if it is unethical. I have read quite a few local classified ad's for jobs on craigslist specifying that the office was a cool "Rock 'N Roll environment". Rock music has long been solely associated with White Americans in this post-Elvis world. A hilarious recent study concluded that Rock music influences certain White people to favor members of their own race over others. Office culture at many lucrative businesses is very White and excludes minorities. Just another example of the subtle but very real hurdles minorities often face in getting, and keeping, good jobs:
So it has been established that it can be much harder for Blacks and other minorities to get jobs as compared to Whites. It is even harder for urban dwelling Blacks in the inner city to get good jobs suburban-raised Blacks with high SAT scores and college degrees may be able to snag. Not everyone is a welfare queen in American inner cities and people need to pay the rent and eat somehow, even when there are no jobs to be had. The well-established drug game that offers the potential of making six figures a year is much more appealing than eating spam or ramen noodles for the rest of your life living in a tiny apartment in an already dangerous neighborhood. It doesn't help when young children, who often haven't even hit puberty, living in the inner city in America are forced to put food on the table for themselves by stealing, robbing, selling drugs and joining gangs because their parents are neglectful, chronically absent or hardcore drug addicts or alcoholics who spend all of their money on their vices instead of feeding their kids.
Last edited by LunaticVillage; 01-26-2013 at 03:12 PM..
I would say compared to the entire world. I vcan think of many country such as Greece where they are use to thre hours lunch and short days plus not being evwery hard to be fired for whatever reason. But of course they are payig for what this has resulted in. Last i knew americans were amoug the most prodcuive on average and a japoanese work only did 70% of what a american worker did in 8 hours. There are always exceptions but generally americans have always been known as hard workers with a high work ethic especailly in the western industrialized world.
I would say compared to the entire world. I vcan think of many country such as Greece where they are use to thre hours lunch and short days plus not being evwery hard to be fired for whatever reason. But of course they are payig for what this has resulted in. Last i knew americans were amoug the most prodcuive on average and a japoanese work only did 70% of what a american worker did in 8 hours. There are always exceptions but generally americans have always been known as hard workers with a high work ethic especailly in the western industrialized world.
The productive stats are higher in the U.S. because of less time off. A workers output is going to be higher if they don't get four weeks off or more a year, or have paid maternity leave etc.
I agree, Americans do tend to be extremely spoiled.
I even know of many low-income households that have Xbox's, Flatscreen TV's, a Car, nice furniture, kids w/nice shoes, Laptops/Computers, air conditioning, smartphones/ipods while the middle class in many developing countries don't even have those luxuries.
great, since americans past present and even future have given other countries trillions of dollars in grants and loans. why not have all of those countries give all that money back to the USA so we can be more spoiled? that way we can do so without an overspending government who just like to give out loans to other countries.
I respect your opinion, but the reason we have it so much better than other countries is precisely because of our capitalistic ideal. Few other countries are able to provide the kinds of opportunities that we enjoy here in the U.S., leaving many people in other countries in a perpetual state of despair.
Our problem here is that we have it too easy, taking for granted our exceptionally high standard of living, and NOT having the motivation to grow on a personal level.
Who are they? The developed countries, not 3rd world (I hope we aren't competing with them yet), that have less opportunities than us as a whole? Germany? Japan? France? Norway? Who? and What?
great, since americans past present and even future have given other countries trillions of dollars in grants and loans. why not have all of those countries give all that money back to the USA so we can be more spoiled? that way we can do so without an overspending government who just like to give out loans to other countries.
I agree, and I'll go further than you on that one. Maybe we should get it back and pay for our kids college educations and trade training, we are behind in pumping out the useful. Other countries do this. That way we stop importing them from those other horrible underprivileged countries. You know the ones with healthcare and education worked into their lives so they are healthier and more educated. Those ones.
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