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sallymonster
Joined: 06 Feb 2010
Location: Seattle area
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 Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:26 am Post subject: The American Dream is a Myth |
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. . . according to this guy.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/american-dream-myth-joseph-stiglitz-price-inequality-124338674.html
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Income inequality has become the subject of much debate in this country, in large part because of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In his latest book, The Price of Inequality, Columbia Professor and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz examines the causes of income inequality and offers some remedies. In between, he reaches some startling conclusions, including that America is "no longer the land of opportunity" and "the 'American dream' is a myth."
While we all know stories of people who've moved up the social stratosphere, Stiglitz says the statistics tell a very different story. In the last 30 years the share of national income held by the top 1% of Americans has doubled; for to the top 0.1%, their share has tripled, he reports. Meanwhile, median incomes for American workers have stagnated. |
Or, as I like to say: "Want to succeed in America? Be born into a rich family." Obviously, that's an overly simplistic view, but that's how it works for most of us. |
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slothrop
Joined: 03 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:53 am Post subject: |
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edit
Last edited by slothrop on Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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recessiontime
Joined: 21 Jun 2010
Location: Got avatar privileges nyahahaha
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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| I guess America economy is finally catching up it's Canadian counter part. Soon enough all their jobs will be accessible only via networking and working in countries overseas in South Korea! |
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sml7285
Joined: 26 Apr 2012
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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| recessiontime wrote: |
| I guess America economy is finally catching up it's Canadian counter part. Soon enough all their jobs will be accessible only via networking and working in countries overseas in South Korea! |
I feel that networking is key in any country you go to. It's not the only factor, but it's something that gets a foot in the door and an interview at least.
I got my internship which I start in a few weeks in Ulsan via connections. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 3:08 pm Post subject: Equality of Opportunity: the Buzzword that Obfuscates |
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Joseph Stiglitz carries a lot of credibility. He actually deserves his Nobel Prize of Economics.
| Stiglitz wrote: |
| America has the least equality of opportunity of any of the advanced industrial economies |
Will Wilkinson: Against equality of opportunity
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The distinction between equality of outcome and equality of opportunity is mostly illusory.
Wealth is just distilled opportunity. Our opportunities are in no small part a function of our parents' level of economic achievement�of their economic "outcome". If opportunity is in fact so closely tied to outcome, then equalising opportunity would require constant coercive "correction" of the patterns of income and wealth that bubble up from economic activity. But that�s the principal objection to the government attempting to maintain equality of outcome, or any particular pattern of goods, for that matter. So when Americans endorse "equality of opportunity", they probably aren't begging for the titanic interventions that would be required to literally equalise opportunity. I think what conservatives are groping for in their confused rhetoric about "equality of opportunity" is the idea that everyone should have access to a baseline level of opportunity. Everyone ought to have enough opportunity to participate in our society's institutions fully and well, enough to make a decent life. |
Go to Wilkinson's article to read a solid Jonathan Chait takedown of Ryan/Romney class rhetoric.
Timothy Noah: The Mobility Myth
Why everyone overestimates American equality of opportunity
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| Most of Western Europe today is both more equal in incomes and more economically mobile than the United States. And it isn�t just Western Europe. Countries as varied as Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and Pakistan all have higher degrees of income mobility than we do. A nation that prides itself on its lack of class rigidity has, in short, become significantly more economically rigid than many other developed countries. |
Go to Noah's article for the origin of the phrase 'the American Dream.' |
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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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| recessiontime wrote: |
| I guess America economy is finally catching up it's Canadian counter part. Soon enough all their jobs will be accessible only via networking and working in countries overseas in South Korea! |
There are more countries with jobs than South Korea. Many in South America offer far better working conditions, i.e. Ecuador, for those not lucky enough to find one of the few good schools. |
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12ax7
Joined: 07 Nov 2009
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slothrop
Joined: 03 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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edit
Last edited by slothrop on Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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NohopeSeriously
Joined: 17 Jan 2011
Location: The Christian Right-Wing Educational Republic of Korea
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| Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:54 am Post subject: |
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The American Dream? You mean that 30-minute animated documentary about corrupt American banksters? Rockerfeller me surprised.  |
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jaykimf
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:13 am Post subject: Re: Equality of Opportunity: the Buzzword that Obfuscates |
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| Kuros wrote: |
Joseph Stiglitz carries a lot of credibility. He actually deserves his Nobel Prize of Economics.
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Didn't you say being a strident Keynesian was a problem? Joseph Stiglitz is a strident Keynesian. He is also highly critical of the free market economists favored by many libertarians and the Mises institute. He is, what the free market fundamentalists would call, not a real economist. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 1:01 pm Post subject: Stiglitz is more than merely a Keynesian |
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| jaykimf wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
Joseph Stiglitz carries a lot of credibility. He actually deserves his Nobel Prize of Economics.
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Didn't you say being a strident Keynesian was a problem? Joseph Stiglitz is a strident Keynesian. He is also highly critical of the free market economists favored by many libertarians and the Mises institute. He is, what the free market fundamentalists would call, not a real economist. |
So what? Are you arguing that we shouldn't listen to Stiglitz's opinions on income inequality, or are you merely being (needlessly) confrontational?
Things I like about Stiglitz:
* critical of the status quo
* emphasis on the poor in society
* critical of other Keynesian economists' obsession with GDP growth
* predicted the financial crisis
* he prefers a carbon tax over cap-and-trade (see #16)
* generally is more insightful and knowledgeable than other pro-Wall Street Keynesians
Yes, so he's a Keynesian. Most economists are. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:50 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| While we all know stories of people who've moved up the social stratosphere, Stiglitz says the statistics tell a very different story. In the last 30 years the share of national income held by the top 1% of Americans has doubled; for to the top 0.1%, their share has tripled, he reports. Meanwhile, median incomes for American workers have stagnated. |
The reason for this is what's important:
The US government has been dominated and controlled by the Keynsian-socialists: the dominant system of governmental policy, the cause of inflation and recessions, government debt, poverty, unemployment and the diverging income levels: Keynesian-socialism. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| Quote: |
| While we all know stories of people who've moved up the social stratosphere, Stiglitz says the statistics tell a very different story. In the last 30 years the share of national income held by the top 1% of Americans has doubled; for to the top 0.1%, their share has tripled, he reports. Meanwhile, median incomes for American workers have stagnated. |
The reason for this is what's important:
The US government has been dominated and controlled by the Keynsian-socialists: the dominant system of governmental policy, the cause of inflation and recessions, government debt, poverty, unemployment and the diverging income levels: Keynesian-socialism. |
Sure it's not just the fluoride they put in the water? |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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George Carlin was brilliant.
The "American Dream" really is just some words at this point. I've been all over and you talk to naive people in China and they say they want to move there and have "the dream". But of course they have never been there, their idea of what it is like is from watching the TV show "Friends". Yeah, that would be pretty awesome, but of course that's not the reality. Maybe it was a great place in the 50s, dunno.
You do seem to see a lot more people discussing this topic these days; Americans wanting to move abroad, and skilled Chinese wanting to stay local. |
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sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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I'd love to see us cut defense spending dramatically by ending a lot of overseas bases, wars, etc.
Spend that and other monies on massive infrastructure projects. Shovel ready projects, tons of bridges, tunnels, roads that need to be fixed, retrofitted or built, high speed rail, technologically getting america wired. korea is far, far ahead of us.
All these are domestic jobs and keeps the money inside the country. |
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