- 09 Sep 2019 17:00
#15032897
@Code Rood I assume DRlee was responding to you.
Below is to DRLee but i think its relevant to you both. I just had trouble understanding who DRLee was talking to.
I mean this is true to a degree but whoever you were responding too has a flawed yet correct point. You are a boomer, blackjack is probably a late Gen Z and i am an early millenial while the person you are talking to is probably a middle/late millenial of sorts.
What he says is not incorrect that boomers fucked up the generations after them but that is a gross generalisation honestly. Boomers didn't have much of a choice. 70's stagflation and eventual rise of Neoliberalism/Thatcherism/Reaganomics was an answer to that. There are 2 parts to capitalism: Capital and labour basically. (Lets ignore farmers, Ricardo didn't live in the 21st century) So the Cold War model favoured labour extensively compared to capital because otherwise Nazis or Commies would have taken over. It was the reality of the time. But that system ultimately hurt capital with ever dicreasing profits and that is not exactly how capitalism works. You can't have 0 profits because that would be communism.
The policies that boomers chose is an expected outcome because it was in their best interest. I mean who would not vote for their best interest, it is stupid. Boomers model did work for a time but as any model it had its downsides. Basically it might have given boomer generation unprecedented prosperity but it hurt the 95% of wage workers in the very long run. Also nobody is an oracle, this Globalised model with hyper competitive labour markets and huge profit margins works and could work forever IF everyone were of equal standing economically. The problem is that people in India get paid 1/50th of what we get paid in the US or Europe. And both India and China have billions in free manpower that is not exmployed while employment in US and Europe is what? 95 to 90% in most cases. Over a long period of time it degrades the standards of wage labour in US and Europe and this is the main cause of Trumpism, Brexit, etc.
But blaming boomers and gloryfying Trump is not really a solution. Trump might be one of the few who instinctively understands this or is just lucky but his solutions are all over the place and will not work.
1) Immigration? Immigration is like 1% from the problem of hyper competitive labour market which stems from the fact that any worker is competing on a global market against 1/50th wages from India or China or Africa etc. So if you live in a low wage country you have huge advantage while if you live in US / EU then you are fucked. Even if you stop all immigration it changes nothing. This is even besides the point that immigration, in general, helps with more workers in your own country that pay taxes and contribute. (Kim working in the US gets the same wage as you while Kim working in China gets 1/50th of your wage. This is an easy to understand concept.)
2) Economic war for better trade deals. I mean getting better trade deals help but it doesn't fix anything. The same model is still there. It just shifts the burden of pain to somebody else depending on the trade deal. Ultimately it doesn't matter for the Millenial worker if patents are safeguarded by China or not. This is a problem of capital and their assets being devalued or destroyed. It won't hold any significant relevance to anybody as a worker. If the patent is in China then spoiler alert, it is probably already outsourced and point 1 kicks in. So all this China trade war talk is basically another way to screw the working millenials over basically.
3) Tax cuts. On the surface it looks nice that people did actually get a pay rise because the taxes wen't down. This is good news for millenials who never seen one before. Again, this is not a hard to understand concept. If you paid 10% of 5000 and now you are paying 5% of 5000 then you are going to get 250 USD more. But this misses the whole point of the problem. Profits from capital are the highest in capitalist history perhaps. Especially for companies like Google, Amazon etc who are essentially monopolists. This is a one of thing that has negative side effects like less government spending on services -> you have to more from your pocket -> nothing changes in the long run. ( Take education for example. Is there a difference to you if you pay for it through Credit or if its funded by the government through taxes? There are differences but essentially you are still loosing money but in a different manner. )
4) The gist of the problem for millenials is that we are basically not getting paid enough. Boomers managed to earn a lot of money during Cold war times and then started investing/saving it during Neoliberalism boom. So right now this capital is working through the financial system as cheap credit for us but in return this created the current low employment/low inflation/low wages problem. In essence low inflation is good for boomer capital and earned money for them but it is really bad for millenials because low inflation essentially means that employment can't reach 100% and wages can't be allowed to rise otherwise there will be inflation. So to compensate, we take cheap credit which is hard to pay back without inflation/higher wages. This is basically the suicide loop for the millenials. (Where the boomer blame comes from aka Boomers fucked us up)
Trump election kinda opened peoples eyes a lot to this. For example, AOC in America. She is basically Trump who uses the same basis just comes with a different answer. High Taxes, High Spending, Strong labour unions etc. This is how it worked during the Cold War. But once again, she misses the point why it worked during the Cold War. The World was segmented and there was much more capital controls on movement, tax havens were few, investment options were limited etc. We gave up all of that to please the financial sector and profits since boomers had a lot of money to invest/save. AOC is ultimately closer to what I would call a solution but still also not there. A mix of Trump + AOC is actually needed perhaps with a realisation that we DO need to tone down on Globalization. For Example limit it to EU, US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia etc Basically places that already have high wages, relatively high employment etc. Otherwise nothing will change in the grander scheme of things.
It is a bit heartless in regards to India, China, Africa etc. But for millenials to have a better life that is what needs to be done. May be there is a solution where we can force China, India, Africa to pay its workers the same but i doubt it can be done over night or in a year. If this doesn't happen then waiting 100 or 200 years is not really an option.
I do not think that any nation is hopeless to change; however, I think that some nations do require a lot more effort than others to become changed. - Verv
Drlee wrote:Oh are you the little injured snowflake. Well snowflake, here is a lesson in life 101. Clearly you haven't gotten there yet. I will assume you are an American but if you aren't just suck it up.
What we are leaving you is the richest and most powerful country on the planet. We are leaving you a more resilient economy than ever before. We are leaving you a debt alright but one that is completely manageable. (When you take econ 101 in school you will learn why. If you want a quick explanation I suggest that you search this forum and see @blackjack21 excellent comments on it. Or ask @JohnRawls to 'splain it to you.
Sorry son. I am still working. No time for a nap. I am earning an income you should probably hope to earn someday if you can learn to keep your mouth shut and your ears open.
If you are who I am supposed to turn everything over to I have a quick answer. Not yet.
On the contrary. I have a whole lot of it if what you mean is motivation, money and education. Throw in a little political influence and that's about it.
We boomers are not a group. We are probably far more diverse in opinion than your generation is. But then you see we invented your generation.
You need to grow up and learn how life works. Here are the bullet points.
1. It is not my job to hand you the world in a neat package tied up with a ribbon. I didn't get the world that way and you won't either. You need to get off your mommies tit, stop whining like a bitch and go to work. You want it different? Change it. The only think stopping you is you.
2. The world you live in when you are my age will be one of your own inventing. My father would not recognize today's world and, if I popped back in in another 50 years I doubt I would recognize yours.
3. You are going to face some serious shit. You need to stop looking for someone to blame and get busy preparing yourself mentally, educationally and physically for the challenges. I could bitch about how the WWII generation left the world for us....filled with racism, sexism, filthy beyond belief (pollution was infinitely worse) putting gay folks in jail, facing a world-ending nuclear holocaust with an unstable superpower, disease ridden and so much more. We went a long way to fixing this shit. And the job is far from over. Sorry to disappoint you. If you were my age and black you could tell us about not being allowed to use the white drinking fountain and how you would go to the back of the restaurant to get your food to eat outside. If you were a woman you could tell us about how you were fired for telling the boss you were thinking about having a child. If you were gay you could tell us about your 20 year prison sentence for sodomy. If you lived in LA you could tell us about how your eyes burned from smog every morning on the way to work.
But you see little man, you aren't any of those things. But I work with amazing people of your generation every day. Just yesterday I had a group of 8 students in the clinic working with the homeless. They were wonderful, empowered, concerned and committed to making the world better. They did not stare at me and ask, "how could you let this happen"? They just rolled up their sleeves and said, "where do we start"? If you get over your arrogant whining maybe some day you can be like them. I suspect you won't. I suspect that instead of getting ready for life's challenges you will spend the day playing a video game and trying to think up a pithy response to this post.
So here is the short summary. Suck it up snowflake. Stop blaming me and get to work. Get busy or the world will happily roll right over you. Always has and always will.
@Code Rood I assume DRlee was responding to you.
Below is to DRLee but i think its relevant to you both. I just had trouble understanding who DRLee was talking to.
I mean this is true to a degree but whoever you were responding too has a flawed yet correct point. You are a boomer, blackjack is probably a late Gen Z and i am an early millenial while the person you are talking to is probably a middle/late millenial of sorts.
What he says is not incorrect that boomers fucked up the generations after them but that is a gross generalisation honestly. Boomers didn't have much of a choice. 70's stagflation and eventual rise of Neoliberalism/Thatcherism/Reaganomics was an answer to that. There are 2 parts to capitalism: Capital and labour basically. (Lets ignore farmers, Ricardo didn't live in the 21st century) So the Cold War model favoured labour extensively compared to capital because otherwise Nazis or Commies would have taken over. It was the reality of the time. But that system ultimately hurt capital with ever dicreasing profits and that is not exactly how capitalism works. You can't have 0 profits because that would be communism.
The policies that boomers chose is an expected outcome because it was in their best interest. I mean who would not vote for their best interest, it is stupid. Boomers model did work for a time but as any model it had its downsides. Basically it might have given boomer generation unprecedented prosperity but it hurt the 95% of wage workers in the very long run. Also nobody is an oracle, this Globalised model with hyper competitive labour markets and huge profit margins works and could work forever IF everyone were of equal standing economically. The problem is that people in India get paid 1/50th of what we get paid in the US or Europe. And both India and China have billions in free manpower that is not exmployed while employment in US and Europe is what? 95 to 90% in most cases. Over a long period of time it degrades the standards of wage labour in US and Europe and this is the main cause of Trumpism, Brexit, etc.
But blaming boomers and gloryfying Trump is not really a solution. Trump might be one of the few who instinctively understands this or is just lucky but his solutions are all over the place and will not work.
1) Immigration? Immigration is like 1% from the problem of hyper competitive labour market which stems from the fact that any worker is competing on a global market against 1/50th wages from India or China or Africa etc. So if you live in a low wage country you have huge advantage while if you live in US / EU then you are fucked. Even if you stop all immigration it changes nothing. This is even besides the point that immigration, in general, helps with more workers in your own country that pay taxes and contribute. (Kim working in the US gets the same wage as you while Kim working in China gets 1/50th of your wage. This is an easy to understand concept.)
2) Economic war for better trade deals. I mean getting better trade deals help but it doesn't fix anything. The same model is still there. It just shifts the burden of pain to somebody else depending on the trade deal. Ultimately it doesn't matter for the Millenial worker if patents are safeguarded by China or not. This is a problem of capital and their assets being devalued or destroyed. It won't hold any significant relevance to anybody as a worker. If the patent is in China then spoiler alert, it is probably already outsourced and point 1 kicks in. So all this China trade war talk is basically another way to screw the working millenials over basically.
3) Tax cuts. On the surface it looks nice that people did actually get a pay rise because the taxes wen't down. This is good news for millenials who never seen one before. Again, this is not a hard to understand concept. If you paid 10% of 5000 and now you are paying 5% of 5000 then you are going to get 250 USD more. But this misses the whole point of the problem. Profits from capital are the highest in capitalist history perhaps. Especially for companies like Google, Amazon etc who are essentially monopolists. This is a one of thing that has negative side effects like less government spending on services -> you have to more from your pocket -> nothing changes in the long run. ( Take education for example. Is there a difference to you if you pay for it through Credit or if its funded by the government through taxes? There are differences but essentially you are still loosing money but in a different manner. )
4) The gist of the problem for millenials is that we are basically not getting paid enough. Boomers managed to earn a lot of money during Cold war times and then started investing/saving it during Neoliberalism boom. So right now this capital is working through the financial system as cheap credit for us but in return this created the current low employment/low inflation/low wages problem. In essence low inflation is good for boomer capital and earned money for them but it is really bad for millenials because low inflation essentially means that employment can't reach 100% and wages can't be allowed to rise otherwise there will be inflation. So to compensate, we take cheap credit which is hard to pay back without inflation/higher wages. This is basically the suicide loop for the millenials. (Where the boomer blame comes from aka Boomers fucked us up)
Trump election kinda opened peoples eyes a lot to this. For example, AOC in America. She is basically Trump who uses the same basis just comes with a different answer. High Taxes, High Spending, Strong labour unions etc. This is how it worked during the Cold War. But once again, she misses the point why it worked during the Cold War. The World was segmented and there was much more capital controls on movement, tax havens were few, investment options were limited etc. We gave up all of that to please the financial sector and profits since boomers had a lot of money to invest/save. AOC is ultimately closer to what I would call a solution but still also not there. A mix of Trump + AOC is actually needed perhaps with a realisation that we DO need to tone down on Globalization. For Example limit it to EU, US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia etc Basically places that already have high wages, relatively high employment etc. Otherwise nothing will change in the grander scheme of things.
It is a bit heartless in regards to India, China, Africa etc. But for millenials to have a better life that is what needs to be done. May be there is a solution where we can force China, India, Africa to pay its workers the same but i doubt it can be done over night or in a year. If this doesn't happen then waiting 100 or 200 years is not really an option.
I do not think that any nation is hopeless to change; however, I think that some nations do require a lot more effort than others to become changed. - Verv