The degradation of a dignified income for working men and women.

[Stoic]

This is, I admit, an unscientific observation.

Back in 1974, almost immediately after I graduated from high school, I started working with my father roofing (shingle) houses in the western suburbs of Chicago. This was my summer job before I started college. Although there was an hourly pay associated with the job, we were primarily paid on a piece-rate basis. That is, we were paid a dollar amount per "square" applied to a roof depending on the difficulty of the job. A "square" being three bundles of asphalt shingles, the amount needed to cover 100 square feet of surface. Sometimes the houses were easy to walk on, sometimes the pitch of the roof was so steep we had to install roof hooks and stretches of 2X4's on them to cling to the roof as we applied the shingles. It was pretty hard work involving getting up really early to beat the summer heat and the only money we made was when we were actually doing the roofing, travel time and rainy days came out of our own pocket. Still I got in great shape and spent some quality time with my old man.

And the pay was pretty good. Not great. I was the low man on the seniority and skills list so I got the smallest percentage from our take on each job but I was 17 turning 18 and it was the most money I had ever made up to that point.

Not too long ago I had to compile some info for a job I was applying for and came across my W2's for that summer. I had made a little over $3500. Curious I plugged that amount into a online inflation calculator and found that to make the equivalent today I'd have to be paid over $16,000. I was astounded.

And then I started thinking about what people get paid to do the same kind of work today and it's more like what I made over 36 years ago.

I look around at my friends and relatives, all struggling to get by making less and less money than my father and my grandfather and I realize just how degraded working people have become in their own country. How pushed to the brink, not to live the good life, but just to get by.

My father's generation could make a dignified wage and take care of their families with benefits and pensions and the promise of some extra from Social Security and that all had largely disappeared.

Thirty years of Reaganism. Thirty years of the wealthy and connected heaping the wealth upon themselves while the people who keep this country running are left the scraps.

And I get so incredibly angry that the political party I have been a loyal member for all of my life simply CANNOT articulate even the glimmer of a plan to help these people out. Many of them wring their hands there in Washington and tell us over and over again how they can't get anything by the Republicans all the while finding sweet jobs for their wives and husbands, or the revolving door employment they and their "advisers" get with the corporations they are supposed to be regulating.

Dear Senator, Dear Congressman, Dear Mr. President, If you cannot break this cycle of corruption, if you cannot overcome your opposition, if you cannot govern then you are in the wrong jobs and are useless to me and everyone who voted you into office to bring change to our, REPEAT OUR, government.

[daleanime]

1. Well said sir....

:applause:

[BrklynLiberal]

2. The repukes want to have a society of the "elite"..in which they all includes themselves...and then

the rest of us.."serfs".
The irony of the current RW screaming points is that the teabaggers and their lemming-like ilk think they are going to be among the elite...lolololol BOY! Are they in for a big shock..

The Dems better get the act on the road..and soon..or there will not be much left to save...

[eridani]

13. They should all join the Society for Creative Anachronism, then

All lords and ladies, and not a serf to be found.

[Lorien]

25. The SCA is where serfs go to pretend that they are no longer serfs

that's it's appeal.

[RaleighNCDUer]

61. I thought that was the Republican party. nt

[Lorien]

24. This is why I call it the new fascist feudalism

Fascist because unelected corporations and investors are the only ones with representation, so ultimately they rule our Nation.
Feudalism because the "owners" are the new landed gentry while the rest of us are the permanently indebted. If we fall too far behind they swoop in and take all that we have, literally making us serfs.

Democracy is no longer a factor.

[Enthusiast]

45. Right. We hear the rabid right often declare this

or that will undermine the sovereignty of the United States. Well nothing I have ever seen has undermined our representative democracy more that the growth of corporate influence in politics and government.

Our Democratic representatives were pushing the Disclose Act that I understand didn't get enough votes. But the Disclose Act didn't begin to counter the SCOTUS Citizens United decision.

We need real action and we need it now. This is an emergency.

[BrklynLiberal]

50. Perfectly explained!!

[AllyCat]

33. isn't that the truth? These people think they will be one of the upper echelon.

It's not just the teabaggers, but also the Dittoheads and other imbeciles. They think THEY will be allowed to be in this upper tier of people.

[Edweird]

3. Yep. K&R

[sufrommich]

4. Well said. K&R

[jxnmsdemguy65]

5. I really do think it's going to come down to violence...

some sort of bloody reaction to rich in this country hoarding all the wealth.. it's bound to happen like it's happened in other societies - France, Russia, etc. Karma is, as they say, a bitch.

[Warpy]

9. I'm begining to think it has to come down to violence

because that's the only thing they'll ever understand.

I just hope I don't live long enough to see it.

[liberation]

36. It doesn't have to be about violence

A well organized national strike, would bring the country to its knees and force the gilded class to sit down and negotiate.

The trick is to organize and educate people, so that they have self worth and the concept that there is more of us than them. And that labor and assets, unlike capital, are real... and thus they need us more than we need them.

Not a single shot needs to be fired, not a single act of violence, simply people in solidarity saying they have had enough and walking out en masse. Let the rich toil the fields with their hands, let them cook their own meals, let them make their own trinkets, let them clean their own trash. They don't need us, right? After all a CEO making orders of magnitude more money than his or her lowly employees, should be able to work a thousand times harder and thus it should be not much of a challenge for the "better" class, right?

Walk out, reset the system, this is our country too. If this society does not exist for the benefit of most of us, then what is the fucking point to begin with. A country which does not take care of its own people is not worth caring for, much less dying for. There is no need for violence, there is need for education and organization... violence without an actual game plan is not the answer and may make things worse. Our gilded class are nothing but run of the mill sociopaths, if we go violent we play right into their area of expertise.

[Enthusiast]

49. The PTB will make

certain there will be violence. Even if they have to manufacture some in the name of a left wing cause. They have been doing this for over one hundred years.

[Warpy]

57. Have you read about 1848? The protests in Paris in the 1780s?

They have done this forever. It's what they do.

[Warpy]

55. I sincerely hope I live to see that

and I think such actions will probably start in states like California among public servants and spread.

Violence usually happens when the PTB start reacting violently to peaceful protest like strikes. Then all hell breaks loose.

[Name removed]

64. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Enthusiast]

48. A single act of violence (left wing)

will enable them to put that Patriot Act to the real use it was intended for. Remember, they can now round up anyone on zero evidence and label them a terrorist. One can be thrown into a cell to never be heard from again. Of course this would be done on an individual basis - right wing terrorists exempt, left wing terrorists guilty.

[JDPriestly]

58. Violence is not a solution.

I was living five miles from downtown L.A. at the time of the Rodney King riots. A lot of poor people got hurt. Shops were burned and very ordinary people who owned or worked in the shops suffered a lot of economic losses.

Those riots just made things worse for middle class and working people. Violence simply justifies the abuse of force by frightened police officers who find themselves outnumbered by unpredictable crowds.

Violence is not the solution. Organizing and peaceful change are the only hope.

[peacetalksforall]

26. I didn't get to read it, but there was a thread about moving police? Natl Guard?

into the Gulf area. If they are trained to be subversives and not allow the media to do their jobs - if they are or might as well for all purposes be funded by BP, it could be worse than any of the police stuff at the RNC in MN or the Summit infiltrations of cops.

There is a new philosophy of the way these 'cops' are trained. There is a possibility they are mercenaries in cop's clothing just as we know they wore protester clothing.

The tactics are old in crowd rule. It is predictable that corporate media would not investigate. What is mind boggling is that there is an organized approach involves official planning and coordination.

At the RNC it seemed to involve city, county, state, and federal coordination with agreement on the staging of the violence and the way press credentials meant nothing.

If what seems evident is coordinated and orchestrated, it means there is an unknown element of force of publicly paid police working against the people and a possible privately paid force working against the people and the jefes who are working against the people who gather as one voice.

What it means is that statements of freedom of speech has already been taken away, especially at gatherings of people exercixing it together.

We are being squeezed financially and by removal of rights.

We are the new China and they are the new U.S. - until that balance of power is attained here as well as in the remainder of the world which is the wealth making playground for the multi-national corporate-military world.

How else is the economic history so far explained - jobe, factories, the sell out of our technolgy, the corporate registration of American businesses outside the U.S. to avoid our laws, the Wall Street criminal blatantcy, the private corporation of the Federal Reserve.

And now the control of us by a new type of force is looking like China and the USSR.

Just as the op in this thread revealed economic reality to himself and now us, we must reveal the truth to ourselves. We cannot cling to the belief that we have the rights that have been previously protected.

The keys to saving ourselves is waking up, not idolizing the wrong leaders and finding the right leaders if there are some, finding leaders who will fight against the Patriot Act is every way it destroys us, doing whatever we can to keep judges who support our Constitution and who have not already started judging by what appears to be a new constitution - which appears to be the work of the Federal Society and the barons they report to and their foundations who are immediately in charge of the military-corporate flanks.

The war aganst our privacy is being won every day - our paying for the satellites that spy on the world including us, by the leaders who voted for immunity of the thieving companies who stole our communications starting with AT & T. and gave them the initial approval for gathering our data in private our governmental databases. Now, we are paying for a spacecraft that can stay in the air for days - is that good for us? The industry that still remains in this country might, if examined, might reveal that it is all about controlling us along and that some is already privatized suchas as a thriving prison ownership.

We have some wrong leaders in charge. And we are isnorant. Let the story of the op help us to want to know.

[mike_c]

6. DU post of the day....

:applause:

[Binka]

7. It Is Crazy Making What The Elites Have Done

And their wanna-be corporate whores and traitors in the media. They will rue the day.

[Warpy]

8. That's why it makes my blood boil when people who are in debt

are all painted as self indulgent fools who lived the high life by charging up credit cards and using the house like an ATM.

Most people with significant credit card debt started out by paying it off every month and slowly falling behind as their wages did because their kids outgrew their clothes, their cars needed fixing, or they couldn't ignore that toothache one more day.

A part of that is because any wage increases were grabbed by insurance companies. An even greater part is the policy of wage suppression pursued by both parties since liberals went out of power in 1969.

The next time you read about some idiot in LA who's declaring bankruptcy over credit cards after jet setting around the world, remember what the truth of the matter is. People went into debt because their wages never paid them enough to raise their children on.

[BonnieJW]

23. That's exactly right.

When Reagan came in that's when I had to go back to work. In the 80's, I took my three kids to the doctor one time with strep and the bill came to more than my grocery money for that week. Out came the credit card. My husband's salary started to buy less and less. I had to contribute to the family; why should he have all the stress and worry.

[Lorien]

27. All it takes is one medical or dental emergency

to start the ball rolling toward permanent indebtedness. Or having ones pay cut in half, or a year (or more) of unemployment, or being priced out of insurance with pre-existing conditions. All of the above have happened to me, and I used to work 60-80 hours a week at a decent white collar job. Now my 80k in savings is gone and I can't find enough work to stay afloat.

[glitch]

10. "while the people who keep this country running are left the scraps"

K & R and :applause: although they're starting to keep the scraps now too.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. One only has to look to when women flooded the workforce.

I am not talking about Gloria Steinem and the rise of feminism, I am referring to when it became more fiscally responsible for both parents to HAVE to work as opposed to the 50's and 60's when people could get by on one salary.

There are plusses and minuses to both, but it should have been based on CHOICE not NEED.

Thanks St. Ronnie for turning choice into need. Your legacy lives on.

[Statistical]

20. Exactly. The sad thing is it compounded the problem.

Say family had enough to live a comfrotable lifestyle on one income. Wages stagnated and as a result it got harder and harder to make ends meet. So wife started working too. For a few years it was boom times. Despite wages being stagnated the 50% boost from wife working more than compensated it. Eventually it got to the point that those 2 incomes were needed to just have comfortable lifestyle, then it got back to the point where it was hard to make ends meet. Only diference is it is now with 2 incomes vs 1.

That phenomenom combined with rise of consumer debt hid the single largest issue in the economy for decades: WAGES.

WAGES in real terms (adjusted for inflation) have been falling a gradually crushing prosperity out of the working class. Even when wages do rise it is too little to late. Now households are burdened with 2 people working & consumer debt.

[uncommon]

21. Ugh.

A lot of us inconvenient women prefer being in the workforce to popping out a bunch of kids and washing dishes.

[bread_and_roses]

28. er...I rather think you're missing the point

which is NOT that women should stay home barefoot and pregnant. And yes, I'm a woman, dedicated feminist almost 60. Worked full time all my life - 6 weeks off when I had my daughter in '83.

[uncommon]

30. I understand the point -

the point is that 2 incomes were unnecessary at one time, and now 2 incomes barely makes it in a lot of homes. And that's not right.

However, whenever this argument is used, there is inevitable anti-working-woman backlash as a result. Blaming women for wage degradation is counter-productive.

Women consume just as men do, many run their own homes (with or without families to support), and there should be plenty of fulfilling work to go around.

[liberation]

37. "whenever this argument is used, there is inevitable anti-working-woman backlash as a result..."

Wow, that is a rather dishonest extrapolation from what the previous poster wrote originally. IMHO of course.

[uncommon]

40. Really?

I think it was exactly the kind of comment that leads the unenlightened to the natural conclusion that women working is the cause of our economic distress.

I didn't say the poster said that, I said it was a slippery slope attitude.

[liberation]

41. And I disagree...

... sometimes a comment about declining earning power is just that: a comment about declining earning power. Not encoded misogyny.

[uncommon]

47. Jesus, I didn't say it was "encoded misogyny" - I said

that it is the kind of statement that can easily lead to it.

[liberation]

52. LOL, I see where this is going.

Have a nice one, Cheers.

[uncommon]

53. Whatevs.

[drmeow]

12. an unscientific observation

which is supported by the data - real wages have declined in this country and buying power certainly has.

[Naturyl]

14. How about a dignified income for NON-working men and women?

If that is so inconceivable even on the "left," how are America's non-working millions supposed to live?

Or, are we? Perhaps we ought to do the opposite, at least according to all Republicans and most Democrats.

[liberation]

38. People making good salaries, can pay good taxes, and thus afford a good social safety network

Everyone does better when everyone does better.

[Lilith Velkor]

71. We are here to scare the drones into working harder, lest they suffer our fate

[woo me with science]

15. This is the one issue

that matters right now. The party that gets it will win. Even if that is a third party. Right now, nobody seems to get it.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

16. Tie minimum wage to inflation - end of problem

Should have been done years ago.

Then everyone screams No! No! Businesses can''t afford that! To which I answer:

Having owned actual businesses with actual payrolls, I knew that almost every single year I could expect to see increases in my cost of goods, my utilities, my insurances, and pretty much any and everything else. As do ALL businesses. Now, why should LABOR be the ONLY thing which is immune to the gradual rise of costs? Why should LABOR bear the burden of absorbing all these costs for the business owner? Answer - It shouldn't.

Good wages and income help float this consumer society we have become. It has been pointed out countless times here, Henry Ford knew that if his car was going to be a success, his own workers needed to be able to afford one. This point gets completely lost on the a!@hole parasites who run corporations today, who think the entire construct exists solely to provide swag and outsize plunder for themselves.

[AllyCat]

34. Nicely said. Thanks!

[liberation]

39. Furthermore, inflation is tied to capital, which is an "imaginary" concept.

Labor and assets, ironically, are "real."


What most people don't want to consider, even those most abused by this system, is that at its basis... capitalism is a rather arbitrary system which depends on "confidence" via obscurity in order to thrive. In other words: it is a rip off.

[Scruffy1]

17. Same here

I made more as a teenager in the 1960's with no skills than I make now with degrees.

[democrank]

18. Enthusiastic K & R

[Lost4words]

19. K & R!

[mistertrickster]

22. Good observations. I made 8 dollars an hour in college working for UPS part-time

and represented by the Teamsters' Union in 1978.

Now, the folks working part-time doing what I did make . . . 8 dollars an hour.

It's a massive drop in wages all across the country.

[Romulox]

29. The President's plan to ameliorate this situation? "Free Trade" (sic) with Korea!

That's sure to turn it all around.

[bread_and_roses]

31. 15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America Read more: http://www.businessinsider.

been posted here before but bears repeating:

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-wealth-inequality-2010-7#the-gap-between-the-top-001-and-everyone-else-hasnt-been-this-bad-since-the-roaring-twenties-1

[AllyCat]

32. And yet I listen to my fellow union nurses talk about how we make too much money

yes, they have listened to the new CEO of our HCO say that ad nauseum and they believe it. "What," I ask them "is wrong with being able to pay your bills and go on a vacation once a year?"

When I put it that way, most of them at the least shut up and a few others actually see my point that there is nothing "too much" about making a living wage.

Thanks for your post!!

[Flatulo]

43. I haven't been on a vacation in 35 years. nt

[AllyCat]

73. And that is completely unfair. We work our tails off. At the least we should all

get some kind of vacation.

Hope that changes for you soon.

[Flatulo]

75. Hah, it will change when my current temporary job ends and I get laid off again.

But thanks, I knew what you meant.

[cilla4progress]

35. I hope you sent this to your elected reps

from the President on down. Astounding. Thank you.

[Paper Roses]

42. Sums it up in a nutshell. n/t

[Starry Messenger]

44. k & r

[Enthusiast]

46. K&R! nt

[Roland99]

51. Send that in a letter to the President, the VP, your Rep and your Senator

[Jankyn]

54. I don't think this can be said often or loudly enough...

If you use the federal government's inflation calculator to compare your parents' wages to yours, it gets kind of scary.

My spouse and I have a combined income of not quite $120,000 (which we are very grateful and appreciative for, and which we are still paying off student loans for two master's degrees and two Ph.D.s out of). In 1978 dollars (the year we graduated high school), that's about $35,000.

In 1978, my dad made $18,000 a year at a plywood mill (it was shut down in 1979 for almost three years, which is how long it took to break the union--and re-opened, hiring workers at much lower pay and without union representation). My mom made $9,000 working full-time as a store clerk, for a total family income of $27,000.

In 2010 dollars, that's about $90,000.

On their 1978 income, they bought a house, had two cars, a boat, raised three kids, took regular vacations (not trips to Hawaii, but getaways to Reno), and sent me to college.

On our income, after the student loans, we're lucky to save for retirement and take a short trip to Monterey or San Francisco a couple of times a year. We rent a nice apartment and have one car (which we'd probably do anyway, for environmental reasons).

We also pay a much larger proportion of our income for health care. Dad had great insurance through the mill (part of the union's negotiating); we didn't even have co-pays at the doctor's office, and it covered dental and eyeglasses in the '70s.

So let's take a look, here: two Ph.D.s ($35,000 in 1978 dollars; $120,000 in 2010 dollars) versus two high school dropouts ($27,000 in 1978 dollars; $90,000 in 2010 dollars).

Of course, high school dropouts couldn't even get those jobs today. You need at least a high school diploma to be a retail clerk, and Dad's job at the plywood plant no longer exists.

But it does make you think about the stagnation of wages, doesn't it?

[Roland99]

56. "Workin' This Job" - Drive-By Truckers

Workin' this job is a kick in the pants
Workin' this job is like a knife in the back
It ain't gettin' me further than the dump I live in
It ain't gettin' me further than the next paycheck
Workin' this job is like lightin' two fuses
Workin' this job is runnin' out of excuses
It's like a dead-end when a road map is useless
Until I'm dead and there's nothin' to show for my uses

Nobody told me it'd be easy
Or for that matter, it'd be so hard
But it's the livin' and learnin'
It makes the difference
It makes it all worthwhile
It makes it all worthwhile

Workin' this job, there's nothin' left but to hate it
I won't get as far as my daddy made it
It aint gettin' me farther for all my strivin'
In the dead-end I live or the piece of shit I'm drivin'

Nobody told me it'd be easy
Or for that matter, it'd be so hard
But it's the livin' and learnin'
It makes the difference
It makes it all worthwhile
It makes it all worthwhile

Sometimes I dream that I had aimed my life in different ways
But there was nothin' to show me a way to get me outta this place
So I just did what my daddy did before me
Only to find the only door I found was closed to me

Workin' this job, I thought it sucked when I had it
Now it is gone and I'm learnin' what that is
I'm tryin' to hang in to the worst of places
But a family can't live on these fast food wages

Nobody told me it'd be easy
Or for that matter, it'd be so hard
But it's the livin' and learnin'
It makes the difference
It makes it all worthwhile
It makes it all worthwhile

Workin' this job
Workin' this job
Workin' this job

[Hannah Bell]

59. +100.

[Capitalocracy]

60. There IS overwhelming scientific evidence as well

Mostly starting to creep its way into the public dialogue now.

http://www.businessinsider.com/22-statistics-that-prove-the-middle-class-is-being-systematically-wiped-out-of-existence-in-america-2010-7#83-percent-of-all-us-stocks-are-in-the-hands-of-1-percent-of-the-people-1

[laughingliberal]

67. K & R nt

[DirkGently]

62. Yep. "Re-distribution of wealth" my ass. It's already happened.

When we had a real progressive tax rate, it didn't make as much sense for CEO's to command salaries thousands of times that of their workers. When we regulated banks, they couldn't gamble with everyone's 401K's and then demand we bail THEM out when they blew our collective wads gambling for a new penthouse for themselves.

Conservatives / Republicans don't actually *want* "smaller government." They want government to work for them, like the rest of us, to keep expanding the wealth funnel that takes from the many to give to the few.

I think that's part of the illegal immigrant "problem" as well. No one is willing to pay craftsman a living a wage, because it's just easier having a fearful underclass that will work for a fraction of that.

[TheKentuckian]

63. If they aren't talking about wage destruction and wealth concentration then they aren't on our side

Spin and defend all you want but precious few pols, even among the good ones are in the least bit serious about any prosperity for the masses and you can forget about addressing the ever growing poverty.

It is about who's side are you on and there aren't enough really on our side to fill a custom van.

[Triana]

65. send this to whitehouse.gov....

...someone might read it, even if they don't respond.

[Javaman]

66. My dad was a mechanic for the Dept of Sanitation in NYC for 27 years.

He was also the union chief for his area.

My mom stayed at home with us.

Via his salary, they were able to buy a home and a cottage in Canada, put 4 kids through college, plus a retirement pension.

Afterward, he wanted to give back so he became a Auto Mechanics teacher at a local high school. Also with another pension.

I look back at those things of pensions, 100% health care coverage, etc as a pipe dream.

the repukes slowly and methodically dismantled all of that.

The slow destruction of the middle class and rebuilding it as the service sector of of the upper class. That has always been their mission.

We live like fools, forgetting our past, living from pay check to pay check with virtually no safety net and we call this the American way of life.

[Greyhound]

68. Another snapshot and K&R for this collection. 1984 summer job on a construction site.

I was loading and driving a dump truck to the land fill, $14 p/hr. Rough carpenter $22 p/hr, Finish carpenter $18 p/hr. Painter $20 p/hr, etc.

Today, the job I did pays $8, rough carpenter $14, finish $12, Painter $10.

These are actual numbers, not "adjusted for inflation" fantasies. Factor inflation in and you get the picture, Minimum wage is becoming/has become The Wage.

This is the scenario in field after field, and just like Perot said, the only way to bring global trade is to sacrifice our standards and let them slip to those of our victims. "Global Trade", "Free Trade", whatever they want to call it this week, has always been about one thing and one thing only, this.

There are no real divisions between Democratic/republik, left/right, legal/illegal, brown/white, man/woman, these are the tools used to keep our attention away from how much the parasites steal from each of us. The significant division is us/them.

[Locrian]

69. its amazing....

Even in the mid 80s as a college kid I had a job (summer, winter break) working in a shop (drill/mill operator). Over $10 bucks an hour in mid 80s. I had a grand total of $1000 in debt when I graduated college in '87. And my parents didnt pay a dime.

edit: I think $10/hr is at least equal to over $20 / hr now.

http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/

[Leopolds Ghost]

70. It gets worse, because as noted by journalists, inflation is deliberately under-represented

Under Clinton, numerous articles were written about Clinton and Greenspan's decision to adjust how inflation is calculated to massively reduce the percieved loss of buying power. This was right around the time Clinton and Gramm worked together to end Glass-Steagall (and I remember that summer, when Citi and Nations Bank changed their names to "Banc" for a good solid year so they could begin illegally buying up fincancial services firms with ilelgally inflated stock price transactions to create the "too big to fail" entities that Dems on DU are now cheering for the "success" of TARP by cheering the survival of these enterprises, which were created criminally under a loophole expressly and openly advertised by Clinton). "We intend to end that law anyway, so as long as they do not have "Bank" in their name, we will not prosecute them for circumventing Glass-Steagall" is roughly what the Clinton admin said. This was months before the Gramm act was ensured passage.)

Anyhow, around the same time, as discussed in detail at the time in several publications, Greenspan adjusted inflation calculations to include *computing power*.

So as to allow Moore's Law to come into effect, negating the continual decrease in actual buying power.

According to the Greenspan rule change, you can buy 10x more with your dollar because your computer is 10x the computing power it had 5 years ago, even if you can't put food on your family. No joke.

[zenprole]

72. An Exceptional Post

Outstanding, and it doesn't need to be 'scientific' - the figures speak for themselves.

In this thread and others, confronting the stranglehold of the political duopoly makes for a lot of hand-wringing. The tide will have turned when the hand-wringing is done by those who now hold wealth and power.

Any such shift will involve the By Any Means Necessary approach: we will reach a solution to this butchering of average people's lives...without limits, excuses, or prisoners.

[senseandsensibility]

74. kick, but it's too late to rec!

Thanks for sharing this. Working people seem to have become so passive lately, reluctant even to talk about their struggles. Obviously, violence is not the answer. I can't state that strongly enough. But we need to organize peacefully.