That's rich

[knelson]

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html

 

86th percentile

 

woulda thought it would be up there with tomtom's. I guess it's my job that's keeping the thumb down on me... I need a more prestigious occupation than "civil engineer."

 

83rd.

 

Fuuuu... you're telling me that if I was a Civil Engineer I'd be at the 85th, but because I'm a Mechanical I'm 83rd. Damn. Guess I better cut you some slack there Sobo. I bow down in awe of your class.

 

I can't believe that I'm actually agreeing with CBS - it doesn't matter what the cause of the disparity is. It's not something that can be fixed. There will always be people that make more than others. There will always be people who make bad choices in life and can't recover. There will always be people who have misfortunate things happen to them and lose everything. You can't fix those things.

 

But we CAN fix our attitudes and have compassion and understanding for folks that are struggling to get by and help them however we can.

 

-kurt

[iain]

[Fairweather]

That's my point!!!!! That is how you decrease crime! Lock up the fucking criminals. Conservative doctrine reduces crime. If weak-stomached liberals would now like to go back to the 1970's, where citizens couldn't walk the downtown areas of most major cities, then they should open the jailhouse doors. The public will really like that, eh? With the supreme court now heading decidedly toward the right, I believe my family will remain as safe as can be reasonably expected in a free society because scum will remain behind bars until they have served their sentences.

 

I believe Hillary Clinton recently gave a speech wherein she proposed giving voting rights to felons currently serving their time in prison! This is where liberals really stand.

[EWolfe]

 

[murraysovereign]

That is how you decrease crime! Lock up the fucking criminals. Conservative doctrine reduces crime...

 

I think most western countries have experienced similar crime trends over the period cited, regardless of whether they were governed by conservative or liberal governments. It's not doctrine that reduces crime: more than any other factor, it's demographics that reduces crime. The greater the proportion of young males in the population, the higher the crime rate. As those males in their later teens through mid-twenties - who are far more likely to engage in criminal activities than the general population - move into their late twenties and early thirties, their predilection for criminal behaviour drops off dramatically. Yes, socio-economic status is a contributing factor, but if the entire population was in their 60s, there would be very little violence or property crime, no matter how great the socio-economic disparities, and no matter how "liberal" the governing doctrine.

[chucK]

Another compelling theory for the huge drop in crime in the 90's:

 

Roe v Wade

[Wopper]

I have got a couple of fairly simple ideas on how to get a head in life. May make you rich, may not but will probably keep you out of the bottom 20%

1. Ge an education or learn a trade/skill/craft that can land you a decent paying job? It is called having marketable skills in the workplace. After you land that decent job, work hard, be willing to learn and show up everyday.

2. Don't spend more than you earn. Cut up your credit cards and pay off your debt.

3. Educate yourself on financial matters. You can build stock shares of numerous large companies through DRIPs (Direct Reinvestment Programs) by buying straight from the companies w/o brokerage fees. Sometimes this can be as little as $10/month. May take a while but history shows that it will pay off over the long term.

 

Of course there is always the alternative of sitting around and bitching about things that others have that you don't.

[cj001f]

Look - I know the gap is getting bigger, but common sense says the gap has always been there and has always been growing. But that growth is not linear - it's most likely exponential, just like compounding interest. And we're just now probably starting to see that curve take off.

 

-kurt

 

If you'd bother to look up the data yourself you'd see those sources aren't that different.

 

If you'd bother to look up the data you'd see that "common sense" is once again wrong, as for a total of several decades America was heading to greater income equality (decreasing gini coefficent)

[archenemy]

 

I can't believe that I'm actually agreeing with CBS - it doesn't matter what the cause of the disparity is. It's not something that can be fixed. There will always be people that make more than others. There will always be people who make bad choices in life and can't recover. There will always be people who have misfortunate things happen to them and lose everything. You can't fix those things.

 

But we CAN fix our attitudes and have compassion and understanding for folks that are struggling to get by and help them however we can.

 

-kurt

 

Very, very well said. Bravo.

[catbirdseat]

I can't believe that I'm actually agreeing with CBS - it doesn't matter what the cause of the disparity is. It's not something that can be fixed. There will always be people that make more than others. There will always be people who make bad choices in life and can't recover. There will always be people who have misfortunate things happen to them and lose everything. You can't fix those things.

 

But we CAN fix our attitudes and have compassion and understanding for folks that are struggling to get by and help them however we can.

 

-kurt

 

Who was it once said, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."?

[selkirk]

That's my point!!!!! That is how you decrease crime! Lock up the fucking criminals. Conservative doctrine reduces crime. If weak-stomached liberals would now like to go back to the 1970's, where citizens couldn't walk the downtown areas of most major cities, then they should open the jailhouse doors. The public will really like that, eh? With the supreme court now heading decidedly toward the right, I believe my family will remain as safe as can be reasonably expected in a free society because scum will remain behind bars until they have served their sentences.

 

I believe Hillary Clinton recently gave a speech wherein she proposed giving voting rights to felons currently serving their time in prison! This is where liberals really stand.

 

Locking up all the criminals is fine, so long as you never let them out. I think it's a bit off the mark that our justice system is so heavily "punishment" driven, instead of "reform" driven. In the long term a carrot is always better motivation than a stick. When you look at recidivism rates it drops incredibly when the inmates are trained in marketable skills, and can get stable jobs at a reasonable wage. The best way to prevent crime is not to punish those who commit crimes (Should prison really be punishment or something more akin to schooling and therapy?) but to figure out how to keep them from wanting to commit crimes in the first place. And that comes down to giving them legal means to have a reasonably comfortable life and to amass stuff that they don't want to loose (i.e. house, car, wife, children, respect).

 

Crime is an issue, but from a large perspective it's a symptom of a more fundamental problem. If we can work on lessening the educational disparity, breaking cycles of crime, and figuring out ways to get people skilled and employed crime rates will drop. They may not dissapear, but they'll shrink.

 

There are so many problems like this it's staggering, and a lot of them tie back to family cycles, crime, violence, domestic abuse, racism. Like it or not we usually turn into our parents, and that's a crappy thing for a lot of people. If we can fix the parents we can fix the kids.

[cj001f]

Crime is an issue, but from a large perspective it's a symptom of a more fundamental problem. If we can work on lessening the educational disparity, breaking cycles of crime, and figuring out ways to get people skilled and employed crime rates will drop. They may not dissapear, but they'll shrink.

Historically Australia proves a good example of this.

 

There was an interesting book a few years ago ( The Great Wave, here's a review which tied, among other things, increases in crime to a decrease in real wages and an increase in income inequality.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Crime is an issue, but from a large perspective it's a symptom of a more fundamental problem. If we can work on lessening the educational disparity, breaking cycles of crime, and figuring out ways to get people skilled and employed crime rates will drop. They may not dissapear, but they'll shrink.

Historically Australia proves a good example of this.

 

There was an interesting book a few years ago ( The Great Wave, here's a review which tied, among other things, increases in crime to a decrease in real wages and an increase in income inequality.

 

Of course, crime has nothing to do with the breakdown of the family unit, destructive socio-cultural attitudes, and a dependency/entitlement mentality fostered by left-wing social engineers. And laziness never ever has anything to do with it either, I suppose. It's easier to demand a check from someone else than to work, study, and aspire to do better.

[selkirk]

What the hell did I just say? Of course it has to do with breakdown of family unit, cultural attitudes etc, but the way were approaching it now won't fix any one of those. As for the sense of entitlement, that's a huge issue, but not really a class one, more of a cultural one. And laziness it tied back into the whole family breakdown issue.

 

So what do you propose we do? Just keep locking people up ad-infinitum? End wellfare programs all together? There's a great solution Lets see just how quickly we can double our prison population.

 

I'd much rather try to fix the root problems in a more permanent fashion.

[archenemy]

Crime is an issue, but from a large perspective it's a symptom of a more fundamental problem. If we can work on lessening the educational disparity, breaking cycles of crime, and figuring out ways to get people skilled and employed crime rates will drop. They may not dissapear, but they'll shrink.

Historically Australia proves a good example of this.

 

There was an interesting book a few years ago ( The Great Wave, here's a review which tied, among other things, increases in crime to a decrease in real wages and an increase in income inequality.

 

Of course, crime has nothing to do with the breakdown of the family unit, destructive socio-cultural attitudes, and a dependency/entitlement mentality fostered by left-wing social engineers. And laziness never ever has anything to do with it either, I suppose. It's easier to demand a check from someone else than to work, study, and aspire to do better.

 

What I like about you is that you are consistent.

[selkirk]

[KaskadskyjKozak]

What the hell did I just say? Of course it has to do with breakdown of family unit, cultural attitudes etc, but the way were approaching it now won't fix any one of those. As for the sense of entitlement, that's a huge issue, but not really a class one, more of a cultural one. And laziness it tied back into the whole family breakdown issue.

 

So what do you propose we do? Just keep locking people up ad-infinitum? End wellfare programs all together? There's a great solution Lets see just how quickly we can double our prison population.

 

I'd much rather try to fix the root problems in a more permanent fashion.

 

We can start by telling people what they need to be told, not what they want to hear. And entitlements should be tied to performance/self-improvement - quid pro quo.

 

We can also look at those who are successful, happy, upwardly mobile and learn why this is the case. It seems to me that there are plenty of immigrants who come here with nothing, speak the language poorly, and seem to work their butts off and succeed. The Home Simpson's of America could learn a thing or two from them...

[archenemy]

What the hell did I just say? Of course it has to do with breakdown of family unit, cultural attitudes etc, but the way were approaching it now won't fix any one of those. As for the sense of entitlement, that's a huge issue, but not really a class one, more of a cultural one. And laziness it tied back into the whole family breakdown issue.

 

So what do you propose we do? Just keep locking people up ad-infinitum? End wellfare programs all together? There's a great solution Lets see just how quickly we can double our prison population.

 

I'd much rather try to fix the root problems in a more permanent fashion.

 

We can start by telling people what they need to be told, not what they want to hear. And entitlements should be tied to performance/self-improvement - quid pro quo.

 

We can also look at those who are successful, happy, upwardly mobile and learn why this is the case. It seems to me that there are plenty of immigrants who come here with nothing, speak the language poorly, and seem to work their butts off and succeed. The Home Simpson's of America could learn a thing or two from them...

 

My parents are some of those immigrants.

But they would never presume to be know-it-alls and to tell people "what they need to be told"

[Peter_Puget]

255 with self-made fortunes vs. 165 in 1985

90 fewer "inherited at least some wealth"

25 immigrants vs. 1985's 14

4 more (129) have no college degree

25 with a Harvard or Yale Degree, down from 37

 

Seems like lots of change

[selkirk]

"telling people" anything is pointless. But your right, it would be good to look at the people who successfully pull themselves up from next to nothing and figure out what attitudes made that possible.

[Jim]

Please KK, explain why social stagnation is a good thing.

 

I'll bet your plot correlates quite well with the size of government - bigger government = more "social stagnation". Your solution would be, of course, bigger government! Or would it be "revolution"? Sorry, but I'll take stagnation over those alternatives.

 

Seems lately it's the Republicians, who own both houses of Congress and the White House, who can't control their spending and making government grow. Funny how the patter has become overspending Republicans followed by the fical responsible Dems needed to get the house in order. Problem this time around is that the money pit is much larger and in line with Argentina's debt ration when they defaulted.

[archenemy]

"telling people" anything is pointless. But your right, it would be good to look at the people who successfully pull themselves up from next to nothing and figure out what attitudes made that possible.

Agreed. But looking at the change listed above, it might even be helpful to look at folks who hold themselves up when they start out with everything.

 

From what I have read in the WSJ, the rags-to-riches story just doesn't happen all that often in America anymore. I have not read about this anywhere else, so I really don't know shit about it; but it is an interesting thing to look at.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

But they would never presume to be know-it-alls and to tell people "what they need to be told"

 

Please. As if liberals don't presume to be "know-it-alls" and tell people "what they need to be told". Liberals always talk about "educating" people to be "tolerant", "informed", etc. So this should be right up your alley.

[Dru]

 

Who was it once said, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."?

 

The actual quote is "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and see a permanent loss of productivity cause the fucker will always be running off to stand in a river when he could be working!"

[cj001f]

Of course, crime has nothing to do with the breakdown of the family unit, destructive socio-cultural attitudes, and a dependency/entitlement mentality fostered by left-wing social engineers. And laziness never ever has anything to do with it either, I suppose. It's easier to demand a check from someone else than to work, study, and aspire to do better.

If you look at the history of Australia KK the single biggest factor seemed to be a high valuation of labor compared to Britain.