I've been going through my old books lately, and as a result, have in front of me America: What Went Wrong? -- a book written condensed from a series of Philadelphia Inquirer which were run in 1991, near the close of the Bush (41) years:
America: What Went Wrong? is an expanded version of a nine-part series originally published by the Philadelphia Inquirer in October 1991. The series generated the largest response from readers in the newpaper's history -- some 20,000 letters, notes, telephone calls, and requests for reprints.
And it's easy to see why: The book is wall-to-wall scaremongering. It was the end of the world back in 1991, and things, apparently, had only been getting worse and worse since 1980.
For example, this is the sort of "bad" news the reader is given in the first chapter, entitled "Dismantling the Middle Class":
The Bulging Ranks of the Rich. Between 1980 and 1989, the number of people reporting incomes of more than a half-million dollars rocketed from 16,881 to 183,240 -- an increase of 985 percent. That represented the largest percentage increase in the century....
Because of the dramatic increase in their numbers, the over-$500,000 group is accounting for a larger share of overall income tax collections at a time when their individual payments have fallen off sharply. In 1980, they paid $8.1 billion in taxes, or 3 percent of total individual income taxes. In 1989, they paid $59.4 billion, or 14 percent of the total.
Okay, let me get this straight: The middle class is disappearing because a huge number of them have gotten rich. And, the government has more money now, and more is being contributed by the rich. And this is bad somehow?
I guess it's supposed to be bad if you're one of the middle class people who are being "left behind" -- why aren't you among the filthy rich? I guess being rich is wrong when you're not part of it, but okay when you are. It's a case based entirely on envy. Me, I'm glad more people got rich. As long as I'm not living worse than last year, I don't see why I should be unhappy at the good fortune of another.
Here's another blub -- see if you can spot the deception:
Trapped at the Bottom. ... Between 1980 and 1989, the average wage earned by those in the under-$20,000 income category rose $123 -- from $8,528 to $8,651. That was an increase of 1.4 percent. Over the decade, the average salaries of people with incomes more than $1 million rose $255,088 -- from $151,499 to $770,587 -- an increase of 49.5 percent. That, it should be stressed, was their increase from wages and salaries alone.
Did you spot the deception? There were several.
The section is entitled "Trapped at the Bottom", implying the people below $20,000 in 1980 were still stuck down there in 1989. But yet, there is no evidence given that people earning below $20,000 in 1980 were still "trapped" there in 1989, or that there were even less people there at the time.
In fact, ask yourself a question: If there had been more people than ever earning less than $20K annually, wouldn't these authors have surely mentioned a fact so in line with their case? So it's likely, from their silence, that there were fewer people than ever before in this category.
Second, the comparison is meaningless: They're comparing an average income between $0 and $20K to one with an unbounded top. Imagine I went one step futher and argued:
In 1980, the average annual income of people making between $19,999.99 and $20,000.01 was $20,000. Yet a decade later, the average income for people in this range was still a paltry $20,000. They made no progress at all -- they weren't even keeping up with inflation!
Of course! The average salary on any given year in a fixed range (say $0-20K) is always going to fall somewhere about in the middle of that range. And the smaller you make the range, the less variation you'll see in that range from year to year. If I limit it to a three-cent variation, we could show that people in a certain range will never be making more money.
Some people can see through this. Some people can't. I suspect these reporters knew full well this was a meaningless comparison. What a terrible way to take advantage of those who didn't know any better.
These are the kind of scare tactics the left was using a dozen years ago: The middle class is falling apart! And indeed, as we join the teeming, starving throngs, yearing for Soylent Green protien, we confirm the incredible foresight of these authors...
No, wait. What we actually fail to do is pay attention, and learn lessons from history.
My gas is shut off in the first time in my life starting today...
I'm just curious: how are you on the internet?
America: What went wrong or Who Stole The Dream as I know it was spot on.
Really? That America was doing terrible, economically, under Reagan's policies? Yes, the 1980s and 1990s were such a time of depression.
Since you're having trouble now, shouldn't it be Obama's policies you're criticizing?
All throughout American history capital has been at war with labor and for the most part they win.
I do sympathize with your situation, but this view is a huge mistake. "Labor" and "capital" are in the same boat — not at each others' throats. What's good for one is usually good for both. The view that it's "us versus them" is essentially Marxist (which is fairly recent, here in the US) — and usually causes countries to go down the tubes.
Labor suffers deplorable living standards...
Until very recently, living standards — especially for regular working people — have been higher than ever. How many televisions do you think people had in the 1950s? How about now? What about microwave ovens? Cars? Here you are, saying you can't pay your gas bill, and you have internet ... I would have been amazed to be able to connect to something like the Internet in 1982. Networking was something only universities, corporations, and very rich traders could afford.
You come across as dangerously out of touch with reality. You look at the wealthiest nation in the world, and think it's the worst place on earth. You look at a lower and middle class which lives at standards un-dreamed-of by most the rest of the world, and you wish, wish, wish you could live under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, who grovelled in abject poverty and repression.
You may be a nice person, but your beliefs are obscene.
Labor has had a small number of prosperous years...
"Labor" — meaning unions — make money like the mob — by threatening people who disagree with them with harm or death. The money they make for their supporters comes out of the pockets of ordinary people. That's grossly immoral, much worse than the "Pinkertons" you're concerned with.
Labor had decades of control — and used it to cut it's own throat. They adopted the same idiotic "us versus them" view you're advocating, and gave manufacturers in other countries a huge advantage. $120K a year to assemble a car part? That's absurd. My local grocery store went on strike because the baggers were getting 100% healthcare coverage and didn't want the same co-pay the rest of us had. That's unsustainable.
So now labor wants to control the government. Good move on their part, since nobody can do without the police, fire department, etc — but bad for the rest of us. But they're more than willing to screw their country to line their own pockets, all while pretending to the most moral people on the planet.
Whole cities sprout up in China in a year while we can fix a pothole...
The US government grows larger and larger, consuming more and more money — and yet can't even fix a pothole. Your solution? More government! (I'm sure it's someone else's fault the potholes aren't getting fixed. "Capital", perhaps, or "The Pinkertons", surely.)
We can than bring back trade protection that makes outsourcing more costly than making it here.
It's a shame we allow everyone to vote. Smoot-Hawley Tariff? Ever hear of it? What you're advocating is a sure-fire formula for another massive depression. A huge part of the American public — motivated mostly of greed, envy, hatred, and laziness — wants to do that to themselves again.
Pray we don't all get what they deserve.
You claim to want to "redistribute" the wealth — but then you want to shut down a rising standard of living in other countries, leaving them in poverty, if you think it will put more money in your pocket. You only want it "redistributed" from the rich to you — not to those poorer than you. Your compassion is mere greed.
Have you walked outside recently? Friday night looks like Sunday morning. All the money is gone that once lifted us to a better life. We have be sold out by the few rich. Our national opportunities are sold to china for captial interest while labor dies. Back to the farms people for you do not have the guts to fight or you would have 20 years ago. Its been over.
Posted by: on December 21, 2010 03:22 AM