The Total Failure Of The War On Poverty

[gwynedd1]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

Well, not cancelling but holding off foreclosure for those with medical problems and laid off work. Hedges SEEMS to suggest cancelling all foreclosure action for any loan, which is a true moral hazard. But we should help those who find themselves behind in payments by working out a way to have them stay in their homes. The speculators and liars need to be foreclosed. Of dishonest mortgage and real estate professionals need to be prosecuted.

Considering that on the side of the creditor we have removed all moral hazards, making them whole at all costs, I can see the legitimate fear to fully exonerate debtors. Thieves prefer to live in honest neighborhoods. I suppose we could let this burden fail upon our pets. If we had a no pet policy in foreclosure, I think we may end up with some very well behaved animals. Knowing that their masters are about to make an unwise purchase, I believe it would be a marvelous good for a dog to growl beneath the table of a creditor and a debtor signing a contract where both of them have impunity under the law. The dog would have a real stake in the exchange. It will lick its solvent masters, and bark and growl at negative equity and high debt ratios.

I call upon the heroes of old :

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

What do you think about LIFE, LIBERTY, and PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS? What do you think of inalienable rights and the creed of the United States?

Goodness, truth, and beauty are far far more important and valuable than "excellence" IMO.
Bees and ants societies exhibit hard work and discipline par excellence.

Goodness = truth = beauty = excellence. Let's not get hung up on semantics.

Liberty, and ownership of your own life and property? Yes. "Equality" and "social justice"? No. Equality, social justice, and sacrifice for the collective are for insect colonies.

Of course this all begs the question of what is excellent and beautiful, because a leftist will simply say that equality and social justice ARE goodness and truth and beauty and excellence.

Equality is of almost no importance. Nature doesn't care about equality, nature rewards those who reach and stretch to reach new levels of excellence - the plant that grows taller than the others and thus wins more sun, the predator that is stronger and faster and thus outcompetes its peers and reproduces more successfully. Nature could be characterized as all about IN-equality, about celebrating excellence, which is the opposite of equality. Equality is synonymous with mediocrity, with the lowest common denominator.

As for the creed of the United States, I think it's lost. It's gone. It's been defeated by the progressives. I've gotten over that and now I think that talk about the United States' founders is kind of irrelevant. They built a system that was co-opted and then taken over by the progressives, from Wilson through FDR and Johnson and now Obama. They've successfully put the U.S. on a population replacement vector that is going to make the European population that built the country into a minority. The country will no longer be successful like European countries are, but will slide into South- and Central-American or Caribbean-style corruption and poverty. So there was some kind of serious flaw in the Founders' vision that allowed this to happen...either a flaw, or this outcome was built into it from the beginning. Either way, I don't give it much thought anymore. It's pretty much on the way out. I think if you're still thinking that the Founders' model is relevant you have not been paying attention to the way the country was changed in the last 50 years. There ain't no way we're ever going to have a Congress filled with aristocratic white men any more - not within the confines of the current government.

[santafe2]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

...The country will no longer be successful like European countries are, but will slide into South- and Central-American or Caribbean-style corruption and poverty....There ain't no way we're ever going to have a Congress filled with aristocratic white men any more...

So you're telling me I could trade these aristocrats for some jerk chicken? I'm in.

[GRG55]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

...If the BLS were any good at forecasting industry growth then the US could be like China with the central government that targets subsidies to particular segments of the economy to keep it growing at 8% per year, except that to do that you need a trade partner like the US to buy the output that feeds the trade surplus that gets funneled into the government subsidized industries... and we are that trade parter.

This is a description of how OPEC used to work. Favoured state-owned (national) oil companies selling their output to the USA to create a chronic surplus (through most of the crude oil price cycle). That is now breaking down as the printed US Dollars are being used to drill at home instead of being exported to Nigeria et al.

Could we see something similar start to happen with other industrial sectors in the USA? Could the USA give China real headaches as China tries to move up-market to more value added production as it addresses its rising labour cost issues? Does this relegate China to maintain production of low value products for export, subsidized by the Chinese government because it needs jobs, any jobs, to maintain some semblance of social stability?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

This is a description of how OPEC used to work. Favoured state-owned (national) oil companies selling their output to the USA to create a chronic surplus (through most of the crude oil price cycle). That is now breaking down as the printed US Dollars are being used to drill at home instead of being exported to Nigeria et al.

Could we see something similar start to happen with other industrial sectors in the USA? Could the USA give China real headaches as China tries to move up-market to more value added production as it addresses its rising labour cost issues? Does this relegate China to maintain production of low value products for export, subsidized by the Chinese government because it needs jobs, any jobs, to maintain some semblance of social stability?

Rightly or wrongly I've always visualized the job market as a ladder.

Where in the past the west was more tightly packed(wage/value differential) on the ladder, they are now vertically strung out quite considerably like an expanded accordion.

I visualize a lot of those lost steel and auto manufacturing jobs as developing or redeveloped world workers as climbing faster(relatively) and passing them or supplanting them on the way up the never ending ladder.

Some folks get stuck on a ladder run, and some fall, but the idea of the US/west having a considerable gap between themselves and the developing/redeveloped world seems to be over forever(unless we see national infrastructure obliterated like WWII again).

Assuming my over-simplistic way of looking at the job market is valid, I've never really looked at it from a developing world perspective.

I've always looked at it as being passed on or falling down the ladder.

But you can get caught in a traffic jam on the way up the jobs ladder too.

I wonder if a "crowded ladder" is an accurate way of describing the jobs market.

There's certainly anger when people stall or fall on the jobs ladder, but I never really thought about anger stemming from being unable to climb faster than a suffocating rise of inflation.

[Forrest]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

[QUOTE=lakedaemonian;274036]Rightly or wrongly I've always visualized the job market as a ladder.
I think in the past it once was, at least in America, but only for the time after WWII until FIRE began…a very short time indeed.

Prior to that, there was a lot of space between different ladders in different places, and in America, you had a particularly good set of opportunities to climb the ladder you wanted to be on. The more westerly you went before WWII, the looser it was, and sometimes one swung from ladder to ladder, rather than climbing it. But the economy was there, everywhere, the baby boomers booming, and the WWII’ers making good as they came back from the war, and found a whole new bunch of information available to all of them, because all of a sudden, Veterans could get a loan for a house, or a farm, or to start a business, and if they were interested in Education, well, that was a grateful country’s thank you for killing all those nasty people. There was a whole FIRE system set up and waiting in those schools…to service the industries that were doing so well now that all the pent up demand from the war got directed at making living better.

As FIRE began to rule the markets, even the government stopped really being run by anything like a vote, or even true Ideology, because the basis for law was pulled out from under us all. Suddenly, in 1963, there was no more absolute right or wrong being taught, just as now, only a particular history is being taught, and truth is not a part of any of that history. Things were already nicely PROGRESSING, and tolerance became the watchword…not truth.

This caused as many good things as bad things as Civil Rights began to hit the papers, and it was okay not to have an opinion over truth and justice, as long as it was legal. Women continued to stand up, and demand to be men, and other’s stood up and demanded to be anyone that they wanted to be. And with the truth gone, and evil no longer recognizable, it was easier for everyone just to get along. We didn’t have to agree...just tolerate one another. Then one day, the rules were gone, and we tolerated a lot of crime in high places, and no one voted them out. Nixon resigned, and Ford pardoned him, and only a handful of people went to jail. People came and went in office, and behind the façade, lies were told to everyone by everyone. We started wars and ended them for distractions, and convenience, and wealth and power. No one stopped us…because it paid them to well to not to speak up about it.

Where in the past the west was more tightly packed(wage/value differential) on the ladder, they are now vertically strung out quite considerably like an expanded accordion.

The banks had been lying so long that few people noticed it, and FIRE was in charge of everything. There was a lot of wealth, and a lot of progress, and a lot of lying was going on everywhere. People came and went, and innovation progressed, but those ladder rungs were sent to other countries where the FIRE interests could invest in slave labor supported business. And the newspapers lied, and the government lied and the business’s lied, because there was no truth. The ladders began to shift and break because there was no truth.

I visualize a lot of those lost steel and auto manufacturing jobs as developing or redeveloped world workers as climbing faster(relatively) and passing them or supplanting them on the way up the never ending ladder.

There was a lie being told that everyone could do well, and all could succeed, and that there was a big interconnected ladder of success that everyone could find a place on. No one would be left behind, and everyone could succeed, because everyone was going to have an equal outcome.

Powerful people had found that telling a lot of lies for a long time could make people agree to the lie, and that after a while, the people would fight against any truth. It didn’t matter if the economy was broken, because the lie was enough, and everything would get better. And if the better never came, well, they could always lie about that too, and different statistics appeared to support that lie.

It didn’t matter if people thought their government was no longer working for them, because the lie was enough. The lies were so well done, the people did not know why they were voting for whom they voted for, or what things they were voting for would actually happen. The law grew more law, to hide the truth, and law grew more regulation in one place, and less in another, to let the lies go on, and the FIRE to burn.

Houses would always go up in value, and the stock market was there to be invested into, and everything would be okay. But an ever expanding never-never-land is what has been invested in, and the houses are only fit for housing, and not a piggy bank, and the lie is still being told.

There are people simplistic enough to swallow the lie for a long, long time, but the ladders are falling over because so many people are crammed onto the same rung, and the people have begun to notice that their money is no longer buying what it used to. The people want to believe the lie, and keep shaking their heads at how dizzy they feel as the ladders begin to swing from side to side, and people do fall off, and find that they can no longer climb back on. It is too late, or too long, or too hard to do anything about it, and after a time of receiving benefits for not working, so long as they do not starve, they will grumble at the ladder being gone, but do nothing about the lies that took it away.

Some folks get stuck on a ladder run, and some fall, but the idea of the US/west having a considerable gap between themselves and the developing/redeveloped world seems to be over forever(unless we see national infrastructure obliterated like WWII again).

Even living in lies will do a great deal of harm, and people are beginning to forget how we used to get things done, but living with social mobility in a less classified society had left a mark on some of those who are still hanging tight to the ladder, even the bottom rung. There is still a memory of people being able to do better than their parents may have done, if they just try hard enough, and are quick, and nimble, they can at least make their way. But with the interconnected ladders falling apart, it will become harder and harder to live in the lie, and not deal with the underlying truth.

Assuming my over-simplistic way of looking at the job market is valid, I've never really looked at it from a developing world perspective.

The lies will continue, and the FIRE will continue to burn so long as the lie remains. It will burn in the developing nations just as quickly as it burned elsewhere until the ladders themselves catch FIRE. Many will be burned because of the lies, and yet many who are not burned, and can leap from one swinging ladder to another around the globe will turn to newer and bigger lies as time goes on. A lot of ladders will fall, and may only be propped up here and there. Some will seek the truth, and wars will begin and end over differing claims to truth. Others will claim a better way, and cast out the liars that go before them, and begin new lies.

I've always looked at it as being passed on or falling down the ladder.

But you can get caught in a traffic jam on the way up the jobs ladder too.

I wonder if a "crowded ladder" is an accurate way of describing the jobs market.
There's certainly anger when people stall or fall on the jobs ladder, but I never really thought about anger stemming from being unable to climb faster than a suffocating rise of inflation.

Each rung remaining on the ladders that survive will stretch and stretch wider and wider so that all can get a footing, or they will fall, and crash on the ground, and be broken, never to be raised to climb again. There will be few ladders left to reach the heights, and the only ways to climb them will be to be better at lying than the person who went before you; or to have an idea that you can sell to those who are lying now; or to begin to seek the truth, and be willing to find it no matter the cost. The world is a big place, and no matter the technology, there is only so much lying that can successfully stand against the reality of truth, but many people will be willfully blind for a piece of bread, and safety.

But there is truth, and eventually the truth will out, and there will be a reckoning, but very many will fall. Ladders will be very scarce thereafter unless you build them yourself, and without the truth you will not build them at all.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

The country will no longer be successful like European countries are, but will slide into South- and Central-American or Caribbean-style corruption and poverty.

That sentence explains perfectly where your head's at. No need to elaborate.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

That sentence explains perfectly where your head's at. No need to elaborate.

Ha. And your response to my response explains perfectly where YOUR head's at.

[Penguin]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

As for the creed of the United States, I think it's lost. It's gone. It's been defeated by the progressives....

~snort~

You spend a ful post backpeddling about how big finance and capital have gained a silent coup and that the system has been corrupted and then post this? You need to make up your mind.

Was it a complete coincidence that the democratic party embraced identity politics shortly after a demographic bombshell like the 1965 Immigration Reform Act? Probably not. Was it a coincidence that these actions took place in the backdrop of cultural insecurity and guilt in the 60s over the sins of our ancestors? Again probably not.

You mentioned that maybe, perhaps there was an internal flaw in the framer's vision that doomed it to failure. I assume you mean this in a way in which the "white" culture was doomed to lose or concede its dominant position? Well, if so then I'd offer that you quit blaming progressives and look further back in history.

Maybe it is the sins of the past which caused the cultural insecurity and guilt that allowed the progressives to gain an upperhand on social issues in the first place. Maybe the systematic stripping of land rights to even friendly native tribes left wounds that festered in the long term. Maybe the genocidal wars on the rest traded land for a damned good case of guilt when the mania passed and conscience reared its head. Maybe bringing millions of native Africans onto this continent against their will to a life of squalid slavery that lasted generations caused racial resentment and guilt that impedes true equality to this very day. Maybe the Jim Crow laws that followed slavery were counterproductive as well?

If you are going to go to the grave convinced that "white" culture was taken down by progressives in the form of identity politics then maybe you should be more truthful about how culture evolved the doubt, insecurity, and guilt which allowed it. From your POV (that "white culture" is slipping away and dooming us all) it won't change the facts on the ground or the outcome in the end... but at least you can get an honest picture of how it came to pass. Blaming FDR for the loss of "white culture" might become as laughable to you as it is to the rest of us.

On another tack you might want to look at the role the framer's reserved to corporations as well. You might look into the "rights" that have been granted to corporations over our history that they reserved solely for persons. And how the entire subject of "corporate law" has been made up out of thin air.

If you dug up the framer's and brought them back to life would they be shocked at what our nation has become? I honestly believe that they would in both good and bad ways. But don't kid yourself that they would only reprimand liberals for making the constitution into something that it most assuredly was not meant to be. Conservatives are every bit as skilled at that as any liberal.

Will

[vinoveri]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

quality is of almost no importance. Nature doesn't care about equality, nature rewards those who reach and stretch to reach new levels of excellence - the plant that grows taller than the others and thus wins more sun, the predator that is stronger and faster and thus outcompetes its peers and reproduces more successfully. Nature could be characterized as all about IN-equality, about celebrating excellence, which is the opposite of equality. Equality is synonymous with mediocrity, with the lowest common denominator.

Nor does nature care about fairness and justice, but we as a society sure do and well ought to.

As for the creed of the United States, I think it's lost. It's gone. It's been defeated by the progressives. I've gotten over that and now I think that talk about the United States' founders is kind of irrelevant. They built a system that was co-opted and then taken over by the progressives, from Wilson through FDR and Johnson and now Obama. They've successfully put the U.S. on a population replacement vector that is going to make the European population that built the country into a minority. The country will no longer be successful like European countries are, but will slide into South- and Central-American or Caribbean-style corruption and poverty. So there was some kind of serious flaw in the Founders' vision that allowed this to happen...either a flaw, or this outcome was built into it from the beginning. Either way, I don't give it much thought anymore. It's pretty much on the way out. I think if you're still thinking that the Founders' model is relevant you have not been paying attention to the way the country was changed in the last 50 years. There ain't no way we're ever going to have a Congress filled with aristocratic white men any more - not within the confines of the current government.

The creed I'm referring to is Jefferson's brilliant recital of "inalienable rights" given by God or Locke's interpretation as given by "nature", i.e., the natural rights of men and women, and that a government's primary purpose, its raison d'etre is to insure that these rights are protected PERIOD. The rest is icing or rot depending on how it goes ( a lot of rot right now obviously).
But make no mistake, even though I do apprehend these rights to be "self-evident", this is dogmatic nonetheless, and that is why it is ignored and attacked by secularist but mostly by the "power hungry - want to rule the world" types, b/c it is s direct check on power over the common man - and there's no way around it; the common man can understand it, and when all the rhetoric, sophistry or other means of convincing "persuasion" via education and political bullhorns introduce doubt, confuse and confound, these principles are all that's needed to say NO, STOP to the ruling class - this is why the concept of "natural rights of man" is anathema to modern thinkers, either b/c they recognize its direct check on power OR and more common, they cannot subscribe to creeds b/c they've enclosed themselves in the materialist box.

[lektrode]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

~snort~

You spend a ful post backpeddling about how big finance and capital have gained a silent coup and that the system has been corrupted and then post this? You need to make up your mind.

Was it a complete coincidence that the democratic party embraced identity politics shortly after a demographic bombshell like the 1965 Immigration Reform Act? Probably not. Was it a coincidence that these actions took place in the backdrop of cultural insecurity and guilt in the 60s over the sins of our ancestors? Again probably not. ....
....
On another tack you might want to look at the role the framer's reserved to corporations as well. You might look into the "rights" that have been granted to corporations over our history that they reserved solely for persons. And how the entire subject of "corporate law" has been made up out of thin air.

If you dug up the framer's and brought them back to life would they be shocked at what our nation has become? I honestly believe that they would in both good and bad ways. But don't kid yourself that they would only reprimand liberals for making the constitution into something that it most assuredly was not meant to be. Conservatives are every bit as skilled at that as any liberal.

+1
and another point for Will.

all this stuff does require nuanced extrapolation - however IMHO there's been quite a bit of OVER-REACH by the.... guess ya cant use the term 'liberals' here - so i'll say that it was by those who seem to think that every issue/problem can be fixed by another SEVERAL THOUSAND pages of legislation, coupled to another TRILLION in deficit spending

thats where the 'progressive-liberal' vs 'conservative' argument/rubber meets the road

and at this point?

The US is 'in the left/dems lane' on

[lektrode]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

Nor does nature care about fairness and justice, but we as a society sure do and well ought to.



The creed I'm referring to is Jefferson's brilliant recital of "inalienable rights" given by God or Locke's interpretation as given by "nature", i.e., the natural rights of men and women, and that a government's primary purpose, its raison d'etre is to insure that these rights are protected PERIOD. The rest is icing or rot depending on how it goes ( a lot of rot right now obviously).
But make no mistake, even though I do apprehend these rights to be "self-evident", this is dogmatic nonetheless, and that is why it is ignored and attacked by secularist but mostly by the "power hungry - want to rule the world" types, b/c it is s direct check on power over the common man - and there's no way around it; the common man can understand it, and when all the rhetoric, sophistry or other means of convincing "persuasion" via education and political bullhorns introduce doubt, confuse and confound, these principles are all that's needed to say NO, STOP to the ruling class - this is why the concept of "natural rights of man" is anathema to modern thinkers, either b/c they recognize its direct check on power OR and more common, they cannot subscribe to creeds b/c they've enclosed themselves in the materialist box.

eloquently and very persuasively put vino.

+1

firmly and sincerely,
a 'small-r' type

[Woodsman]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

+1
and another point for Will.

all this stuff does require nuanced extrapolation - however IMHO there's been quite a bit of OVER-REACH by the.... guess ya cant use the term 'liberals' here - so i'll say that it was by those who seem to think that every issue/problem can be fixed by another SEVERAL THOUSAND pages of legislation, coupled to another TRILLION in deficit spending

thats where the 'progressive-liberal' vs 'conservative' argument/rubber meets the road

and at this point?

The US is 'in the left/dems lane' on

Great tune, but lately I've come to like this version just a little better. Slightly more captivating, no?

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

~snort~

You spend a ful post backpeddling about how big finance and capital have gained a silent coup and that the system has been corrupted and then post this? You need to make up your mind.

There was no backtracking. There was clarification. People assumed that because I attacked progressivism that meant I was ignoring or applauding the crony capitalism that has made the bankers rich. I simply made it clear that simply because I attack progressivism does not mean I am in favor of the connected bankers and oligarchs using their government connections to pick the public pocket.

Was it a complete coincidence that the democratic party embraced identity politics shortly after a demographic bombshell like the 1965 Immigration Reform Act? Probably not. Was it a coincidence that these actions took place in the backdrop of cultural insecurity and guilt in the 60s over the sins of our ancestors? Again probably not.

You mentioned that maybe, perhaps there was an internal flaw in the framer's vision that doomed it to failure. I assume you mean this in a way in which the "white" culture was doomed to lose or concede its dominant position? Well, if so then I'd offer that you quit blaming progressives and look further back in history.

Maybe it is the sins of the past which caused the cultural insecurity and guilt that allowed the progressives to gain an upperhand on social issues in the first place. Maybe the systematic stripping of land rights to even friendly native tribes left wounds that festered in the long term. Maybe the genocidal wars on the rest traded land for a damned good case of guilt when the mania passed and conscience reared its head. Maybe bringing millions of native Africans onto this continent against their will to a life of squalid slavery that lasted generations caused racial resentment and guilt that impedes true equality to this very day. Maybe the Jim Crow laws that followed slavery were counterproductive as well?

If you are going to go to the grave convinced that "white" culture was taken down by progressives in the form of identity politics then maybe you should be more truthful about how culture evolved the doubt, insecurity, and guilt which allowed it. From your POV (that "white culture" is slipping away and dooming us all) it won't change the facts on the ground or the outcome in the end... but at least you can get an honest picture of how it came to pass. Blaming FDR for the loss of "white culture" might become as laughable to you as it is to the rest of us.

You seem to assume that white men have some kind of actual guilt for how they've behaved in the past, and that they've become aware of this guilt, and started to behave themselves, and that this behaving themselves results in things like white men passing the 1965 Immigration Act and subsequent amnesties which will dispossess white people. Therefore, in your analysis, it's the awareness of guilt that is the cause of this, and not progressives.

My friend, it is the progressive ideology which IS "awareness of white guilt". If you want to boil progressivism down, it amounts to "all humanity is one" and thus "you white men sinned against your sisters and non-white brethren, and reparations need to be made". WHO made white men feel guilty? Progressives! WHO proposed the 1965 Immigration Act? Progressives! WHO has been pushing the meme for the last hundreds of years that it is wrong to see oneself as part of a distinct people, and to act accordingly? Progressives!

Guilt about being powerful enough to conquer new territories, about seeing oneself as part of a distinct people, about enslaving conquered peoples, is a relatively new idea. For the vast majority of human history, it would have seemed very strange to feel guilty about your people being strong and successful. Darwinistically speaking, it is a laughably stupid evolutionary strategy to feel guilty about being strong, to hand your territory over to people who could never have conquered it on their own, to dig your own grave and step into it and apologize for inconveniencing the weaklings who are going to bury you - and to help pull the dirt in on yourself. Laughably stupid.

Somewhere we took an evolutionary fork that is going to wipe out white progressives. It might wipe out a lot more people than that too. I guess it's part of evolution, just the way things work. An idea, progressivism, is being tried. Only a people so fantastically rich and without any serious competitors as white men became in the last couple hundred years could have the luxury of pretending that the world operates according to John Lennon's "Imagine" song, or that it could.

Oh, and as parting thought - just to really blow your mind - consider that the descendants of those "millions of native Africans [brought] onto this continent against their will to a life of squalid slavery" are the best-off Africans on the planet. As Muhammad Ali is said to have remarked after visiting Africa, "I'm sure glad my grandaddy got on that boat."

[lektrode]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

Great tune, but lately I've come to like this version just a little better. Slightly more captivating, no?

oh sure woody - if ya cant dis em with divergence - DISTRACT EM with....

ummmm...

WHOA!!!!

devastatingly .... YEOWZA!
hot.... uhhhh

leave em speechless
1 point for woody