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The US population has been under a sustained propaganda campaign for several decades intended to promote a hyper-capitalist/libertarian agenda that serves the i

The US population has been under a sustained propaganda campaign for several decades intended to promote a hyper-capitalist/libertarian agenda that serves the interests of a very small number of people. The media in the US promotes this message, both because its members have themselves been awash in the propaganda their whole lives and also because the media organs in this country are largely corporate. Combine that with a general disinterest in critical thinking that has also been "encouraged" by those same cynical forces described above to ensure that they have an uneducated, incurious population that believes what they want. So now you can see why income inequality is growing in the US.

mhneu 10y ago
Right. This disinformation campaign gathered steam in the 1970s. The Powell Memorandum is a decent marker of the beginning of this modern corporate political movement. Here's a place to start reading. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-cor...
andy_ppp 10y ago
It's just like the "Japan has no housing regulations and it's better". It's not; the homes are small, cheaply made and over priced compared to anything in the west! The only places where housing is priced at a sensible level are those countries that the government build high quality local housing that the market has to produce better housing than to compete.
- Jabanga 10y ago
  Please, for the love of God, learn about the US home building industry and about the construction industry in general. Nothing you said even approaches the truth, except for old Japanese housing (new Japanese housing is much better than the old stock) being of lower quality than US housing.
  - andy_ppp 10y ago
    Interesting but let's look at rent prices to give us a guide shall we? In central Tokyo you can get a 300 square foot apartment for $1800 per month and in the Mission (probably the cheapest part of San Fran?) for something that small (it's the legal limit) it's about the same. The rest of Japan is more expensive than the US per square foot. You actually get less space usually in new Japanese housing if anything. And I maintain they are cheaply built compared to US property. It's very difficult to compare property across countries but this has been my experience and I think everyone living in Japan vs Western countries you seem to get larger better built buildings for your money.
    - Jabanga 10y ago
      Japan is more land constrained than the US. That's why rent is higher. It has a much less developed construction tradition than the US, which inherited its construction technology from Europe. More importantly Japan focused much less on durable constuction during the Middle Ages, and instead focused on building types that could be quickly repaired and rebuilt. That tradition carried over to the present, while the US benefited from the European building tradition of more durable construction.
- muninn_ 10y ago
  Japan is also not that big of an island.
Jabanga 10y ago
It's ironic that the US population has continuously voted to increases social welfare spending since the 1970s. Thanks to all of this socialism, the US now has lower labour productivity growth than anytime in the past century.
- Synaesthesia 10y ago
  Except for Reagan and Clinton's welfare cuts - and productivity has far outpaced the wages which workers have earned since the 70's.
  - Jabanga 10y ago
    In the aggregate, there has been a huge increase in social welfare spending. I can show you the raw, inflation-adjusted statistics if you wish. What this means is that social welfare expansions have far outsized the cuts. >productivity has far outpaced the wages which workers have earned since the 70's. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where-has-all-the-income-gone https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where... >Almost all the benefits of economic growth since [the 1970s] have gone to a small number of people at the very top. —Robert Reich, Financial Times, Jan. 29, 2008 >Since the mid-1970s, however, income growth has been confined almost entirely to top earners. —Robert H. Frank, New York Times, March 9, 2008 >The modern American economy distributes the fruits of its growth to a relatively narrow slice of the population. —David Leonhardt, New York Times, April 9, 2008 ... >These statistics appear quite compelling, but hiding in the background are some key issues that might alter the story. Average household size declined substantially during the past 30 years, so household income is being spread across fewer people. The mix of household types—married versus single, young versus old—also changed considerably, so the “median household” in 2006 looks quite different from the “median household” in 1976. Finally, the measure of income used by the Census Bureau to compute household income excludes some rapidly growing sources of income. ... >Here is a preview of the key data issues that lead to the higher estimates of median household income growth. >The price index used by the Census Bureau overstates inflation, and thus understates income gains, relative to a preferred price index. >A changing mix of household types leads the overall median increase to understate the median increase of most household types. >The Census Bureau measure of household income understates income growth by excluding some rapidly growing sources of income. >The remaining difference between the 44 percent to 62 percent increase in median household incomes and the 80 percent increase in BEA personal income per person appears to be largely attributable to an increase in income inequality. The findings in this article are consistent with recent research showing that the largest income increases occurred at the top end of the income distribution. However, the findings here are not consistent with the view that the incomes of middle American households stagnated over the past 30 years. Income for most middle American households increased substantially. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stagnation/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stag...
acdha 10y ago
Cold War politics entered into the picture, too, since many labor activists were left of center and accusing them of being a communist beachfront was an easy political attack. One other complication: as with most parts of U.S. history, racism shows up at key points. Some unions have a history of racial discrimination – not least because factory owners tried to use African American workers to break strikes – but others, especially the government unions, were actually attacking race or sex-based discrimination, which didn't win them support among the more conservative workers. One thing I've noticed is a trend in who is portrayed as the “lazy union worker” in attacks, where they never show e.g. a white police officer in a negative context but routinely depict a public school teacher as someone unqualified who got the job by virtue of being female, minority, etc. One thing we're not short on are people who will act against their own personal interests if they think it'll hurt an undeserving other.
true_religion 10y ago
I think its fairly easy to criticise the actions of existing powerful unions, and postulate that the less relevant unions lost relevance exactly due to the same concerns and lack of monopoly protection. Teachers unions for instance are still very strong on a state-by-state basis, but are disliked because they continuously only promote public schools and do whatever they can do show disdain for private school teachers, and students. This 'us versus them' mentality doesn't endear them to parents who simply want the best education for their children and not necessarily a "public school". Additionally due to teacher's unions, demonstrably bad teachers are difficult to remove from their positions. Police unions act similarly, by closing ranks anytime there's a whiff of a corruption investigation and proposing measures that essentially make police officers a protected class when it comes to criminal investigations against them. It's no surprise that the general public isn't in favour of them. Unions historically can be favoured by the general population, when most people in the general pop are also members of unions themselves. Unions have an us versus them mentality that puts them at odds not only with management, but also with anyone who isn't a part of a union. They make allowances for and have political alliances with other unions, but don't really think about the public good. An example is that if Software Developers were all in a union, we'd probably work it out so that a garbage man's union strike doesn't affect us too badly, so that in the future when we go on strike, the garbage men won't suddenly find that the apps and software they depend on suddenly has zero support. Given this situation, software devs (of the union) would be 'okay' with the other union, but everyone outside of the union would be unhappy because they're left high and dry.

mhneu 10y ago

Right. This disinformation campaign gathered steam in the 1970s. The Powell Memorandum is a decent marker of the beginning of this modern corporate political movement. Here's a place to start reading. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-cor...

andy_ppp 10y ago

It's just like the "Japan has no housing regulations and it's better". It's not; the homes are small, cheaply made and over priced compared to anything in the west! The only places where housing is priced at a sensible level are those countries that the government build high quality local housing that the market has to produce better housing than to compete.

Jabanga 10y ago
Please, for the love of God, learn about the US home building industry and about the construction industry in general. Nothing you said even approaches the truth, except for old Japanese housing (new Japanese housing is much better than the old stock) being of lower quality than US housing.
- andy_ppp 10y ago
  Interesting but let's look at rent prices to give us a guide shall we? In central Tokyo you can get a 300 square foot apartment for $1800 per month and in the Mission (probably the cheapest part of San Fran?) for something that small (it's the legal limit) it's about the same. The rest of Japan is more expensive than the US per square foot. You actually get less space usually in new Japanese housing if anything. And I maintain they are cheaply built compared to US property. It's very difficult to compare property across countries but this has been my experience and I think everyone living in Japan vs Western countries you seem to get larger better built buildings for your money.
  - Jabanga 10y ago
    Japan is more land constrained than the US. That's why rent is higher. It has a much less developed construction tradition than the US, which inherited its construction technology from Europe. More importantly Japan focused much less on durable constuction during the Middle Ages, and instead focused on building types that could be quickly repaired and rebuilt. That tradition carried over to the present, while the US benefited from the European building tradition of more durable construction.
muninn_ 10y ago
Japan is also not that big of an island.

Jabanga 10y ago

It's ironic that the US population has continuously voted to increases social welfare spending since the 1970s. Thanks to all of this socialism, the US now has lower labour productivity growth than anytime in the past century.

Synaesthesia 10y ago
Except for Reagan and Clinton's welfare cuts - and productivity has far outpaced the wages which workers have earned since the 70's.
- Jabanga 10y ago
  In the aggregate, there has been a huge increase in social welfare spending. I can show you the raw, inflation-adjusted statistics if you wish. What this means is that social welfare expansions have far outsized the cuts. >productivity has far outpaced the wages which workers have earned since the 70's. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where-has-all-the-income-gone https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where... >Almost all the benefits of economic growth since [the 1970s] have gone to a small number of people at the very top. —Robert Reich, Financial Times, Jan. 29, 2008 >Since the mid-1970s, however, income growth has been confined almost entirely to top earners. —Robert H. Frank, New York Times, March 9, 2008 >The modern American economy distributes the fruits of its growth to a relatively narrow slice of the population. —David Leonhardt, New York Times, April 9, 2008 ... >These statistics appear quite compelling, but hiding in the background are some key issues that might alter the story. Average household size declined substantially during the past 30 years, so household income is being spread across fewer people. The mix of household types—married versus single, young versus old—also changed considerably, so the “median household” in 2006 looks quite different from the “median household” in 1976. Finally, the measure of income used by the Census Bureau to compute household income excludes some rapidly growing sources of income. ... >Here is a preview of the key data issues that lead to the higher estimates of median household income growth. >The price index used by the Census Bureau overstates inflation, and thus understates income gains, relative to a preferred price index. >A changing mix of household types leads the overall median increase to understate the median increase of most household types. >The Census Bureau measure of household income understates income growth by excluding some rapidly growing sources of income. >The remaining difference between the 44 percent to 62 percent increase in median household incomes and the 80 percent increase in BEA personal income per person appears to be largely attributable to an increase in income inequality. The findings in this article are consistent with recent research showing that the largest income increases occurred at the top end of the income distribution. However, the findings here are not consistent with the view that the incomes of middle American households stagnated over the past 30 years. Income for most middle American households increased substantially. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stagnation/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stag...

acdha 10y ago

Cold War politics entered into the picture, too, since many labor activists were left of center and accusing them of being a communist beachfront was an easy political attack. One other complication: as with most parts of U.S. history, racism shows up at key points. Some unions have a history of racial discrimination – not least because factory owners tried to use African American workers to break strikes – but others, especially the government unions, were actually attacking race or sex-based discrimination, which didn't win them support among the more conservative workers. One thing I've noticed is a trend in who is portrayed as the “lazy union worker” in attacks, where they never show e.g. a white police officer in a negative context but routinely depict a public school teacher as someone unqualified who got the job by virtue of being female, minority, etc. One thing we're not short on are people who will act against their own personal interests if they think it'll hurt an undeserving other.

true_religion 10y ago

I think its fairly easy to criticise the actions of existing powerful unions, and postulate that the less relevant unions lost relevance exactly due to the same concerns and lack of monopoly protection. Teachers unions for instance are still very strong on a state-by-state basis, but are disliked because they continuously only promote public schools and do whatever they can do show disdain for private school teachers, and students. This 'us versus them' mentality doesn't endear them to parents who simply want the best education for their children and not necessarily a "public school". Additionally due to teacher's unions, demonstrably bad teachers are difficult to remove from their positions. Police unions act similarly, by closing ranks anytime there's a whiff of a corruption investigation and proposing measures that essentially make police officers a protected class when it comes to criminal investigations against them. It's no surprise that the general public isn't in favour of them. Unions historically can be favoured by the general population, when most people in the general pop are also members of unions themselves. Unions have an us versus them mentality that puts them at odds not only with management, but also with anyone who isn't a part of a union. They make allowances for and have political alliances with other unions, but don't really think about the public good. An example is that if Software Developers were all in a union, we'd probably work it out so that a garbage man's union strike doesn't affect us too badly, so that in the future when we go on strike, the garbage men won't suddenly find that the apps and software they depend on suddenly has zero support. Given this situation, software devs (of the union) would be 'okay' with the other union, but everyone outside of the union would be unhappy because they're left high and dry.