Originally Posted By: Spyder7
Tempest, the properly worded articles and cherry picked statistics can demonstrate whatever point you want to illustrate. And anything posted from the Cato Institute on the subject isn't worth the time it would take to even glance at it as far as this subject goes. Not only are they NOT any kind of impartial body, they are a "think-tank" and policy formulation organization (i.e., government lobbyist) whose membership is made up exclusively of card carrying neo-conservatives (or neo-liberal, take your pick of terms as they are interchangeable) with their own policy agenda that they make no secret about. Free markets and the supposed benefits it brings to all is something they've claimed long before NAFTA and such even existed.
This is a pile of streaming manure. The facts, whether you want to admit them or not, are that:
1. The middle class is not only shrinking, but those comprising both its ranks and those of the working classes, are worse off than they ever were. This began decades ago and the rate has only been accelerating.
2. The wealth that was once held by this segment didn't simply vanish; it was merely transferred: from the middle class to the wealthiest percentiles of society.
This is not something that is debatable. Political scientists, economists, and sociologists have observed this wealth transfer taking place for decades and have produced volumes of paper to substantiate the same claims I have made here (and I acknowledge them because it was part of the material I covered as an undergrad while shifting back and forth between political economy and behavioral science, or social psychology, as my social science concentration that was to prepare for further post-graduate study).
The only thing that's debated anymore, are the causal factors, and how much influence each has had on our new reality. Those who oppose globalization and free trade, point the finger mainly at those forces (and its conceivable, and even likely, that this is why oppose free trade and globalization). Others attribute it to technological developments that have rendered much domestic manufacturing "obsolete," and the transference of this pool of labor from better paying manufacturing jobs to lower paying service sector jobs. And on it goes. The list of likely causes are many, and with the overlap among them, exact causation has proven impossible to nail down.
Selective statistics prove nothing, and anybody (such as myself) who has studied even basic statistics and the subjects they are used in, knows this. For statistics to be meaningful, you have to look at many indicators and compare them to intervals across a fairly lengthy period of time. The most useless of all statistics are those compiled by special interest groups who have a special interest (hence the term they are referred to) in using measures the paint the picture that is in accord with the very policies they promote.
Nice try though, but unlike the "people in this thread who have no grasp of economics" you referred to earlier in this thread, I did my economics and business electives, and I also did a 4th year undergrad course taught by the department head in my major on the labor market and unemployment, and which was grounded in a study of how government policy and spending has evolved since the time of Keynes and his (then) revolutionary impact on macroeconomics, coupled with the transformation in the methods of domestic production, shifts and changes within the labor market, and the net effects of this transformation.
By the way I also WORK in a field where we deal daily, face to face, with the products of our evolving society. I hear their stories, and that real world, first hand experience has strongly influenced the beliefs I hold today.
And I then get to compare my front line experience with those of the policy makers (in government, and within my own health care corporation), and take stock of how they compare to one another. And that's all I can say about that as, even in my personal time, I'm not permitted to discuss that issue any further - as much as I'd love to (but I love my job more).
-Spyder
Thanks Spyder, well put..
Tempest, the properly worded articles and cherry picked statistics can demonstrate whatever point you want to illustrate. And anything posted from the Cato Institute on the subject isn't worth the time it would take to even glance at it as far as this subject goes. Not only are they NOT any kind of impartial body, they are a "think-tank" and policy formulation organization (i.e., government lobbyist) whose membership is made up exclusively of card carrying neo-conservatives (or neo-liberal, take your pick of terms as they are interchangeable) with their own policy agenda that they make no secret about. Free markets and the supposed benefits it brings to all is something they've claimed long before NAFTA and such even existed.
This is a pile of streaming manure. The facts, whether you want to admit them or not, are that:
1. The middle class is not only shrinking, but those comprising both its ranks and those of the working classes, are worse off than they ever were. This began decades ago and the rate has only been accelerating.
2. The wealth that was once held by this segment didn't simply vanish; it was merely transferred: from the middle class to the wealthiest percentiles of society.
This is not something that is debatable. Political scientists, economists, and sociologists have observed this wealth transfer taking place for decades and have produced volumes of paper to substantiate the same claims I have made here (and I acknowledge them because it was part of the material I covered as an undergrad while shifting back and forth between political economy and behavioral science, or social psychology, as my social science concentration that was to prepare for further post-graduate study).
The only thing that's debated anymore, are the causal factors, and how much influence each has had on our new reality. Those who oppose globalization and free trade, point the finger mainly at those forces (and its conceivable, and even likely, that this is why oppose free trade and globalization). Others attribute it to technological developments that have rendered much domestic manufacturing "obsolete," and the transference of this pool of labor from better paying manufacturing jobs to lower paying service sector jobs. And on it goes. The list of likely causes are many, and with the overlap among them, exact causation has proven impossible to nail down.
Selective statistics prove nothing, and anybody (such as myself) who has studied even basic statistics and the subjects they are used in, knows this. For statistics to be meaningful, you have to look at many indicators and compare them to intervals across a fairly lengthy period of time. The most useless of all statistics are those compiled by special interest groups who have a special interest (hence the term they are referred to) in using measures the paint the picture that is in accord with the very policies they promote.
Nice try though, but unlike the "people in this thread who have no grasp of economics" you referred to earlier in this thread, I did my economics and business electives, and I also did a 4th year undergrad course taught by the department head in my major on the labor market and unemployment, and which was grounded in a study of how government policy and spending has evolved since the time of Keynes and his (then) revolutionary impact on macroeconomics, coupled with the transformation in the methods of domestic production, shifts and changes within the labor market, and the net effects of this transformation.
By the way I also WORK in a field where we deal daily, face to face, with the products of our evolving society. I hear their stories, and that real world, first hand experience has strongly influenced the beliefs I hold today.
And I then get to compare my front line experience with those of the policy makers (in government, and within my own health care corporation), and take stock of how they compare to one another. And that's all I can say about that as, even in my personal time, I'm not permitted to discuss that issue any further - as much as I'd love to (but I love my job more).
-Spyder
Thanks Spyder, well put..
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