Do you have any idea how you just tortured my dogs with bad electronic music!

Used to read Elizabeth Warren at TPM. She is much smarter than the best of us. Since I stopped reading Pravda, sorry TPM, I hope I don’t miss more of her writing.

To the matter on hand: we all see the gap between the poor and the rich widening exponentially. This implies that the gap between salaried workers, e.g. creative class, and the rich grows.

The rich get rich with substantial help of lack of taxation, government contracts, government (including local) built infrastructure, ununionized workers with limited clout, globalization, etc.

The highly paid salaried workers, i.e. the creative class, don’t see a problem. They live in thousands of square feet, drive BMW and Lexus and feel superior to the non-creative class. They and Obama are stupid enough to feel like the elite.

There is way more to say outside the current political fight, but clearly, it’s hopeless.

But while we’re on the topic mutts and electronic music…

If there is a Guantanamo Bay for dogs, you don’t need a canine water board. All you need is a theremin.

There’s a viral video in there somewhere in the relationship between canine and theremin.

(Not to worry, animal activists. It’s not really torture, but the dogs are definitely weirded out).

Am I a bad person for actually liking the electronic music?

No.

You’re a bad person because you’re a racist.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

The content is amazing, however. It takes the income distribution issues under Conservative rule for the last generation down to the household level.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

you haven’t read Sartre’.

On the video….just typed part of it out not as an analysis but from the video. sure there are a few name mistakes but %s and numbers should be very accurate.

This is interesting to listen to, 76% more for a mortgage than a generation ago, and males make less than their fathers did. Health insurance is higher, everything basically is going up, except in areas where we are not buying as nice of a choice (ie: meat vs pasta), childcare is higher. Taxes are higher. It’s pretty weird. And other expenses have gone down because we aren’t buying them because we can’t afford them. 3/4s of income in the 2000s for the 5 basic expenses, with fewer total dollars than 1 income parents had a generation ago (now a 2 income family). On a business scale, business 2 (2 income) will go under before business 1 (1 income) at higher risk. Family of 2000s has to have 2 incomes to have health insurance etc. The 2 income now faces 2x the risk. If either loses job then mortgage payment can’t be met. However, in the 1 income family the family can make more money by sending the person not working into the workforce.

Risk of losing job did not remain steady between 70s and now. A families chance of a 30% greater drop in family income up to 2003, income volatility increased in 2000s, odds of being laid off much higher, health now has double the chance of someone will need health care. Risks increased odds won’t have health insurance. The world of health care has changed in 30 years. In 1971 a woman stayed in hospital for 5 days in hospital, c-section 10, now in 2006 it is 24 hours and that is by legislation in many cases. How to increase efficiency? Send them home quicker and sicker. Family provides nursing care. Family will take care of their own post-surgery. So family is being shown how to do it themselves at home and act like nurses, the issue is these people are all working. So now we have someone taking off work.
If a kid gets sick or grandma breaks a hip, a generation ago there was someone to provide care, now the illness of a close family member has a direct impact on finances of family. Woman stays at hospital with mother and they lose their job. 10K today in emergency care vs 10K a generation ago, health insurance itself has changed and now we have faux insurance, we are paying for it but it is effectively non-working (example Utah insurance: doesn’t cover hospitalization, drugs, medical supplies), special risks facing families with children. The Iconic family mom/dad/2kids. mom/2kids, dad/2kids.
She has a book the 2 income trap.
1 income households can’t compete now with 2 income households. Still would like the house but only has 1 income (single mom or dads with children). % increase of volatility by family type. Green single without children, single with children, married without children, married without children 97% increase in volatility)
Disaggregate housing. Increase in housing costs for family housing is much higher, because families are buying schools, so they are buying from a wider pool of homes. Places to have a decent public school and send your kids to a public school.
A 5 pnt increase in 3rd grade reading schools in side by side municipalities in Boston everything else is the same (demographics, parks etc.) Parents are buying schools. Parents would rather live near a toxic dump than going somewhere, where the schools were underperforming.
Parents are spending more.
Safety net, where is the safety net for these families. Less savings more debt, more people without health insurance than we have ever had. 1970s typical modal was a single male now it is a 35 year old married woman with no health insurance.
People who have lost their health insurance are increasingly among the middle class.
Pension lingo, the shift from putting in money and we take the risk of how long we live and how far the money lasts and the second which is reversed, now it is going more to the former.
Unemployment benefits are not as great as they were 30 years ago. Public Education has eroded sharply (college) In 1970 it took 12 years to educate someone into the middle class, a HS diploma and a work ethic. Now (2002) 2x as many people believe that the moon shot landing was faked than believe that you can make it in the middle class in middle america with a college diploma.
Difference is in middle class families if you needed 12 years the taxpayer paid for it but in the year 2000 you have to pay for it yourself.
The launch now is a lot harder to get kids into the middle class.
1970 almost no one sent kids to pre-school. Now everyone promotes preschool (2 years), who pays for the 2 years? The family.
so from the 1970s it took 12 years to now it takes 18 years of education and the family privately pays for the education themselves.
Chicago did a publically supported pre-school but the parents had to pay for tuition. The tuition was higher than the University of Illinois.
How have families responded? Bankruptcy filing rates per thousand in population 2003—married couples about 7.4 filed for bankruptcy, unmarried men 7.3, unmarried women 7.2 per thousand. None of them have children.
With Children filing rates married couples with children 15 per thousand, and women only with children 23 per thousand (not enough men to be statistically valid).
So families with children are in huge financial stress.
90% file for bankruptcy due to job loss, medical problem in family, or breakup. 1/2 the families have 2 of these three, 20% have all three.
These families, more children live in homes that will file for bankruptcy this year than will live through a parents divorce, this has been true since the 90s. So if you know friends who have lived through a divorce you actually know 2x as many people who have had parents who have filed for bankruptcy, because of the shame it is rarely talked about and it is easier to hide.
Hiding it from parents, children, friends. They had stories, “Bob’s mom’s health is not good, moving across country in hopes of a job.”
A middle class where people are falling out into poverty, is a middle class that has less room to help bring people up and out of poverty and into the middle class. A generation ago they could help more with the bottom class.
“I am afraid we are moving from a 3 class society to a 2 class society”
It effects who we are in this world, it effects our democracy, we have a bigger upper class (those who don’t hit any bumps) the rest are just one long trail of underclass that maintains a debt treadmill.
People who are constantly living on the edge of a cliff, some scratching their way up a little bit.
“I worry about what that means, the middle class what used to be solid and boring, not worth studying, this has kept us from seeing our middle class”
We have a middle class today that has been weakened
It is time to realign our political and academic interests to find out what has happened to these families.

_____

A lot to take in. But her last line I 100% believe she got spot on. WE take the middle class for granted and like animals that have been plenteous we lose it before we can save it from extinction.
Maybe it is time to put the middle class in the endangered species list and figure out a way to revive it in the USA.

Thanks for the video.

“The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it’s by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules,” —Bill Clinton

Horrifying.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I have read Sartre, though it was, omigawd, about 40 years ago when I was in college.

Though I guess I am a racist, q.e.d.

Lambert, you’ve gone and made me subscribe to YouTube so I can find more of these UC lectures. This one was impressive and frightening, though it made me feel just a tiny bit vindicated because, in spite of the dreadful stagflation (what a word!), I definitely felt better off in the Carter years.

… “morning again in America” thing. Makes me want to hurl.

Not half the party, fortunately, but half the voters in the primaries.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Another thing to consider, though she mentions it in the shift from defined benefits, pensions, to IRA’s, is that people don’t or won’t have much money for their retirement. As soon as you do get the kids out of the house, you may have to start helping your parents make ends meet.

But Lambert, you were going to do more discussion of Naomi Klein and the Shock Doctrine. I think this fits in perfectly. If you believe that chaos is the point, this fits in. People in these circumstances are often too pressed to pay much attention to why these things are actually happening to them.

I used to note that back in the 70’s, you could also fool yourself into thinking that you could have it as good as the well to do. You could buy the small things she talks about that have a designer identity like cookies or ice cream rather than Oreo’s or the supermarket brand. Now you can buy an Iphone for $400.00 and always be in touch with someone. And not notice how much you are getting bumped around on the crowded subways. Or maybe, if you’re young, you can get past the thousands of people auditioning and get on American Idol. Or be one of the lucky 50 or so families who get a new house built for them in 72 hours by Extreme Makeover.

What I missed in her presentation was how much more of the total pie is going to the upper 20%. Even if we are a multi trillion dollar economy, what percent does the middle and lower class get of it? Not a lot.

bet you didn’t know -

hope

is

economic chaos

spelled

backwards.

It may make them more likely to vote, but when you’re under economic duress, you’re less likely to have the time to organize. People are working tremendous hours - those lucky enough to have a job. Most families have both parents working and then also raising kids. It doesn’t leave a lot of time to plan or participate in political activities. I firmly believe there are a lot of exhausted people in this country.