What is Occupy Wallstreet?

[FireIceTalon]

Lissa is right, Kandrathe. Your posts are filled with irrelevant rantings/tangents, cherry picked statistics, half truths, strawman's aplenty, as well as omitted facts; designed as a smoke-screen to hide the flaws in the logic of your arguments. But that is typical of the right: over-complicate things to try and foster the illusion that somehow the facts are in their favor and everyone else is wrong, or is just creating propaganda to increase sales or conduct "flawed research". And I know you will disagree, but I wasn't born yesterday, and I am smart enough to see through BS like this, and call it. If the rest of the board agrees with you, and wants to look down upon me as an outcast and ignore me, I have no qualms about it. To be be blunt, I'm not here to make friends (I have plenty in real life), I'm here to tell it like it is and call people out when I see BS being spouted. If people have a problem with that, go see a shrink. Ignore away. I won't be losing any sleep over it though.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

To be be blunt, I'm not here to make friends

That much is clear.

Ignore away. I won't be losing any sleep over it though.

Ignoring helps (will try it now, for the first time ever! *plonk*) but doesn't solve the problem completely. People will still quote you, and as long as people are replying to you, you drag down discussions that might have been interesting to follow otherwise.

Haven't other trolls been banned for less before, by the way?

-Kylearan

P.S.: Damn, I really miss Pete.

[FireIceTalon]

Go ahead and ban me. You will only prove me right, that this board can't accept a radical difference of opinion from the so-called "general consensus" or mainstream views held here, and that it is just as authoritarian and undemocratic as the capitalist system you guys will go at great lengths to defend. So, be my guest.

I don't drag anything down. No matter how objective I ever would be about my views, you would still ostracize me simply because my views are too radical and do not match your own. It matters little how eloquently or well thought out I express them. Why can't you admit there is simply no room or tolerance for holding the perspectives I hold on this board? Even on RevLeft.com, a forum for people who hold views similar to mine, they have little tolerance for reactionary views in the main forums, but at least they admit this, and they even made a special forum where such views can be discussed and debated. Not saying a special forum should be made here, afterall this is a gaming site, not a political one. What I AM saying is any other person with my views would almost certainly be ostracized here, the same way I have been, no matter how intelligently they debate, and they would just be "dragging" the conversation down for holding unacceptable radical positions.

And I'm hardly trolling. If I was trolling, I would be holding these views simply to play Devil's Advocate, without necessarily being an advocate of them, to flame you or create controversy for the sake of doing so. That however, is not the case. I might be an opinionated, Pinko Communist bastard, but one thing I'm certainly not is a poser.

[Jester]

Ignoring helps (will try it now, for the first time ever! *plonk*) but doesn't solve the problem completely. People will still quote you, and as long as people are replying to you, you drag down discussions that might have been interesting to follow otherwise.

Also my first ever - he's no better for my blood pressure than he is for this board. I've fed him enough. It's too bad; we could have used an interesting radical voice on this forum. Sadly, what we got was bilge.

P.S.: Damn, I really miss Pete.

I couldn't agree more.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

I've heard you make this argument dozens of times, and it still makes no sense to me. It seems to run like so:

1) People on a low-middling salary earn barely enough to scrape by.
2) This leaves little surplus to invest with for future wealth.
3) Government helps out poor people.
4) Poor people become trapped in poverty.

I do not comprehend. Number three sounds, if anything, like a potential solution to problems 1 and 2 - and a counter to 4. How does giving poor people more money, make them poorer? Anyone living in situation 1 and 2 is surely not doing so because of how incredibly comfortable it is. Poverty sucks, and people work damn hard just to get by.

I think your reading is good up to #3.

I'm not so sure #3 is really working in the US as planned. Whether it be government, non-profits, or even for-profit businesses, such as banks. As noted by the Occupy Wall Street folks, wages (+ benefits) have increased much slower than the overall GDP creating a growing wealth gap between those in the top 5% to 10% and most everyone else. Some of this is due to the lack of scarcity of labor. Both productivity improvements in processing, automation, and moving things off shore to be done by cheaper labor has affected the demand for US based labor. Wages reflect our diminishing value. That pretty much sums up the employment situation, although I'm hopeful that the retiring boomers will increase the demand for labor, both in replacements and in providing them with services.

Then, there is entrepreneurship. It's damn hard to start a small business, and keep it running in the US. The government makes that harder. Even in the non-profit I'm working with now, the government reporting makes things very difficult for us (and is very time consuming i.e. costly).

I've heard that in other industries as well. For example, in science, I've heard people avoid embryonic stem cell research because of the red-tape, or working with certain types of organisms (e.g. poison ivy) will bring in DOD oversight and reporting (ostensibly to ensure you aren't making any type of biologic or chemical weapon, or if you are, that they are involved).

I've already beat the drum on the CPSIA, and how over board it has become. And, then... Don't get me started on the FCC, or net neutrality... And, the Patriot Act, and how it affects any business in the financial industry. So, I feel over regulation at both the state and federal level is a problem which disenfranchises many potential entrepreneurs. There are others...

Finally, there is education... Whose inflation rate is 6 times higher than the CPI. In the last 20 years, adjusted for inflation, the cost of college has tripled. It's beginning to make little sense for some people to pursue higher education at all, and for all but the rich, jeopardizing the concept of a non-vocationally based liberal art education entirely.

I could probably come up with more barriers, but those three are the biggest off the top of my head.

On #4, see below.

Or, put another way, in countries where they have very generous social security nets, they also have fewer people "trapped" in poverty. Why is that true, if your argument is sensible? Are only Americans affected by this particular trap?

Maybe not trapped in poverty, but trapped with no way to improve their station. Then, any disruption/emergency in their lives, such as the loss of a job for a few months, would be enough to move them back into poverty again, albeit temporarily until they climb out once again. So, I'm looking at saving rates, and how they've affected the recent foreclosure rates. Also, telling are the number of people who file for bankruptcy due to medical issues (or another way to look at it is the amount of bad debt write offs at major hospitals).

[kandrathe]

That sounds like... Europe.

I've been tilting at that windmill for about a decade. I spent the last decade managing IT people, who have to work mostly outside the 8-5 schedule. You don't want us updating your systems during the work day, when the "users" are needing the system to be stable.

It's been *hell* to try to convince some old school, old dudes that my people really do contribute their "40 hours" of work in a week. Often they insist that they keep an 8 hour per day schedule. Pffft. Some Saturdays we'd work 20 hours on a major upgrade, then take 1/2 a week off.

And, the same thing with telecommuting. I spent the better part of a month defending one of my best people (a new mother) who happened to want to telecommute 2 days a week, in order to save the time and expense of commuting, and so that she could be home with her new baby. She got the work done, and I was happy. The round hole people are not happy, unless all the workers are round pegs.

Ok, that is a bit of a rant.

[Lissa]

Once again, you're deflecting. Opportunity is eroding, you even said so yourself, and thus so too is the equality of opportunity. You cannot have one erode and another stay the same when they are essentially the same. This is not arguing apples and oranges, this is arguing apples to apples. You cannot have opportunity erode while having the equality of opportunity stay the same, either both have to stay the same, both have to increase, or both have to decrease. They are tied together. If one erodes, so to does the other have to erode, they are not exclusive to each other, they are inclusive of each other.

Say I'm a business owner, and in 2008 I hire 100 new employees a year, and then due to recession and lack of sales I entrench and decide for 2009 and 2010 to hire 50, or zero new employees. This equally denied the opportunity to the pool of potential applicants. There is no inequality in presenting, or retracting the opportunity.

But, this is a much bigger picture as well. Being hired is one piece. How about education? Part of the stimulus bill increased the amount of money going to student aid. Opportunity is increased in that case. What about new business ventures? Again, part of the stimulus went to the Small Business Administration for expanding grants and loans to small business. Things are hampered by a credit crunch as banks swing the pendulum away from ridiculously easy credit.

I'm not deflecting here. I'm swirling around a bigger picture of what opportunity means both at the present, and historically. It means more than railing at the disproportionate wealth of the top 1%. It means more than a poverty rate that oscillates between 10% and 16% over three decades. It means more than getting every child through high school, and every high school graduate through college.

No, you are still deflecting. Your above comments is a perfect deflection. What you've illustrated is not equality of opportunity, you've described no opportunity. There has to be an opportunity there to even check to see if there is an equality of opportunity, what you've described above is a complete and utter lack of opportunity, something completely different.

An example of equality of opportunity is you have a position and five people apply for said position. The position requires either a degree or 5 years experience. Now, let's setup the five people.

Applicant one has a degree in the area you're looking for, some experience in another area (re-educated trying to try a new career), happens to be latino, and has excellent references.

Applicant two has a degree, 5 years experience in the area, happens to female, and has so-so references.

Applicant three has no degree, has 10 years experience, happens to be a white male, with good references.

Applicant four has no degree, has 5 years experience, happens to be asian, and a friend of your boss (their only real reference).

Applicant five has a degree, 2 years experience, has mediocre references, and happens to be a close friend.

Now, in an equality of opportunity, all of the applicants fit the minimum for the position. You interview all of them and your final choice is based on who interviewed best and had the best references.

But the way things work now, applicant four and applicant five would be chosen over the others because of connections with the company (#4 due to being a friend of the boss and #5 due to being a friend of you the interviewer). This is more typical that most people realize as a large majority of jobs are handled by word of mouth than by putting out an advertisement (this was an interesting statistic given to me by someone that helps with job placement when I was looking for work last year). If a large number of positions are going through the word of mouth method, that right there tells you that equality of opportunity does not exist.

I think I've shown that mostly people are better off than they were a decade ago, and that most people do advance upwards in social mobility. I've acknowledged the current challenges and I've given my opinions on why I believe real opportunities contributing toward "The American Dream" are eroding. But, I believe it would be natural for people to be more pessimistic in the trough of a deep recession, or in the midst of a civil war, etc. Despite the hard times, more young people still believe they will do better than their parents.

Err...what? How can you say that people are better off right now than they were a decade ago when the job situation was much better then than it is now? And I would really like to see these young people saying they'll do better than their parents. Every thing I've seen says exactly the opposite, that young people are realizing they will not do as well as their parents unless their parents are truly destitute and they can maybe claw their way up a little. Right now, the situation is far worse for young people then it has ever been in the past century, possibly history of the US. How you could possibly think that they would be better off than their parents is just astounding to me.

Once again, try staying on topic. The fact is, opportunity has decreased and it continues to decrease. Jobs are being lost and not coming back because of the push for automation along with decreases in working condition (and s'posed increase in productivity which, in essence, is having less people do more).

I tend to step back from a problem and view it in it's larger context. I feel I am on topic. We don't know that lost jobs would not return. It would take some stepwise changes, such as reform of our tax code, to return the US as THE place to start or move your business.

I have been looking at this from a 10,000 foot view, you on the other hand seem to be wearing blinders to the truth. And if you're going to bring up reform of the tax code, then you haven't been paying attention to what various companies have been paying in taxes even with the s'posedly high corporate tax rate here in the US (hint, some companies are getting refunds).

As much as you want to say, we don't know if the jobs will return, they won't. Jobs are already moving from China to other countries because it's getting too expensive to produce in China (along with China's nasty little policy of requiring companies that work in China to give, that's right, give, their patents to China to be allowed to work there). Corporations are going to go where they end up with the biggest profits, there by jobs won't return to the US so long as they can be made more cheaply elsewhere. If you think jobs will return to the US that have left, I got some ocean front property to sell you out in Yuma AZ.

Likewise, the wealth creation you state isn't really wealth creation, but wealth concentration as high paying jobs are being destroyed to create more low paying jobs that do not even come close to the same amount of wealth going out and that difference in wealth is going into the pockets of a few. As much as you want to say that rest of the world is better off, it is not. Those with large amounts of wealth are concentrating more wealth at the expense of those that were being paid good salaries now being decimated, those with extremely low salaries getting a few more pennies, and those with a high amount of wealth continue to concentrate that difference wealth lost from those that lost good salary positions as those positions were redistributed to much, much lowered salary positions.

You'd have to show some evidence to back this up. There are many service industry jobs being created, and manufacturing is taking a beating. But, the service sector also includes lawyers, doctors, nurses, financial, computer, etc.

Really? You honestly think that there have been that many high paying service jobs that have been created? Now I know you're fooling yourself if you think that with all the high paying jobs that have been lost that the service jobs created made up that difference. I know you're not that naive. Wealth in being concentrated in the US into the hands of a small few while everyone else is getting screwed over.

I heard a comment from none other than Michael Moore that actually shocked me, he said, "I have no problem with Capitalism as we had up to the 70s and early 80s where if you worked hard you got paid appropriately, but the Capitalism we have now has got to go when you can push money around and get paid large sums of money for essentially doing nothing." It was the first times I had ever heard something truly lucid come out of Moore's mouth that I could truly agree with him on all points.

Pete and I had a great exchange along these lines a couple of years ago. I was wondering what happens when people aren't really needed to run the economy. If you look at the productivity of farming, for example, where very few people produce the same or greater amounts of food. Or, more fully automated production, where machines and robots do most of the work. You put a roll a denim on one end of the machines, and various sizes of blue jeans get spit out the other end, and automatically bundled by size, and sent off to the inspectors. Instead of hundreds of people sitting at sewing machines, you've employed a few engineers, machinists, and repair technicians, and eliminated a lot of tedium. I still don't have an answer, because our psyche's are entrenched in the idea that everyone must find gainful employment in order to be a productive member of society.

So, this may be radical for me... But, one way to alleviate some of the unemployment problem would be to lower the age for social security, and to set the federal and state employee work weeks to 32 or 36 hours. Eventually, the rest of the culture would follow and a 32 hour work week would become normal. Then, maybe we'd go to a 24 hour work week, some day in the future.

The problem that you aren't getting past isn't that having these things come to pass would be fine, the problem that is at issue is the wealth concentration. People are getting forced into lower social strata because of the greed of a few individuals. This is the essence of why Occupy exists, that they're fed up with the greed of a small group screwing over everyone. This is why Grover Norquist is going to find himself soon dealing with backlash from the Republican party because they're getting hammered because of their no tax stand. The policies that are being driven by the no tax agenda is being seen as keeping that wealth concentration in the hands of a few and the many are finally had enough. And more the many continue to see their earnings drop, the more mad they get. So, you'll never see the many advocating your plan unless the few start giving up some of that wealth concentration. Until that happens, your ideas will be a pipe dream.

[FireIceTalon]

A big problem with the Capitalist system, it is good when a nation is in a manufacturing/developing stage, but it sucks pretty bad when a nation reaches its peak industrially and thus the economy changes from manufacturing to services. The problem is magnified because many of these jobs require substantial experience or a degree of some sort compared to the manufacturing jobs. The inequality and division of labour produced by the capitalist system thus erodes equal opportunity since the lower classes have less means or resources to have access to the higher education required for this dominant service sector. Although of course, access to higher education is still no guarantee of equal opportunity, but it's a start. Ultimately though, the capitalist system can be used as justification to hide discrimination or prejudice toward various groups of people to keep them at their stations, be it based on class antagonisms, ethnocentrism, gender, nepotism, and so on and so forth. For the capitalists, the ends (profit maximization) justifies the means (essentially, anything goes, so long as it isn't blatantly illegal). Then when profit maximization occurs, time to increase them further by opening up shop in China or Indonesia and exploiting the cheap labour there. Repeat, rinse. This system cannot, and will not, sustain itself, and many of Marx's prophecies about global capitalism are coming to pass. So ironic that he fundamentally better understood the flaws and contradictions of capitalism and where it would head 150 years ago, than our economists of today do. The Communist Manifesto is more relevant NOW than it was in 1848, heh.

[kandrathe]

No, you are still deflecting. Your above comments is a perfect deflection. What you've illustrated is not equality of opportunity, you've described no opportunity. There has to be an opportunity there to even check to see if there is an equality of opportunity, what you've described above is a complete and utter lack of opportunity, something completely different.

I don't see it that way. An open job position is an opportunity for someone, being accepted into college is an opportunity, having a good idea and the means to start a new business venture is an opportunity. Disagreeing with you is not deflecting.

An example of equality of opportunity is you have a position and five people apply for said position. The position requires either a degree or 5 years experience. Now, let's setup the five people.

Applicant one has a degree in the area you're looking for, some experience in another area (re-educated trying to try a new career), happens to be latino, and has excellent references.

Applicant two has a degree, 5 years experience in the area, happens to female, and has so-so references.

Applicant three has no degree, has 10 years experience, happens to be a white male, with good references.

Applicant four has no degree, has 5 years experience, happens to be asian, and a friend of your boss (their only real reference).

Applicant five has a degree, 2 years experience, has mediocre references, and happens to be a close friend.

Now, in an equality of opportunity, all of the applicants fit the minimum for the position. You interview all of them and your final choice is based on who interviewed best and had the best references.

But the way things work now, applicant four and applicant five would be chosen over the others because of connections with the company (#4 due to being a friend of the boss and #5 due to being a friend of you the interviewer). This is more typical that most people realize as a large majority of jobs are handled by word of mouth than by putting out an advertisement (this was an interesting statistic given to me by someone that helps with job placement when I was looking for work last year). If a large number of positions are going through the word of mouth method, that right there tells you that equality of opportunity does not exist.

Well, yes, in your hypothetical example, hypothetical bad things happened. I'll dig up some real world data first, then respond.

Reports by the EEOC on hiring statistics

Ok, looking at most of the reports, I see the results are more participation by minorities and women across the spectrum. Is it perfect, no, far from it. The report on the financial industry, a bastion of white male power, is moving more slowly than others. Are we moving in the right direction? Yes, I think we are. Could we do better? Yes, we could.

Now, examining what is right, and wrong with your hypothetical situation. As a hypothetical hiring manager, I would be interested in interviewing the women and minorities first, because our company does business with state, and federal agencies which require us to have representative equality in our workforce or we lose our contracts with them. So, I'd be interested in hiring them first, and if one of them fits the need, I'd hire them. I actually faced this when I worked at a railroad. I had to buy my computers from a minority business enterprise (at higher prices), or the railroad would lose federal contracts. But, more to the point, it is the correct moral position to both do what fair for society, and to look out for the interests (increase the profitability) of the company for which you work. You are right though, that some people don't get it.

However, your intimation that inside relationships help is correct in one way, and that is in being able, as a potential candidate, to take your inside contacts out for coffee and pump them for information which would better help you to get the position. This works, even if the inside contact is a friend of a friend, of a friend... hence, why a web site like Linkedin.com is very useful, and successful. But, if you always just help your friends, and those of the boss, you will find yourself slapped with many, many deserved lawsuits. That is if the HR department, if they had any shred of credibility, didn't stop you first. A part of their job is to shield the company from EEOC violations.

But, I've hired thousands of people in my life. I see their resume first, and on that I look at their job history first. If they've been employed in the industry for > 5 years I don't even care about their educational history. Mostly I look at what they've accomplished, and secondly, how many new things they've done. I find less value in someone who does the very same thing for 30 years, than in someone who's moved around every 3-5 years and learned multiple industries. Based on what I see as qualifications in the resume, I'd select 5 to 10 for interviews with HR first. Based on their feedback, I'd choose the top 5 to interview with a member of my technical team first, and then with me. If the position is managerial, I might also have them interview with my boss, because they just might be taking my job some day. Gender and ethnicity don't come into it. Except that, for me, I've tried very hard to find every reason to increase the number of women and minorities in my field because it is white male dominated.

I'll tackle more of your response later... I need to go make the dessert Giftas for a party tonight...

Err...what? How can you say that people are better off right now than they were a decade ago when the job situation was much better then than it is now? And I would really like to see these young people saying they'll do better than their parents. Every thing I've seen says exactly the opposite, that young people are realizing they will not do as well as their parents unless their parents are truly destitute and they can maybe claw their way up a little. Right now, the situation is far worse for young people then it has ever been in the past century, possibly history of the US. How you could possibly think that they would be better off than their parents is just astounding to me.

The way that the Occupy Wallstreeters see it is thus;

[attachment=99]

They point to the fact that wages have fallen as a portion of GDP from 50% to 43% since 1947. What they don't acknowledge is that Real GDP per capita has gone from less than $10,000 to more than $50,000 over that same period. Would you rather have 43% of the 50K/p pie, or 50% of the 10K/p pie?

The great recession has caused a big disruption, and I'm not even sure how much we can bounce back from it, but we will bounce back some in the short term(3-5 years), and more in the longer term (5-10 years). It's natural to be pessimistic when you've just been beaten up and thrown in the ditch. But, we will get up, clean ourselves up, and slog on.

[Jester]

The way that the Occupy Wallstreeters see it is thus;

[...]

They point to the fact that wages have fallen as a portion of GDP from 50% to 43% since 1947. What they don't acknowledge is that Real GDP per capita has gone from less than $10,000 to more than $50,000 over that same period. Would you rather have 43% of the 50K/p pie, or 50% of the 10K/p pie?

The great recession has caused a big disruption, and I'm not even sure how much we can bounce back from it, but we will bounce back some in the short term(3-5 years), and more in the longer term (5-10 years). It's natural to be pessimistic when you've just been beaten up and thrown in the ditch. But, we will get up, clean ourselves up, and slog on.

This is only a tiny part of the picture of "how Occupy Wallstreeters" see it. The protest is not primarily about the proportion of GDP represented by salaries and wages - indeed, that would be a bit of a stupid thing to protest over. It's about the *inequality* of how those salaries and wages are distributed.

This graph demonstrates much better what the problem is:



Distribution. Distribution, distribution, distribution. The richest are getting richer, the poorest are scarcely getting any share - even in absolute terms - of the increasing GDP. The average wage laborer is better off than in 1950, but by a shockingly small amount, whereas the wealthiest 10/1/0.1/0.01% are immeasurably richer. Meanwhile, uncertainty over the basics: ease of finding employment, government commitment to maintaining social safety nets, security of homeownership, access to credit, and so on, have all gotten far worse.

So, no, it's not about whether you want 43% of 50k, or 50% of 10k, because almost nobody is in that situation - that's an unrepresentative calculation, not broken down by income brackets, and therefore suffering from the ecological fallacy. It's whether it is fair that growth should flow to the richest in an overwhelming share, with low or zero compensation for the poorest. Especially galling is that policy, from tax policy to social security adjustments to the bailouts, have all trended for thirty years towards encouraging, rather than reversing, this situation.

-Jester

[Lissa]

No, you are still deflecting. Your above comments is a perfect deflection. What you've illustrated is not equality of opportunity, you've described no opportunity. There has to be an opportunity there to even check to see if there is an equality of opportunity, what you've described above is a complete and utter lack of opportunity, something completely different.

I don't see it that way. An open job position is an opportunity for someone, being accepted into college is an opportunity, having a good idea and the means to start a new business venture is an opportunity. Disagreeing with you is not deflecting.

Again, no, it's not. If there is no opportunity, there is no chance for equality. You cannot say that just because there's no opportunity then it's equal to all. You have to have an opportunity to begin with to check on equality of such.

Likewise, I don't know if you've been paying any attention to the tuition situation in this country, but there is definitely not the same equality of opportunity with education right now. When I was in college in the early 90s, tuition was in relative check and there were a lot of people going to college that wouldn't have been able to do so otherwise (I was the first child on my Mother's side of the family to get a 4 year degree) and it was because I worked hard my Junior and Senior years in high school along with good test scores that allowed me to pick my choice of college and because tuition was low, able to go to the college of my choice. If I were to try to do the same thing from 2006 to now, I would find that I would have had to pay triple the amount of tuition along with all the other incidentals to try getting a 4 year degree which would have been extremely difficult under the same circumstances I had back in the early 90s. This is a perfect illustration of inequality of opportunity to get a better education.

We have a higher inequality of opportunity now than we did a decade or two ago.

An example of equality of opportunity is you have a position and five people apply for said position. The position requires either a degree or 5 years experience. Now, let's setup the five people.

Applicant one has a degree in the area you're looking for, some experience in another area (re-educated trying to try a new career), happens to be latino, and has excellent references.

Applicant two has a degree, 5 years experience in the area, happens to female, and has so-so references.

Applicant three has no degree, has 10 years experience, happens to be a white male, with good references.

Applicant four has no degree, has 5 years experience, happens to be asian, and a friend of your boss (their only real reference).

Applicant five has a degree, 2 years experience, has mediocre references, and happens to be a close friend.

Now, in an equality of opportunity, all of the applicants fit the minimum for the position. You interview all of them and your final choice is based on who interviewed best and had the best references.

But the way things work now, applicant four and applicant five would be chosen over the others because of connections with the company (#4 due to being a friend of the boss and #5 due to being a friend of you the interviewer). This is more typical that most people realize as a large majority of jobs are handled by word of mouth than by putting out an advertisement (this was an interesting statistic given to me by someone that helps with job placement when I was looking for work last year). If a large number of positions are going through the word of mouth method, that right there tells you that equality of opportunity does not exist.

Well, yes, in your hypothetical example, hypothetical bad things happened. I'll dig up some real world data first, then respond.

Reports by the EEOC on hiring statistics

Ok, looking at most of the reports, I see the results are more participation by minorities and women across the spectrum. Is it perfect, no, far from it. The report on the financial industry, a bastion of white male power, is moving more slowly than others. Are we moving in the right direction? Yes, I think we are. Could we do better? Yes, we could.

Now, examining what is right, and wrong with your hypothetical situation. As a hypothetical hiring manager, I would be interested in interviewing the women and minorities first, because our company does business with state, and federal agencies which require us to have representative equality in our workforce or we lose our contracts with them. So, I'd be interested in hiring them first, and if one of them fits the need, I'd hire them. I actually faced this when I worked at a railroad. I had to buy my computers from a minority business enterprise (at higher prices), or the railroad would lose federal contracts. But, more to the point, it is the correct moral position to both do what fair for society, and to look out for the interests (increase the profitability) of the company for which you work. You are right though, that some people don't get it.

However, your intimation that inside relationships help is correct in one way, and that is in being able, as a potential candidate, to take your inside contacts out for coffee and pump them for information which would better help you to get the position. This works, even if the inside contact is a friend of a friend, of a friend... hence, why a web site like Linkedin.com is very useful, and successful. But, if you always just help your friends, and those of the boss, you will find yourself slapped with many, many deserved lawsuits. That is if the HR department, if they had any shred of credibility, didn't stop you first. A part of their job is to shield the company from EEOC violations.

But, I've hired thousands of people in my life. I see their resume first, and on that I look at their job history first. If they've been employed in the industry for > 5 years I don't even care about their educational history. Mostly I look at what they've accomplished, and secondly, how many new things they've done. I find less value in someone who does the very same thing for 30 years, than in someone who's moved around every 3-5 years and learned multiple industries. Based on what I see as qualifications in the resume, I'd select 5 to 10 for interviews with HR first. Based on their feedback, I'd choose the top 5 to interview with a member of my technical team first, and then with me. If the position is managerial, I might also have them interview with my boss, because they just might be taking my job some day. Gender and ethnicity don't come into it. Except that, for me, I've tried very hard to find every reason to increase the number of women and minorities in my field because it is white male dominated.

You haven't been doing much in the way of hiring recently then. Perfect example of this is where I work presently for Verizon. With the exception of myself and maybe 5 others out of a team of 45, everyone is interconnected. Some were brought in by the manager, some where brought in by other employees. I was one of the few people that got in due to the merits of my experience, my references, and my education as I had no ties to anyone else in my group. Think about that, a little over 10% of those hired into the team I'm on had no outside connection to anyone involved in the team. And what I've seen is typical, not atypical. The better connection you have with someone in an organization that is hiring, the more likely you are to get hired. Things are very different right now for being hired and it's far more about who you know that what you know.

Err...what? How can you say that people are better off right now than they were a decade ago when the job situation was much better then than it is now? And I would really like to see these young people saying they'll do better than their parents. Every thing I've seen says exactly the opposite, that young people are realizing they will not do as well as their parents unless their parents are truly destitute and they can maybe claw their way up a little. Right now, the situation is far worse for young people then it has ever been in the past century, possibly history of the US. How you could possibly think that they would be better off than their parents is just astounding to me.

The way that the Occupy Wallstreeters see it is thus;



They point to the fact that wages have fallen as a portion of GDP from 50% to 43% since 1947. What they don't acknowledge is that Real GDP per capita has gone from less than $10,000 to more than $50,000 over that same period. Would you rather have 43% of the 50K/p pie, or 50% of the 10K/p pie?

The great recession has caused a big disruption, and I'm not even sure how much we can bounce back from it, but we will bounce back some in the short term(3-5 years), and more in the longer term (5-10 years). It's natural to be pessimistic when you've just been beaten up and thrown in the ditch. But, we will get up, clean ourselves up, and slog on.

Jester covered this very well. The problem I also see with your data is thus; you're looking at $10k in 1947 and comparing that to $50k in 2010, that's really comparing apples to oranges. In order to properly compare those values, you have to either deflate the $50k to 1947 levels or you need to inflate the $10k to 2010 levels.

Taking the following: Inflation Calculator

Then plugging in $10k in 1947 and bring it up to 2010 standards, that $10k turns into a whopping $100.4k of equivalent money. So when you put in proper perspective, hell yes I would take 50% of $10k at 1947 levels over 43% of 50k at 2010 levels.

But again, as Jester pointed out and what I've been saying, the wealth is being concentrated in the top tiers and the bottom is getting squeezed out and is worse off today than it was over 60 years ago.

[FireIceTalon]

LOL. Caught red handed.

[Jester]

But again, as Jester pointed out and what I've been saying, the wealth is being concentrated in the top tiers and the bottom is getting squeezed out and is worse off today than it was over 60 years ago.

To clarify my position: I believe low-end workers are better off today than 60 years ago, just that the improvements they have seen are tiny by comparison to the enormous gains made by the top income brackets.

Your calculations are incorrect, because what Kandrathe posted was real GDP/capita, not nominal, and therefore is already adjusted for inflation.

-Jester

[eppie]

To clarify my position: I believe low-end workers are better off today than 60 years ago, just that the improvements they have seen are tiny by comparison to the enormous gains made by the top income brackets.

Your calculations are incorrect, because what Kandrathe posted was real GDP/capita, not nominal, and therefore is already adjusted for inflation.

-Jester

But this is of course a pretty disputable thing.

Should we all just be happy because we have much better lives than cavemen?

And also in communist societies the next generation would be on average better off than the previous.

Fact is just that psychology plays an incredibly big role in people's well-being. So your wealth compared to the average wealth of your peers is important. I mean take the rich guy that commits suicide because his company goes bankrupt. He would have still been able to have a good life (especially if he kept his private possessions separated) compared to people in most parts of the world but he apparently can't handle the psychological pressure.

The 'we get better off an richer mantra' again is something mainly told by rich people.

[Jester]

Should we all just be happy because we have much better lives than cavemen?

Yes.

And also in communist societies the next generation would be on average better off than the previous.

Not really, no. Growth in centrally-planned economies has been practically stagnant since the 1950s. In many cases (North Korea, Cuba) the current generation is actually poorer than the last. "In Soviet Russia, money spend you!"

The moderate (though poor by western standards) growth in these economies translated very little into actual quality of life for ordinary workers, as an enormous share of that growth went towards non-consumer goods, mostly the military. Inequality in centrally planned economies was generally higher, not lower, than in the capitalist west, especially if one thinks of state assets as a separate entity, and not a public good.

Fact is just that psychology plays an incredibly big role in people's well-being. So your wealth compared to the average wealth of your peers is important. I mean take the rich guy that commits suicide because his company goes bankrupt. He would have still been able to have a good life (especially if he kept his private possessions separated) compared to people in most parts of the world but he apparently can't handle the psychological pressure.

You're right to foreground psychology, but I've yet to meet a society that has a solution to that particular problem - certainly no communist society ever came close to solving it.

As for the rich, suicidal guy, we are loss-averse. We do not gain as much happiness from making a million dollars as we lose from losing a million dollars. This probably means it is better to live in a society where some gains are traded for security against loss - and I believe in exactly that kind of policy, for exactly those reasons. But it is hardly an argument against the idea that wealth is good.

The 'we get better off an richer mantra' again is something mainly told by rich people.

It's also a tale told by economists. The reality is, people who are wealthier, are happier. The effect is smaller than we'd expect, and heavily influenced by other factors, notably our relative wealth in comparison to those around us. But, ceteris paribus, money and the things it buys us actually do make us considerably happier. (And healthier. And better educated. And more relaxed. And so on, and so forth.)

-Jester

[Lissa]

But again, as Jester pointed out and what I've been saying, the wealth is being concentrated in the top tiers and the bottom is getting squeezed out and is worse off today than it was over 60 years ago.

To clarify my position: I believe low-end workers are better off today than 60 years ago, just that the improvements they have seen are tiny by comparison to the enormous gains made by the top income brackets.

Your calculations are incorrect, because what Kandrathe posted was real GDP/capita, not nominal, and therefore is already adjusted for inflation.

-Jester

Well, looking up how Real GDP/capita is calculated, then Kan's comment about wanting wages at 50% of 10k or 43% of 50k is actually a strawman arguement since Real GDP/capita has no units of basis (it's strictly a percentage) and thus the US would actually be better off with the wages of Real GDP/capita of 1947 than it would be with the wages of Real GDP/capita of 2010 since the actual percentage calculated is takes into account inflation, deflation, and other monetary factors. So the real question that Kan should have asked is; are you happy with wages taking 43% of the GDP pie or would you rather they were 50% of the GDP pie? I think we all know the answer to that.

[FireIceTalon]

And also in communist societies the next generation would be on average better off than the previous.

Fact is just that psychology plays an incredibly big role in people's well-being. So your wealth compared to the average wealth of your peers is important. I mean take the rich guy that commits suicide because his company goes bankrupt. He would have still been able to have a good life (especially if he kept his private possessions separated) compared to people in most parts of the world but he apparently can't handle the psychological pressure.

The 'we get better off an richer mantra' again is something mainly told by rich people.

But we have never seen how a actual Communist society would work. Communism, meaning a stateless, classless society where everyone shares the means to production, has never been implemented as of yet. The Soviet Union, China, N. Korea, and even Cuba are all far cries from Communism. They are more like 'state capitalism'. In terms of economics, they are not that much different from the US other than the fact the State controls the means to production, instead of private ownership. In either case, the workers do NOT control the means to production and they have to sell their labour to either the State or a private business. If the society is not classless AND stateless, it ain't Communism. And furthermore, Communism cannot work in a single state, it must exist globally, because one Socialist country would not be able to function as a classless/stateless society in a global capitalist world. A "Communist state" is an oxymoron. So to say newer generations are better off than previous ones under a Communist society is impossible to say at this point. We would have to try it and see, but of course this in itself would be a long process transferring into a "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" mode of production even after the abolition of capitalism. Such things can only be discovered through application.

I agree with you on the psychology part, and a lot of people, even some Communists, often overlook this aspect. The goal and principles of Socialism isn't merely to just make everyone equal or close to it, it is to raise the human condition and our morale. Under capitalism, we become alienated from society and each other because we work under someone else, and our survival depends on the kindness of a someone we sell our labour to - someone who has a very different interest than our own! Our survival is tied to the economy, and there is little security for most. Under a Socialist society, where we are not subjects to a state that upholds the economic democracy for an elite few that control the means to production, I believe there would be much more of a sense of unity and that we would be much better off psychologically. Instead of worrying about how to pay the bills and worrying about making ends meet, we could focus more on research, human development, and improving science, technology, and more time for us to travel and become more cultured. We would have a greater sense of security and trust for one another as well. I don't have a problem with improving technology, science, or creating economic growth....many people seem to think Communists are against this, we are not. We just want it to be done under much more humane conditions. We want humankind to reach as close to its maximum potential as it can (or to achieve what Marx called a 'species being'), and under Capitalism, this is impossible.

You ever seen the Matrix? That's the perfect Marxist interpretation of how we see Capitalism, in a film. Marx fundamentally understood that democracy isn't just political, but also economical. Capitalism and Democracy, are NOT compatible, you cannot have it both ways (De Tocqueville was wrong, sorry Kandrathe). Socialism and Democracy, on the other hand, are very much compatible, and in fact, Democracy is absolutely necessary for Socialism to be implemented. In the United States, our so-called political Democracy is almost meaningless, because we lack 'economic' Democracy. The purpose of the Federal and State Governments is to uphold the economic interests of the ruling class, and the ruling class only. And thus the majority see their 'political' Democracy eroded. Having fair, open elections means little when the ruling class controls all the parties, and the parties themselves are part of that ruling class and have different interests than the majority of society.

[eppie]

And so on, and so forth.)

-Jester

Jester, my whole reaction to you was focused on an according to me wrong assumption. No 'what's better communism or capitalism' post.

But filtering out your comments pointing at ' but that would even be worse' I see you more or less agree with me.

[kandrathe]

Well, looking up how Real GDP/capita is calculated, then Kan's comment about wanting wages at 50% of 10k or 43% of 50k is actually a strawman argument...

I know how you want it to look, that we are worse off, but it doesn't look that way. It looks like we are slightly ahead (after taxes due to GWB and Obama tax cuts).

Try this one on median household Income - adjusted to 2004 dollars.

Or feel free to research nominal disposable personal income.

GDP per Capita, Real Median Family Income and Real Median Family Income After Taxes (source and here)




And, mysteriously enough, 2000 is about the time when I started talking about phantom growth (i.e the internet bubble was phantom capital that disappeared, the housing bubble was phantom capital that also just disappeared.) The financial institutions for some reason want us to believe that all is well and good, but I don't think it is. Something tells me that pensions are being looted, and retirement accounts based on the market continue to be at risk.

But... This is a recent problem, and one that is correctable with the CORRECT leadership. We cannot suffer anymore of the funny US Treasury/Federal Reserve/Big Banks chicanery. I don't think this kills the American Dream. It certainly kills my faith in DC politicians to look out for my best interest.

[Jester]

Well, looking up how Real GDP/capita is calculated, then Kan's comment about wanting wages at 50% of 10k or 43% of 50k is actually a strawman arguement since Real GDP/capita has no units of basis (it's strictly a percentage) and thus the US would actually be better off with the wages of Real GDP/capita of 1947 than it would be with the wages of Real GDP/capita of 2010 since the actual percentage calculated is takes into account inflation, deflation, and other monetary factors. So the real question that Kan should have asked is; are you happy with wages taking 43% of the GDP pie or would you rather they were 50% of the GDP pie? I think we all know the answer to that.

I do not understand this - any of it.

Real GDP/capita has units: inflation-adjusted dollars per person per year. It is not a percentage. Whatever else follows from that, must be equally mistaken.

-Jester