Re: What happened to Japan?
From: Jim Blair (jeb_at_wisc.edu)
Date: 07/22/04
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Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 15:37:34 -0500
"Chief" <Chief@Home.com> wrote in message
news:Xns952CE5E59A764TeePee@216.168.3.44...
> Jim Blair <see@sig.com> wrote in news:cdjlul$kcs$1@news.doit.wisc.edu:
>
> > Chief <Chief@Home.com> wrote:
> >>Jim Blair <see@sig.com> wrote in news:cdgq5c$4vl$1@news.doit.wisc.edu:
> >>
> >>> Chief <Chief@Home.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> ...
> >>>>
> >>>>I have no worries about my life but I wish my grandkids could have
> >>>>lived in a world better than the one I grew up in. It's not the
> >>>>case.
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> I predict that young kids today will have a lot better life and more
> >>> opportunities than any previous generation. They will live longer,
> >>> travel more, know more about just about everything (that they care
> >>> to Google), etc.
> >>>
> >>
> >>I don't see that happening. I see the ones with healthcare living
> >>longer. That leaves out 40% of Americans. I see more opportunity for
> >>those born to upper middleclass and above families - that leaves out
> >>75% of Americans.
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Average life expectancy keep rising, as it has for the last 100 years
> > (or more). And that "average" includes those who die young.
> >
> Averages are deceptive numbers. You know that. this country while being
> the wealthest by far is fairly low among industrial nations.
>40% of
> americans without health care is a condemnation of the benevolence of
> corporate America.
Hi,
The reasons Americans don't live longer has little to do with healthcare and
a
lot to do with personal choices. We eat too much, smoke too much and
exercise too little. And shoot each other too much.
>....Companies like Walmart and McDonalds consistantly
> report record profits the workers consistantly don't share in those
> profits.
Workers get wages, shareholders get profits. And in many companies,
workers are also the owners. One year when I worked for a private company
I made close to as much money from stock options as I was paid in wages.
>...Those companies do not have many jobs that offer any benefits.
"Benefits" include everything from free parking to stock options to employee
discounts, to free lunches. They are hard to compare.
> Wage stagnation has been a fact throughout this unrecovering recovery.
I say "wage" data is misleading; "income" is a better measure, and
"compensation" even better.
> >
> >>...The rollback of environmental protections, labor safety laws,
> >>and general labor laws will only insure 25% live better.
> >
> > Real (ie inflation corrected) family incomes reached their all time
> > high in 2000 for all 5 income quintiles, not just for the "rich".
>
> Family incomes - another deceptive number. When today households
> routinely have two and sometimes three jobs to compare it fairly to the
> single worker families of the 60's one would have to double the income of
> the single worker family - wonder how it would compare then.
So the wife should stay home and dust and clean and look after the kids?
Sounds like our Johnny.
>....Not only
> that but when both parents work the expenses do not just double, the tax
> rate is worse, ...
Er, are you questioning the higher income tax bracket that families are
pushed into
when both people work?
>...the childcare expenses are high, transportation costs and
> more eat a goodly portion of one income. Come on Jim, you can not
> honestly believe in these arguements your using.
> >
> > http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/f03.html
> >
> > Table F-3.
I say that people today live longer, travel more, have larger houses, etc.
than
in the past, and all the complaining does not change that.
> >>
> >>Globalism is good for every citizen on the planet - except the
> >>American citizen that has to live through the decades of changes.
> >
> > Some US workers lose when jobs move to India or China. But workers
> > there benefit. I say better the jobs go there than that they move
> > here for those jobs.
> >
> I say we fill our grad schools again with the bright shiny faces of
> American kids. You know as well as I do that the percentage of Americans
> kids doing grad work in the hard sciences have been declining for years.
Yes, but not because foreign kids have pushed them out. We import foreign
students into our graduate programs BECAUSE not enough US kids major
in science to fill the graduate programs. The US kids COULD, but they don't.
They study Women's History or "The Oppression of Minorities by Capitalism"
or whatever, instead of science and math.
>
>
> >>...The same
> >>mistakes made in our education system - lower the standards to level
> >>the playing field are the same mistakes we are making to 'globalize'
> >>America. We are lowering our expectations for some distant fictional
> >>future with little concern for the common good.
> >
> > I think the fact that US student know they must compete with those in
> > Korea and China and India motivates them. (at least it motivates some
> > of them).
> >
>
> They can't compete without a stable family life and an even playing
> field. The stable family has disappeared at the same rate as the increase
> of dual worker families and single parent familes.
But the studies I see say kids with mothers who work outside the home do
BETTER than those with stay-at-home mom's. The "problem" is not the
working mother but the absent father.
> >>
> >>
> >>>>...Both my
> >>>>kids have good educations from top tier colleges but go in and out
> >>>>of work occasionally. If they didn't have a good education, I could
> >>>>see where they would be in trouble in today's world.
> >>>
> >>> Yes, education will (I predict) become ever more important.
> >>>
>
> It will become less available if the current crop of republicans get
> their way.
??? Education has been ever more "available" as measured by high school and
college graduates. And you are really hung up on this Rebublicans are BAD
and
Democrats are GOOD thing. Note that it is Republicans (mostly) who want
poor inner-city kids to have a crack at private school education.
> >>>>Unless your one of the truely wealthy, education is the only way to
> >>>>enjoy a somewhat decent lifestyle and that education is disappearing
> >>>>as an option to the kids who by no fault of their own were born to
> >>>>poor parents.
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Nonsense. Just about every kid in the US has the OPPORTUNITY for a
> >>> "good eduction" IF THEY CHOOSE TO TAKE IT. The problem is that many
> >>> do not: they spit in the face of that opportunity. But it is there
> >>> for those who want it.
>
>
> That is not true in my experience. As a military officer I have had
> thousands of kids that society thought were not worth the effort in my
> units. Very few were not able to learn and many started college while on
> active duty. In every unit during the 25 years I was active duty I never
> met one that was not capable of more and most achived more. In this
> country we take kids that live in poor families and because poor people
> live in poor school districts we give them a poor education. After they
> graduate they are faced with a poor job with a poor future. While they
> are living this poor life we show them the life styles of the rich and
> famous, show them BMW adds and CNN runs stories on whether to buy an
> American Yacht or a cheaper Chinese Yacht. After a while some join the
> military I took those kids who were totally defeated at the ripe old age
> of 18 and gave them opportunity, structure, and dignity. Those kids are
> the ones who are the members of the best military in the world and it is
> the best because of them. Those soldiers doing their jobs in Iraq or
> Afghanistan or putting out fires in the west are not the sons of the
> wealthy or in most cases not the sons of the middle class. They are the
> kids that some folks decided were not worth the effort and they were
> wrong.
But you see those who chose to join the military. Maybe they have more
ambition than the others?
I am all for giving those who want more, the opportunity.
>...This country needs to have a national service requirement just so
> the average middle class and upper class kids can see that their is no
> birth right, no genetic difference, and no inherent laziness or stupidity
> among the lower classes.
Bring back the Draft?
> >>
> >>That like saying since you can lead a horse to water but can't make it
> >>drink no horses will be led to water. I disagree completely.
> >
> > You can send a kid to school, but you can't make him think.
> >
> Sure you can. If the kid see a light at the end of the tunnel he will
> seek the light. The republicans turn the light off and wonder why those
> stupid kids get lost. If a HS diploma made a difference they would seek
> it. Today it doesn't lead to a better job or a brighter future.
You think the decline in interest in science education started when Reagan
took office?
Then interest jumped the day Clinton was elected (or is that took office?)
but then
dropped when Dubwa was elected? It is all Democrats and Republicans and not
long term changes in US student attitudes?
> We need to extend public education to 2 years of college or trade school.
For those who want it? Or just to keep those who disrupt high school
classes
around for 2 more years?
>
> >>
> >>> I worked with a recent MS in chemistry from the UW. His family was
> >>> from China and I think he was born there. He went to grade and high
> >>> schools in an inner city school system where most kids dropped out,
> >>> but he learned enough to get a scholarship to the UW.
> >>>
> >>
> >>Apples and oranges -
> >
> > No students and students. Those who want to learn and those who don't.
> >
> >>...The Chinese family structure is completely different
> >>than todays American family ...
> >
> > Yes. And that is the problem.
>...So the answer is to have the least of us
> to become third world? That is just silly - not an answer or a solution.
Some parts of the US are a like like the 3rd world. But the Welfare Reform
(pushed
by Republicans and signed by Clinton) may be changing that.
.....
> I believe just as Tito was able to be the glue that held Yugoslavis
> togather Saddam was the glue that held Iraq togather. Both were despots.
> We kept both, aided both - it was at the time in our national interest.
> There were arguements to invade Iraq.
>
> The one I believe was the real reason was the military was losing is
> ability to stage out of Saudi Arabia. The militant fundimentalist's were
> forcing the Saudi Royals to ask us to leave. The US remained safe during
> the cold war by basing close to the threat. We needed a base close to the
> threat. Afghanistan by itself could provide that because Saddam did have
> the weapons to reach across his border and would more than likely use
> them. He also remained a threat to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
And toIsrael.
>....Saddam had to
> go.
>
> It's an arguement that might have eventually gotten the approval of the
> American people. But Bush chose to fabricate, stretch, and obscure
> instead. Having the war might or might not have been a mistake - time
> will tell. Being dishonest was a mistake.
He stressed the factor that sold the case best, and which *every*
intelligence agency
believed: WMD.
> >>
> >>>>...The current administration's tired old trickle down
> >>>>policy isn't working any better than it did under Reagan.
> >>>
> >>> Actually the US economy has been better than ever for the last 20
> >>> years. Low inflation and low unemployment and just two shallow and
> >>> short recessions. That is good by historic standards.
> >>>
>
> Actually it hasn't for half the population.
With higher family incomes for all 5 quintiles, which "half" is that?
>
> >>The economy in 60's was better that the 70's and the 80's. It perked
> >>up in the nineties and has dwindled since. In the early 70's the
> >>minimun wage was hooked to one half of the average manufacture workers
> >>hourly wages. Nixon change it to 'at the whim of the politicians'
> >>who's own raises are automatic unless they vote to stop them. In the
> >>60's a HS grad could work for minimum wages and with a buddy share an
> >>apartment, buy a car and start living the American dream. Today the
> >>minimum wage is a joke. Families are now working two and three jobs to
> >>live where one job was sufficient before. That is not progress by any
> >>stretch of the imagination.
> >
> > The federal minimum wage is not the measure of much of anything. The
> > average income of families is. And that has increased since the
> > 1960's.
> >
> Answered above.
You agree that family incomes are higher, but say that is because wives are
now "forced" to work
when they should stay home?
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4834/wwives.txt
> >>
> >>Unemployment numbers and the way they are figured has changed several
> >>times and just like a 1200 sat test result today is not the equal of
> >>1200 sat test result in the 60's the uemployment figures of 5.6 are
> >>more like 10%-12%.
> >
> > ??? An even larger fraction of the population is now in the workforce
> > than was in the 1960's
> >
> Not a good thing - no one to raise the children.
Kids raised by 2 working parents are not the problem.
>
> >>..A resent study shows a 25% unemployment rate for black males.
> >
> > And what was that figure in 1960?
>
> I'll look around for the number. I doubt it was more.
And how many blacks would want to return to the US of 1960?
> >
> >>That's bad whether your a liberal or a conservative. The current Bush
> >>policy of not extending unemployment insurance is only to avoid seeing
> >>a more realistic jobs picture. The articles I've read indicate that
> >>170,000 to 240,000 jobs are needed each month to break even ...
> >
> > Break even with the 1.6 million immigrants each year? I hear Kerry
> > wants to create 10 million new jobs for those 8 million Americans he
> > say want a job. So are we to assume the other 2 million jobs are for
> > the immigrants that will come for them?
>
> Arguing Bush's job creation with pessimistic speculation isn't going to
> work. Bush will go down as the first president since Hoover to have a net
> jobs loss. That is a dismal performance. To argue that doing anything
> different might set another record is a little weak.
> >
> > I predict that by November the economy will be a plus for Bush. Kerry
> > should push stem cell research as his difference with Bush.
> >
>
> By November the cash from refinancing will have been spent. Consumer debt
> will take a toll on American families as the interest rates go up. I
> predict a depression if Bush goes four more years.
Sound like you are predicting a depression BEFORE the election.
The consumption is
> driven not by purchases of goochi handbags, face lifts and rolex watches
> but by bread, clothing, shoes, and Chevys. What Reagan did to give Bush I
> a recession Bush II will finish.
So the recession that started AFTER GHW Bush raised taxes and the minimum
wage,
after Reagan was out of office for years, and had warned that this might
trigger a
recession--is now blamed on REAGAN?
> >
> >>.... Supply side economics
> >>has never worked to do anything other that shrink the middle and
> >>enrich the upper.
> >
> > The US has been operating in the Reagan Supply Side for the last 20
> > years, and we have done OK. Both as compared to Europe and Japan, and
> > as compared to the past. Remember there were 2 recessions during the
> > 1960's.
> >
>
>
> > And what do you mean "shrink the middle"? How do you define "middle"?
> > (I say lots of "middle income" people have moved up to "upper income"
> > during the last 20 years.)
> >
> Many more have moved down.
How many people do you think have "moved down" (to a lower real income?)
than
they had in 1983?
>
> >>...It's time to put that puppy to bed once and for all. Not once
> >>has a raise in the minumum wage decreased the availability of jobs
Oh?
http://www.mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=356
> >
> > Hey lets make it $20 per hour since we KNOW that this cannot possibly
> > cost any jobs.
> >
> Extreme examples don't make a point.
>
> >>...and
> >>not once has enriching the rich benefitted the poor.
> >
> > When poor people become rich, is that enriching the rich?
> >
> The exception to the rule.
Note that more people in the bottom income quintile at the start where in
the top income
quintile a decade later than remained in the bottom.
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4834/101.htm
> >>...Just the
> >>other day I saw something that I never expected to see. A government
> >>TV Ad warning pregnant women to not eat fish because of high mercury
> >>content. An entire food group judged to be bad for our unborn
> >>children. Amazing, especially when one looks at the recent increases
> >>in the allowable limits of mercury emissions. So instead of lowering
> >>the output of mercury our government decided the best course was to
> >>just spend a few million of TV ads.
> >
> > ??? Mercury has been in fish for decades. Only now they warn people
> > about it. Is that BAD?
> >
> Yes - extremely bad.
??? BAD to tell people about a problem that has existed for probably a
century and
that we have known about for decades?
>...The solution is to reduce the output or at least
> maintain. Bush increased the allowable levels.
>
> > If you want to reduce mercury emissions (as well as CO2), support
> > shutting down coal power plants. And nuclear is the only technology
> > that is ready to replace them now.
> >
> We need a visionary leader and a manhattan project to find the next
> source of cheap sustainable energy. Not a man with one foot in the era of
> Mckinnley and the other in his mouth.
???? Is that a YES for nuclear power? Saying "sustainable energy" is a
cop-out.
Exactly what do you mean? And which party is the more likely to switch the
US to
nuclear power?
> >>
> >>Our TV's are inundated with get rich schemes, miracle cures for every
> >>desease and ailment known to mankind, and even fountains of youth in a
> >>pill. In my generation the fleecing of the public would not have been
> >>allowed by the FDA or the government. Today it's common. In my time
> >>punishment was reserved to a court of law. Today banks, video stores
> >>and just about anybody selling anything on credit punish their
> >>customers with grossly high late fees.
> >>
> >>I read an article that said the Blockbusters primary source of income
> >>was late fees. In my time they were allowed to recover the cost
> >>incurred but not allowed to profit from anothers inabilty to pay on
> >>time.
> >
> > Er, a late fee is not because someone could not PAY on time. It is
> > because they didn't return the item on time. I say that means that
> > money is less important to them than time.
> >
> Strange the courts didn't see it that way. Blockbusters was forced to
> repay millions in overcharged late fees.
So you can keep your video movie longer than you promised, (screw those
other
people waiting for it) and the find a lawyer to get you some money for doing
that?
It figures.
>
> > I also see people buying bottled water for $1.75 a pint, when standing
> > beside a drinking fountain (and Madison city water is the best there
> > is, at least as good as anything in a bottle).
> >
> > I say this means those people have more dollars than sense.
> >
> >>
> >>There is a severe shortage of gentlemen in this country.
> >
> > There may be just the two of us ;-)
>
> I agree. We'd make a great set of reasonable talking heads.
> >
> >
> >>>>
> >>>>Do you teach?
> >>>
> >>> I did for 15 years (chemisrty, physics, geology, astronomy.
> >>> oceanography) but not for the last 15 years.
> >>
> >>I retired from the military but start teaching at a community college
> >>this fall.
> >
> > Good for you. I hope you have students that are there because they
> > want to learn. Will you be teaching them to field strip an AK 47?
> > (just kidding).
>
> I flew for twenty five years and you would never guess in a million years
> what I'll be teaching.
>
>
> 3D computer animation. Us right brained liberals are all frustrated
> artists at heart.
>
> I really can't wait to show these kids the opportunity that exists today
> in that field. I'll bet in a few years John Wayne and Cary Grant will be
> acting again as digital stars. Someday a digital actor will win the
> academy award for best actor in a feature film. Instead of one grossly
> overpaid actor walking to the podium a troop of dozens will accept the
> award - a liberals dream. Turning the wealth of one into the success of
> many instead of one more Cezanne for the rec. room.
Er, isn't that "outsourcing" acting to cyberspace? Sounds GOOD to me ;-)
>
> I'm outta here for a couple of weeks - time for a vacation. The stress of
> retirement has taken it's toll.
,,,,,,,
_______________ooo___(_O O_)___ooo_______________
(_)
jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin
USA. This message was brought to you using biodegradable
binary bits, and 100% recycled bandwidth. For a good time
call: http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4834
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