This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Two-Thirds Say American Dream Is Over
A stunning 64% of American say the US no longer offers everyone an equal chance of 'getting ahead', according to a new poll by Bloomberg. The widening gap between rich and poor - as we have previously noted as wide as during the roaring 20s - has eroded faith in the American dream. The lack of faith, Bloomberg reports, is especially pronounced among those making less than $50,000 a year with 73% of those saying the economy is unfair. As class warfare is stoked, by none other than the President himself in his recent speech, noting economic trends have “jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain, that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead," man-of-the-year Pope Francis recently commented, "such an economy kills."
Inequality wider than during the Roaring 20s...
“Everyone on both sides of the aisle talks about the American dream,” says Sekac. “Right now, that’s not something everyone in this country can aspire to.”
Still, respondents are almost evenly split on the need for government action to narrow the income gap: 45 percent say new policies are needed, while 46 percent say it would be better to allow the market to operate freely even if the gap gets wider.
...
“More people who are of color get opportunities now than they did,” but a lack of education holds too many back, says David Bakker, 56, a model-train builder in Baltimore.
In the Bloomberg poll, 68 percent of Americans say the income gap is growing, while 18 percent say it is unchanged and 10 percent say it’s shrinking.
...
While the public is divided over whether the government should take steps to close the income gap, support for greater action is strongest among lower-income Americans, with 52 percent saying officials should do something and 35 percent putting their faith in the market.
...
“The government keeps taking and taking and taking from us,” she says. “Eventually, people are going to strike back.”
...
By 56 percent to 35 percent, they endorse [The Pope's] criticism of “trickle-down” economics, which provides tax cuts for the wealthy as a means to spur job growth. And 66 percent say they have a favorable view of the pontiff compared with just 13 percent who view him unfavorably.
...
“If we don’t address it, it’ll just continue to deteriorate, the gap will just continue to get bigger,” says Marini. “And who knows what that will lead to in 10 or 15 years? Social unrest? Economic unrest?”
»
- 21662 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
I am skeptical of the assertion that wealth disparity has not worked out for the guys on top. I am searching my mind for a good example. I think we have a long way to go before we reach some sort of bottom. South America comes to mind where the wealthy have body guards and armored vehicles and worry about kidnappings and paying ransoms. Loom at China where. I have heard a good thought experiment that the US would be like China if you just dropped 1 billion peasants into our borders.
I know that we have perhaps 10 of millions more citizens that are hopeless and despondent since 2008. But I can see a situation unfolding where this number will increase much more. Roughly 15% of the worlds population have always been peasants. I think that we are reverting to the mean here in the US.
The wealthy can retreat into gated and protected communities, be chauffeured in armored limos and be escorted by body guards. I think we may be a long way off until there is the disparity and suffering that creates a revolt. We are still fairly pampered here in the US from top to bottom.
A few things:
First, the french revolution is widely cited as an example in the comment section of this site, where it didn't quite pay to be the guys on top... start with this one.
Second, there is no mean reversion... that's academically lazy.
Third, it matters not whether we're well off relative to any other country... it only matters as to what we're used to and what we desire... if these expectations are not met, then this can be the cause for change... the government is struggling daily to meet the mob's needs. While things could linger forever and timing decisions are fools' errands, it could happen soon.
Yes the french revolution is a good example, thanks. Saying that there is not a reversion to the mean indicates that you do not think that there are physical processes, constraints or otherwise variables outside of human control at work keeping people in the state of need. I think that the establishment and swelling of the middle class in recent US history may be an aberration. After the plague, there were not enough serfs to work the land and there was an increase in their well-being that lasted for a while.
I think that most of us once believed that there could be never-ending prosperity here, but most of us now rightly believe that was just a fleeting dream.
Gold to explode in 3....2.....1
optimist.
I'm betting on a long-term double-bottom in PM and miners right here.
So 64% think the government should take cash from someone else - anyone else - and give it to them.
If anyone thinks the government will do a better job deciding what is "fair" they are a fucking idiot.
The government is to involved in everything now - the solution is to get these political hacks out of economic activity as much as possible.
The 'system' is based upon class warfare!
Please note that the actions that create the dilemma are REAL....yet the reactive observation is called "class warfare" and is derided as : sour grapes.....just not trying hard enough...unlucky!!
Keep playing the MEME game!!!
I believe in freedom, liberty, free will, individual choice, mutual exchange of value......but those values do NOT distort my intellect, rational thought and observations of the mathematical outcomes: which IMO are UNSUSTAINABLE( as history has proven over and over...it ends badly for many--Revolution and violent instability!
Bubba Clinton , now an international statesman , stoked the inequality meter big time.
He deserves hearty congratulations for signing off on NAFTA , the gutting of Glass-Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
These are the three pillars of USSA's middle class destruction.
I hereby double dare the wealthy 1% to spend all their money (idle money on the sidelines as all the cool kids say.
buy every single fucking thing until they dont have a dime left.
the rich will have more stuff & let the poor be left with FRNs and when they realise they got jipped maybe we can have an educated discussion starting with teh principles of supply and demand
massive inflation and the poor can be taxed on their capital gains!!!
for the lulz, please do it 1%
I suggest they bur precious metals. Buying other shit is just a waste of the value of their stored earnings from the past.
Alas, we are lifing the American Nightmare. Where an Executive Branch controls and creates legislation, and where the Executive Branch now has the ability to stack the courts with extreme picks, which will leave their imprint for decades....
At least Germany kept their manufacturing and technology intact.
The US gave it all away. Nothing but a growing welfare and debt state.
oh grow up and smell the goddamn roses. you can work like a dog and get nowhere...
want to go to a good college? hey work your ass off and get into one of the elites --- and go into debt at the rate of 52K a year. graduate with 200K in debt and have no hope of getting out from under til your late forties, if then.
oh, you say you should have gone to a cheaper school? My, my, wonder why you can't even get your resume looked at at a major corporation for a management training job? Nope, you babe, are lower tier......lower salaried drone for life. Only the private school gang goes into management.
and yes, let's get a house! bingo.....you are on the drone treadmill forever.. real estate taxes, school taxes, state taxes...
its over, you can work like a dog if you are middle class now, and you might be able to hang on to middle class, by your fuckin toenails. Get to the top? Golf with Romney? Hey the kings don't look at the little people.
and you are one.
and don't tell me that Romney worked hard. Bullshit. I was there. He was a "face".
dammit un', i can't handle the truth this fucking early in the morning!
Indeed, this whole thing, this so called "traditional career path" "normal way of life" or whatever it is called is a sausage machine, only those who can't see things as they are will follow the rules and they will get used up and left out on the scrap heap at the end. It is not "the more you put in the more you take out" but "the more you put in the more they take out".
In the past the ones that are smart and ambitious stay in the system to advance themselves, nowsdays the brightest can only be found outside the system, running their own little "operation" while those inside the system continue to delude themselves into thinking that they are the survivors.
Right now the only social contract that you can sign up to is willful slavery, get out now before it's too late.
Yeah, there is a big difference bewteen just having to show up for work vs having to show up and perform. I suspect all Mitt "The shit" Romney had to do was show up, but not before he went to the beauty parlor to have his hair cut and the to the tailor to be fitted for a new suit.
the sheeple of the United States deserve the government they have. If you don't raise hell you take it in the ass.
the POPE & POS POTUS "BOBBLEHEADS" for your car dashboard, along with "MANDELA: DO YOU MISS ME YET?" tee shirts selling on Ebay real cheap.....just sayin.
This is what the Federal Reserve Bank has done to America. Comprised 100% of all the same people.
The thing with the 'American Dream' is you've always had to be asleep to believe in it....what was that dream of 'getting ahead' built on, taking out loans? Certainly not 'saving', if you ever tried that you're just a sucker.
All we need to do to reduce the income inequality is figure out a way to create millions of high paying jobs that can be filled by people with no skills and no motivation to work.
Why can't America create jobs for high school drop outs - where you don't really need to do much of anything but they still pay $250K?
/sarc/
It would be easier to do if we could figure out someone to blame (besides the individual with no skill and no motivation).
Maybe we need an app for that.
We have tons of people with shitloads of skills who can't find jobs. Try taking care of them first. Top grads of engineering schools taking years to find jobs in many cases.
Not being combative, but what types of engineers and where in the US? We cannot find enough mechanical and electrical engineers to design and operate buildings here in the midwest.
Electrical, Software, Computer, are the areas I'm familiar with, and are highly glutted. Electrical Engineers are not generally involved with building design except in very cursory roles, and have almost no role in the 'operation' of buildings.
Thanks. Data center design is led by electrical engineers and they are building a bunch of them right now. They also needs electrical and mechanical engineers to keep them operating 24/7/365. That is just one sector.
Wake up, then.
Since practical ability differs from person to person, the majority of such abilities, in nearly all societies, is gathered in a minority of men. The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history. The rate of concentration varies (other factors being equal) with the economic freedom permitted by morals and the laws. Despotism may for a time retard the concentration; democracy, allowing the most liberty, accelerates it. The relative equality of Americans before 1776 has been overwhelmed by a thousand forms of physical, mental, and economic differentiation, so that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is now greater than at any time since Imperial plutocratic Rome. In progressive societies the concentration may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.
Will Durant, The Lessons of History
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45822245/Lessons-of-History
Thomas Chippendale died penniless because his rich customers wouldn't pay their bills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chippendale
I think the caption cartoon said more than any thing than I have seen in a long time.
Like Bob Dylan sang in "Like a Rolling Stone"
"Nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street and now your'e going to have get used to it."
Only 2/3rds?
The whole system of crony capitalism works towards making a minute portion of the population rich at the cost of the others. In true capitalism, weak and inefficient organisations fail to be replaced with better managed ones whereas in the current democratic system those very incompetent organisations are made bigger by tax payers funded bailouts.
llusion of Democracy today.
People sponsored by the rich, make false promises to the masses to get elected. Distribute national wealth amongst themselves and their sponsors (Industrialists) and when that is not enough borrow money from rest of the world and continue the distribution process. The borrowed money has to be paid back by taxing the masses keeping in mind that tax rules are made such that the politicians and their sponsors pay minimum or no taxes.
End of political tenure, rinse and repeat till the whole system breaks down and the world wealth is cornered by a minuscule of the population.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40231.html
Would the people that are not happy with their shot at the "American dream" be any better off if they were living the Iranian dream? What about the Japanese dream or the Greek dream? Maybe they would be happy with the Chinese dream.
Find me a country where these folks would be successful.
Bet you can't.
Well said.
It might help if you stop voting for income distributionists like Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, Boehner, Cantor, etc. The American dream of attaining a certain amount of wealth can't be based upon a system where the politicians decide who becomes wealthy by who is an insider to their political decisions.
9/11 was an inside job.
please change "was" to IS"
" There is no such thing as the right to anything produced by another man"s effort", Bill Buckler, from the final issue of The Privateer. Too many claims on others effort in the world.
Well, if this follows the cycle of nations we saw so well in the Roman, Russian, French, Chinese and German empires, you'll have a few well-intentioned populists crop up (who are eliminated), then a few power-hungry opportunists (who are then also eliminated, although with a little more effort), and then finally an unassuming, shrewd dictator who eliminates the eliminators and co-opts the source of the populism--or imprisons it.
But, hey, who cares? I really want to know who the hottest professional gladiators athletes are.
so the other third is it twerking in uber wealth or just too dumb to think?
I love these statistics...damn lies and freedom fries.
The answer is always in the way the question is asked.
I could understand a patriot today who says "i'm suffering, but my dream is not dead"...How would you qualify that according to this survey?
People's perceptions are so ephemeral.
You don't need an opinion poll to see the quality divide in the economy. Facts and fiction of "opinion".
Opinon is for buying Ipads vs Google/Amzon Kindles. Its a consumerist selfie rage.
The question to people should be : do you think this economy is efficient and/or fair?
That makes sense. Not asking about a dream...
Does God exist?
Hell, if you asked Soldier Ryan in pitched battle he would say "Yes"; on Malibu beach he would say "you're spoiling my view of that blonde in a bikini!"
"Does God exist?
Hell, if you asked Soldier Ryan in pitched battle he would say "Yes"; on Malibu beach he would say "you're spoiling my view of that blonde in a bikini!" "
Then soldier Ryan is an idiot. There are atheists in foxholes, ithey are just beyond the comprehension of believers. Also, it's usually the goddists who are willing to fight and die to ensure their owners get a bigger piece of the pie.
For my quote I'll use Napoleon Bonaparte who said "Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet." It seems more fitting with my observations in life.
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/napoleonbo165319.html#mHQX0pKOHyw2oODM.99
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/napoleonbo165319.html#mHQX0pKOHyw2oODM.99
Religion is typically abused by those in power, yes, but your issue should be with those in power--not religion. Adjust your reticle and try to shoot straighter next time.
OBUMMERCARE NOTICE: For any one with interest (or in need of a chuckle) there will be a LIVE webcast from the Commerce Committee this morning here: Watch the livestream of Secretary Sebelius' testimony at 10 A.M. EST.
The ultra wealthy have waged this war against everyone else for centuries all the while having their minions shut down anyone who noticed it and commented. Now that it is obvious and in the open it's treated like a new discovery.
My question is where does it go from here considering many folks in the US are conditioned to not only accept their slavery, but to fight tooth and nail to stay in their slavery. We will see.
Will twerk for food. Or an iPad.
Banks came in and attacked the United States and the Military did not protect the United States of America. Of course America is finished.. Destroyed by the FED and their bribed Washington D.C traitors.
Arrest them. Somebody do something.
q99x2: Too late, it's like a fatal virus. We're bleeding out.
You are nobody? JFDI
The picture is inaccurate. The sorry chap picking trash should be getting anally raped by the dude dropping the trash.
Anybody who thinks connections don't matter is either A) a child or B) a Libertarian. A and B are actually one and the same, but pointing this out only causes tantrums.
Take George W Bush, for example. He "invested" 500,000 dollars in the Texas Rangers along with two guys who put in 100's of millions. He borrowed the money, interest-free, from a bank on whose board he sat. His qualification for the banking job? Being the son of a Senator and driving Arbusto energy into the ground. The financiers put him in the front office to sign autographs and shake hands because these were tasks he couldn't possibly fuck up, sober or otherwise.
Years later Bush sells his stake for 16 million bucks, making a return of roughly 3200%. No hard work. No intelligence. No perseverance. You know the rest of the story.
The dream is not over, it has just changed a bit. Instead of financial security and personal freedom, Uncle Sam delivers financial servitude and mass surveillance.
Let the nightmares begin!
Sure, we're all crooks. So? Sue me. My cousin is the judge. Don't hurry, we'll still be sucking here when you get back. If you get back.
Yo Barry! Get us another round of everything! Janet! More money bags!
A shutdown of this international criminal government would save the economy
via Bloomberg: "while 46 percent say it would be better to allow the market to operate freely even if the gap gets wider."
I agree. End the Fed.
RISE ABOVE
I am inclined to agree with Fonz on "its who you know". One can join clubs and do some targeted social networking to increase those odds. But also, one has to put aside feeble minded entertainment and find where the demand is.
More time this coming decade will go toward risk management for the tax hungry state and business predators. No matter what you'll do one way or the other its going to be X percent, it will not be zero and that is indeed frustrating.
To summarize, plan on getting better at risk management and avoiding too much cynicism which curbs a healthy appetite for a higher income. It's becoming a barbell economy so choose to live simply or choose to break gravity. If the latter which I have done, expect to get robbed now and then so use attorneys, keep good books to minimize fines (robberies) and yes be prepared to work very hard. Is it worth it? Depends on your personality I guess.
I thought risk management was supposed to cut down upon and limit liabilities. Is my understanding of this term, wrong? Could you give me your definition, please?
Lin, you seem to understand the term just fine. Were you confused about my opinion of having to spend more time this way to grow and retain earnings?
Things have been so bad for the past decade that even top engineering grads have submitted their resumes, often by the hundreds, sometimes even the thousands, to various Silicon Valley firms. Not even to receive the basic *courtesy* of a response, nevermind a professional consideration of their skills. Large numbers of STEM grads have been de-skilled in this way, as, after a few years, the interest in actually trying to monetize the STEM skills is somewhat, for lack of better words, lost.
Meanwhile the traiterous governments continue to allow in H-1B's at the rate of over 100,000 per year, and over a million of them cumulatively in the country. In addition to, of course, all the L-1 visa holders and even abusers of the B-1 visitors visa who use them for work purposes.
If policy makers want to get the US economy back on track, the first thing needed is to deport all the excess foreign labour, and give our best and brightest some pricing power, and more importantly, their jobs back.
Sorry to hear this. In my industry the federal government hires preferentially in the minority "8a" program. State and local governments also have programs to help minority engineers, architects and other vendors of services. A white man has to team up with a minority firm often owned by a Chinese or Indian to get a government contract. The owners of these minority firms are supposedly disadvantaged and end up hiding their assets in their homes since home equity is not included in the net worth calculation. These people buy multi-million dollar houses while their american workers live in relative squalar.
Many DoD contracts go to people who arrived in the states not too long ago from countries that we are supposedly not too friendly with the US. They have ID badges to military installations and are signatories for getting their American employees on the Bases. Kind of a slap in the face to have your Chinese boss give permission for you to step foot on a US Air Force Base.
Flintstone - Did you notice Larry King is on the RT Network with his show Politicking? RT = Russian Times. Interesting, isnt it? It tells me volumes about those attempting to control destiny.
I despise these kind of general surveys because they are almost pointless. They provide some vague definition of overall sentiment possibly of the American populace by various demographic factors but the 'American Dream' is such a nebulous concept as to be almost worthless a descriptive concept.
I would much rather see a specific definition given to poll respondents instead. Even then, most Americans are horrendous at quantifying and evaluating risk and overestimating their ability to achieve financial success.
I would much rather see a set of numbers to evaluate this over time. There are some longitudinal data sets out there but they are often cherry picked extensively by those on the left/right to make select point without painting an overall picture.
Personally, I think most Americans don't realize just how inequitable things have become and how increasingly the doors are increasingly shut especially as the cost of education and access to high-quality educational instrudction becomes less and less available despite some positive trends (online education).
America is going to end up a place where 15-20% live well and the rest not so much. Depends on the degree to which the safety-net remains and how & when retirement programs are impacted.
I expect flop houses will make a return appearance.
My bet is that historians in another 50 years are going to look back at the Cold War and conclude that both sides 'lost' including the United States because of the needless militizarization buildups by both countries which ultimately in the end has a horrible societal ROI, ends up spending money on things that are huge money sinks (ludricouos U.S. nuclear arsenal being the best example), and overcommitted globally.
I disagree with Ron Paul on some of his specific points regarding military intervention and military alliances but generally he is right.
Biggest difference I see too among US leaders vs historical norms to say until say the end of the Cold War is that most US leaders at the federal level have increasingly taken positions that are aligned with more globally-defined interests vs American-centric interests especially its economic leadership & stewards.
Define living well. I lost a 100k plus job at the tender age of 55 due to the 2008-9 debacle. 20 plus years. Private company one owner. 2 car wrecks ,,, lifting limit due to blown shoulder. We are all one or two "incidents' away from being that guy in the park sleeping on a bench. No bullshit. Luck is where opportunity and hard work meet. I have a son in law making well over 85K a year driving a city snow plow and painting graffiti over on park buildings. He will tell you on average the whole crew works maybe 4 hours a day. We have government workers and workers in private business. In private business it is what have you done for me lately and that makes sense when you need to meet payroll. In government it is how much will you pay me and what will my cost of living increases look like until the day I die. Our taxes have gotten out of control. I just heard on the radio of an Illinois State Prisons employee who makes 110 K a year with 24 arrests on his record. Friend of the ex governor who is currently in prison singing Elvis songs. Only in Illinois they say. I doubt that. America is broken but without hope and dreams we die. We are for sure at a crossroads and at 58 I am real tired of supporting everyone else via taxes. Rant off.
And...cue the shills who will tell us that only lazy people don't get ahead.
It's not quite that simple. There are about a thousand things that can derail even the smartest person in the U.S. Among them are the following:
I read the essay, then the comments. Now, what I want to know is THIS:
We are approaching critical mass, as this system cannot be sustained. What will the end be? What will happen? What shall we see, and when?
What will the end be?
A disorganized, futile revolt of the masses countered by a smack down so severe that any discussion like this in future will be a death sentence.
These ARE the good old days.
Lin, have you considered not everything is an all or nothing situation?
The people are getting haircuts, wages, debt, jobs not sustainable went away. Debt masked very bad trade and domestic policy (for a long time). There are lots of reasons for the hollowing out already discussed.
Another is the boomers retiring which accompanies downsizing as entitlement costs rises (which means higher taxes). This decline has been a process.
I believe 2021 or so we'll feel better about the quality of life but stagflation will continue in between. The government will tighten the screws a bit more in "raising revenue" (read fines, police, etc) but I think each state will be a different level of exiting such. As boomers retire so will a large crop of those politicians. We may recover a little in between IF government doesnt pull more tax policies of high sticker shock like Obamacare. Business can adapt to some extent but not when it cant even read what the impact will be.
America will likely become protectionist which will cause geopolitical issues or regional flare ups. At least a larg regional war is very possible (I hope not). I believe one can spend so much time worrying about the future one can damage the present and future.
I'll dance until the music stops meaning when I die. Even if 1/3 die in WW3 life goes on. Its just one big village now verse smaller ones but consider not too long ago entire smaller villages were destroyed in war which is robbery. Hedge against robbers the next several years and then it may ease up some but truly, yourself, myself and everyone in between will always have to worry about robbers. Se La Vi. God bless.