This explains it...

[salukipv1]

http://www.radfordfreepress.com/?p=1975

[Knightia]

Dont you have any of your own words to explain these things Sal?

Whats it explain? His story of -The failed american dream?Because some blogger says so?( i guess not enought socialism( and redistbution of wealth?)? He seems real poltical( one sided) for a man who says he dosnt get into poltices much in his writings)

So who is he? Is he even a american citizen? All i see are a web page with his- with some guys opinions on it.

Maybe his story on- the farce that is America explains it?( if its so bad here& so much better elsewhere , wonder why he lives here in America?( least i think he does)
Seems a leftest , liberal , progressive type & seems to wish obamy was even more so in his leadership of our country.

My preception( maybe because its 4 am here?) of it& him ( so far) seems of a man who thinks there should be more goverment & regulation & who dislikes ppl like republicans, reagan, etc,etc

Seems like you him, obamy have a bit in commen.

( maybe you can expain it to me so i to can understand- that this explains it..? )

[Knightia]

He didnt seen to like that many Americas didnt like O bamys heath care reforms/plans either( but blames in on the republician polticans i believe( and here i always thought they where suppose to rep those who sent them to Dc & the prez all of us( foolish me i guess).

Dosnt seem to be to happy with how the dems are handling the current happenings( again blaming the opposers(rep mostly)
But
Saying the dems are far to right wing?

As for the Democrats? I cannot summon enough of my own venom to describe their failure. That an erstwhile Democratic president could present a plan such as the one Obama has periodically talked about is astonishing. Nowhere is there an effort to defend the role of government. Nowhere is there an effort to defend any of the traditional constituents of progressive politics. The retreat from left of center values is stark and almost total

The Real Deal?

By Peter Radford on Saturday, July 30th, 2011
As we all sit and wait for the curtain to fall on this embarrassing farce I note a couple of things. First, a number of commentators and analysts are stepping forward to sooth our nerves by describing this mess as not so outrageous after all. They ask us to remember the controversy and vitriol surrounding

.................................................. .................

So Plz - do add- Any input of your own to help explain to me - how these things explain things .... sal.

[Knightia]

Is one of the secret thought prossess & 1# rule of a leftist progressive - ?

We should all be glad to be taxed even more & have more goverment control( because( big daddy) goverment knows best & then they can hand out the moneys( including many social programs( including for leftist voters as a pay off( including noncitizens) & any moneys a taxpayer may get/see in return should be seen as a great & wonderfull gift givin by the generous goverment?
( its not something they add to big citys/urban areas water systems is it?)
( just trying to understand how all these politices & such things work.
( is koolaide involved?)

[homers brother]

No, it doesn't.

The most telling statistic to back up this claim is the current distribution of income.

Being a free people in America, the term "American Dream" is relative and defies definition. The concept being suggested here is a cookiecutter approach to happiness. Images of Chairman Mao. Distribution of income is a socialist ideal, not a democratic one.

If you buy into this kind of myopic garbage, you exclude the possibility that other life aspects - like family - have any value in determining one's "wealth." It's always about the money to democrats/liberals and about the tearing down, dilution, and the devaluation of anything else.

If all you value is cash and things you can buy with it, you'll never have enough of either. Chairman Mao wants you to produce. He doesn't want you to spend time with your family or pursuing other interests besides producing for the state.

[Alsatian]

I don't have the patience to analyze that slippery bit of polemic carefully. Some people look at increased US spending from 19% of GDP over a 40 year average to 26% of GDP . . . as a 7% increase. Well, according to subtracting 26 - 19 = 7, this view is correct, but is it meaningful? I think analyzing it as 26/19 = 37% increase is more meaningful. Numbers, how you analyze them, what is taken as a norm, what your perspective is when analyzing them is often determinative of what your ultimate conclusion is.

For example, in the present case, the blogger is quite excited about the distribution of wealth and the share of the middle class. What if wealth has increased by 10 fold since 1980 but the wealth controlled by the middle class has only increased by 3 fold since 1980. What conclusion do you draw? One conclusion is that the middle class, on average, increased their individual wealth by about 3.6% per year during that time. Another conclusion, seemingly what the blogger is insinuating -- without expressly stating, probably because the statement doesn't hold water -- is that wealth that formerly belonged to the middle class has been transferred to the wealthy folks. What is not clearly articulated or addressed by the blogger is that the pie is NOT constant sized.

I don't feel that I will improve my understanding by investing the time to try to unravel such canted figures.

[Alsatian]

I think the American Dream can be obtained, but you don't stumble over it and you don't generally get there by being mentally weak. There are pitfalls to be avoided. What kind of pitfalls? Getting an equity loan on your home and using the proceeds for buying silly crap that is a depreciating asset such as a HumVee. Buying more home than you need because a banker or a real estate agent says you can qualify for more. Thrift and hard work and caveat emptor have a role to play in achieving the American Dream. Making good personal choices have a lot to do with it. Get a good education like your parents and teachers and religious leaders -- well, frankly just about every legitimate authority figure you are likely to encounter in your youth -- consistently counsel you to. Don't have out-of-wedlock children. That will certainly put a detour in your path to achieving the American Dream. Again, not advice you haven't heard before, no doubt, from about every legitimate authority figure you are likely to encounter in your youth. When you get married, make a good marriage match. A series of divorces and fractured families isn't a reliable path to the American Dream. Don't get involved in substance abuse and alcohol abuse. Again, have legitmate authority figures misled you on this subject? I myself enjoy drinking fine wine and beer in moderation, typically accompanying a special meal, but I appreciate that this must be done in moderation or it screws other things up.

Do you get the American Dream if you do all the right stuff, as prescribed above? Not necessarily. There is still more. You need to coerce economic probabilities and possibilities more in your favor. Any competitive athelete knows that they need to try to avail themselves of every edge that is possible. What am I talking about? Some examples may help.

If you live in Michigan or Illinois or California or New York, maybe you ought to move to Texas. Texas doesn't have a state income tax so you get to keep that money. The Texas economy is pretty robust, so you are more likely to keep your job and not lose income during lay-off periods and more likely to find a new job quickly if you are laid-off. You can get a good house in a good neighborhood with good schools a close commute to work here in Texas. Compare this to many other places. If you live within a 20 minute commute of a good, professional job, where quality public schools are available, in many places like the Chicago area, Boston area, New York area, Seattle area, Charlotte area, homes are priced out of this world!!! Compare square foot to square foot, also, not this "median value" home versus "median value" home crap. This just means that people in overvalued markets have to settle for a lot less house. Compare a 2500 square foot house in a good neighborhood with good schools good municipal services close commute to work among different cities. If you are paying $500,000 for the same standard of living you can have in the affluent suburbs north of Dallas for $200,000 . . . you are giving up a significant edge in pursuing the American Dream.

My mother's side of the family moved over from Norway in about 1880. My father's side of the family moved over from France in about 1840. These people left family behind fully knowing they would NEVER see them again. They did this for economic opportunity, for the American Dream. Please don't tell me you can't move from Michigan or Illinois or New York or California to Texas. It is an easy flight or drive to return back to visit your families. I myself moved from Illinois and for many years went back home to visit my parents and sisters every Christmas. Again, compare with the ancestors of many of us who left their families forever to pursue the American Dream. Further, these immigrants often worked their a$$es off. 80 hour work weeks, I don't think that would have blown the minds of those immigrants pursuing and finding their American Dream.

Is the American Dream possible today? Of course. But it doesn't come by sitting around watching Days of Our Lives or vegetating during class or allowing yourself to be flattered and seduced by the TV culture programming you how you ought to spend your money and spend your time.

This also raises the question "what is the American Dream." For me I would say to have a comfortable home in a good neighborhood, to be able to provide well for my children, and to be able to send my children to public universities in-state. That is working out for me. Note this is certainly an up-scale version of the American Dream relative to what the immigrants were picturing when they came here during the Great Wave. Certainly this is well above the standard achieved by the average American before WW-II. Is the American Dream to be as wealthy as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Jordan, T. Boone Pickens? Well, that has ALWAYS been a very low probability play, my friends. And if anything, the opportunity for making it rich like Croeseus may be better today than 100 years ago. Innovation is happening more rapidly today than formelry, and these super tycoons get rich by moving with vigor, intelligence, energy, boldness, and good luck (where are the guys who had the same skills as Bill Gates but missed the lucky breaks Bill Gates got, like retaining the rights to his DOS that he instead licensed to IBM? Change that minor point and where would Bill Gates be today? -- you don't hear about these other guys who fortune or fate led to take a turn down a less brilliant path) into these green spaces of innovation.

When I hear this whining about the inaccessiblity of the American Dream it almost makes me think of fat people sitting around complaining about how impossible it is to keep off the weight. That is nonsense. Eat less, exercise more. "Put the twinkie down, jumbo!!!" It really isn't rocket science folks. So with the American Dream too.

[Fieldmouse]

It's a shame he doesn't have the facts on his side Sal. But then again, since when do you or the left care about the facts? You fall for all this knee jerk crap because it explains in your mind why you're not where you want to be in life. Instead of examining yourself and your choices you made, it's someone else's fault.

Like I said, he has no facts to back up his stuff. If you don't believe Dr. Williams, you can go directly to the Tresury Department source and read it for yourself. I have.

A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2007, AND THEREAFTER

Income Mobility

Listening to people like Lou Dobbs, John Edwards and Mike Huckabee lamenting the plight of America's middle class and poor, you'd have to conclude that things are going to hell in a handbasket. According to them, there's wage stagnation, while the rich are getting richer and the poor becoming poorer. There are a couple of updates that tell quite a different story.

The Nov. 13 Wall Street Journal editorial "Movin' On Up" reports on a recent U.S. Treasury study of income tax returns from 1996 and 2005. The study tracks what happened to tax filers 25 years of age and up during this 10-year period. Controlling for inflation, nearly 58 percent of the poorest income group in 1996 moved to a higher income group by 2005. Twenty-six percent of them achieved middle or upper-middle class income, and over 5 percent made it into the highest income group.

Over the decade, the inflation-adjusted median income of all tax filers rose by 24 percent. As such, it refutes Dobbs-Edwards-Huckabee claims about stagnant incomes. In fact, only one income group experienced a decline in real income. That was the richest one percent, who saw an income drop of nearly 26 percent over the 10-year period. The editors explain that these people might have been rich for a few years, had some capital gains, or could not stand up to the competition with new entrepreneurs and wealth creators.

The U.S. Treasury study confirms previous studies dating back to the 1960s, concluding, "The basic finding of this analysis is that relative income mobility is approximately the same in the last 10 years as it was in the previous decade." As such, it points to a uniquely American feature: Just because you know where a person ended up in life doesn't mean you can be sure about where he started. Most of today's higher income and wealthy did not start out that way.

What about claims of a disappearing middle class? Let's do some detective work. Controlling for inflation, in 1967, 8 percent of households had an annual income of $75,000 and up; in 2003, more than 26 percent did. In 1967, 17 percent of households had a $50,000 to $75,000 income; in 2003, it was 18 percent. In 1967, 22 percent of households were in the $35,000 to $50,000 income group; by 2003, it had fallen to 15 percent. During the same period, the $15,000 to $35,000 category fell from 31 percent to 25 percent, and the under $15,000 category fell from 21 percent to 16 percent. The only reasonable conclusion from this evidence is that if the middle class is disappearing, it's doing so by swelling the ranks of the upper classes.

What about the concentration of wealth? In 1918, John D. Rockefeller's fortune accounted for more than half of one percent of total private wealth. To compile the same half of one percent of the private wealth in the United States today, you'd have to combine the fortunes of Microsoft's Bill Gates ($53 billion) and Paul Allen ($16 billion), Oracle's Larry Ellison ($19 billion), and a third of Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett's $46 billion. In 1920, America's richest one percent held about 40 percent of private wealth; by 1980, the private wealth held by the richest one percent fell to about 20 percent and has remained stable at that level since.

Demagogues duping Americans about stagnant and declining income give politicians justification to raise taxes and place regulatory obstacles in the path of risk-taking, productivity and hard work that will impede the enviable income mobility that has become a part of American tradition. Raising taxes on capital formation reduces the rate of capital formation. Raising taxes on income reduces incentives to work. Unfortunately, because so many Americans buy into the politics of envy, politicians have a leg up in enacting measures that cripple economic growth.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

[Alsatian]

I will add one further note on this topic. Formerly it used to be possible to attain the American Dream as an unskilled laborer, such as by being an assembly line worker in a factory. That path no longer seems to lead to what I would consider to be the American Dream. Even so, following the straight and narrow path I mentioned -- study in school and learn, work hard, avoid out-of-wedlock child bearing, make a sound marriage match, be thrifty, avoid substance and alcohol abuse, don't make stupid financial decisions, choose carefully where you put down your permanent roots (Texas versus Illiinois, Michigan, California, New York) -- is going to leave you much better off than otherwise.

Maybe the path for someone who is not "college material" is to learn a manual skill that does pay decent money and allows the craftsman to operate as an independent business man? A fine cabinet maker, a custom acoustic guitar maker, an antique home remodeler, etc. How do you go down this path? Maybe find someone who is doing this and work with them learning from them and then move out into a new territory and establish your own business? Is there risk and sacrifice and hardwork in this path? Yes, or course, and ever has it been so to achieve financial success on your own as opposed to having been born into wealth.

[emptyquiver2]

Ditto. Each is the master of his own ship.