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The roots of the current American predicament go back to the 1970s, when wages of workers stopped keeping pace with their productivity. * head explode *

The roots of the current American predicament go back to the 1970s, when wages of workers stopped keeping pace with their productivity. * head explode * So this has been going on for the past 40 years and we have stopped questioning it? What if you were Black or a woman in the 70's? Did wages ever keep up with productivity in the first place?

craigyk 13y ago
well, unmentioned in the article is that this was partially offset by falling prices which allowed quality of life to continue improving. the ability for this offsetting to compensate may no longer be enough though.
pyrocat 13y ago
Maybe the author meant "The roots of the current [White Middle Class] American predicament..." But regardless, when you look at graphs of wealth inequality, business regulation, the militarization of police, and incarceration rates, they all start going rapidly in the wrong direction starting at about 1970.
calinet6 13y ago
YES! This. This graph tells all: http://i.imgur.com/ZxBWh.png http://i.imgur.com/ZxBWh.png And yes, we've simply learned to ignore it. The gap of productivity and wealth that is no longer being earned by the working/middle class is being systematically extracted from the market by the powerful corporate class. The craziest part of this I've heard is that one of the main methods of this market extraction is via the broad use of credit by the working/middle class, who, now that they aren't making enough money to afford basic life, need to borrow to afford it. They borrow from the upper class/bankers and pay interest, thereby funneling even more money into the top echelon of society, even though we're already being systematically squeezed out. All just because they can. Because it is possible to take the money, so they do, each individual entity at each point of decision chooses this lopsided power-extreme optimum, and it causes this extreme imbalance in turn. And we act like this is all a normal part of society. Because we've been told so. Why there is not extreme uproar about this is beyond me, but I think it has to do with the fact that the media is also owned by the powerful corporate class, as is the government. It is sickening if you think about it hard enough. But we don't, because we're told we're powerless to change the society we're in. Which makes it even worse.
- logfromblammo 13y ago
  Thanks to media consolidation, the uproar is swept under the rug in such a way that it does not spread. Occupy Wall Street was covered as front-page headline news for a very short time in relation to its actual duration. It went practically unacknowledged for the size of the event. And people saw New Orleans after Katrina, and Boston after the marathon bombing. They didn't yell. They just went out and bought their first gun. Or they bought a camera or smartphone live-streaming app and started randomly recording police encounters. So now "prepping" by such means as stockpiling food and ammunition is a normal part of society. This, despite blog and television portrayals of such people as wingnuts. People are quietly preparing for surviving a civil war, under the guise of disaster preparedness. Once the watershed event occurs, whatever it may be, it will not be pretty. If even 0.1% of the population are just waiting for the camel's back to break before firing one shot, that's still a lot of bullets in the air.
  - calinet6 13y ago
    Yes. Our current social spaghetti has nothing to do with an overeducated populace or anything like it; it's simply a wealth divide that is self-propagating. It has to end sometime and it ain't gonna be pretty.

craigyk 13y ago

well, unmentioned in the article is that this was partially offset by falling prices which allowed quality of life to continue improving. the ability for this offsetting to compensate may no longer be enough though.

pyrocat 13y ago

Maybe the author meant "The roots of the current [White Middle Class] American predicament..." But regardless, when you look at graphs of wealth inequality, business regulation, the militarization of police, and incarceration rates, they all start going rapidly in the wrong direction starting at about 1970.

calinet6 13y ago

YES! This. This graph tells all: http://i.imgur.com/ZxBWh.png http://i.imgur.com/ZxBWh.png And yes, we've simply learned to ignore it. The gap of productivity and wealth that is no longer being earned by the working/middle class is being systematically extracted from the market by the powerful corporate class. The craziest part of this I've heard is that one of the main methods of this market extraction is via the broad use of credit by the working/middle class, who, now that they aren't making enough money to afford basic life, need to borrow to afford it. They borrow from the upper class/bankers and pay interest, thereby funneling even more money into the top echelon of society, even though we're already being systematically squeezed out. All just because they can. Because it is possible to take the money, so they do, each individual entity at each point of decision chooses this lopsided power-extreme optimum, and it causes this extreme imbalance in turn. And we act like this is all a normal part of society. Because we've been told so. Why there is not extreme uproar about this is beyond me, but I think it has to do with the fact that the media is also owned by the powerful corporate class, as is the government. It is sickening if you think about it hard enough. But we don't, because we're told we're powerless to change the society we're in. Which makes it even worse.

logfromblammo 13y ago
Thanks to media consolidation, the uproar is swept under the rug in such a way that it does not spread. Occupy Wall Street was covered as front-page headline news for a very short time in relation to its actual duration. It went practically unacknowledged for the size of the event. And people saw New Orleans after Katrina, and Boston after the marathon bombing. They didn't yell. They just went out and bought their first gun. Or they bought a camera or smartphone live-streaming app and started randomly recording police encounters. So now "prepping" by such means as stockpiling food and ammunition is a normal part of society. This, despite blog and television portrayals of such people as wingnuts. People are quietly preparing for surviving a civil war, under the guise of disaster preparedness. Once the watershed event occurs, whatever it may be, it will not be pretty. If even 0.1% of the population are just waiting for the camel's back to break before firing one shot, that's still a lot of bullets in the air.
- calinet6 13y ago
  Yes. Our current social spaghetti has nothing to do with an overeducated populace or anything like it; it's simply a wealth divide that is self-propagating. It has to end sometime and it ain't gonna be pretty.