5 ms·

Well you definitely have the wrong idea. About 20% of Americans do live in extreme economic precarity. But things are not out of a horror movie. That’s in fact

Well you definitely have the wrong idea. About 20% of Americans do live in extreme economic precarity. But things are not out of a horror movie. That’s in fact why there hasn’t been a violent revolution, things aren’t bad enough here (yet?).

fredrikholm 6y ago
> 20% of Americans do live in extreme economic precarity > That’s in fact why there hasn’t been a violent revolution You're being sarcastic, no? A fifth of the people are living in extreme economic precarity. Your Capital was stormed by terrorist from your own country. Widespread policy brutality lead to protests over the entire country, culminating in city blocks being burnt down in what, a dozen cities?
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  Americans are pissed about a lot of the things we see around us, yet we also have a political system that, were all of us involved, would likely provide the means to fix many of those things. If you ask an American about, say, the problem of homelessness they will tell you it is awful, and there are more people living in tents, and etc. etc. But, the overwhelming majority of people will not lift a finger to get involved in either nonprofit or public-sector solutions in any meaningful hands-on way. So, we're upset about everything and simultaneously unwilling to put in a collective effort to fix any of it (even though we know we could if we really tried - we were raised on the idea of American exceptionalism after-all). I think that produces a sort of cognitive dissonance throughout the population. We know these problems are tractable, we know we're capable of solving them, but we also know we're not going to do a damn thing about them. The origins of the cognitive dissonance can perhaps can be attributed to the strong mythologic narrative of individualism in the country running up against the erosion of community, the income gap, the increasing complexity of the problems we face, and the inadequacy of out K-12 education system to prepare students to function competitively in the 21st century.
- liveoneggs 6y ago
  neither of these events brought about change at all.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Ask a random American person what happened yesterday. They probably went to work, came back, sat in their backyard, watched some TV, went to bed.
- covidthrow 6y ago
  > A fifth of the people are living in extreme economic precarity. I'm not sure what this means to you, but "economic precarity" is a meaningless statement without context. For example, in the US, pretty much anyone living in destitution is unwell. It's practically impossible to starve to death in the US. etc So what this means is: economic mobility is limited for 20% of the population. That's not good, but in practice that translates to difficulty creating generational wealth, not a recipe for people starving or living in filth. Mobility would be much better, but it generally correlates strongly with level of education which is a separate chicken/egg problem. (At least until you get into massive student debt without a valuable degree, then that correlation shifts significantly.) > Your Capital was stormed by terrorist from your own country. What happened that day was not good, but framing it as a "terrorist insurrection" is exceedingly dishonest reporting. This is made plain by the kinds of charges that are being filed by the federal government. (Which, under the current administration, has no reason to "go soft" or brush things under the rug.) There were a small number (single digits) of dissidents that wished to engage in... something not well thought out. There were a much greater number of people that trespassed into the capitol. There was an even larger number of people outside that were (as the FBI director put it) "rowdy". All this because the former president insisted that he was cheated. (Which, frankly, there wasn't a lot of effort put into building confidence beyond "trust us!") Wholly inappropriate, bad, but not terrorism. We've experienced terrorism before (from other countries, from our political Right, and from our political Left) and this wasn't that. Anyone who suggests that is misinformed or leveraging it for political purposes. > Widespread policy brutality lead to protests over the entire country, culminating in city blocks being burnt down in what, a dozen cities? There is no widespread police brutality. Again, this is political framing. There are problems, no doubt, but nothing that could even reasonably be colored as "widespread brutality". Just as there were problems of confidence during the election—egged on for political reasons—that resulted in an inappropriate reaction by protestors, there are problems of confidence—again, egged on for political reasons—about our police force. Unfortunately, this resulted in significant overreaction that did, sadly, result in a tremendous amount of damage. But do you notice the underlying theme, here? Political and media framing are largely responsible for exceedingly dangerous levels of division. It's not that Righty Rick is evil or Lefty Lane is evil. It's a game of power by the institutions that control culture. The people are the pawns. So yes, in that regard, we've got major problems: the elite. Not necessarily "the rich" (although they're largely complicit), but almost the whole of the elite institutions. The people are at each others' throats not because there are rampant problems, poverty, abuse, etc. They are at it because the elites are at war. There isn't much to stand for the people engaging in a violent revolution, at least not conditionally. There is, however, if they're poked and prodded enough by the elite class. So no, he's not being sarcastic.
- dang 6y ago
  It's bad enough that you started a nationalistic flamewar, but pouring fuel on the flames like this is seriously not ok. Please don't do it again, regardless of which country you have a problem with or indeed whatever the flamewar might be about. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: I'm happy to see that you haven't made a habit of posting like this to HN—your previous comments have been excellent. Please do that and not this.
  - fredrikholm 6y ago
    In hindsight, I shouldn't have posted this in an emotional state (OP post moved me, first child on the way). I realize now how inflammatory those statements where, I am just having a hard time understanding how such events can be brushed off. Thank you, I will stick to those type of posts in the future. Sorry for the inconvenience.
    - dang 6y ago
      No worries. Thanks for the thoughtful reply—I appreciate it!
stouset 6y ago
> Well you definitely have the wrong idea. About 20% of Americans do live in extreme economic precarity. I think they do have the right idea. Many of their points stands for even the bottom 80%. We've simply grown to accept that "this just is the way things are". 22% of the population between 18-65 owe student loans, which might not sound like much until you realize that only 40% of the population has a college degree. So over 50% of college-educated adults still have student loan debt. That number is also heavily weighted towards those 40 and younger due to rapidly ballooning costs, and will likely increase to 75%+ of college-educated adults within the next twenty years. 0.35% of adults file for medical bankruptcy alone every year. I couldn't find direct statistics on the total number of bankruptcies, but naïvely this implies that somewhere around 5–10% of the adult population will file for medical bankruptcy at some point in their lifetime. The majority of these bankruptcies were for people with health insurance. Maternal leave is by law unpaid, and few companies offer paid leave and paternal leave is virtually unheard of outside of extremely progressive companies. 59% of the workforce is hourly and thus generally does not get paid leave of any kind.
- com2kid 6y ago
  > So over 50% of college-educated adults still have student loan debt. So long as the interest rates on student loans is lower than the expected % return from an index fund, smart money is on not paying off those loans. I have friends who could pay off their entire student loans amount, but why would they? Same logic applies to why I took out a 3 year loan at 2% for my last new car. High interest debt? Get that paid off ASAP. But I'd want to see a breakdown of interest rates of student loan debt before I start seeing gloom and doom! > Maternal leave is by law unpaid, and few companies offer paid leave and paternal leave is virtually unheard of outside of extremely progressive companies. This needs to change, and it is on a state by state basis. We are up to 10 states that have mandatory paid maternity leave! Still not nearly long enough in many cases, but progress is being made.
- covidthrow 6y ago
  > So over 50% of college-educated adults still have student loan debt. How much? What's the percentile breakdown? How does it impact their monthly income? What's their economic potential without the degree? Are you suggesting it's higher if most just hadn't gotten a degree? How many choose economically unviable degrees? Who made them do that? You're simplifying a complex issue—and inferring a problem—without demonstrating the problem. The fact that 50% of college educated adults have student loan debt tells me absolutely nothing of substance. I don't understand how you can make a judgement in any regard without that information. > 0.35% of adults file for medical bankruptcy alone every year. There's no such thing as "medical bankruptcy", so I assume you mean "bankruptcy caused by medical bills". For how many of these people is the medical bill the sole cause? A major cause? One of many causes? Again, without identifying this in a more granular way, you're asserting some undefined "problem" which means there's no equitable mechanism to rectify that problem. > Maternal leave is by law unpaid, and few companies offer paid leave and paternal leave is virtually unheard of outside of extremely progressive companies. Here again stating a condition, but not identifying the problem. To what end? What's the cost to the family? To the mother? To the child? The social cost? I can't help but feel you're just regurgitating political talking points which, frankly, aren't designed to solve problems. They're designed to emotionally hook with a voter base and ultimately get the person elected, or the newspaper sold, or whatever self-serving reason someone in power would actively choose to be so vague as to not even concretely identify a problem. It's just the notion of a problem. I'm not saying there's no problems. I'm just saying you spent a lot of words trying to counter the parent post, but didn't say much at all. I'd like to learn more about this, but I can't find much online, and unfortunately your post wasn't very helpful. Do you know more than you said and you're just holding it close to your chest for the sake of brevity?

fredrikholm 6y ago

> 20% of Americans do live in extreme economic precarity > That’s in fact why there hasn’t been a violent revolution You're being sarcastic, no? A fifth of the people are living in extreme economic precarity. Your Capital was stormed by terrorist from your own country. Widespread policy brutality lead to protests over the entire country, culminating in city blocks being burnt down in what, a dozen cities?

phobosanomaly 6y ago
Americans are pissed about a lot of the things we see around us, yet we also have a political system that, were all of us involved, would likely provide the means to fix many of those things. If you ask an American about, say, the problem of homelessness they will tell you it is awful, and there are more people living in tents, and etc. etc. But, the overwhelming majority of people will not lift a finger to get involved in either nonprofit or public-sector solutions in any meaningful hands-on way. So, we're upset about everything and simultaneously unwilling to put in a collective effort to fix any of it (even though we know we could if we really tried - we were raised on the idea of American exceptionalism after-all). I think that produces a sort of cognitive dissonance throughout the population. We know these problems are tractable, we know we're capable of solving them, but we also know we're not going to do a damn thing about them. The origins of the cognitive dissonance can perhaps can be attributed to the strong mythologic narrative of individualism in the country running up against the erosion of community, the income gap, the increasing complexity of the problems we face, and the inadequacy of out K-12 education system to prepare students to function competitively in the 21st century.
liveoneggs 6y ago
neither of these events brought about change at all.
spoonjim 6y ago
Ask a random American person what happened yesterday. They probably went to work, came back, sat in their backyard, watched some TV, went to bed.
covidthrow 6y ago
> A fifth of the people are living in extreme economic precarity. I'm not sure what this means to you, but "economic precarity" is a meaningless statement without context. For example, in the US, pretty much anyone living in destitution is unwell. It's practically impossible to starve to death in the US. etc So what this means is: economic mobility is limited for 20% of the population. That's not good, but in practice that translates to difficulty creating generational wealth, not a recipe for people starving or living in filth. Mobility would be much better, but it generally correlates strongly with level of education which is a separate chicken/egg problem. (At least until you get into massive student debt without a valuable degree, then that correlation shifts significantly.) > Your Capital was stormed by terrorist from your own country. What happened that day was not good, but framing it as a "terrorist insurrection" is exceedingly dishonest reporting. This is made plain by the kinds of charges that are being filed by the federal government. (Which, under the current administration, has no reason to "go soft" or brush things under the rug.) There were a small number (single digits) of dissidents that wished to engage in... something not well thought out. There were a much greater number of people that trespassed into the capitol. There was an even larger number of people outside that were (as the FBI director put it) "rowdy". All this because the former president insisted that he was cheated. (Which, frankly, there wasn't a lot of effort put into building confidence beyond "trust us!") Wholly inappropriate, bad, but not terrorism. We've experienced terrorism before (from other countries, from our political Right, and from our political Left) and this wasn't that. Anyone who suggests that is misinformed or leveraging it for political purposes. > Widespread policy brutality lead to protests over the entire country, culminating in city blocks being burnt down in what, a dozen cities? There is no widespread police brutality. Again, this is political framing. There are problems, no doubt, but nothing that could even reasonably be colored as "widespread brutality". Just as there were problems of confidence during the election—egged on for political reasons—that resulted in an inappropriate reaction by protestors, there are problems of confidence—again, egged on for political reasons—about our police force. Unfortunately, this resulted in significant overreaction that did, sadly, result in a tremendous amount of damage. But do you notice the underlying theme, here? Political and media framing are largely responsible for exceedingly dangerous levels of division. It's not that Righty Rick is evil or Lefty Lane is evil. It's a game of power by the institutions that control culture. The people are the pawns. So yes, in that regard, we've got major problems: the elite. Not necessarily "the rich" (although they're largely complicit), but almost the whole of the elite institutions. The people are at each others' throats not because there are rampant problems, poverty, abuse, etc. They are at it because the elites are at war. There isn't much to stand for the people engaging in a violent revolution, at least not conditionally. There is, however, if they're poked and prodded enough by the elite class. So no, he's not being sarcastic.
dang 6y ago
It's bad enough that you started a nationalistic flamewar, but pouring fuel on the flames like this is seriously not ok. Please don't do it again, regardless of which country you have a problem with or indeed whatever the flamewar might be about. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: I'm happy to see that you haven't made a habit of posting like this to HN—your previous comments have been excellent. Please do that and not this.
- fredrikholm 6y ago
  In hindsight, I shouldn't have posted this in an emotional state (OP post moved me, first child on the way). I realize now how inflammatory those statements where, I am just having a hard time understanding how such events can be brushed off. Thank you, I will stick to those type of posts in the future. Sorry for the inconvenience.
  - dang 6y ago
    No worries. Thanks for the thoughtful reply—I appreciate it!

stouset 6y ago

> Well you definitely have the wrong idea. About 20% of Americans do live in extreme economic precarity. I think they do have the right idea. Many of their points stands for even the bottom 80%. We've simply grown to accept that "this just is the way things are". 22% of the population between 18-65 owe student loans, which might not sound like much until you realize that only 40% of the population has a college degree. So over 50% of college-educated adults still have student loan debt. That number is also heavily weighted towards those 40 and younger due to rapidly ballooning costs, and will likely increase to 75%+ of college-educated adults within the next twenty years. 0.35% of adults file for medical bankruptcy alone every year. I couldn't find direct statistics on the total number of bankruptcies, but naïvely this implies that somewhere around 5–10% of the adult population will file for medical bankruptcy at some point in their lifetime. The majority of these bankruptcies were for people with health insurance. Maternal leave is by law unpaid, and few companies offer paid leave and paternal leave is virtually unheard of outside of extremely progressive companies. 59% of the workforce is hourly and thus generally does not get paid leave of any kind.

com2kid 6y ago
> So over 50% of college-educated adults still have student loan debt. So long as the interest rates on student loans is lower than the expected % return from an index fund, smart money is on not paying off those loans. I have friends who could pay off their entire student loans amount, but why would they? Same logic applies to why I took out a 3 year loan at 2% for my last new car. High interest debt? Get that paid off ASAP. But I'd want to see a breakdown of interest rates of student loan debt before I start seeing gloom and doom! > Maternal leave is by law unpaid, and few companies offer paid leave and paternal leave is virtually unheard of outside of extremely progressive companies. This needs to change, and it is on a state by state basis. We are up to 10 states that have mandatory paid maternity leave! Still not nearly long enough in many cases, but progress is being made.
covidthrow 6y ago
> So over 50% of college-educated adults still have student loan debt. How much? What's the percentile breakdown? How does it impact their monthly income? What's their economic potential without the degree? Are you suggesting it's higher if most just hadn't gotten a degree? How many choose economically unviable degrees? Who made them do that? You're simplifying a complex issue—and inferring a problem—without demonstrating the problem. The fact that 50% of college educated adults have student loan debt tells me absolutely nothing of substance. I don't understand how you can make a judgement in any regard without that information. > 0.35% of adults file for medical bankruptcy alone every year. There's no such thing as "medical bankruptcy", so I assume you mean "bankruptcy caused by medical bills". For how many of these people is the medical bill the sole cause? A major cause? One of many causes? Again, without identifying this in a more granular way, you're asserting some undefined "problem" which means there's no equitable mechanism to rectify that problem. > Maternal leave is by law unpaid, and few companies offer paid leave and paternal leave is virtually unheard of outside of extremely progressive companies. Here again stating a condition, but not identifying the problem. To what end? What's the cost to the family? To the mother? To the child? The social cost? I can't help but feel you're just regurgitating political talking points which, frankly, aren't designed to solve problems. They're designed to emotionally hook with a voter base and ultimately get the person elected, or the newspaper sold, or whatever self-serving reason someone in power would actively choose to be so vague as to not even concretely identify a problem. It's just the notion of a problem. I'm not saying there's no problems. I'm just saying you spent a lot of words trying to counter the parent post, but didn't say much at all. I'd like to learn more about this, but I can't find much online, and unfortunately your post wasn't very helpful. Do you know more than you said and you're just holding it close to your chest for the sake of brevity?