Biden

[wufan]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/breakdown-of-consumer-price-index-basket-2014-1%3famp

here’s an article from 2014 that shows all the things in the CPI. the price change is calculated in select places then weighted. There is an awful lot of tech in there that wasn’t available 40 years ago. The standard of living is increasing faster than inflation.

[C0|dB|00ded]

That is a good chart.

What happened around 1979 to cause the split?

These dudes (Liberal?) call it the Great Divergence.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/great-disparity/

So what have been the significant factors underlying the Great Divergence? Noah identifies four: the increasing importance of a college degree due to the shortage of better-educated workers; trade between the United States and low-wage nations; changes in government policy in labor and finance; and the decline of the labor movement. He also considers the extreme changes in the wage structure of corporations and the financial industry, in which American CEOs typically receive three times the salaries earned by their European counterparts.

“Draw one line on a graph charting the decline of union membership,” Noah writes, “then superimpose a second line charting the decline in middle-class income share (with ‘middle class’ defined broadly as the middle 60 percent), and you will find that the two lines are nearly identical.”

Unions are another bane of the Economic discipline. They are rife with inefficiency and bad incentives. But do you know the working conditions/pay for the average American prior to their introduction in the mid 19th century? Deplorable.

There are many economic principles that look fantastic when graphed or in an equation, but they are harsh, Atheistic, and based on the concept, survival of the fittest. This reality touches upon what I was talking about the other week about the limitations of Capitalism. It is limited by the inherent honesty and altruism of the average member of society. If everybody's 100% selfish and corrupt, government must step in or the "free" market will collapse from within. Capitalism is like a self-cleaning oven when it's operating as designed - ridding the country of waste. It's also like a modern-day slave driver using greed instead of battery to motivate its labor force (I submit both use fear). But does the carrot truly make us any more free than the whip? The pioneers surely felt free as they raced across the countryside to stake their land. But does the middle manager working 80 hours a week and dying of a heart attack in his mid 50's feel free?

What were we talking about again?

No I'm not smoking dope.

Been stuck in a pandemic. My favorite phone broke last week w/ lots of important info still on it. And I've been spending all day talking with tech people about a data/order routing issue causing abnormal CPU loads. Of course they deny any responsibility even though I gave them ample evidence, with the only variable isolated and residing firmly in their court.

Onto tomorrow.

[C0|dB|00ded]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bus...t-2014-1%3famp

here’s an article from 2014 that shows all the things in the CPI. the price change is calculated in select places then weighted. There is an awful lot of tech in there that wasn’t available 40 years ago. The standard of living is increasing faster than inflation.

That's why I mentioned a change in Tastes and Preferences. A young adult couple today can be just as happy (or more) sitting on the couch watching endless Netflix as the young couple in the 80's that might have bought a boat or gone on a couple vacations. Mental entertainment certainly comes much cheaper today than yesterday - at the expense of our health perhaps. But is our gadgetry truly a higher standard of living or merely a mental masturbatory prison?

I think a high standard of living means beauty (mountains), peace (mountains), privacy (mountains), mobility (excess earnings), and safety (lotsa guns).

[ShockTalk]

That is a good chart.

What happened around 1979 to cause the split?

Just spitballin', but the drying up of the large number people in agriculture making a reasonable income and the same for manufacturing. I'm guessing a lot of families in those areas went to 2 income families and still dropped further behind those at the top of the chart. The tech industry boomed, but the number making those top wages are few in comparison. When you are talking top 5%, who else is in there now that wasn't before. First group that comes to mind for me is professional athletes. Heck, they used to be pretty much middle income people that had second jobs in the off season to now being multi-millionaires. I suspect the entertainment industry (movies, TV, music and such) have also seen an increase in their numbers that make large sums of money, but they still are not large in total number. How many of these people in sports and entertainment drop to "regular" paying jobs (or no steady job) and live off the earnings of a very large nest egg, assuming they were smart enough to handle money? How does this affect that graph?

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

I have a problem with the minimum wage: There is a minimum amount of labor that someone must perform in order to justify their wages. The military did a study on this in the 60s. They found that anyone with an IQ of less than 84 required help from higher IQ folks and caused a negative output. As such, IQ tests are used in the military, but were outlawed elsewhere.

As minimum wage increases, the IQ required to meet minimum profitability in the free market goes up. As it increases, an ever growing population is unable to perform the minimal tasks, and no longer has a place in the workforce. These people have to be supported through some social means (usually government) further increasing the burden on the working and further increasing the cost of goods through lost profits in the form of taxes.

I believe the scientific term is the 80/20 Rule. 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

[Kung Wu]

That is a good chart.

What happened around 1979 to cause the split?

The flat-lining of the blue line really begins in the late 60's as a lagging effect of the Medicare and Medicaid act price controls. The acceleration of the red line begins with what I call the dawning of the ubiquitous computer era (the IBM PC was released in 1981).

[Kung Wu]

https://www.thenation.com/article/ar...eat-disparity/

Any article about the "great disparity" that doesn't recognize the 1980's proliferation of computers (initially within corporate America, then rapidly into the home) within the first paragraph or two, should be immediately discounted as academic, know-everything-about-ecomonic-theory-but-nothing-about-how-it-actually-happened gobbeldy-gook.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

Biden campaign takes in a record shattering $145 million in "dark money" during the election, when he has called for banning these types of donations in the past. Lies and hypocrisy. Win at all costs, even if it's unethical. Shady AF.

#unity

For years, Democrats have railed against anonymous campaign contributions as a uniquely corrupting political force — even as President Biden benefited from a record-shattering amount of "dark money" donations during the 2020 election.

A report published by Bloomberg News shows that Biden raked in about $145 million in donations from anonymous donors to outside groups backing him, far outstripping the $28.4 million spent on behalf of his rival, former President Donald Trump. It also tops the previous record of $113 million in dark money donations spent on behalf of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.

For instance, Priorities USA Action Fund, one of the most prominent Democratic super PACs supporting Biden, used $26 million in funds originally donated to its nonprofit arm, called Priorities USA, to back the then-candidate, according to Bloomberg. The donors of that money do not need to be disclosed.

[Shockm]

Biden signed an EO that the Caronavirus would not be called the China flu, even though it originated in Wuhan China.

Tonight Marc Siegel on Fox News said that ironically, the Spanish flu Pandemic was falsely named that because of the ruler of Spain was one of the first people with that disease. Thus, Spanish flu gained its label. Actually, from his college research on that disease, he found out it originated in...........you guessed it, CHINA. He said that the “German Measles” came from Germany, and it is differentiated from The “Measles” by that label.

[ABC]

I thought there was quite a bit of research that Ft Riley was the original super-spreader of the Spanish Flu.

[Shockm]

I thought there was quite a bit of research that Ft Riley was the original super-spreader of the Spanish Flu.

That's where the first cases of the outbreak were confirmed. Not where it originated. I wonder how many people died before these cases were brought to light. I would imagine that epidemiology wasn't as advanced as it is today.

[Shockm]

I thought there was quite a bit of research that Ft Riley was the original super-spreader of the Spanish Flu.

I did just a very little bit of research on this topic and this wiki was easy to find.

Where did the Spanish flu originate?
While it's unlikely that the “Spanish Flu” originated in Spain, scientists are still unsure of its source. France, China and Britain have all been suggested as the potential birthplace of the virus, as has the United States, where the first known case was reported at a military base in Kansas on March 11, 1918.

Siegel said he did a high level research paper on the subject so I don' t know how or where he found the information he reported, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

Where is the outrage over Hiden Joe's use of the Executive Order? Weren't we told by the left an MSM that Trump using the EO was outrageous and an abuse of power?

#unity

[SubGod22]

Where is the outrage over Hiden Joe's use of the Executive Order? Weren't we told by the left an MSM that Trump using the EO was outrageous and an abuse of power?

#unity

It was an absolute abuse of power when Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton.....did it. Same with Biden. Expecting Dems or Reps to be consistent in their beliefs is expecting way too much. Kind of like how Republicans are fiscally conservative and small government when they're not in power, but then do nothing but grow government and spending when they're in power.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

I agree that it is abusive, regardless of who is doing it. I wouldn't expect consistency from the politicians. What I think it telling is the coverage of it from the "journalists". It's a joke.