Little John wrote:It takes a certain level of commitment for a man such as yourself, who is clearly not stupid, to maintain your level of delusion.
He is not deluded. You ignore fact that don't fit your ideology.
Remember that people in large numbers wish to migrate to countries such as the UK and USA where they are officially in poverty when they arrive. They cannot be that deluded about living standards.
Where there is an issue is about non material issues such as security and people's role in society. However, people are generally well provided for materially.
Indeed. Consider that a teenager with his first job in the USA flipping burgers for 25 hours a week starting at $10 per hour grosses $12,500 his or her first year and is in the top ten countries of the world for median per capita earnings ahead of France and the UK. That is more then the median family makes in Mexico ($11,680 median family $2,600 per capita). http://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worl ... e-000.aspx
Little John wrote:Ah... the old "stop complaining - at least you're not black" strategy....
Carry on
What has being black or white have to do with it? They both start at $10/hr. even if they have purple and green streaks in their hair and a silver nose ring matching multiple ear piercings.
Little John wrote:It takes a certain level of commitment for a man such as yourself, who is clearly not stupid, to maintain your level of delusion.
He is not deluded. You ignore fact that don't fit your ideology.
Remember that people in large numbers wish to migrate to countries such as the UK and USA where they are officially in poverty when they arrive. They cannot be that deluded about living standards.
Where there is an issue is about non material issues such as security and people's role in society. However, people are generally well provided for materially.
Those people wish to come here because they have been sold a pup by the very advertising industry which LJ's article complained about. We, as a nation, no as a culture because it is the same across the western world, have also been sold the same pup; that we are exceedingly wealthy even though that wealth is built on ever higher levels of debt.
It is ironic that the two people arguing against the article are a committed Republican voter from the US, who's whole political allegiance is to the system which is failing us, and a former UK politician who has a vested interest in confirming the value of his former political service to us.
I find it amusing that both the USSR and the USA are totalitarian states but opposite! Unfortunately our governments, including the one in which John Hemming served, are taking us the same way at the behest of corporate lobbyists.
Little John wrote:It doesn't matter what's on offer if you aint got the money. Debt as an alternative/additional income stream took up the slack for a while. But, even that trick is now exhausted. I think it is you who is full of it V
I've got to hand it to you. It takes a certain level of commitment for a man such as yourself, who is clearly not stupid, to maintain your level of delusion.
From that article about the minimum wage in the US
Policy choices regarding the minimum wage fuel wage inequality
While pay at the top of the labor market has outpaced nearly every labor market indicator for decades, pay at the bottom—the federal minimum wage—has severely lagged. This figure shows the decline in the real (inflation-adjusted) value of the minimum wage since its high in 1968 as well as what the federal minimum wage would be today if it had kept pace with the growth of real hourly wages of production and nonsupervisory workers (who make up 80 percent of the workforce) or economy-wide productivity. Had the federal minimum wage kept pace with productivity it would be over $18 today. Though not shown in the figure, the federal minimum wage did keep pace with productivity in the 30 years before 1968.
The minimum wage essentially establishes the wage levels of the bottom fifth of wage earners. These low-wage workers are far more educated and are older than low-wage workers in 1968. Yet, despite being more skilled and productive, the wages they earn are lower than wages earned in 1968. The failure to raise the minimum wage had especially adverse effects on women and minority workers.
kenneal - lagger wrote:Those people wish to come here because they have been sold a pup by the very advertising industry which LJ's article complained about.
No they come here because of what friends and relatives say about life here. Not about advertising.
And those friends and relatives tell them what sort of life those with money have. They don't tell that that most of those who come here end up living 5 or six to a room, hot bedding and living on below the minimum wage.
They don't want to lose face or admit that they've been conned into a life of near slavery.
A very good piece on the current state of the world.
In early 2018, the ‘global conversation’ seems to denote a growing sense of concern about a whole series of ongoing events or developments and about their possible or likely ramifications into the future. These include America’s descent into a spiral of political insanity and retreat from global leadership, the multiple and often widening cracks in European unity, the erosion of the international liberal order and of liberal democracy in many places, as well as the rising or persisting geopolitical tensions in Asia, the Middle East or Eastern Europe. These also include the relentless advance of the ‘digital revolution’, and in particular the rapid development of artificial intelligence and the approaching prospect of machines outsmarting humans and taking their jobs. These include, as well, the continuous deterioration of our natural environment and our continuous failure to reverse or stop it. As pointed out by thousands of world scientists in a ‘Warning to Humanity’ published at the end of last year, we humans are utterly failing to take the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere, and there are rising concerns that we may actually be already well advanced in the process of making the planet inhospitable or even uninhabitable for ourselves.
Optimism ascending
Despite these mounting and multiple concerns, though, what tends to dominate the overall perception of the world’s trajectory and situation at this moment in time – just like at any moment in time, in fact – is probably “the economy, stupid�… And in early 2018 the perception of the global economy’s situation and prospects seems to denote rising optimism. Over ten years after the onset of the global financial and economic crisis, hope is rising that the world economy may have turned the corner, and that it could finally be starting to pick up after years of paltry growth. Somewhat unexpectedly, economic growth indeed gathered steam in developed as well as emerging economies in the course of 2017, and it is now widely forecasted to further speed up this year. International organisations such as the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have all revised their global growth forecasts up in recent months, after years and years of having to regularly revise them down.
This global upswing is likely to come as a relief to the populations of many countries, who probably welcome the perspective of somewhat brighter prospects in terms of jobs, opportunities, wages and living standards after the years of crisis and low growth. As a consequence, economic optimism is now rising and spreading almost everywhere.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
kenneal - lagger wrote:Those people wish to come here because they have been sold a pup by the very advertising industry which LJ's article complained about.
No they come here because of what friends and relatives say about life here. Not about advertising.
This comedian on the xfactor is funny because there is a lot of truth inside his jokes. Worth a minute if you missed it. The last joke about food is spot on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIVxPRqgtD4
kenneal - lagger wrote:
It is ironic that the two people arguing against the article are a committed Republican voter from the US, who's whole political allegiance is to the system which is failing us, and a former UK politician who has a vested interest in confirming the value of his former political service to us.
My allegiance is to the US Constitution and the US Republic. I have many bones to pick with both political parties and the bureaucracy that has evolved and the abuses and favoritism it commits on behalf of the rich and powerful. I would certainly vote to fix any part of the system that is failing us. You do have to have a better solution then the status quo to vote for as we don't allow voting for "none of the above".
I find it amusing that both the USSR and the USA are totalitarian states but opposite! ....
....
A statement that contradicts itself? The USA is constantly being changed and evolved by popular protests and voter initiatives and is the very opposite of totalitarianism.
vtsnowedin wrote: A statement that contradicts itself? The USA is constantly being changed and evolved by popular protests and voter initiatives and is the very opposite of totalitarianism.
That depends whether or not you consider the two US parties as genuine alternatives, or merely slightly different variations of the same extreme.
vtsnowedin wrote: A statement that contradicts itself? The USA is constantly being changed and evolved by popular protests and voter initiatives and is the very opposite of totalitarianism.
That depends whether or not you consider the two US parties as genuine alternatives, or merely slightly different variations of the same extreme.
A valid point for sure but both parties need voters to side with them and show up at the polls. Most voters want things to continue pretty much as usual as that is working for them. But let things deteriorate and voters will seek alternatives and the parties will certainly go in different directions and then the difference between them will become clear.
The pdf poster is a hoot, 'the acceptable range of politics - vs - the range of human philosophy'. And of course that assumes you believe that society is only ordered on a scale of Left-Right...
