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The First Generation to Never Know American Prosperity?
When AOC uttered this ridiculous sentiment, I asked myself whether millennials were likely to look at the phone on which they were likely reading this tripe and say: Really? This looks pretty prosperous to me.
I thought it unlikely, but I should know better than to paint an entire generation with such broad strokes. Here is a little ray of sunshine by a 26-year-old I saw referenced on Rush Limbaugh:
Published in GeneralYet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, elect politicians dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism. Why? The answer is this, my generation has ONLY seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, or see the rise and fall of socialism and communism. We don’t know what it’s like not to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.
Statism interferes with people taking care of themselves. Honesty and productivity don’t pay off like they should. The correct course of action is either overly unclear, or it’s effectively immoral.
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
We are the cleanest dirty shirt on the planet. It doesn’t take much. My understanding is it’s going to continue for quite a while. The fact remains that some things need to be massively overhauled if we are going to progress like we are used to.
Four minutes.
Central planning begets central planning all over the planet. It doesn’t work, but it keeps the ruling class in power for a long time while everything stagnates.
https://twitter.com/jthenomad81/status/1119685457686798337
Welfare.
I don’t buy it. If we’re talking about Canadians, maybe. It seems to me that to pack up your whole life and move to a country that has a different culture and different language you probably have enough drive that you are going to want to work. Would you move to Portugal, Jordan, India, or Argentina just because you were assured that you could be put on welfare? America has been a magnet for immigration since well before LBJ’s Great Society, so I don’t think it’s all about getting handouts.
Lol no. Welfare is what makes this place better than elsewhere. It isn’t “opportunity”. Its easy access to education, health care, food, and more safety than they had in their home country. And all of it is free with welfare. You don’t actually need to work for it.
Also, even those that work for minimum wage, their standard of living is overwhelmingly better than where they came from.
Do tell me… does going from a the only child of a dual income household to a rundown flat (or living out of your car) sound like an example of prosperity?
Or does going from a shack in a cocaine field out in the middle of nowhere to a fully powered and plumbed single family house in a worn out and dilapidated neighborhood sound like an example of prosperity?
The first is a downgrade. The second is an upgrade.
Safety. Many people are fleeing places of lots of violence and casual death. Economic aspects are another but that may not be legal employment. Many come here because it is easier to get money from those that have money.
also you have to understand there are knowledge issues. I know people that were lured by the talk of the amount of money they could get via work, benefits, theft but it was not until they got here they found out how expensive it was to live here.
On the surface, the first is a downgrade, but it is also a natural step in growing up and becoming independent, or at least it was. Do you think that generations in the past did not struggle when they left their parents’ homes? Many started out poor and eventually worked their way up the economic ladder. Is there an expectation that one should always immediately obtain the living standard of one’s parents?
Always immediately? Probably not. But there is an interesting article on this subject at Quillette: The End of Aspiration
Here is a paragraph:
The examples are not only from the United States, though.
The comments are interesting, too. (Quillette seems to have a good contingent of Australians, btw.)
If I’m spending less time at Ricochet these days, it’s partly because I’m spending more time reading the articles and comments at Quillette.
Listen to Charles Hugh Smith interviews on Financial Repression Authority and make up your own mind.
I will defer to those who know the economic history of the US a lot better than I do, but I think using the depression to post WWII stats and experiences as the norm is a mistake. It is understandable, because that’s within our memories still. Bu it was an anomaly, in my opinion: a generation that lives through a severe depression, followed by an unprecedented boom for the US as we were the only significant economy standing after WWII.
Everyone leaves this out.
That paragraph is all post-depression.
China is losing jobs to Vietnam because the labor is cheaper. They are putting robots in Vietnam. Deflation. Better living through purchasing power. The only limit to this is how stupid the leaders are in any given country. But we are supposed to run with 2% inflation and home prices are supposed to constantly go up.
You are trapped in an education system that is basically 100% cartel-ized. Same thing for healthcare.
How is this supposed to work again?
Trump and Bernie are popular for good reason.
Hedge fund guy. I’m pretty sure he’s a Democrat, too.
Here’s another one. Blockchain. Is that inflationary or deflationary? It’s obviously more efficient than anything we’ve ever done before. It favors capital over labor and in the long run, you don’t need much capital for it to work.
Do you guys get it?
Life is about purchasing power. The last 100 years have been in inflationary, but that era is over.
The problem is there is so much debt, when everything breaks, all of the central banks are going to go crazy with inflation. There is no other way out, politically.
Be sure to vote. LOL
Labor is capital.
It’s the rudest form of it, but it is capital.
Right I’m very well aware of that, and of course the Ruling Class doesn’t care.
I’m just saying that machines and financial capital are different from human capital, and the Ruling Class is ignorant or indifferent.
link
We’re Living in the Age of Capital Consumption | Ronald-Peter Stöferle https://mises.org/wire/were-living-age-capital-consumption#.XLz66d-pWE8.twitter