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Researchers Ask: Are People Better Off Than 50 Years Ago? (marketwatch.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader gollum123 quotes MarketWatch:
Are you doing better than the previous generation? The Pew Research Center, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C., asked nearly 43,000 people in 38 countries around the globe that question this past spring. Residents in 20 countries said people like them were better off than they were 50 years ago. In Vietnam, 88% felt better off, followed by India (69%), South Korea (68%), Japan (65%), Germany (65%), Turkey (65%), the Netherlands (64%), Sweden (64%), Poland (62%) and Spain (60%)...
The U.S. was among the other 18 countries in which people said they were actually worse off than half a century ago. In Senegal, 45% felt this way, followed by Nigeria (54%), Kenya (53%), the U.S. (41%), Ghana (47%), Brazil (49%), France (46%), Hungary (39%), Lebanon (54%) and Peru (46%).
55% of Canadians feel they're better off, while just 45% of people in the U.K. feel the same way, according to the article.
"Venezuela, which has suffered from political unrest and economic turbulence in recent years, was last on the list. Some 72% people there said they felt worse off than 50 years ago."
The U.S. was among the other 18 countries in which people said they were actually worse off than half a century ago. In Senegal, 45% felt this way, followed by Nigeria (54%), Kenya (53%), the U.S. (41%), Ghana (47%), Brazil (49%), France (46%), Hungary (39%), Lebanon (54%) and Peru (46%).
55% of Canadians feel they're better off, while just 45% of people in the U.K. feel the same way, according to the article.
"Venezuela, which has suffered from political unrest and economic turbulence in recent years, was last on the list. Some 72% people there said they felt worse off than 50 years ago."
I have instant access to well-hung Brazilian tranny porn with rosebud action. On the other hand, most of the productivity of technology doesn't seem to translate into less stress, less working hours, or more security for me.
The countries that have become more liberal are better off. Those that have trended more conservative are worse off.
On the science/technical side, including the TECHNICAL aspects of medicine, we're way better off. On the other hand, superstition and the heavy hands of the state have gotten a lot worse.
Are people happier? Unlikely. But they may have greater opportunity and their impacts can be broader. But in the stories my grandfather told me I sense a great deal of exciting things. To go to town they had to marshal their team of horses and brush them out afterwards, in the cold (you could see the horse's breath). But that sort of chore and ritual can be deeply grounding, satisfying, and slower paced. Not worse. Maybe you don't accomplish as much on average? is that important?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
73% among those 50 and older say life is better now compared with 59% who say this among 18- to 29-year-olds
Did you say the opposite of what you meant: "41% of the people felt this way" (worse off than before); therefore, 59% must feel better off?
Majority of world population (and pretty much everyone of the adult working age) either wasn't around 50 years ago or, if they were, were too young to really understand. Combine that with various confirmation biases, tendency to forget the negative and overstate how good things were back in the old days - and this question is, essentially, meaningless as a true gauge of change in life quality.
At most all it does is measure how whiny a given group of people is. And US residents are some of the whiniest in the world (but, unsurprisingly, France beats us on this one, if only just a bit)
Things may be faster and more convenient now, but it's clear that improvements in communication have only made things worse, not better.
Boy the way Glenn Miller Played
Songs that made the Hit Parade
Guys like us we had it made
Those were the days.
And you knew who you were then
Girls were girl and men were men
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again
Didn't need no Welfare state
Everybody pulled his weight
Gee our old Lasalle Ran great
Those were the days!
Fifty years ago was 1967. This was before the oil crunch. I would say, if you were getting out of college with -any- degree, you pretty much were set for life, since jobs were plentiful, especially because government gave a shit about doing the job right, since the attitude of "lets make things as shitty as possible until we get sued" was not around.
If I graduated with an engineering degree back then, my life was pretty much set. Same with a natural sciences degree.
Now, degrees are worthless in the workplace and the time spent at a uni is time wasted where one could be gaining experience, and even with a degree, one barely would earn enough to survive.
Of course, with the Cold War in full swing, someone playing games with Russia, China, and countries hostile to the US wouldn't be taken as a "hero", as they seem to do now. Sell secrets back then, and it meant the firing squad.
What sort of researchers ask people faguely if they feel better off than a time they only sketchily remember, or might not even have been born in, and think the answer means something? Oh, a "think tank", got it.
Complain all you want, but in the late 50s and early 60s the cure for Poleo was discovered and administered....
First, you should check what's back in 1967:
Fifty years ago, Americans were being drafted to fight in the Vietnam war — a war so bloody and so largely useless that people were marching in the streets against it and fleeing the country to avoid it. In that same year, nationwide race riots led to over 100 deaths, and just three years later, the Kent State massacre happened, completely devastating Americans' trust in its government, followed shortly thereafter by Nixon's criminal conspiracy and resignation. And you can't even pretend that things were better a few years before that. After all, only fifty-five years ago, our country nearly ended the world during the Cuban missile crisis.
I hope and pray that most of the respondents didn't think very hard about that question before answering. Because if they did, then either our high school history books have become so whitewashed that nobody gets the full picture of just how bad things really were in America fifty years ago, the respondents slept through their American history classes, or the respondents did a little too much PCP in the 70s and don't remember the 60s anymore. Just saying.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You know you're jealous of every black woman who earns a six figure salary with a doctorate in gender studies.
Jealous means wanting them around, usually for copulation purposes. What you're thinking about is envy, which is a desire for what they have.
Also, psychological projection, once again.
A pyramid scheme which will solve itself.
Old guy opinion follows:
Assuming I were my current age 50 years ago, I'd be long dead. The fix for my problems weren't even conceived of then. As is, in spite of my previous problems, and in spite of missing several internal organs, I expect I'll survive another 20 years or so (and in so doing, live longer than any of my grandparents managed).
Now, one could argue that being able to make the previous statement to a worldwide audience in almost realtime is a bad thing, but I also happen to think that that's one of the major improvements in life in the last 50 years (Yes, I was born rather before the internet existed).
And other things too numerous to mention. Hell, I was around before cable TV, much less the internet...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The price of the average home has nearly doubled in the US over the last 50 years. Similar in the UK. A large part of the reason for this is that while the efficiency of making almost anything has gone up over time, the efficiency for building construction has actually gone down for many first world countries over the past 50 years. There's any number of reasons. Ever tighter construction standards that have absolutely no unification, a tighter job market with a lot more demand for workers more skilled than what construction will pay, etc. But the biggest are that construction is still a million tiny contractors that can't afford large scale investments, and that the tech for construction hasn't advanced much in 50 years. Someone from decades ago would still recognize most of what a construction worker does today.
For all that robotics is set to change this majorly over the next decade. Brick laying robots and rebar tying ones and etc. will start replacing a lot of construction work. But it doesn't help this very moment. Shelter is the other half of that "food and" for basics a person anywhere would hope to have. And having soaring housing costs all over the place isn't helping. Anyone hoping to get elected in the US or UK soonish would do well to tell people they'll do something about it, even though they can't actually do much.
The government learned its lesson and eliminated the draft. Surprise, surprise, nobody protests the wars anymore. Oh yeah, we still have wars, did you notice. We had some protesters, too, at least a few. The majority vastly outnumber the protesters who were told to shut the fuck up and get a job. We don't have any jobs anymore though, did you notice that too. As the economy has worsened steadily during the 21st century, we've seen war protesters become wall street protesters and now finally former protesters have become homeless beggars on the street. Nobody gives a shit about the future of the country anymore. America has no future.
America is good to Corporations. Corporations are the true citizens of this country, the humans are the expendable 2nd class citizens.
that those same people thought it would be legal to own gold back then too. If you asked them if they "wanted to live in a country where it was illegal to own gold" they would say that's crazy, and no way would they live in such an unfree place. And yet here we are. Because people are idiots who have no idea what the hell is going on. So it doesn't matter what they think, really. /shrug
55% of Canadians feel they're better off...according to the article.
Makes sense to me. 55% of Canadians were born in countries where people are treated like shit today and 50 years ago. The other 45% of us who were born here understand that Canada is now the septic tank of the world.
and see if it changes their mind.
Note that TFA simply asked if people thought they were better off than two generations ago, rather than doing some type of measurement.
Whether or not someone feels better off than they think they would have been 50 years ago is a purely subjective judgement. You might be able to prove that people actually are better off in terms of wealth, health etc. but it is still possible that they feel worse off despite this due to divisive politics, terrorist threats, mass immigration etc.
When it comes to how people feel the only practical measure is to ask them and trust their responses. A survey like this is a measurement of that subjective feeling.
Were not even born in Canada, it's easy to say your life is better now, especially after immigrating(since the only reason one generally immigrates is because things are shit at home).
Speaking as someone whos family came over in the ~1700's, all those surviving today say it was a heck of a lot better in the 60's.
If money equals 'better' look at the inflation adjusted incomes of the 60's. They were higher after expenses/taxes than today. They base it on 'family income' today, yes arguably a family makes ~20% more today than 50 years ago, but 50 years ago the majority of families were single income.. So what you have is 2 people working for only slightly more and then all the disadvantages involved with allowing the state to raise your kids.
Waiting for a revolution to free ourselves from socialism/communism/Corporatism.
Nothing is perfect obviously.
But when you compare a liberal place like most of the europe or us to some authoritarian conservative/socialist country, well, generally the liberal one have a much better economy and happier people in general.
It's like that when the population can choose who rules em and can choose who they buy their stuff from, those in power tend to deliver a better service to not lose the spot to their rivals.
Why not come out and mention the real cause of Venezuela's nightmare: Socialism.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Unless you were a big name, or ran afoul of him in his/your travels, Hoover simply lacked the manpower compared to what is possible today.
The FBI is bigger in manpower, funding, and technology than it was 50 years ago, and apathy surrounding privacy and police conduct has only made it worse.
Why are people less optimistic, and what is it about the past that people are thinking was so great?
The social contract that was put together after WWII was in tatters by the late 1960s. There was hope that things were changing and that the boomers would be able to re-write the rules of society for the better.
Today, the society that the boomers built has survived several financial and social stresses as well as a series of wars comparable to Vietnam (this time without a draft). We're provably better off today than we were in the 60s, though things aren't perfect.
I think the big difference is that there's not a common sense that anything is going to change in the near future. Of course, we are going to get to change society. Maybe it's just that based on the experience of the boomers, there's an understanding that we'll simply end up producing our own versions of Bush, Clinton, and Trump.
The "good ole days" are never as good as people remember it. The mind has a great way of forgetting the bad and exaggerating the good. Talking to my very rational parents who approach life with an open mind, they would not give up today for 50 years ago. Racism was many times worse than people today can imagine. Race riots and other clashes make today's protests seem like a church picnic. Air and water pollution was out of control in smog choked cities. Hell, rivers like the Cuyahoga would burn due to all the chemicals flowing through it. The conflicts of today are relatively tame compared to the wars and civil strife 50 years ago. Many treatable illness and diseases today were death sentences back then. Yea.. things were so good 50 years ago.
Just don't compare 20 or 30 years ago, because it is really going downhill. At least here in Denmark.
30 years ago, people would joke about why would someone want a private hospital, today we have private hospitals as well as health insurances.
Eccentric politicians were ridiculed when they projected the size of people working in some sort of governmental job and the tax level.
Well, I could type an endless list but it's christmas so cheer up.
L'Idiot
Who cares about the internet and cell phones when you can live in an era of black and white tv and leaded gasoline!
Maybe people want to work in offices constantly filled with smoke where everything is done on paper..wouldn't be an option for me, my job wasn't even possible til the 80s.
Avocados are over-rated anyway.
Because western europeans also live in socialist country and they have much better lives than most money worshipping yankees.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
In that time, I was already in my second year of college. Any diagnosis of cancer other than basal cell meant you automatically prepared for death. So far as we could see, the war in Vietnam would go on forever. Having scientific interests in that era meant being so radically different from everyone else that they might as well be living on another planet. Because no ordinary person had ever seen a computer, there was no inkling of how they might one day assume a place in the general culture. "Electronics" meant hi-fi audio and your oddball Uncle Fred, whose knotty-pine house was full of arcane ham radio gear.
Sod what people feel. People in the west are outrageously better off than 50 years ago. There is no question that it is true.
So, the response from Americans likely had a lot of people who weren't alive 50 yrs ago. I was 9 back then, so let me help you. It was 1967
1. We were in a hugely unpopular war in Vietnam.
2. There were race riots in the streets of Detroit...I lived there
3. Most people had 3-5 channels of black and white TV that typically ended around midnight.
4. Few people places air conditioning
5. Home telephones typically had "party lines"...you shared your number with neighbors and took turns.
6. There were no ATMs, grocery scanners, cell phones, personal computers, or even calculators.
7. Only about 50% of people completed high school...you can check census facts. Less than 20% had a 4 yr degree
8. Life expectancy was 14 years lower
I would argue that families were more tight knit back then, but other than that, if you think you're not better off today, you'll have to come up with some facts to back it up.
Just another day in Paradise
Please define how you mean "better lives". I lived there for six years, and you've got precious few things better IMO.
Just another day in Paradise
Apparently not;
Are you sure people are aware of what was happening 50 years ago, unless they are if 70+ demographics?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Everyone posting in this thread should state their age: I'm 50.
I'm no SJW but even to me it's immediately obvious that the only people to whom this might even faintly be a question are middle-class-and-above whites, and of them only the majority. Blacks in America (or really anywhere), most of the third world, gays everywhere...for none of them would it even conceive to be questionable.
As a hetero white male somewhere in the upper middle class, yes, life is generally better in so many ways I'm not going to begin to list them here. Yes, there are some ways it's not better, but frankly most of them are societally self inflicted, which means if it was really a problem we could deal with it ourselves.
-Styopa
A lot of people seem to want all that stuff. Draft men into the army? Great, toughen them up and get them interested in gun ownership. Race riots? Would prefer a full on race war but they are a good start.
Nixon... Well, they elected Trump. And now it's the Korean missile crisis.
Some people really seem to think that this stuff would make the country better.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Fifty years ago, Americans were being drafted to fight in the Vietnam war — a war so bloody and so largely useless
It may seem useless to you, but I doubt that many of the people who (as a consequence of US withdrawing) had their country subjugated by communists would agree with that assesment.
America has become a champion of wicked evil, of sexual perversion of the worshipping of nastyness and devil worshipping.
And before you say no, just have a look at your Hollywood movies.
Your allies are the Wealthy Terror Masters of Riad. Those who sponsor ISIS. You think it is smart to "covertly be allied with the evil".
A nation whose moral fibers are broken is a nation doomed. You now pay the price for your lack of moral compass.
In the US, we're more divided than we've ever been, even during the Civil War. There were just two factions then. Now there are hundreds. Wars between left and right, the racial problems, and even between the sexes are all worse than in the 60's. What was once polite, political disagreements have turned into riots. Arrest the wrong person, and a city burns. Joke with the wrong person, your life is over. The Russians and the Chinese don't need to invade us. We'll kill ourselves.
UKUSA and vasalls had enough money to first shoot up Iraq and then let it sink into civil war. FOR NO REASON.
Karma is coming for you.
My dad is dead so he doesn’t beat us any more.
Do you really believe all the BS NY money and their hollywood agents feed you ?
Here is the protip: Russia is mostly the same people as the British are - VIKINGS. Unlike most Americans, they know how to deal with Marxists, Moneymen and Mohammedists.
You are one of these Whitey Fools who fights against his own people. I hope you enjoy the rule of Goldmann-Sachs and his business partner El Saud-al-chopoff.
Yes, but actual health care is a pretty big thing to have. So does a much flatter income distribution.
First, losing the war made it useless. And since the French had been fighting for years and years without success that was not even remotely a surprising outcome for anyone not blinded by their hubris. And lastly, even if they had won, it's not like the side the US was fighting for was particularly better. Iran is another example of that. Losing looks even worse if you weren't even fighting for the good guys.
"Venezuela, which has suffered from political unrest and economic turbulence in recent years, was last on the list. Some 72% people there said they felt worse off than 50 years ago."
We should definitely try what they were doing - they're on the right side of history.
50 years ago venereal disease wasn't permanent and/or didn't kill you. There were no drinking and driving laws nor much social awareness of them. There was no terrorism. A family could be middle class and live comfortably off a single income. Insurance had no out of pocket cost and the employer paid 100%. College was affordable and there were virtually no student loans, meaning you could almost pay for it all by working yourself- full time in summer and part time during school. Governments and corporations did not engage in mass public spying - as a matter of fact a President resigned vs facing impeachment for spying. People cared about privacy, freedom had meaning and wasn't just a slogan. A car didn't cost 1/2 a years salary. People we not overly sensitive, we were emotionally tough and didn't get all bent out of shape over "politically correct" pointless crap. People were not afraid to speak their minds. News agencies broke news and were respected. The US education system was ranked the best in the world. US Healthcare was ranked best in the world. The US was respected by the rest of the word. Science, education and truth were goals to cherished and strived for.
Was it better... yes.
Yes, but actual health care is a pretty big thing to have.
Socialized medicine is all fine and dandy until you're told you need to wait 6 months for your cancer treatment or pay for it yourself.
So does a much flatter income distribution.
How does my neighbour not making more than me benefit me exactly?
... anybody over 60?
Goddam
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
were like 50 years ago from people who are less than about 70 years old?
I'm definitely richer at 59 than 9. Solved.
The real comparison is to my Dad, of course, 38 years older than I. I'm somewhat better off than he, but not much. Not really enough, considering I got two college degrees and he worked his way up to "engineer" from "surveyman" (when "engineer" was a job description, not always licensed) from only high school. He could afford to retire at the same age, actually had a bigger house. But my place is better located, and I'll be able to manage a little more travel. Much of that, however, comes from our inheritances from parents - he got almost nothing from his, same for my wife's parents.
A younger friend of mine who is about 60 years younger than my Dad, recently mentioned that when she wished aloud to just quit, her son joked she couldn't afford not to work unless she has a magic wand that makes money. Her nine-year-old was dead right. My parents never *needed* two incomes the way my friend does. Dad supported three kids, bought a 1600 sf. split level for us, took us on vacations to Disneyland and Mexico, had us all in an athletic club for the pool and skating rinks - on the salary of a highway construction engineer, never got past mid-level.
Oh, and all three of kid kids went to college, needing only summer jobs to pay the tuition; the only family expense was free rent and food.
As a report from Piketty's institute just confirmed ( https://boingboing.net/2017/12... ) "inequality in the Americas has been soaring since 1980", shortly after Dad retired. The Reagan/Thatcher Revolution ("Mulroney" here in Canada) won, and my young friend who can't quit her job, lost.
Please define how you mean "better lives". I lived there for six years, and you've got precious few things better IMO.
For a start most European countries don't have a demented ignoramus as president, and have a democratic system that is at least somewhat functional, and usually pretty decent. Weapons worship is also rare. Healthcare is generally also functional, and there is some culture in many places in Europe.
People in their 20s and 30s have no clue how far we've come. My mother (RIP) was one of the earliest recipients of a triple heart bypass in 1980. She lived another 37 years. When I was a kid, it was a big deal to have your own computer.
Also, get off my lawn.
Pipple are angry that they can sit on the couch forever and get streaming movies and hundreds of channels on demand on their 60" digital tv's when they could be watching a fishing show in black and white on their old American-made 13" philco boob tube in a hand-me-down rocking chair. It's just not right.
I know it's considered a troll to bring up Trump here, but that probably did factor into some of the responses.
I mean, stupid questions. 50 years ago we had Viet Nam, the cold war, racism that makes the tiny flares of it that we have no seem like a joke by comparison. Women were pretty much chattel. The world teetered on the perpetual brink of nuclear war. Poverty (as a percentage of the population) was rampant worldwide and what COUNTED as poverty was a lot poorer than what is counted as poverty now. A huge fraction of the world's population lived under outright tyrannies and oligarchies without even the fig leaf of democracy. Information was tightly controlled, and communication at long distances was enormously expensive. Medicine was comparatively primitive even in the first world; in the third world it was still the purview of tribal shamans. Life expectancy was much lower. Finally, a major fraction of the technology that makes our lives enormously richer even if one is comparatively "poor" simply didn't exist.
Of course if you were male, white, middle to upper class, living in the first world, or male and upper class in the second and third world, you might have thought it was just peachy.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
https://web.archive.org/web/20... ..."
"More than a few people agree the best career would be one which provides challenge, intellectual stimulation, and rewards for quality work. Many however, would be surprised to discover they can have all of those benefits and more in some of the unlikeliest of careers.
Case in point: I'm a professional carpet cleaner. Some people think this is a second-rate career. I don't agree with them. Carpet cleaning gives me challenges, intellectual stimulation, and many other rewards. To prove this, permit me to walk you through one of my work days.
Good luck and have fun with your physics and other explorations!
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
This is a stupid question, because the only people able to give an objective answer are people who were adults 50 years ago, hence people now in their 70s. All other answers are based on hearsay, propaganda, or delusions.
Your one of these stupid whiteys who have eaten the "evil white men" message.
My condolences.
See also how two-income families have bid up the price of houses in "good" school districts: http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
"Middle-class parents are stretched thin these days. Between health care costs, child care hassles, looking for a home in a good district, and paying for college, raising a child is becoming increasingly expensive. Little wonder, then, that married couples with children are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as their childless counterparts, and 75 percent more likely to have their homes foreclosed. And the danger is growing worse by the year: In 2002 1.6 million people filed for bankruptcy, many of those middle-class parents. a record . As Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi note in their book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke, having a child is now "the single best predictor" of bankruptcy. ""
Also, the increasing rich-poor divide makes life more difficult for almost everyone in the USA, since daily life gets more expensive as social trust breaks down because more and more income goes into security-related costs -- including sometimes things like private school or homeschooling. For example, a decade ago I talked with someone from CA who said, while California Proposition 13 had saved him some money in real estate taxes probably, he lost much more than he gained in paying for private school for his kids because he felt local schools were underfunded. (Of course, there are other reasons to avoid compulsory schooling kids in general, see John Taylor Gatto...)
And clearly much government spending (and related taxes) is questionable like for counter-productive military adventures abroad like Iraq and on bond interest from a refusal to just issue new money as needed by the economy instead of borrowing it.
All that said, there is lots of web content out there on "frugality" and wealth building; for example: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Vietnam is one of the happy countries? Funny.
American conservatives of 1975 would have confidently predicted that Vietnam would be a flaming hellhole of totalitarian thought police and dire poverty, because the Communists succeeded in pushing out the hated "American Imperialists", hung the capitalist collaborators, renamed Saigon "Ho Chi Minh City", and a corrupt socialist regime.
And Vietnam, of course, is corrupt and socialist and really has thought police. But it's also pretty capitalist, the way China quickly became, and a lot of stuff is made there, and America trades with them, and industrialization HAS, still, brought about greatly rising fortunes. Socialism and some corruption have been a smaller drag than industrialization has been a lift.
By contrast, also-Communist Cuba, which did not kill 58,000 Americans, did NOT have trading status restored, ever, and remained mired in dire poverty. Frankly, it's decent back-of-the-envelope proof that "socialism" (or what passes for it in Vietnam and China) does not inherently lead to poverty, it's lack of trade that does, extreme corruption also, of course. (Russia has extreme corruption compared to the East...)
I wonder how many American millionaire investors you could find that are not from Cuban families and also are in favour of continued suppression of the Cuban economy. Trading with them would be no more immoral than with Vietnam, surely, and it would produce another Vietnam 90 miles offshore: Vietnam has had one of the highest growth rates in the world since 2000. What an investment opportunity!
Meanwhile, the most proudly capitalist of nations, their American enemies, are not on the list of nations that feel the economic fortunes of most are improving. You'll have to forgive the Ho Chi Minh Fan Club from doing the dance and giving the finger, today.
I discussed this with my father, Vietnam Vet, here is what we hashed out.
Not being drafted - Better
Quality of high school education - worse
Racism (overt- public) - Gotten better
Racism (covert-private) - worse
Sexism - a lot better
Crime - Better
Parenting - worse
Scams - worse
Prison industry - worse
Illegal immigration - worse
Banks - worse
Quality of news - worse
Medical care - techniques are better but hospitals themselves are worse.
Medical costs - worse
Housing costs - worse
Employment opportunities - worse
Tldr, the biggest things that have gotten worse are the economic opportunities. My father and older coworkers could afford kids and get divorced twice. Can't say the same for my generation.
These are always loaded questions, because "better off" means so many different things to different people. But if I compare my own situation to my parents and to their parents? Well ....
My grandpa had more money saved up in the bank than I can ever even imagine saving. He worked as the VP of a bank for much of his life, so he always had that mentality that you had to put away every penny you could avoid having to spend. But although I was just a little kid when I knew him, I got the impression he was never particularly happy. I think he felt more of a "duty" to be a good provider to his wife and family, and like many of us, tried to enjoy things like sports on TV or the weekly card games they organized at their house with friends. In the end, he lost most of his vision and had other health problems, causing my aunt and uncle to basically force him to go into a group home. He always hated that, and it wasn't long before the place had drained most of his life savings and then he passed away.
My parents? They did ok for themselves. Both of them were teachers at the college level. For a long time, I felt they did better than I was doing - at least financially. But late in life, my dad seemed to be talked into the idea that investing in real estate was the smartest thing he could do with his money. So he tried becoming a landlord on the side after buying 3 multi family homes in the city. Pretty quickly, those turned into losing propositions. All of them needed costly maintenance like new roofs, and keeping them all occupied was a big drain on his spare time. He worked a deal out with a handyman who wanted to live there free in return for doing work on the properties. But we started realizing that guy was ripping him off too. When my dad passed away, my mom had to sell all of it off at a big loss to get out from under it. (That'll probably mean my brothers and I won't get much of an inheritance anymore.) Today, my mom has the house we grew up in all paid off and lives in it with my youngest brother (who is mentally handicapped). I think she's sometimes happy with life, but also just "tired".
My own life has been no picnic for sure, including a messy divorce that pretty much wiped me out completely and was like a "reset button" on my life. But I have a good job and have put all the pieces back together in the last 10-15 years from the "low point" I was at. We've got a pretty cool older house and we own 3 vehicles (well - the bank does, technically - since none of this is paid off in full yet). But I'm remarried and we have 3 kids between us from both of our previous marriages, and I can finally say I've reached at least "parity" with anything the older generations had.
I know I'm far behind where the "investment pros" say I should be on retirement savings. I think that's probably at least 40% to 60% of the current U.S. population right now? But you know? Looking at my grandpa and dad's results with all of that, it really tempers my interest in struggling too hard to "sock it away for a rainy day". They tried mightily and it made both of their lives less fulfilling.
To be able to claim that you can judge whether something is better than something else, you would need to know something about the meaning of it all. Like, what's the purpose of life, the universe, and everything? There are plenty of people claiming to know something about this, but I haven't (so far) seen any convincing evidence that any of the claims are more than just the usual human-created noise...
One again proving that socialism can only succeed in Europe and is disastrous outside Europe. Learn from history people.
I was a teen then. You had a Cold War with several nuclear brinks in 62 and 73. It was the age of 'duck and cover'. It was the height of Vietnam War with an insatiatible draft demand for warm male bodies. It was the largest annual cause of death for young people between WWII and the present. You could defer draft by attending college until 1970. Then deferment ended with everyony then subject to the luck of the draft lottery.
The environment was pretty stinky too, kind of what China is like now. Many lakes and rivers you could swim or fish. The air pollution was gagging. Earth Day was still three years in the future.
Yes, but actual health care is a pretty big thing to have.
Socialized medicine is all fine and dandy until you're told you need to wait 6 months for your cancer treatment or pay for it yourself.
The waiting lists are for non-urgent or elective care, like a slow-growing benign tumor or a hip-replacement. The reason for that is so they can concentrate on people that need urgent care like maligned cancer without the astronomical healthcare costs we have here in U.S
So does a much flatter income distribution.
How does my neighbour not making more than me benefit me exactly?
Because when you have a small percentage of people making far more then everyone else in the area you get things like the insane San Francisco property prices, that price regular folk out of the market
such as paid holidays, free universal health care, free education...
Only because I'm jealous of every con man (or woman in this case) 'cause they had an idea to swindle people out of money before me.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You know why the US won WW2 and lost Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan? Because WW2 was the last war they fought like they meant it. Drop a metric fucton of bombs on the country 'til it's in rubble. Then rebuild after the assholes have been mopped up. Not before.
Ever since WW2, politicians took over waging war. Yes, Eisenhower was a politician too. AFTER the war. During the war he was a General. Sadly he forgot that later it seems.
Politicians lead countries. General lead wars. It gets really messy if they start dabbling in each other's fields. Who wants a country run by a military government? Then why the fuck do you want a war waged by a politician?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is a story about governments using drug-running to fund wars; something the USA has been accused of, many times. This is no more than finger-pointing, screaming "Look, socialism!" and a large dose of hypocrisy.
It's telling that so many people who scream "Look, socialism", also scream "Look, Democrats". The issue isn't the validity or practicality of the policy, it's (ideological) censorship from a country that pretends to be the only one practicing 'free speech'.
As a 7X-yo I'd be dead now W/O 21-st Century medicine. Hard to get more important than that. But for most other quality of life issues y-2017 comes up short. From air-blown ice-cream to China-made TVs; screaming Trotsky agenders and wilding Bantus ... skinny trout and fat women ... twas just better fifty years ago. Course better to butcher-off ISIS Muzzi-wogs than Vietnam rice-farmers . But, at least we keep the guns oiled for when time comes to put-down globalist biz-nazis & Rawlsian bitches.
A lot of people seem to want all that stuff. Draft men into the army? Great, toughen them up and get them interested in gun ownership. Race riots? Would prefer a full on race war but they are a good start.
Drink! AmiMojo makes vapid statements about nebulous groups of people the same way Trump makes empty statements about people supposedly cheering when WTC fell or Mexicans being bad hombres bringing in crime and drugs!
In general, because most of us are intelligent enough to understand that Venezuela's problems are way more complex than your neoocon dog-whistle would imply they are.
I'm sorry - were you trolling for a socialist argument, or a like-minded neocon reinforcement?
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Pretty much what I was going to say. With a limited war, you only have two possible outcomes: a stalemate or a loss. If you aren't in it to win it, you won't. Vietnam, we lost. Korea, it was at best a draw. First Iraq War, again a draw, in that nothing really changed other than punting the problem down the road a few years. Then Operation Desert Fox had about the same effect. And finally, they got serious about regime change under Bush Jr., but constructed false pretenses to justify doing what they should really have done under Bush Sr.
And even the most recent war in the Gulf barely counts as a win. The region is still pretty screwed up, and the U.S. is still having to help keep things from going completely bonkers fourteen years later, mainly because they forgot one of the key rules of war: Don't ignore the enemy troops that got away. All they had to do was employ the Iraqi military to help keep peace to begin with, and things wouldn't have gone from bad to worse. Instead, they refused to give jobs to any of them, and they joined ISIS.
It doesn't necessarily require, as you put it, blowing the country to rubble, but it does require at least fighting with the intent of actually toppling the other government, rather than just slapping it across the face a few times.
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The USSC data to which you link contradicts your assertion that "they overwhelmingly commit most of the violent and drug crime in the US."
For Murder, US Citizen: 77.4%; Immigrant 22.6%
For Sexual Abuse: US Citizen: 94.5%; Immigrant: 5.5%
For Assault: USC: 91.3%; Immigrant: 8.7%
For Drug Trafficking: USC: 71.1%; Immigrant: 28.9%.
The other categories show overwhelmingly that most crimes in the US are committed by citizens, which makes sense as a simple matter of the population distribution. There are far more citizens than immigrants in the US.
Now, if you had asserted that the immigrant population is over-represented in the violent and drug crime categories, I'd agree with you in most cases. But this is not what you asserted.
Source data are available here: https://isb.ussc.gov/content/pentaho-cdf/RenderXCDF?solution=Sourcebook&path=&action=table_xx.xcdf&template=mantle&table_num=Table09
I'm not the GP, but here's one answer describing life in Sweden from an American perspective and how much less stressful it is for so many reasons.
Socialized medicine is all fine and dandy until you're told you need to wait 6 months for your cancer treatment or pay for it yourself.
That cannot happen with socialised medicine. That's the point of it.
You are comparing social democracy, as is common in Europe and Western nations outside of Europe (e.g Canada, Australia, New Zealand) to orthodox socialism (e.g. Venezuela, Cuba, Eastern Europe during the Cold War). The pattern is that the former largely works while the latter doesn't. The geographical location is of no importance.
Western European countries are not socialist countries. They are liberal democracies with some social democratic policies.
Market basket
Market baskets inherently evolve over time. By any measure, our chosen basket is richer than ever before.
There is some scope for people to complain that they don't like the new basket, and would rather have had the old basket.
But usually 1% of basket remorse is hand in glove with 99% availability bias: the simple failure to recall all the annoyances of yesteryear in glorious Technicolor.
It's a Wonderful Life was wonderful mainly because they colorized it, keeping themselves far, far away from Mrs. Kalmus.
Producer David O. Selznick complained in a memo during the making of Gone with the Wind:
I, for one, welcome our evolving market basket's Natalie Kalmus removal tool.
but it was also over 9 years. There were 190 million people in America. If you were doing well in life you didn't have to serve.
Nam didn't have much impact on the average middle class American. It had almost no impact on the upper middle class and zero on the wealthy. What's scary is it was a 9 year war that only ended because the relatively high casulties and the threat of draft. Today we've got no draft and few casualties. That's objectively better in a lot of ways, but it's scary too. There's zero reason to end the 7 or so wars we're fighting. We've been roped into endless, 1984 style war. Barring a change in our politics that's going to end very, very badly...
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There is a pretty simple equation that has led to wealth inequality. There is also a pretty simple answer. However both are entrenched like ticks that changing either is likely difficult. Most people who are very rich inherit their wealth. Which isn't to say they don't grow it, but as the adage goes, you need money to make money. Most people in politics are very rich, and rich people are disproportionately able to influence political direction. Rule of law is put into place, to keep the status quo or to further enrich those that already are.
Case in point, the new Tax Law rammed through and now in effect will increase the Estate Tax (i.e. how much someone can inherit without paying tax on it), was just increased from 11 MILLION to 22 MILLION dollars. How on gods green earth can any politician reasonably justify said law and explain to the 99% that it is all in their best interests... just crazy.
The fix is to severely limit the estate tax (for an extended period of time), and to do that you will need to remove money from the political system (i.e. spending limitations, donation limits, severe limitations on both lobbying, and post political work). Anyway good luck with that, it is unfortunately a tale as old as time, which provided the 99% are relatively comfortable and cowed, will continue.