America Must Go it Alone

Josh_B · Aug 6, 2002

but hidden behind the smoke and mirror:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
(H. L. Mencken.)

Josh

chasinfla · Aug 6, 2002

I believe I'm the one who presented the argument for moral absolutes on this thread. Your disagreement is with me (and the God of moral absolutes).

Some cultures eat their neighbors. It takes a dead man walking to say that's OK. If you think it's OK, I suggest you go and live like that for a while. Or go live in Amsterdam and watch your kids get hooked on heroin -- or get hooked yourself. Then come back and post with authority your thoughts on how other cultures live.

It takes a pair to stand up and say 'this wrong,' or 'this is right.'

You buy the 'noble savage' rot? I recommend a book called 'Spirit of the Rainforest' to you. It's by Mark A. Ritchie -- one the Market Wizards. If you'd like, I can try to obtain you a signed copy.

TigerO · Aug 7, 2002

Originally posted by chasinfla
Or go live in Amsterdam and watch your kids get hooked on heroin -- or get hooked yourself. Then come back and post with authority your thoughts on how other cultures live.

More...

Wow, that's really funny.

THE US DRUG PROBLEM

"The magnitude of the drug problem in this country is enormous," says Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy within the White House, the coordination point for the many U.S. government programs that attempt to deal with one or another aspect of the problem. According to McCaffrey, drugs are responsible for the deaths of 52,000 Americans a year, and the cost of the problem adds up to $110 billion a year.

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/archive/drugfacts/

THE US Crime Catastrophe:

Americans are scared, and they are angry. The scary orgy of violent crime has made average citizens afraid to walk the streets in front of their homes. And this fear has fueled a public cry to end the killing fields in America. In America, the crime clock continues to click: one murder every 22 minutes, one rape every 5 minutes, one robbery every 49 seconds, and one burglary every 10 seconds. And the cost of crime continues to mount: $78 billion for the criminal justice system, $64 billion for private protection, $202 billion in loss of life and work, $120 billion in crimes against business, $60 billion in stolen goods and fraud, $40 billion from drug abuse, and $110 billion from drunk driving. When you add up all the costs, crime costs Americans a stunning $675 billion each year.

http://www.probe.org/docs/crime.html

Out and Homeless in the USA:

Over the past year, over 3 million men, women, and children were homeless. In 1995 the demand for shelter increased by 11%. This demand is still increasing. More recently, in 2001, the demand for shelter rose 13%, according to a survey released in December 2001 by the U.S. Conference of Mayors on hunger and homelessness.
And even more Americans are at risk of homelessness. A January 2001 report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that 4.9 million low-income American households had worst case housing needs, paying more than 50% of their income on rent, while HUD estimates that this figure should be no more than 30%.

A missed paycheck, a health crisis, or an unpaid bill pushes poor families over the edge into homelessness.
http://www.nlchp.org/FA_HAPIA/

Poverty in the USA:

For more than 34 million Americans, every day is a bitter struggle to survive with the least. They are America's poor, left behind on the road to prosperity.
http://www.nccbuscc.org/cchd/povertyusa/

USA: The land of Equal Opportunity??

Growing Income Disparity and the Middle Class Squeeze
Our economy is marked by a very uneven distribution of wealth and income. For example, it is estimated that 28% of the total net wealth is held by the richest 2% of families in the U.S. The top 10% holds 57% of the net wealth. If homes and other real estate are excluded, the concentration of ownership of financial wealth is even more glaring. In 1983, 54% of the total net financial assets were held by 2% of all families, those whose annual income is over $125,000. Eighty-six percent of these assets were held by the top 10% of all families (US Bishops Economic Justice 183, quoting 1983 Federal Reserve Board figures).

Real weekly wages in the U.S. rose until 1973, and have been declining since. From 1977 - 1989, the wealthiest 660,000 families gained 75% of "average pretax income" increases, while most middle income families saw only a 4% increase -- and those in the bottom 40% of income cohorts had real declines.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development notes that the U.S. has the most inequitable distribution of income of all the industrialized nations and the middle class is in serious decline; the international bankers are worried about social and economic problems in the U.S. (Dubois 43). The Economist writes that since the 1970s, economic inequities have mushroomed. The top income quintile is doing great, the bottom quintile is declining (not in numbers, but in income). The conditions of the poor are described as "bad" (34).

A survey of 26 industrialized nations (the Luxembourg Income Study) found that the gap between the wealthiest 10% and the poorest 10% is greater in the United States than any other country except Russia (Wallechinsky 6). !!!!

In 1970, the lowest quintile had 5.5% of the national income; in 1990, that group had 3.7% -- a 33% decline in 20 years (Haughton and Schwoyer 88). The Gross National Product rose 33% (in constant dollars), 1975 - 1985 (Bayer 45). The December 1995 Commonweal magazine, using Federal Reserve data, reports that between 1982 and 1994, nonfarm labor productivity increased three times that of the rate of real hourly compensation. Manufacturing productivity rose by 37%, wages and benefits remained flat. The ratio of the compensation of CEOs to the average worker in 1974 was 35 to 1; now it is 150 to 1. Using Council of Economic Advisors data, the article found that the real income of men with high school educations dropped 21% between 1979 and 1990. During 1983 to 1992, the top 1% of households net worth increased from 34% to 42% of all household wealth; the bottom 80% dropped from 18% to 15% (the top 20% in 1989 controlled 85% of all household wealth). The only other comparable era of wealth concentration was 1922 to 1929 (12-13).

So income is flat or declining. But unfortunately, expenditures have not followed income's example. Of the major categories of household expenditures, only food and clothing have shown declines over time (Segal 62). All others are up, many in excess of the general inflationary rate.

This household squeeze is mirrored on a national level. If we factor together the costs (direct and indirect) of the U.S. international military empire and its adventuristic tendencies (e.g. Persian Gulf, Panama, Grenada, etc.), welfare for the rich, the savings and loan debacle, interest on the national debt (now a trillion dollars every five years) and the expensive drug war, among other issues that might be mentioned, it seems apparent that literally trillions of dollars of national wealth have been squandered over the last 30 years by the economic and political elite to no good purpose and a lot of that money has ended up in the hands of that same economic and political elite and their good friends in corporate America.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cach...middle+class+income+in+america&hl=de&ie=UTF-8[/url]

Some relevant Stats:

U.S. median household income: $ 40,816
(U.S. Census Bureau, 1999)

Average household net worth of the top 1% of wage earners: $10,204,000
Average net worth of the bottom 40% of wage earners: $1900
(Edward N. Wolff, "Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership, 1983-1998," April 2000)

Definition of middle class in terms of income: $ 32,653 to $ 48,979
(Economy.Com's The Dismal Scientist, 1999)

Percentage of U.S. children who live in poverty: 20
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2000)

Percentage of U.S. adults who live in poverty: 12
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2000)

Percentage of single mothers who live in poverty: 37.4%
(U.S. Census Bureau, 1999)

Rank of the U.S. among the seventeen leading industrial nations with the largest percentage of their populations in poverty: 1
(United Nations Human Development Report 1998, N.Y.C.)!!!!

Portion of U.S. stock owned by the wealthiest 10 % of Americans: 9/10
(Economic Policy Institute, Washington D.C., 1999)

Median hourly wage of a former welfare recipient: $6.61
(Urban Institute, 2000)

Percentage of former welfare recipients who have no access to a car: 90%
(Surface Transportation Policy Project, 2001)

Number of families or primary individuals who live in mobile homes or trailers: 6.8 million
(U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey, 1999)

Percentage change in the number of rural Americans living in mobile homes between 1980 and 1990: + 52
(Housing Assistance Council, Washington D.C.)

Percentage of death row inmates who could not afford to hire a lawyer: 90%
(ACLU, 2001)

http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/resources/stats.html

Child poverty in the USA, highest among the seventeen leading industrial nations :

Poverty's Effect on Children
Unfortunately, not all America's poor have been so fortunate. According to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September 1996, 13.8% of Americans live in poverty. Many more are on the borderline. Poverty affects all ages, but an astonishing 48% percent of its victims are children:

About 15 million children -- one out of every four -- live below the official poverty line.

22% of Americans under the age of 18 -- and 25% under age 12 -- are hungry or at the risk of being hungry.

Everyday 2,660 children are born into poverty; 27 die because of it.

Children and families are the fastest growing group in the homeless population, representing 40%.

http://www.heartsandminds.org/articles/childpov.htm

Heck, we got plenty to take care of ourselves before going of on extremely expensive, putting it mildly, fruitcake adventures around the world, where we are the only ones sufficiently versed in the fine art of twisting facts and subsequently actually believing them ourselves, so as to be able to pretend to instill objective madness with alleged subjective reason, anyway.

chasinfla · Aug 7, 2002

It is no surprise that you either missed or ignored the point and noisily sidestepped it.

If I could draw you a picture, I would.

America has hurtled downhill precisely because its institutions have embraced the logic articulated by danielM -- that moral absolutes are offensive, oppressive, and/or unknowable. I have described in a previous post how this sort of emasculating drivel leaves no defense against moral collapse. As go the individuals, so goes the nation.

You point out her faults. You mock the only solution -- in fact, legislate against it. It's what the left has been doing here for decades. And, it's transparent.

TigerO · Aug 7, 2002

Uh, that we should go take out Saddam? Because most every other free and developed state agrees with Junior's stance on that, and we don't have anything better to do anyway?

chasinfla · Aug 7, 2002

girlie men won't stand up for anything except freedom to do what feels good. girlie men don't want to offend anyone except people who talk of the need for 'moral absolutes.' girlie men can't prevent the collapse of a nation.

girlie men are useless.

TigerO · Aug 7, 2002

Originally posted by TigerO

Wow, that's really funny.

THE US DRUG PROBLEM

"The magnitude of the drug problem in this country is enormous," says Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy within the White House, the coordination point for the many U.S. government programs that attempt to deal with one or another aspect of the problem. According to McCaffrey, drugs are responsible for the deaths of 52,000 Americans a year, and the cost of the problem adds up to $110 billion a year.

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/archive/drugfacts/

THE US Crime Catastrophe:

Americans are scared, and they are angry. The scary orgy of violent crime has made average citizens afraid to walk the streets in front of their homes. And this fear has fueled a public cry to end the killing fields in America. In America, the crime clock continues to click: one murder every 22 minutes, one rape every 5 minutes, one robbery every 49 seconds, and one burglary every 10 seconds. And the cost of crime continues to mount: $78 billion for the criminal justice system, $64 billion for private protection, $202 billion in loss of life and work, $120 billion in crimes against business, $60 billion in stolen goods and fraud, $40 billion from drug abuse, and $110 billion from drunk driving. When you add up all the costs, crime costs Americans a stunning $675 billion each year.

http://www.probe.org/docs/crime.html

Out and Homeless in the USA:

Over the past year, over 3 million men, women, and children were homeless. In 1995 the demand for shelter increased by 11%. This demand is still increasing. More recently, in 2001, the demand for shelter rose 13%, according to a survey released in December 2001 by the U.S. Conference of Mayors on hunger and homelessness.
And even more Americans are at risk of homelessness. A January 2001 report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that 4.9 million low-income American households had worst case housing needs, paying more than 50% of their income on rent, while HUD estimates that this figure should be no more than 30%.

A missed paycheck, a health crisis, or an unpaid bill pushes poor families over the edge into homelessness.
http://www.nlchp.org/FA_HAPIA/

Poverty in the USA:

For more than 34 million Americans, every day is a bitter struggle to survive with the least. They are America's poor, left behind on the road to prosperity.
http://www.nccbuscc.org/cchd/povertyusa/

USA: The land of Equal Opportunity??

Growing Income Disparity and the Middle Class Squeeze
Our economy is marked by a very uneven distribution of wealth and income. For example, it is estimated that 28% of the total net wealth is held by the richest 2% of families in the U.S. The top 10% holds 57% of the net wealth. If homes and other real estate are excluded, the concentration of ownership of financial wealth is even more glaring. In 1983, 54% of the total net financial assets were held by 2% of all families, those whose annual income is over $125,000. Eighty-six percent of these assets were held by the top 10% of all families (US Bishops Economic Justice 183, quoting 1983 Federal Reserve Board figures).

Real weekly wages in the U.S. rose until 1973, and have been declining since. From 1977 - 1989, the wealthiest 660,000 families gained 75% of "average pretax income" increases, while most middle income families saw only a 4% increase -- and those in the bottom 40% of income cohorts had real declines.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development notes that the U.S. has the most inequitable distribution of income of all the industrialized nations and the middle class is in serious decline; the international bankers are worried about social and economic problems in the U.S. (Dubois 43). The Economist writes that since the 1970s, economic inequities have mushroomed. The top income quintile is doing great, the bottom quintile is declining (not in numbers, but in income). The conditions of the poor are described as "bad" (34).

A survey of 26 industrialized nations (the Luxembourg Income Study) found that the gap between the wealthiest 10% and the poorest 10% is greater in the United States than any other country except Russia (Wallechinsky 6). !!!!

In 1970, the lowest quintile had 5.5% of the national income; in 1990, that group had 3.7% -- a 33% decline in 20 years (Haughton and Schwoyer 88). The Gross National Product rose 33% (in constant dollars), 1975 - 1985 (Bayer 45). The December 1995 Commonweal magazine, using Federal Reserve data, reports that between 1982 and 1994, nonfarm labor productivity increased three times that of the rate of real hourly compensation. Manufacturing productivity rose by 37%, wages and benefits remained flat. The ratio of the compensation of CEOs to the average worker in 1974 was 35 to 1; now it is 150 to 1. Using Council of Economic Advisors data, the article found that the real income of men with high school educations dropped 21% between 1979 and 1990. During 1983 to 1992, the top 1% of households net worth increased from 34% to 42% of all household wealth; the bottom 80% dropped from 18% to 15% (the top 20% in 1989 controlled 85% of all household wealth). The only other comparable era of wealth concentration was 1922 to 1929 (12-13).

So income is flat or declining. But unfortunately, expenditures have not followed income's example. Of the major categories of household expenditures, only food and clothing have shown declines over time (Segal 62). All others are up, many in excess of the general inflationary rate.

This household squeeze is mirrored on a national level. If we factor together the costs (direct and indirect) of the U.S. international military empire and its adventuristic tendencies (e.g. Persian Gulf, Panama, Grenada, etc.), welfare for the rich, the savings and loan debacle, interest on the national debt (now a trillion dollars every five years) and the expensive drug war, among other issues that might be mentioned, it seems apparent that literally trillions of dollars of national wealth have been squandered over the last 30 years by the economic and political elite to no good purpose and a lot of that money has ended up in the hands of that same economic and political elite and their good friends in corporate America.

Some relevant Stats:

U.S. median household income: $ 40,816
(U.S. Census Bureau, 1999)

Average household net worth of the top 1% of wage earners: $10,204,000
Average net worth of the bottom 40% of wage earners: $1900
(Edward N. Wolff, "Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership, 1983-1998," April 2000)

Definition of middle class in terms of income: $ 32,653 to $ 48,979
(Economy.Com's The Dismal Scientist, 1999)

Percentage of U.S. children who live in poverty: 20
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2000)

Percentage of U.S. adults who live in poverty: 12
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2000)

Percentage of single mothers who live in poverty: 37.4%
(U.S. Census Bureau, 1999)

Rank of the U.S. among the seventeen leading industrial nations with the largest percentage of their populations in poverty: 1
(United Nations Human Development Report 1998, N.Y.C.)!!!!

Portion of U.S. stock owned by the wealthiest 10 % of Americans: 9/10
(Economic Policy Institute, Washington D.C., 1999)

Median hourly wage of a former welfare recipient: $6.61
(Urban Institute, 2000)

Percentage of former welfare recipients who have no access to a car: 90%
(Surface Transportation Policy Project, 2001)

Number of families or primary individuals who live in mobile homes or trailers: 6.8 million
(U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey, 1999)

Percentage change in the number of rural Americans living in mobile homes between 1980 and 1990: + 52
(Housing Assistance Council, Washington D.C.)

Percentage of death row inmates who could not afford to hire a lawyer: 90%
(ACLU, 2001)

http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/resources/stats.html

Child poverty in the USA, highest among the seventeen leading industrial nations :

Poverty's Effect on Children
Unfortunately, not all America's poor have been so fortunate. According to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September 1996, 13.8% of Americans live in poverty. Many more are on the borderline. Poverty affects all ages, but an astonishing 48% percent of its victims are children:

About 15 million children -- one out of every four -- live below the official poverty line.

22% of Americans under the age of 18 -- and 25% under age 12 -- are hungry or at the risk of being hungry.

Everyday 2,660 children are born into poverty; 27 die because of it.

Children and families are the fastest growing group in the homeless population, representing 40%.

http://www.heartsandminds.org/articles/childpov.htm

Heck, we got plenty to take care of ourselves before going of on extremely expensive, putting it mildly, fruitcake adventures around the world, where we are the only ones sufficiently versed in the fine art of twisting facts and subsequently actually believing them ourselves, so as to be able to pretend to instill objective madness with alleged subjective reason, anyway.

More...

Chas, reread all of that, as unpleasant as facts are, but try and tough it out, and then if you still think that in the face of all those problems we don't have better things to do than applaud and support a private but otherwise totally nonsensical grudge of the Bush family and their lackeys who are in way over their heads, then it's your free choice to apply for a tour of duty, the systems needs people like you to function.

Btw, this is getting a bit childish now, girlie men and all.

murray t turtle · Aug 7, 2002

We went hungry some as a child.

Thats good for you some .Banker dad made us do it when we didnt eat what was set before us. We give to the poor now.

America is still full of oppurtunity for all. Illiteracy rate growing doesnt help.

___________________

In recognition of the Wall Street Journal [and IBD] many think and vote like thier editorial page.

Rigel · Aug 7, 2002

Girlie men don't form their own opinions or convictions because it may cause them suffering, they just parrot what others say. They are accommodating good boys and want to please and fit in.

Madison · Aug 7, 2002

Originally posted by TigerO

Average household net worth of the top 1% of wage earners: $10,204,000

Average net worth of the bottom 40% of wage earners: $1900
(Edward N. Wolff, "Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership, 1983-1998," April 2000)

Percentage of U.S. children who live in poverty: 20
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2000)

More...

Even after allowing for inaccuracies, statistical errors, and ideological manipulation of data in these numbers, they are really astounding if one gives them some serious thought...