or maybe people are just stupid.
Hopefully, he develops his argument downpage because this is specious.
Fundamentalists have been around as long as the republic, no-one’s ever cared as to the name of the VP after the election, and someone toting a snowball isn’t proof of, or against, anything.
Though it’s impolite to agree, I won’t argue.
Even the dumbest amongst us would benefit from a required course in statistics. If nothing else, it would seriously reduce the amount of bs they’d willingly swallow.
That article in the OP from Psychology Today is a great article along with musicprnt’s posts.
I wonder what American’s are afraid of when shown flaws in the country.
We are pretty far from perfect. I thought America was a place where we try to do better. Each generation better than the last.
There was a story a few years ago that stated 93 percent of the income gains went to 1 percent of the people. I don’t think there has been much change the last couple of years.
So, my question is why should 99 percent of the population support an economic and political system where 1 percent of the people get 93 percent of the income gains?
Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist professor at Duke did a study. The study asked both conservatives and liberals how the economic pie should be divvied up. I find the results interesting because conservatives and liberals have similar ideas how the pie should be divvied. They pretty much agree.
Going back to the original post, both conservatives and liberals dont know how the economic pie is divvied up. Conservatives and liberals agree and they don’t know it. 
Who benefits by this ignorance?
I did realize that there are plenty of wealthy people who didn’t get that way through WS etc. I realize there are people who own companies and stores etc who are worth a lot. I know some of them. I thought I had read that they were a smaller percentage than they actually comprise. My point was that it is easier to be a part of the Old Boy Network and make a mint than it is to earn it the hard way.
I am among the first generation in recent history that, statistically, will not do better than our parents’ generation. And I’ve known this my whole life.
It is depressing. We’re frustrated but we’re told we can do nothing. Oh we can raise our voices and do something about the social conditions- and we have. But we don’t have the money to influence economics. Not yet and we’re not getting there any time soon.
In regards to the article, we have one of the highest rates of religiosity, especially conservative religious observation, in the Western world and continue to be one of the most backwards countries in critical, harmful ways. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. ;
(Note: this is not to say that religion or religious observation leads to anti-progress. This is to say that the adherence to extremely conservative, rigid aspects of religion is the problem.)
I liked this article and agree with much of it.
There was a story on NPR recently. Children from the upper middle class who fall in the bottom 25 percent of test takers are more likely to become college graduates than children from poor families who are among the top 25 percent of test takers. Does this sound like the slogans we hear in America? Anybody can make it, if you have the ability, etc.
There have been a couple of changes that have had an effect on education and upward mobility. More of the cost of extra curriculers are passed on to the individual family than in the past. So, if it costs $2,000 to play on a team, a family with an income of $20,000 may have to say forget it while some family with an income of $150,000 can come up with the money. If extra curriculers teach social skills or are used in college admissions, poorer kids fall behind.
The other item I found interesting was 40 or 50 years ago, poor parents and rich patents used to spend an equal time with their kids. Now, poorer parents spend 45 minutes less a day with their kids. This affects brain development, social skills, etc.
I remember reading either that study or one just like it. When queried, both the left and right thought it should break down about the same. The difference from how it actually breaks down was incredible.
I’d say America’s problems are mostly chance coupled with some bad business decisions. As for chance, it just happens that we industrialized a while back and the world changed and steel isn’t here anymore along with a bunch of other things that moved to cheaper places. We also built city infrastructures long ago enough that much is worn out. Some of the bad decisions didn’t seem bad at the time: we’re paying a price for not having enough density because it turns out sprawl sucks up resources to maintain. We allowed the creation of what I call “officeparkland” rather than keep offices in denser areas where public transit would make sense. We tore up the existing transit services - like the street cars and inter-urban street cars - because no one believed we would ever want such a thing back when traffic wasn’t much and no one commuted 2 hours one way.
Some decisions are more directly and obviously choices: we’ve made public higher education very expensive. That hurts our productive capacity because education is investment spending and we’ve seen that as individual investment rather than societal investment. By making this an individual or family burden, we’ve simply failed to extract what we need from our people.
Even more directly, much of our “industrial” or “jobs” policy consists of stealing business from each other rather than developing business that’s better than what other countries offer. And we delude ourselves: we think we’re #1 in many areas where we’re sad followers. Take construction: in this country in general and in the northeast - where there’s much construction - we lack quality concrete providers and our trades - union or not - resist many techniques (or simply don’t teach them) so we can’t make buildings up to the level of many Asian or European countries. Can’t form the concrete properly, etc. As I like to point out, the big newish bridge in Boston is the same design that’s basic in Asia and one is found on the Laotian border, meaning it’s found in one of the poorest countries in the world. The construction techniques used in the Big Dig were imported, from the slurry methods to the big tubes sunk to make a tunnel. We don’t use the modern prefabricated methods seen in London because, bluntly, we’re not able to do it. Basic products like boilers are much better engineered and made to higher tolerances in Europe (and now in Asia, particularly China, meaning in both high and low cost regions). But here the focus remains: what business can we lure away from some other state. We do that while the rest of the world moves ahead.
I read people in their 50’s and 60’s saying we made it so others can make it. The United States is a meritocracy. “I am proof”.
Without even getting into the outlier effect…
Times changed.
The public has no idea how inheritance is taxed. Isn’t 33 percent of the wealth in the Forbes 400 inherited?
I like Chris Rock’s quote but I am paraphrasing…,
If the poor knew how rich, rich people are, there would be riots in the street.
I think coming from factory towns makes it very, very clear that we’re not doing as well as our parents’ generation and won’t be able to (as a whole- obviously there are exceptions and I count myself lucky to be among them but I recognize absolutely that I am an outlier). We know it because our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents worked in factories, lived a truly middle class lifestyle (not CC middle class), and were financially secure. The factories don’t exist anymore. We know it, they know it, and I rarely hear from older generations around here “We did it so you can, too.” because they’ve been affected by the factory closures, too.
This is playing out all over the country but on a much slower and different scale. Here it happened fast and it was like night and day. We went from financial security and knowing that there was a reasonably secure future to losing everything in less than 20 years. That is crippling to individuals, families, and communities.
Economic mobility was probably greater when people now in their 50s and 60s were in their high school, post-secondary education (if they did that), and entry into the work force years, compared to now.
That one percent is laughing all the way to the bank, too. They are the real power brokers of the world (not just the US), who tell the figureheads what’s what, and what they had better do if they know what’s good for them. It is no accident whatsoever that there has never been a mandate to make economics and personal finance a part of required curriculum in our schools (especially not the public ones), because if the curtain got pulled back, there would be some ‘spainin’ to do. They know that knowledge such as that which they possess, is power itself, and ignorance is bondage unbreakable. And they have a vested interest in keeping as many people in bondage as possible, in parsing out privilege, in the dividing and sub-dividing of political factions, in keepiing the 99% believing their real enemy is anyone other than the ones who hold all the cards.
@lergmom - I agree with your points. To add, it seems that if you try to express such opinions openly these days, to express how the USA is falling behind other countries, including some countries previously deemed 3rd world, in several areas but particularly in our nation’s infrastructure, its seen as un-'Murican. Certain quarters still will not acknowledge that we are not the greatest country in the world in ANY way or by ANY measure. I think the best thing we can do is make all young people travel and live in other places, both within their own country and internationally. It’s eye opening.
@ucbalumnus , post 51…that’s my argument.
Are there any studies that show otherwise?
@doschicos many, many young people know that we are not the best country in the world. 1 in 5 children live in poverty in this country. Many more live near the poverty line.
Trust me, those who live or have lived in poverty in the last 20 years are under no delusions that we’re the best country in the world. Not even close. We don’t need to go to another place in order to understand that.
One probably needs to be in the top 0.1% or even higher for one to have the money to be a real power broker beyond the local level.
I believe you, @romanigypsyeyes, plenty do not believe it. But plenty still do, or are being raised and sheltered by those who do. Being exposed to other ideas, other cultures, other ways of doing things is always beneficial. It may or may not change one’s viewpoint but it does change one’s outlook and understanding.
I agree and encourage everyone who is able to study away/study abroad. I have done both and highly encourage it.
I am just saying that there are millions of young people who are living it.
But, but, but…American exceptionalism!
Seriously though, I think the one thing that makes us exceptional is the miracle of our founding documents, which despite the fact that history provides countless instances in which we failed miserably to live up to them, nevertheless ceaselessly pointed us true north. If not for The Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and bill of rights,The Civil Rights Movement would have been devoid of its moral mandate, as well as other basic rights mandates, such as the one celebrated most recently: the right to marry whom one pleases, regardless of sexual orientation.