U.S. Standard of Living Has Fallen More Than 50%

Hold your horses everyone. It is possible the standard of living of the average person has fallen in the U.S., but wages being lower does not necessarily equate to a lower standard of living.

For example, you could easily have earned a much higher (relatively speaking) wage in 1880, but you would still have to ride a horse, bicycle, etc... to get to work.

Today there are technologies available to the poorest of the poor in this country that were scarcely imagined in 1970. You're all using some of the most amazing right now.

Contrary to what this OP's article professed, it is easy to see that wages are not the only indicator of standard of living.

reply to post by Leftist


Yes the standard of living has fallen for the average American.

I work two days a week at a homeless shelter and just a few years ago, it was mostly junkies, mentally challenged, ex vets and the "rejects" of "society".....................well got news for you folks, one medical "issue" your insurance refuses to pay, one job out sourced, job loss, etc and you too may be a guest of mine one night. We now see more and more people who owned a home, have a college education, owned a car, have kids, did everything they were suppose to do and yet one "issue" threw them into the homeless category.

"Oh but that will never happen to me"....................dream on, it's coming to you and yours, you just don't see it yet. I know I didn't.

Nobody cares until the brown stuff hits their fan.

The few grow richer and everyone says, "so what, they deserve it, I don't care".

You will care when the massive injustice of the wide range of salaries and even job availability finally happens to you, your son, daughter, grandchildren, etc.

People like to think they are empathetic but really until they actually get screwed by "the corporate run system" they turn a blind eye to everyone else and inject excuses like, "they're lazy, they don't deserve, etc"

What affects one affects all of us, but most just don't see it coming yet.

The few become richer and the rest remain compliant and accept quietly their servitude.

So be it.

Many have tried to warn the public, like David Icke, only to meet with ridicule and scorn.

Sometimes that red pill is a hard pill to take, waking up and finding out we are in a matrix of sorts is beyond scary, but it is the way it is and will not change without the common people putting aside their differences, uniting and openly rebelling serving the few.

This affects not only America, but it is now global.

People have allowed themselves to be dumbed down, distracted and divided.

The three D's.

And, we always have to have enemies.

I watched this same scenario on a small scale working offices for over 20+ years, they call it "office politics" and don't kid yourself.

People that have power, even the big fish in little ponds, micro manage, they are aware of and manipulate, pitting their "underlings" against each other in the name of competition.

Like kings at a table throwing scraps of meat to the starving dogs and watching in amusement the dogs fighting each other for those few scrapes, where as if the dogs all united and tore the kings neck out they could share the meat and have paradise.

The way we do business doesn't have to be the way it is...................but it is the way it is because everyone is afraid (fear) that the bullies will come for them if they don't go along.

They don't realize they are next, it's only a matter of time.

It will take a massive group, the majority of people rebelling to change this injustice. Before enough of us unite, we are powerless.

Yes power lies in numbers and guts to carry through with rebelling against the way we currently allow the few to control the many.

ok guess I had that one coming, but seriously, maybe we should explore why communist believe that if it's not textbook communism it means somewhere somehow communism would really work if only the right people did it. I think that is what some people in high places think, that they can do it better than the Soviets. I ask what difference does it make if someone is putting people in gulags to do hard labor, centralized control is Statism, Statism is Totalitarianism, a death, a cancer, a blight. It is destruction of liberty. Communism a la Marx has the exclusive goal of abolishing private property so what difference does it make if it's not "textbook"? Communism replaces the family unit with the State. Family has always been that which the human has centered around. Even in groups the family unit is still supreme. Marxists have to eliminate the family to achieve their goals.

When the people do not have private property, someone is still controlling it all. Guess who that would be?

reply to post by Infrasilent


Yes wake up, our jobs are being outsourced, insourced as we speak by the millions all in the name of profit.

You, like me won't see this until you are called into a meeting and told, "guess what we are going global".

Wait, your time is coming.

To those who believe that it is merely the fault of Capitalism, I say look deeper. How can we say it's exclusively the fault of Capitalism when we have already implemented so much socialism? How would you really be able to tell in a mixed economy? There are pirates in all forms of economics. Don't think that in the Soviet Union the Politburo bosses didn't have the best Vodka.
Soros says that spending our way out of debt is better....is that why we are spending like niagara falls and borrowing from China? By the way, the old Soviet Union got loans from the US for grain(which it used to export in large amounts but due to the failure of centralized control and collective farming they lost the edge) which means they borrowed and were in debt.
So does communism keep a country out of debt?

The funny thing is, anyone who chirps up and says with surprise that it is news about the declining standard of living in America,..

Well,.. its kinda like a stockbroker picking up a newspaper in the trash dump, only to discover that Chrysler may go bankrupt!

Way old news.

I would also like to say that, the fall of the USSR was not necessarily due to the type of system they had in place either, as we are told. One would need to look at all the variables in play .Some of the most wealthiest countries have oil to thank for it. Likewise, the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency traded in oil. That allows our country to print money at will since the rest of the world can cushion the effect, and make inflation negligible.

How would the USSR have fared had they held the worlds reserve currency as their own piggy bank?

Of course, many countries are slowly weaning off the dollar and have had enough of the games, and hence our downfall.

Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by theroostercrowsatnite

Correct.

So far as I know, textbook communism has never managed to exist for any length of time outside a family environment. Considering how often it has been tried, one might wonder if it can exist in textbook fashion on a national level.

TheRedneck

What if we just call it Globalism instead. Then it can encompass all the different isms. How about Federal Reservism. If we keep borrowing from the Fed and they print money like Niagara Falls that causes inflation and the devaluation of the dollar. Your dollar buys less and your wages will have to go up but then that raises the cost of production. Govt keeps spending and what is it spending on?
How about entitlements for one? When people complain about Bridges to Nowhere it takes the focus off the actual socialist type entitlements.
Is it really for the Common Good when the cost of living goes up for some while our money is being doled out to others the govt deems worthy of receiving it ? What gives govt the right to do that to us? At least ethically speaking?

reply to post by eriktheawful


I've heard that exact situation of gas you're talking about as referred to as "The Boiled Frog Syndrome."

reply to post by ofhumandescent


There have been a lot of good posts in this thread. Thanks for contributing everyone.

This one is one of several favorites, so I'm singling it out for special recognition as the OP.

There is some heavy truth here, read it carefully.

As long as you are seeing income, it's easy to identify psychologically with the super-rich and demonize the poor in a blame-the-victim mentality. I'm not all that old but already I've seen it again and again on my travels over the internet and occasionally in real life.

I'm going to tell you the story of an imaginary person. Let's call him "Sam." Sam's a decent guy, not too remarkable one way or another. He's got a wife and kids, makes decent money, he works hard and lives honest and is justifiably proud of his achievements. He doesn’t like “smelly hippies” or “welfare bums” and he sees himself as up-and-coming because he works hard and those losers just whine and complain for handouts. Like most Americans, Sam hasn’t saved up too much and he’s got a creeping credit-card debt and a big mortgage, maybe some student loans. All this causes some sweaty three-am moments of panic for Sam from time to time, but he doesn’t think about it too much because “deep down inside” Sam knows he’s special and different than everyone else, and he’s gonna make the bigtime someday, just like those rich people he sees on TV sometimes. He’s not sure exactly how this is going to happen, but no matter – the feeling is real. Sam is smart enough not to mention this to anybody, because he knows how crazy it sounds, but secretly in his heart he’s always been marked for fame and riches. Besides, everyone else has debt too, so why worry? (The incompatibility of having a special secret destiny and taking comfort from being in the same boat as everyone else is beyond Sam’s limited philosophical range, but we’ll let that slide for now).

Sam works hard and he knows his boss can’t do without him, so he isn’t worried about being laid off. He’s in a special niche industry that can’t be outsourced. Plus, Sam’s special secret destiny is waiting for him. Occasionally he hears about or maybe knows somebody who has fallen on hard times and lost everything, and this makes him nervous, but he can take comfort from blaming such people – they must have been crooked or lazy or had bad habits they weren’t man enough to control, unlike him. The media encourages this view, and all the movies and TV he watches subtly encourage him to glorify the rich.

Ah the rich! The good people! So clean and attractive, with hot chicks and cool cars at their disposal, and interesting lives full of luxury and travel to exotic places. They must have more because they deserve it, right? If they didn’t, that would mean things aren’t fair, and that idea makes Sam feel nervous, so its easier and more pleasant not to think that way. Plus, the TV keeps his brain from wandering too far down that speculative avenue with all sorts of fancy tricks. Plus, since Sam is going to be one of those people someday (secret destiny!), he better support them, so that all those privileges will be waiting for him when he finally gets there. Just as the idea that the poor might not deserve their hard fate makes him vaguely nervous, so, too, the idea that the rich might not have worked so hard or might not be so moral and deserving makes him nervous too. Almost as nervous as the vague doubt that sometimes creeps up on him, the doubt that maybe they are enjoying a world he’ll never get to taste for himself. But no, that can’t be! Secret destiny! And even if its not true, Sam would rather pretend its true than face the ugly other possibility…the possibility that things aren’t fair, the deck is stacked, and he’s on the wrong side of the poker table. That would be horrible, unthinkable. So Sam doesn’t think it. And the TV helps, with fuel for all kinds of pleasant daydreams about the fun sexy life he’s going to have in his big house when he finally “makes it.” O secret destiny!

Then one day, Sam comes into work and there is a security guard at his desk to escort him out to the parking lot after he puts all the stuff in his desk into a cardboard box. Turns out he wasn’t as indispensible as he thought. His friends are sympathetic, but guardedly. He gets less sympathy than he thought. Old colleagues avoid him, like he has something that might be catching. They all have to protect their secret destinies too, wrapping their fragile dreams in Kardashian-brand mental bubblewrap. It ain’t easy keeping the secret dreams alive these days.

Now whatcha gonna do, Sam?

Originally posted by Leftist
reply to post by ofhumandescent

 

Now whatcha gonna do, Sam?

Uhmm, get a job? Start a business? Find a need and fill it? Join the local Communist party? Which one will provide the best for Sam? Expecting someone else to give him a fish to eat? Or learning to fish for himself?

reply to post by Leftist


Ok so corporations must be evil is that it? What would happen if you were told where you were going to work? Where you could live(I mean which luxury apartment you would get). Because that is what communism is about. Just ask anybody from a former communist country. Is it worth it just to have some "safety"?

Go go go Leftist. I'm impressed, you seem to have a real handle on the situation and the facts to back it up. Not only that, you assessed the situation well and didn't fall into the "other countries are getting richer so the U.S. is getting poorer" trap.

Oh, please, get the Hades out of here. (and that's not how I wanted to say it either)

Come in here trying to sell an even worse misery and heartache.

Don't like capitalism? There's a hundred and something odd other countries where you can get less of it. Don't let the turnstile trip you on the way out. Bon voyage indeed.

Some people don't have any sense. YOU are the product TPTB have been working on. You are the type of people that make problems for the normal folk.YOU are the handmaiden of the very people your anger should be turned against. YOU, and others like you,with the backing of TPTB will be what brings this nation to its knees. But I got news for you. Some of us won't go quietly. And back to the pit with a system that only works for those too weak to escape or fight. And for those that know no better. YOU, I can already see. A clipboard in your hand, sending fellow men to the gallows. I can smell it on you. You smell like death. And defeat. And LIES. All lies.

I'm not buying. You are worse than a Jehovahs witness at the door. At least he's only talking love. Whether you believe in god or not. He means you no harm. You would have people like me rounded up like cattle and exterminated.

Except you got a little problem. The Constitution. And the Bill of Rights. And a hell of a lot of people who believe in them. Inspired by god, they were. no matter if the perfect one exist' or not.

Servitude. To the state.

With your communism.

And don't go on about capitalism, either, you haven't a ---- clue what capitalism means. Capitalism is the butcher, trading a ham for his seeds from the farmer who trades half for a loaf from the baker. The dollar makes the trading easier. It's only worth what you're willing to trade for it, and what you think you can trade it for.

And I'm not gonna sit here and debate the subtle details with someone who obviously doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. Woodrow Wilson (progressive)started this bull manure. The Community Reivestment Act (by progressives BTW) finished off our economy.

And now who shows up? A snake oil salesman. Right on time. Bet your check comes from Soros himself.

I would agree that our Congress has screwed things over. And a bunch of shifty bankers rightly should face the courts. That doesn't mean throw the baby out with the bath water.

More like 500% in the last few years.

Got some quotes from some Real-life Actual Patriots and Free-Thinkers.

Smart people for you laymen. I realize all of this will go right over your indoctrinated cognitive ability, but, I will post for the sake of those on the fence,

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. Sir Winston Churchill

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin. -Ronald Reagan

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
-Abraham Lincoln

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.
- Vannevar Bush


War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-John Stuart Mill

The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.
- William Feather

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-George Santayana

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
-Thomas Jefferson

Coersion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.
-Ronald Reagan

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong
enough to take everything you have. -Thomas Jefferson

“He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.” -Andrew Carnegie

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. Thomas Jefferson

Well the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant but that they know so much that isn’t so. -Ronald Reagan-


To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much in order to spare to others who or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it. --Thomas Jefferson


"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. " William F. Buckley Jr.


Good Conservatives always pay their bills. And on time. Not like the Socialists who run up other peoples bills (Margaret Thatcher)

No matter how worthy the cause it is robbery theft and injustice to confiscate the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong (Walter Williams)


"The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs and then hand you a crutch and say "see if it werent for the government you wouldnt be able to walk."
— Harry Browne

Why do people who know the least, know it the loudest? -ATS

__________democracy by metacomet-member-ATS_____________
The word "Democracy" isn't mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution, or the Constitutions of any of the States. This is because America was set up as a Republic and not a majoritarian form of government as democracy is.

Of course democracy is mentioned in the Federalist No's. 10 14 48 and 63. And each time it is mentioned, it is specifically to point out how wretched it is. This is the reason that the founding fathers put the Republican form of government clause into the Constitution.

Democracy is a system where 51% of people can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic. This is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this and this is why the compact formed by the states establishes and guarantees a Republic.
_____________________________________________________________-


"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." -Benjamin Franklin

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. leawyoming from ATS

Originally posted by Leftist
Know your enemy.

I do.

And you are it. Or. at least part of it.

reply to post by detachedindividual


I can agree with this, still doesn't mean we throw out the best system the world has seen yet, only to install an archaic system in it's place.



"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. " William F. Buckley Jr.

I agree we're in a mess, but communism won't solve it.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus

Communism a la Marx has the exclusive goal of abolishing private property so what difference does it make if it's not "textbook"?

It makes no practical difference at all. "Textbooks" are for academicians, not the people slogging it out in the trenches of the real world.

Right along with the abolition of private property and family units, they abolish, de facto, individuality. They make worker bees for a hive out of the former individuals. I'm not an insect, I am a man, and will never bend to the hive mind of the collectivists.

It doesn't matter to the academician that communism and related disciplines have failed, and failed miserably, in every single implementation ever attempted. Their "textbook" says it will work, and so they will ALWAYS find something else to blame for it other than the failings inherent in the flawed theory of it.