And are you sure those salaries are significantly higher than they've been in the past, accounting for inflation?
I suspect you may be mistaking a very normal demand for labor as "more... than most people realize" because so many other fields have been suffering from low demand and stagnant wages.
You bring up many valid points. However, it's generally hard to sell a story like "this situation sucks for you, but if you look at the big picture, overall, it's a good thing" as positive. Much like our economy would be stronger if wealth were distributed more equitably, but good luck convincing those who own the wealth to make it rain on everyone else.
I oppose egregious income and wealth inequality, and part of me understands that it would be logically consistent to support it globally, and that would necessarily mean support for globalization, increasing wages for the Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and decreasing wages in the West. Another part of me understands that people generally don't like to give up what they already have. This is why I support policies that, domestically, simply limit the income of people on the upper end of the wealth spectrum, to allow those on the lower end to catch up, as opposed to wealth-redistribution policies that would take away from the wealthy to give to the poor. Similarly, internationally, I support policies that limit the income of the West, to allow those on the lower end to catch up. I believe that such policies are both consistent with the set of morals that most people claim to adhere to while not demanding significant levels of charity from the wealthy.
I didn't suggest a solution to income inequality, as I have no illusions that the problem is one that could be solved by a single individual. Nor did I suggest any way to make "anything better for anyone". I only mentioned, in passing, that I'm not motivated to earn more than I already do, and that one of the reasons for this is that I have no interest in contributing further to income inequality.
I never suggested that stunting my own success would "do anything" for those on the lower end of the income spectrum, though I could posit at least one way in which it might. It would decrease supply of labor, thereby creating positive pressure on wages. Whether this impacts someone on the income spectrum directly, by allowing one of them to take the vacancy created by my absence, or indirectly, by allowing someone in the middle of the income spectrum to take "my" job, then someone else below them on the income spectrum taking their job, etc., etc., the result would still meet your broad "do anything" criteria.
think the main problem is that people are going into jobs that there isn't any actual demand for.
Partially because demand for human labor relative to overall market size is decreasing. Some call this "increasing productivity".
For example, I've actually met somebody who majored in History and then complains that he can't make a living wage. And I've seen many more art majors who think that the world is going to hell because not enough people care for the moronic crap art that most local art districts produce.
I both agree and disagree. I studied math, EE, CoE, and CS. Not because I'm pragmatic, but because I've been a science/technology nerd since I was little. My fiancee did philosophy for her undergrad, something even less pragmatic for her masters. Today, she makes as much as me (working in a field totally unrelated to any of her education), despite being 5 years my junior.
The same is true for some majors that actually paid a lot in the past, and otherwise may still pay a high hourly rate, but there are so fucking many people in that career that your odds of finding steady work are crap. Case in point, lawyers.
Excellent example. Can't really argue against this.
Meanwhile there are lots of jobs that pay no less than $20/hr that can't be automated and have plenty of positions that need filling: HVAC, plumbing, auto and aviation mechanics (good mechanics can easily pull a 6 figure sum, by the way) construction workers, electricians, landscapers, maintenance contractors, and many more.
Going from lawyers to mechanics isn't exactly a huge leap forward. That's the point, that there is no labor shortage, not in the labor market overall. There is a shortage of demand. Some fields are doing okay, like the blue collar trades that you mentioned, largely due to the fact that they're both harder to automate and relatively immune to globalization-related concerns, which helps keep demand high. Other fields, not so much, because if there was, you'd easily be able to point to evidence and say "See, they really can't find people to do $job! They're offering ludicrously high salaries and still these positions go unfilled!", much like you just pointed to those trades, which account for only a tiny share of the labor market, and as such are more the exception than the norm.
I regret my past post in this thread because it is inadvertently offtopic. However, I have seen no evidence that salary growth has been strong in any particular skilled trade. One might argue that some automated-away trades are replaced with new skilled trades, and that this results in an overall larger number of skilled workers and a corresponding increase in income, or that the newly-created skilled labor positions pay better than the previous median skilled labor positions did, thereby driving up the skilled labor median... but that any given skilled worker has seen plenty of salary growth? Not relative to overall market growth, no.
I'm a 34 year old political refugee from Poland, but I suppose being opposed to income inequality and actually choosing my actions to be consistent with my stated beliefs makes me a millennial SJW? Could you please explain how that works?
Sure, let's take a look at how "fine" salaries are today. Here's some numbers.
So, over the last 47 years, we've got a whopping 21% growth in the median salary. That's a roughly 0.4% annual growth rate, on average. That's all we've gotten from widespread automation, swapping out typists for software engineers, etc.
If these remarkable advancements in technology are only giving us 0.4% annual growth in salaries, is it even worth it? Society sure seems to get more than 0.4% more complicated every year. Work seems to get a lot more than 0.4% demanding every year.
The issue I described is not unique to millennials but is true across society in general. It's not that millenial salaries aren't increasing, it's that salaries in general are not increasing.
That being said, I'm doing well for myself, making more than the median income. I'm not really motivated to earn more because that would only worsen income inequality, which I'm opposed to.
Also, generation X did none of the things you suggest. Instead, they financed their generation on debt, which subsequent generations will now be paying off. The hypocrisy is strong here.
Mod parent up: The top marginal rate is at an anomalously low rate and has been ever since Reagan's administration started the dismantling of the American economy.
But why are you getting less? Too many Grievance Studies majors? Companies seeking skilled labor, from developers to the skilled trades, are still see labor shortages, so why the disparity? Too few skilled workers? Too much immigration?
Another term for 'labor shortage' is 'salary increase', and nobody's seeing that happen.
You seem to be implying that the US was the driving force behind the European Coal and Steel Community that was born from French foreign minister Robert Schuman's declaration of intent to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible".
You also seem to be suggesting that bilateral, mutually-beneficial agreements are not possible.
Do you have any evidence to back either of these claims?
Very similar story here. My family came to this country as political refugees from a soviet satellite state. Mom cleaned houses, dad drove trucks, I ended up going to school for EE, bouncing around a few different graduate programs, and ended up with a great career writing code. Good times, hooray America.
That being said, there's still some huge failings in this country, and I'm sure my experience would've been different if I wasn't white or if I spoke with an accent. Furthermore, there's a difference between the countries we ran away from and places like Sweden (unless you "ran away" from Sweden, in which case I'd question your decision-making skills).
I support socialist policies, and I'd disagree that I'm trying to turn American into the country you or I ran away from. I didn't run away from a country that sought to minimize stratification of wealth or ensure that its most vulnerable members were cared for. I ran away from an unaccountable faux-communist authoritarian regime that made no efforts to further the political philosophy of Marx but instead chose to sell oppression under the guise of charity. You might argue that this is the only possible outcome of socialist policies, but I have yet to hear any rational argument for why this must necessarily be so.
AND those countries all all 1 race, 1 religion and 1 culture.
Indeed, Switzerland is so homogeneous that they have 4 official national languages. And the Sami people of Finland, Sweden, and Norway share race, religion, and culture with Finns, Swedes, and the Norse all the time.
I keep coming back to slashdot to hear commentary as well-informed as your own. Kudos!
1) He gets to keep the left-over money, and since he'll likely be retiring soon he won't even have to hide it in his wife's name like he does the rest of his assets.
I thought there were strict limits on what campaign contributions could be spent on. Do you have any information to the contrary that would corroborate your claim?
He claimed two emails carried 'confidential markings' (which was only sorta true) and then switched gears on confidential emails (which is, in fact different). There are maybe 30-40 emails that were sent that had confidential or higher (most were just confidential)...
One of the confidential emails... was to a lawyer and "confidential" in the sense that lawyer-client privileges applied. There were a couple of (C) markings in a few emails, but the top actually didn't have the markings for Confidential/Secret or whatnot.
Your claim is factually incorrect. From Comey's statement:
From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
So, let's review your claims:
He claimed two emails carried 'confidential markings' (which was only sorta true)
False. He made no claims about the number of emails carrying 'confidential markings'. He did claim that 110 of the emails found were classified at the time they were sent or received.
and then switched gears on confidential emails (which is, in fact different).
False. The entire text of his statement was with respect to classified documents being found on her private email server.
There are maybe 30-40 emails that were sent that had confidential or higher (most were just confidential).
Questionable and irrelevant. Whether the emails were sent or received has no bearing on this issue, but 110 of the found emails were classified at the time they were sent or received. Since 'confidential' is the lowest classification level (other than 'unclassified', which, somewhat ironically, is also a level of classification), it is known that 110 of the found emails were 'confidential or higher' when they were sent or received.
One of the confidential emails... was to a lawyer and "confidential" in the sense that lawyer-client privileges applied.
False. Comey made no statements about unclassified emails between her and her legal staff (unless such emails were retroactively classified, in which case he simply said "Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.") Each of the three instances of the word "Confidential" in Comey's statement were references to classification level.
There were a couple of (C) markings in a few emails, but the top actually didn't have the markings for Confidential/Secret or whatnot.
Questionable. While Comey didn't specify the classification numbers in terms of number of emails, he did do so in terms of number of email chains. Of the 52 classified email chains which were found, 8 (15%) contained Confidential information, 36 (69%) contained Secret information, and 8 (15%) contained Top Secret information. These were the classifications at the time the emails in these chains were sent or received, and these counts do not include the ~2000 emails that were retroactively "up-classified" (mostly Confidential). Furthermore, the presence or lack of markings has no bearing on this issue.
You're right, it wasn't exactly the same thing. Hillary never intentionally gave access of clearly marked classified information to Petraeus's reporter girlfriend.
She did intentionally give access of clearly marked classified information to an unclassified system, though. That's what people mean: they're both instances of spillage, and in that respect, they're exactly the same.
It is not true that "anyone but hillary" would do prison time for what happened here
"To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences." - FBI Directory James Comey, speaking about Hillary Clinton's spillage incident. [transcript]
The explanation given is that militias are necessary.
An explanation. I have yet to hear why this single explanation constitutes an exhaustive list of all reasons why the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. The text of the amendment itself makes no such claim.
I won't yet address your other points, which seem to depend on this baseless assumption.
Is knifing four or more people in one incident worse than knifing one person in each of four incidents? If so, why? If not, why do you draw a distinction?
Slashdot Mirror
And are you sure those salaries are significantly higher than they've been in the past, accounting for inflation?
I suspect you may be mistaking a very normal demand for labor as "more... than most people realize" because so many other fields have been suffering from low demand and stagnant wages.
You bring up many valid points. However, it's generally hard to sell a story like "this situation sucks for you, but if you look at the big picture, overall, it's a good thing" as positive. Much like our economy would be stronger if wealth were distributed more equitably, but good luck convincing those who own the wealth to make it rain on everyone else.
I oppose egregious income and wealth inequality, and part of me understands that it would be logically consistent to support it globally, and that would necessarily mean support for globalization, increasing wages for the Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and decreasing wages in the West. Another part of me understands that people generally don't like to give up what they already have. This is why I support policies that, domestically, simply limit the income of people on the upper end of the wealth spectrum, to allow those on the lower end to catch up, as opposed to wealth-redistribution policies that would take away from the wealthy to give to the poor. Similarly, internationally, I support policies that limit the income of the West, to allow those on the lower end to catch up. I believe that such policies are both consistent with the set of morals that most people claim to adhere to while not demanding significant levels of charity from the wealthy.
That would be a sad indictment of our society.
I hope you're not right.
I didn't suggest a solution to income inequality, as I have no illusions that the problem is one that could be solved by a single individual. Nor did I suggest any way to make "anything better for anyone". I only mentioned, in passing, that I'm not motivated to earn more than I already do, and that one of the reasons for this is that I have no interest in contributing further to income inequality.
I never suggested that stunting my own success would "do anything" for those on the lower end of the income spectrum, though I could posit at least one way in which it might. It would decrease supply of labor, thereby creating positive pressure on wages. Whether this impacts someone on the income spectrum directly, by allowing one of them to take the vacancy created by my absence, or indirectly, by allowing someone in the middle of the income spectrum to take "my" job, then someone else below them on the income spectrum taking their job, etc., etc., the result would still meet your broad "do anything" criteria.
think the main problem is that people are going into jobs that there isn't any actual demand for.
Partially because demand for human labor relative to overall market size is decreasing. Some call this "increasing productivity".
For example, I've actually met somebody who majored in History and then complains that he can't make a living wage. And I've seen many more art majors who think that the world is going to hell because not enough people care for the moronic crap art that most local art districts produce.
I both agree and disagree. I studied math, EE, CoE, and CS. Not because I'm pragmatic, but because I've been a science/technology nerd since I was little. My fiancee did philosophy for her undergrad, something even less pragmatic for her masters. Today, she makes as much as me (working in a field totally unrelated to any of her education), despite being 5 years my junior.
The same is true for some majors that actually paid a lot in the past, and otherwise may still pay a high hourly rate, but there are so fucking many people in that career that your odds of finding steady work are crap. Case in point, lawyers.
Excellent example. Can't really argue against this.
Meanwhile there are lots of jobs that pay no less than $20/hr that can't be automated and have plenty of positions that need filling: HVAC, plumbing, auto and aviation mechanics (good mechanics can easily pull a 6 figure sum, by the way) construction workers, electricians, landscapers, maintenance contractors, and many more.
Going from lawyers to mechanics isn't exactly a huge leap forward. That's the point, that there is no labor shortage, not in the labor market overall. There is a shortage of demand. Some fields are doing okay, like the blue collar trades that you mentioned, largely due to the fact that they're both harder to automate and relatively immune to globalization-related concerns, which helps keep demand high. Other fields, not so much, because if there was, you'd easily be able to point to evidence and say "See, they really can't find people to do $job! They're offering ludicrously high salaries and still these positions go unfilled!", much like you just pointed to those trades, which account for only a tiny share of the labor market, and as such are more the exception than the norm.
I regret my past post in this thread because it is inadvertently offtopic. However, I have seen no evidence that salary growth has been strong in any particular skilled trade. One might argue that some automated-away trades are replaced with new skilled trades, and that this results in an overall larger number of skilled workers and a corresponding increase in income, or that the newly-created skilled labor positions pay better than the previous median skilled labor positions did, thereby driving up the skilled labor median... but that any given skilled worker has seen plenty of salary growth? Not relative to overall market growth, no.
I'm a 34 year old political refugee from Poland, but I suppose being opposed to income inequality and actually choosing my actions to be consistent with my stated beliefs makes me a millennial SJW? Could you please explain how that works?
Totally valid point, glad someone already modded me down.
For the last 47 years, we've averaged a 0.4% annual growth rate in median salary. See sibling post for citations.
Sure, let's take a look at how "fine" salaries are today. Here's some numbers.
So, over the last 47 years, we've got a whopping 21% growth in the median salary. That's a roughly 0.4% annual growth rate, on average. That's all we've gotten from widespread automation, swapping out typists for software engineers, etc.
If these remarkable advancements in technology are only giving us 0.4% annual growth in salaries, is it even worth it? Society sure seems to get more than 0.4% more complicated every year. Work seems to get a lot more than 0.4% demanding every year.
The issue I described is not unique to millennials but is true across society in general. It's not that millenial salaries aren't increasing, it's that salaries in general are not increasing.
That being said, I'm doing well for myself, making more than the median income. I'm not really motivated to earn more because that would only worsen income inequality, which I'm opposed to.
Also, generation X did none of the things you suggest. Instead, they financed their generation on debt, which subsequent generations will now be paying off. The hypocrisy is strong here.
Mod parent up: The top marginal rate is at an anomalously low rate and has been ever since Reagan's administration started the dismantling of the American economy.
But why are you getting less? Too many Grievance Studies majors? Companies seeking skilled labor, from developers to the skilled trades, are still see labor shortages, so why the disparity? Too few skilled workers? Too much immigration?
Another term for 'labor shortage' is 'salary increase', and nobody's seeing that happen.
You seem to be implying that the US was the driving force behind the European Coal and Steel Community that was born from French foreign minister Robert Schuman's declaration of intent to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible".
You also seem to be suggesting that bilateral, mutually-beneficial agreements are not possible.
Do you have any evidence to back either of these claims?
Very similar story here. My family came to this country as political refugees from a soviet satellite state. Mom cleaned houses, dad drove trucks, I ended up going to school for EE, bouncing around a few different graduate programs, and ended up with a great career writing code. Good times, hooray America.
That being said, there's still some huge failings in this country, and I'm sure my experience would've been different if I wasn't white or if I spoke with an accent. Furthermore, there's a difference between the countries we ran away from and places like Sweden (unless you "ran away" from Sweden, in which case I'd question your decision-making skills).
I support socialist policies, and I'd disagree that I'm trying to turn American into the country you or I ran away from. I didn't run away from a country that sought to minimize stratification of wealth or ensure that its most vulnerable members were cared for. I ran away from an unaccountable faux-communist authoritarian regime that made no efforts to further the political philosophy of Marx but instead chose to sell oppression under the guise of charity. You might argue that this is the only possible outcome of socialist policies, but I have yet to hear any rational argument for why this must necessarily be so.
AND those countries all all 1 race, 1 religion and 1 culture.
Indeed, Switzerland is so homogeneous that they have 4 official national languages. And the Sami people of Finland, Sweden, and Norway share race, religion, and culture with Finns, Swedes, and the Norse all the time.
I keep coming back to slashdot to hear commentary as well-informed as your own. Kudos!
In fact, US military (and US in general) is a major reason there hasn't been another major European war.
I'm sure it's had nothing to do with the increased economic interdependence fostered by EEC/EC/EU. I can see why you were modded insightful.
But he got a 'half way to universal healthcare measure' through congress, where a universal healthcare measure would not get through.
He had both houses of congress for two years. I mean, what the fuck.
1) He gets to keep the left-over money, and since he'll likely be retiring soon he won't even have to hide it in his wife's name like he does the rest of his assets.
I thought there were strict limits on what campaign contributions could be spent on. Do you have any information to the contrary that would corroborate your claim?
He claimed two emails carried 'confidential markings' (which was only sorta true) and then switched gears on confidential emails (which is, in fact different). There are maybe 30-40 emails that were sent that had confidential or higher (most were just confidential)...
One of the confidential emails... was to a lawyer and "confidential" in the sense that lawyer-client privileges applied. There were a couple of (C) markings in a few emails, but the top actually didn't have the markings for Confidential/Secret or whatnot.
Your claim is factually incorrect. From Comey's statement:
From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
So, let's review your claims:
He claimed two emails carried 'confidential markings' (which was only sorta true)
False. He made no claims about the number of emails carrying 'confidential markings'. He did claim that 110 of the emails found were classified at the time they were sent or received.
and then switched gears on confidential emails (which is, in fact different).
False. The entire text of his statement was with respect to classified documents being found on her private email server.
There are maybe 30-40 emails that were sent that had confidential or higher (most were just confidential).
Questionable and irrelevant. Whether the emails were sent or received has no bearing on this issue, but 110 of the found emails were classified at the time they were sent or received. Since 'confidential' is the lowest classification level (other than 'unclassified', which, somewhat ironically, is also a level of classification), it is known that 110 of the found emails were 'confidential or higher' when they were sent or received.
One of the confidential emails... was to a lawyer and "confidential" in the sense that lawyer-client privileges applied.
False. Comey made no statements about unclassified emails between her and her legal staff (unless such emails were retroactively classified, in which case he simply said "Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.") Each of the three instances of the word "Confidential" in Comey's statement were references to classification level.
There were a couple of (C) markings in a few emails, but the top actually didn't have the markings for Confidential/Secret or whatnot.
Questionable. While Comey didn't specify the classification numbers in terms of number of emails, he did do so in terms of number of email chains. Of the 52 classified email chains which were found, 8 (15%) contained Confidential information, 36 (69%) contained Secret information, and 8 (15%) contained Top Secret information. These were the classifications at the time the emails in these chains were sent or received, and these counts do not include the ~2000 emails that were retroactively "up-classified" (mostly Confidential). Furthermore, the presence or lack of markings has no bearing on this issue.
You're right, it wasn't exactly the same thing. Hillary never intentionally gave access of clearly marked classified information to Petraeus's reporter girlfriend.
She did intentionally give access of clearly marked classified information to an unclassified system, though. That's what people mean: they're both instances of spillage, and in that respect, they're exactly the same.
It is not true that "anyone but hillary" would do prison time for what happened here
"To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences." - FBI Directory James Comey, speaking about Hillary Clinton's spillage incident. [transcript]
The explanation given is that militias are necessary.
An explanation. I have yet to hear why this single explanation constitutes an exhaustive list of all reasons why the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. The text of the amendment itself makes no such claim.
I won't yet address your other points, which seem to depend on this baseless assumption.
It's true, Harlem used to be a black neighborhood. Before that, it was a white neighborhood. Shit changes. Deal with it.
Is knifing four or more people in one incident worse than knifing one person in each of four incidents? If so, why? If not, why do you draw a distinction?