The discussion revolves around various interpretations of the American Dream, exploring its implications, feasibility, and the societal conditions surrounding it. Participants share personal views, historical context, and critiques, touching on themes of opportunity, wealth, fame, and social mobility.
Participants express a range of views on the American Dream, with no clear consensus. Some agree on the importance of personal effort, while others emphasize systemic inequalities that complicate the realization of the dream.
Limitations in the discussion include varying definitions of success, differing interpretations of privilege, and the complexity of measuring opportunity in society.
Thats a terribly fatalistic and pessimistic point of view. The quantity of wealth and the overall size of the economy in the US (and most western nations) consistently grows faster than both inflation and population. If you look at historical income statistics, EVERY income level is increasing (even taking inflation into account). One person's success does not require the failure of others - quite the contrary: A successful person usually takes others along for the ride.
Interesting that you should mention this. It's only true if there are laws protecting the rights of employees and tenants etc (call 'em "clients"), which there are. However, analysis of benefits vs. cost of success should show that it depends very much on the type of business the successful person is in. For example, a logging company becomes successful if it logs more trees than anyone else, a chemical co. becomes successful if it produces more chemicals. All industrial activities have great costs to the environment.
Thats really not relevant to my point. Its a whole other topic altogether. The typical measure of "success" people talk about is economic. The fact that income levels for *ALL* segments of the US population continually increase means the level of "success" of Americans is continually increasing.
Bad analogy. There may be a limited number of available NBA teams, but that does not extend to other segments of the economy. Anyone can open a business in any number of fields.
That's exactly what I said - economic success.
Not. The value of a dollar depends on how many other dollars are in circulation. If all incomes rise at the same rate, the value of your income will remain constant.
It isn't just how many dollars are in circulation. It fluctuates constantly because it is based on how much people THINK it should be worth. Overall, the value of the currency in any growing economy will decrease at a rate of a couple of percent a year. This is called INFLATION. But you are correct in your conclusion - IF the increase in income matches the inflation rate, the overall value of your income will remain constant. However, I specifically stated that even factoring in inflation, income rates are rising.
What you describe, Zero, is NOT the real world. Its how you WANT the real world to be so that you can blame it on Bush. Your data is wrong (mostly anecdotal anyway) and because of that your conclusions are wrong.
Quantum, I agree with everything you said, but the reason I said shwarz's comments were irrelevant is beause he was talking about measures of CORPORATE economic success and I was talking about INDIVIDUAL economic success. Certainly corporations can be compared in many ways to determine success, but people are almost exclusively compared based on income.
They might be, but unemployment is also rising. I don't see how income could be rising for very long if unemployment is swelling! If there are more potential hole-diggers, the cost of a hole goes Down!
I would extend youir statement to say that the sucess of American capitalism is based on the idea of an openm frontier. All talk to the contrary, it seems that the stock market expansion of the 1990's was nothing but a bubble. A lesson could be learned from the ecologists, who preach the concept of sustainable growth.
I'm talking LONG TERM here. Unenployment is up in the past two years, but even that isn't all that high historically. In the US, unemployment always fluctuates from about 4-8% with the economic cycle except in severe recession or depression. That is NOT something that has changed. As the economy recovers, the unemployment rate will again go down toward the lower end of that range. It always has and it will agin.
Zero, if you have data that supports your opinion, I'll certainly read it. The data I have provided directly contradicts your opinion and attacking me personally won't prove you are right.
Sounds like an interesting book. I may read it. There is a major flaw in what you describe though. Not everyone has either the intelligence nor the desire to be a nuclear physicist. I certainly don't. And I agree with schwarz on this - it does sound like communism. Communism sounds nice in theory, but it doesn't fit with human nature (for the reason I described) and is unworkable in the large scale.
My boss described the political spectrum as a circle - taking both democracy and communism to their extremes makes them very similar in some respects. I don't buy that they connect, but I'll agree that they are close.
People in Indonesia are not failing because they make Nike's for low wages. The alternative to those low wages is starvation. I would prefer it if all countries would reform and become stable, prosperous capitalistic democracies like the western world, but the 300 million people in the US can't make it happen for the 5 billion in the 3rd world. They are going to have to do it largely on their own. Either way, the presence of Nike is HELPING these people, not hurting them. it is putting MORE money into the local economy than was there before.
3rd world countries are not "grow[ing] poor" they have always BEEN poor. There isn't anything that they have that we can take from them to make them more poor.
It WAS a bubble, Zero - not unlike 1929 (though nowhere near as bad when it burst). But just like 1929 it will grow again. Through its entire history, the stock market has averaged about a 12% yearly gain (I believe that's NOT adjusted for inflation) and has never been down for more than 15 years at a time.
It's not going to recover soon, because its a consumer driven economy- more people are laid off so they buy less stuff, simultaneously with the price of stuff goes up (local sales taxes to cover state expenses). $22,680.16, per capita national debt. Debt is not free, maintenance for the debt will come out of public social services and infrastructure. It's just anarchy in government. Sid Viscious would be proud.
Currently the economy IS expanding (GDP is rising) and the stock market is rising. Consumer confidence is next. Historically, there is a specific order to which the various indicators come back up. Unemployment is actually usually the LAST of the indicators to rise or fall.
Zero, calling me a liar is a personal attack. "Poor Russ" is a (pathetic) personal attack. These really do nothing at all to help your argument. Why even do it? Are you trying to distract us from the substance (or lack thereof) of your argument?
Example? Supporting data?
Actually, this is part of the problem in the US. How do you define rich/poor? It would seem to me that you should define it according to a specific income level. But if you do that, you wind up with the data showing an ever shrinking number of poor people and that is unacceptable to a great many people. For some reason people WANT a well defined number of poor people, so it is more common to define rich/poor according to percentages, IE the bottom 20% regardless of income are considered poor and the top 5% regardless of income are considered rich. That way, the number of rich and poor is a constant proportion of the population. But that glosses over the fact that the bottom 20% is 40% LESS POOR than they were 35 years ago because they make 40% more money (inflation adjusted).
It's been rising for two years, and since the 2001 Bush tax cut! Where are these jobs going to come from? It's hogwash: states and corporations are laying people off, they're losing not only their income but health care.
I suppose it would be unconstitutional to vote on this one too eh?