The Clash Of Generations

[thecrashingisles]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/06/06/the-clash-generations/K8v0DX4aioKbBAIRJtxckN/story.html

That is essentially what Sanders is about. His pollster, Ben Tulchin, said millennials support Sanders because their generation is “(expletive) unless they see dramatic change. What’s their experience been with capitalism? They have had two recessions, one really bad one. They have a mountain of student-loan debt. They’ve got really high health care costs, and their job prospects are mediocre at best. So that’s capitalism for you.”

There’s just one small problem with this argument. It’s not really capitalism that has screwed the young. It’s socialism.

Communism failed, but social democracy — Marxism Lite — was very successful in the 20th century. It entrenched the position of trade unions. It created jobs for the boys (and, later, the girls too) in the public sector. It established generous pensions and other benefits for older workers, and subsidized or free health care. And when tax revenues did not cover the costs of all this, social democrats borrowed, claiming (seldom truthfully) that they were engaged in Keynesian demand management.

[Funn3r]

Entirely true. If unions had not resisted so hard in the 20th Century then the previous generation of workers would have had already a much worse standard of living and today's renter youth wouldn't have noticed the big gap so much.

[Dorkins]

Pointless use of broad '-isms' which he doesn't bother to define. So the problem is "socialism"? Was Greenspan a socialist? George W Bush and his neoconservative cabinet, were they all socialists? Are Wall Street lobbyists socialists? If so then who isn't a socialist?

Also it's easy to blame policymakers but if you don't say what you think they should have done differently then it's just so much hot air.

[thecrashingisles]

Pointless use of broad '-isms' which he doesn't bother to define. So the problem is "socialism"? Was Greenspan a socialist? George W Bush and his neoconservative cabinet, were they all socialists? Are Wall Street lobbyists socialists? If so then who isn't a socialist?

Also it's easy to blame policymakers but if you don't say what you think they should have done differently then it's just so much hot air.

Pre World War 1 government spending was less than 15% of GDP. There was a massive growth in the state's role in economic activity that has never reverted back to 'normal'.

[Timak]

Pre World War 1 government spending was less than 15% of GDP. There was a massive growth in the state's role in economic activity that has never reverted back to 'normal'.

Ah the golden age before universal healthcare and education.

[Dorkins]

Pre World War 1 government spending was less than 15% of GDP. There was a massive growth in the state's role in economic activity that has never reverted back to 'normal'.

In 1913 the only people who could vote were property-owning men.

A 'normal' economy for Homo sapiens would be bands of hunter-gatherers. That was the economy for hundreds of thousands of years.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Dorkins

[pig]

Ah the golden age before universal healthcare and education.

?

[MarkG]

Ah the golden age before universal healthcare and education.

Both of which are huge money-sinks to keep lefties employed.

The NHS was going to massively reduce healthcare costs because everyone would be so much healthier than they were before that they'd rarely need medical treatment. Well, so much for that. Even worse, the rate of increase in life expectancy dropped significantly around the time the NHS began, which may be a coincidence, but would be an odd one if it was.

As for schools, they're clearly a ******ing disaster for anyone other than teachers and their unions.

[PopGun]

Both of which are huge money-sinks to keep lefties employed.

The NHS was going to massively reduce healthcare costs because everyone would be so much healthier than they were before that they'd rarely need medical treatment. Well, so much for that. Even worse, the rate of increase in life expectancy dropped significantly around the time the NHS began, which may be a coincidence, but would be an odd one if it was.

As for schools, they're clearly a ******ing disaster for anyone other than teachers and their unions.

Oh look Mark is back, tripping balls even more so than usual. Change the record hey?

[wonderpup]

Seriously the most blatent example of socialist welfare in the past hundred years has been the billions spent on bailing out the capitalists in 2008 when their global ponzi scheme blew up in their faces- never in human history has so much wealth been expended to the benefit of so few- they walked away with their wealth largely intact and we will be paying for their mistakes for generations to come. And note that despite preaching for decades about the evils of state intervention in the operations of the markets not a single one of these so called capitalist institutions turned the money down- in fact they not only supported a state funded bailout of the finance sector they positively demanded it!

America is already a Socialist state, the only historical anaomaly being that in the US it's socialism for the rich, not the poor.

[wherebee]

Seriously the most blatent example of socialist welfare in the past hundred years has been the billions spent on bailing out the capitalists in 2008 when their global ponzi scheme blew up in their faces- never in human history has so much wealth been expended to the benefit of so few- they walked away with their wealth largely intact and we will be paying for their mistakes for generations to come. And note that despite preaching for decades about the evils of state intervention in the operations of the markets not a single one of these so called capitalist institutions turned the money down- in fact they not only supported a state funded bailout of the finance sector they positively demanded it!

America is already a Socialist state, the only historical anaomaly being that in the US it's socialism for the rich, not the poor.

Very true.

I've been spending a bit of time in the US for work, and the thing I notice is just how massive the indirect public sector is. Armies and armies of people getting paid for by the state.

[Venger]

Not entirely true though.

Anger against bankers just overlooks all the others who've made out like crazy with their own VI from bailouts. There's £Trillions of equity on the owner-side. BTLers went on another double down last few years. Lot of people to look at for the individual who was trying to make their way in life from working and earning a living, vs wider reflation.

A big-boy done it and ran away.

You have to be a pretty senior banker to have benefitted as much from the Potempkin economy as a middle-class London home owner, but no-one wants to talk about that.

You really travel around wherebee. Interesting though - thanks. I can believe it.

[Bland Unsight]

A bloke in the pub told me that there are photos circulating on the internet of Niall Feguson w@nking off Ayn Rand's dog, I asked for evidence and he said that he had none, so I'm sure it's just loose dog-w@nking gossip. Apparently she said he'd get another book deal and another TV series.

There's no socialism and no capitalism, just markets that work to a less or greater degree and the need to reach an acceptable deal with our grandchildren at a time when they are in no position to negotiate on account of being somewhere between non-existent and eleven. Capitalist utopianism is, on the basis of the evidence, probably to be preferred over the track record of Socialist utopianism, but the state is not going to be written out of the equation and if global warming is real, which I strongly suspect it is, given the inevitable non-linearity of the world-as-system, if anyone seriously thinks that unfettered free markets are going to price in those externalities they are smoking crack-f**king-cocaine.

And having tripped every trip wire five years on the boards has enabled me to get eyes on, I am out.

[PopGun]

A bloke in the pub told me that there are photos circulating on the internet of Niall Feguson w@nking off Ayn Rand's dog, I asked for evidence and he said that he had none, so I'm sure it's just loose dog-w@nking gossip. Apparently she said he'd get another book deal and another TV series.

There's no socialism and no capitalism, just markets that work to a less or greater degree and the need to reach an acceptable deal with our grandchildren at a time when they are in no position to negotiate on account of being somewhere between non-existent and eleven. Capitalist utopianism is, on the basis of the evidence, probably to be preferred over the track record of Socialist utopianism, but the state is not going to be written out of the equation and if global warming is real, which I strongly suspect it is, given the inevitable non-linearity of the world-as-system, if anyone seriously thinks that unfettered free markets are going to price in those externalities they are smoking crack-f**king-cocaine.

And having tripped every trip wire five years on the boards has enabled me to get eyes on, I am out.

Socialism, capitalism, markets are long defunct concepts. Problem is small minded self interested fookers refuse to let them die.

Who cares about taking the best bits from everything when you can have the worst of all worlds instead. Meanwhile the world population is nudging 7.5 billion. Unlimited growth for all, yahoo

[thewig]

I can honestly say from everything I "learned" in school I've needed close to zero of it in reality.

In my opinion the school system is designed to teach you to

1. respect authority

2. follow and repeat orders

3. know your place in the system

All you do for 12 years is get told a load of 'facts' from books, you are not there to question the facts, you are there to consume them, and regurgitate them in a 'test'. No thinking required, just the ability to regurgitate what you have been fed, preferably word for word.

You carry a load of worthless cr@p around in your mind in school until test time at which point you sh1t it all out onto the page, then leave into the real world. You walk into an office and can vaguely remember the date of the battle of hastings whilst someone hands you a pile of papers to photocopy.

Rinse and repeat for university bar a few select useful degrees - engineering, medicine to a degree (no pun), maybe a couple of others.

School is essentially putting children through trauma based mind control over a gradual number of years, the system is designed to beat out the innate questioning and inquisitive nature in all of us, producing mindless unquestioning drones at the end of it. It's blddy effective too.

Just my opinion.

[dougless]

Entirely true. If unions had not resisted so hard in the 20th Century then the previous generation of workers would have had already a much worse standard of living and today's renter youth wouldn't have noticed the big gap so much.

I do sometimes wonder if some people forget what Unions have done for us. Does anyone here seriously think the rich and privileged would have tolerated a slow redistribution of wealth if it had not been fought for. Anyway, don't worry its going back to the deserving wealthy now so its reverting to 'normal'.

[Greg Bowman]

I can honestly say from everything I "learned" in school I've needed close to zero of it in reality.

In my opinion the school system is designed to teach you to

1. respect authority

2. follow and repeat orders

3. know your place in the system

Mark Twain had it right..."I've never let my school interfere with my education

[Frugal Git]

I can honestly say from everything I "learned" in school I've needed close to zero of it in reality.

.

School is essentially putting children through trauma based mind control over a gradual number of years, the system is designed to beat out the innate questioning and inquisitive nature in all of us, producing mindless unquestioning drones at the end of it. It's blddy effective too.

Just my opinion.

Utterly ridiculous.

The two terms we spent regurgitating facts about the Lynmouth Flood and the Aswan Dam have made me the man I am today.

I've been dining out on my knowledge of oxbow lakes for years.

[thewig]

Utterly ridiculous.

The two terms we spent regurgitating facts about the Lynmouth Flood and the Aswan Dam have made me the man I am today.

I've been dining out on my knowledge of oxbow lakes for years.

[Funn3r]

I do sometimes wonder if some people forget what Unions have done for us. Does anyone here seriously think the rich and privileged would have tolerated a slow redistribution of wealth if it had not been fought for. Anyway, don't worry its going back to the deserving wealthy now so its reverting to 'normal'.

Oops sorry that was meant to be ironic; as it happens I am a union rep so do well understand your point.

[Greg Bowman]

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

A 'normal' economy for Homo sapiens would be bands of hunter-gatherers. That was the economy for hundreds of thousands of years.

Mean reversion time?

[Millaise]

MarkG>The NHS was going to massively reduce healthcare costs

Interesting point. Pharmaceuticals and medicine are massive money extraction schemes. Someone on Radio4 was explaining that there was no incentive for drug firms to invest in new antibiotics because they could instead produce drugs that just 'managed' the infection, so victims become dependent. Although the holy grail has been already been reached with the aid of GPs putting over 40s on statins almost by default..."take this for the rest of your life Mister Smith, although you're not ill. It will be almost impossible to say whether it does you any good, and it probably has side effects like all medication, but we won't mention those in case it scares you".

[richc]

Oops sorry that was meant to be ironic; as it happens I am a union rep so do well understand your point.

My father-in-law, who was an actual union rep, is currently enjoying his three pensions (one from his job, one as the union rep for his job, and one as the pension trustee for the union for his job -- all near final salary level) and thinks that unions are evil incarnate, just in it for union management.

Edited June 15, 2016 by richc

[Funn3r]

My father-in-law, who was an actual union rep, is currently enjoying his three pensions (one from his job, one as the union rep for his job, and one as the pension trustee for the union for his job -- all near final salary level) and thinks that unions are evil incarnate, just in it for union management.

I agree with him - it's much the same for me, minus the three pensions. My union management ignore me completely apart from when they want something doing. Unions are nothing like people imagine them to be; I regularly ask colleagues if they would like to join and they reply that unions are an industrial relic not needed these days so it would be "inappropriate" and "unprofessional" for them to be a member.

Sadly I am the first one they come to later, white-faced with a story of "guess what my boss just did to me that can't be legal can it? What do I do?"