people hate reading *feces* thats true

[hobbit]

So pr0n is not booming?

Sorry - yes, pr0n is booming huge!

Sign up at the local library - tell em I sent ya.

[Spanky]

So pr0n is not booming?

Sorry - yes, pr0n is booming huge!

Sign up at the local library - tell em I sent ya.

Sweet! I'm there. Calvin and Hobbs sent me.

[birdymaker]

  College is expensive, yes - many families struggle with expenses or cannot make them at all.  But there are several respectable programs available for financial aid, low interest loans, etc.  Most anyone that wants to go to college, can go to college (I had student loan payments for many years).

ah, we've arrived at the nuts and the bolts of the situation. a few years ago this may have and probably was true. it is becoming less true every day given the rapid escalation of bare bones living expenses such as food and fuel, and the disappearance of the skilled labor market.

if average joe is lucky his wages have gone up 2-3% in the last couple of years, which would make him the exception, while his living expenses have gone up 20-30% over the same period.

having come full circle, the average american's standard of living is sinking quick.

     

[gleek]

For a minute there, I thought Aske had gotten a job writing for msnbc. 

(now that I read the whole thing)

At least aske may have stayed on topic - this guy jumped everywhere possible.  Rather surprising a national news org would publish it.

I think he's saying that our economic outlook is so *feces*ty right now it's affecting our collective psyches to the point that we're noticing the gloom in all aspects of life--whether it's in sports, entertainment, weather, etc.

[Aske]

yeh, nothing like loading up on $60-$250k in debt at the age of 22 graduating with a BS degree to fight for a $35k entry level job  so you can live in a $1k/month studio  or buy an overpriced 'starter' home 1-2 hours away from your job so you can burn through $10 of gas a day .  college FTW !

 

[gleek]

I am a glass half full guy on these things - no lie there.  I've experienced and witnessed lots of success in my life thus far - but that does not mean I have not shared failures as well.  My neighbor was put out of a job 5 years before retirement a while back.  He printed catalogs mostly, and his company had no solution to the Internet shopping turn of events.  Paper was out, HTML was in - he was gone.  My uncle was a coal miner, etc.  But thats only one side of change - the easy one to focus on - makes good copy, as the editors would say.  But the flip side is Google, Apple, Tivo, etc.  Companies that emerged (or re-emerged) from nowhere to become extremely successful.  I'm willing to bet that employees of these companies are not suffering from lower standards of living.

Google and Apple are two of a select group of companies experience big growth despite hard economic times domestically. I would imagine that strong global sales is part of the reason. Sure, their employees are loving life, but not every company is a Google or an Apple. Those two companies combined represent about 40K employees. That's just noise. GM employs 266K. Ford employs 246K. Citibank employs 374K. BofA employs 209K. You think all of these employees are as sanguine about the economy as you are?

(BTW, I'm surprised you even mentioned TiVo because that is not a profitable company. They've been bleeding red ink for most of their existence. I can see TiVo going BK in less than 5 years unless some global electronics giant buys them out.)

As for standard of living, there are only so many high paying bean counter jobs out there. The way I see it, you simply can't have lots of high paying jobs without many more low paying jobs to go with them. Loss of wage-grade manufacturing jobs cannot be viewed as an opportunity to create more service sector jobs. IMHO, over-reliance on the service sector will be the bain of our economy. All the money made in the service sector simply represents money being shuffled back and forth within the country. There's no net gain of prosperity unless you sell *feces* other countries want to buy. With no net gain and a whole lot of shuffling, the result is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

[Aske]

i remember posting somewhere about 18-24 months ago that the entirety of GDP growth in this country could be attributed to energy and housing market bubble/associated heloc/blahblah .  not going to say i was entirely right... but... with the housing bubble/credit bubble deflating and energy costs skyrocketing, if i was right, how can the downturn be corrected.  (f.t.r., i still argue that GDP adjusted by REAL inflation rates show we've been in a recession a long time now)

[hobbit]

Outnumbered by the gloomers again.  I'm used to it here.

I am not advocating a 'service economy' - never did.  I'm advocating new markets, creating new opportunities, etc.

Let me ask - with manufacturing jobs generally unable to keep pace with our standard of living increase demands - what do you expect ANYONE to do about it?  You simply cannot enforce a largely manufacturing base of jobs when global competition has you competing with countries with 1/100th of our living standards.  And you cannot tariff it and you cannot block it without damaging our purchasing power into what would be non-increasing standards of living.

I'm not advocating an abandonment of manufacturing by any stretch - just making the case that it cannot be our savior.  It cannot be what we lean on like we have in the past.  We need new markets... more innovation... more smart people...  (sheesh, I'm getting as repetitive as the gloom stories  )

And yes, I believe we can do it.  Especially if we stop crying over spilled milk and realize there's more milk where that came from.

Or you can take a more global look at things - a rising tide raises all boats.  With other countries benefiting from newer manufacturing jobs, they will also begin to......... increase their standard of living.  A few more generations and they may be where we were - and we can go right back to competing for those jobs.  We can drop ourselves down to the living standards the rest of the world enjoys (or suffers).  OR, we can create new markets and retain our high standards by being innovative.  Hell, some of those new markets may even include some local manufacturing 


Bah - I'll just delete the rest.  Two long paragraphs whacked for your brevity pleasure.

[Uisce Beatha]

This place is turning into an Ayn Rand novel.

"Who is Rick Hicks?"

[stroh]

"Who is Ayn Rand?"

[gleek]

*gleek shrugs*

[spacey]

This place is turning into an Ayn Rand novel.

"Who is Rick Hicks?"

You've got karma.