Food Stamp Riots

[Anonymous]

What about the 50 million people that actually believe Obama created every social program in the country?

[joec]

I agree with a lot of these points. However, one point that needs to be said is that a lot of people actually want to work, but the problem is that the pay/work, etc is simply very very poor. I was watching bloomberg today and the wage gap between rich and poor is the highest it’s ever been in the history of the US. Among the industrialized nations, the US has the widest gap, even though it is common across all countries and growing as well.

The richest 1% control like over 50% of all wealth and I think it said the top 10% control like 80%+ maybe more…forget the exact %.

All that said, unless you work in hi-tech or have an awesome job, like flu says, I think it’s simply incredibly hard to actually make it big…even if your parents did very well. The youth has huge unemployment and unless you code and work in SV, most paying jobs are pretty weak.

Having worked in SV with the whole stock option thing and all that and working in different industries and now self employed, it really is different in terms of pay outside of a select few areas/professions. Most people make no where near enough to survive I think…in most normal jobs, even professional ones.

One risk is also if you get laid off or work in a field that’s slow (like someone said about architecture), you’re going to have a very very hard time finding something half decent. Maybe it’s just been my experience having been laid off, been on unemployment, etc…but unless you’ve been there, I can see why some people like some of these entitlement programs.

The main problem it’s very hard to get out. Also, woe to the engineer now who is making good money, then gets laid off with a mortgage, kids, wife, etc…

Even with savings, family might not be doing that well to help out.

It sounds radical, and I think not anytime soon, but there eventually will be more riots and more revolutionary type stuff since more and more people will be in poverty and quite upset about it.

We’ll end up like Europe with higher unemployment long term and with entitlements similar to become a ‘socialist’ country.

I believe the “best days” of the US are behind it for most Americans…sadly.

[SK in CV]

[quote=harvey]What about the 50 million people that actually believe Obama created every social program in the country?[/quote]

Great point. Even some that he’s (apparently?) accused of inventing, don’t exist anymore. Current unemployment benefits are shorter in most states today than at any time during the eight years prior to Obama taking office. Half as long in some states.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=spdrun]You’re still c@rping about this? Did you finish your taxes, or waste all your time till the deadline b1tching about BoA online? :D[/quote]

never forget.

i filed timely. best i could.

[flyer]

[quote=joec]I agree with a lot of these points. However, one point that needs to be said is that a lot of people actually want to work, but the problem is that the pay/work, etc is simply very very poor. I was watching bloomberg today and the wage gap between rich and poor is the highest it’s ever been in the history of the US. Among the industrialized nations, the US has the widest gap, even though it is common across all countries and growing as well.

The richest 1% control like over 50% of all wealth and I think it said the top 10% control like 80%+ maybe more…forget the exact %.

All that said, unless you work in hi-tech or have an awesome job, like flu says, I think it’s simply incredibly hard to actually make it big…even if your parents did very well. The youth has huge unemployment and unless you code and work in SV, most paying jobs are pretty weak.

Having worked in SV with the whole stock option thing and all that and working in different industries and now self employed, it really is different in terms of pay outside of a select few areas/professions. Most people make no where near enough to survive I think…in most normal jobs, even professional ones.

One risk is also if you get laid off or work in a field that’s slow (like someone said about architecture), you’re going to have a very very hard time finding something half decent. Maybe it’s just been my experience having been laid off, been on unemployment, etc…but unless you’ve been there, I can see why some people like some of these entitlement programs.

The main problem it’s very hard to get out. Also, woe to the engineer now who is making good money, then gets laid off with a mortgage, kids, wife, etc…

Even with savings, family might not be doing that well to help out.

It sounds radical, and I think not anytime soon, but there eventually will be more riots and more revolutionary type stuff since more and more people will be in poverty and quite upset about it.

We’ll end up like Europe with higher unemployment long term and with entitlements similar to become a ‘socialist’ country.

I believe the “best days” of the US are behind it for most Americans…sadly.[/quote]

+1 joe. It IS sad that many young people will never have the opportunity to enjoy the fantastic lives many of us who are a bit older have had. Doesn’t really matter who is to blame, the net result will still be the same.

Don’t know if I’ll see the complete unraveling of America in my lifetime. I hope not.

[FlyerInHi]

There is no unraveling of America.

Some people talk about hard work, but they themselves are entitled. They expect their world not to change so they can coast along.

The world is moving faster today. There is world-wide competition so people feel less secure. Demographics are changing.

As to the original post, how is the government going to run out of money? Debt is currently at 73% of GDP, a pretty healthy measure. And interest rates are at historic lows.

Didn’t food stamp cards recently stop working simultaneously in many states because of problems with the vendor, xerox?

[flyer]

[quote=FlyerInHi]There is no unraveling of America.

I hope you’re right, but, IMO, only time will tell. Personally, life for my family and me just seems to get better and better, and, although I would hope that would hold true for everyone, I’m aware that is not the reality.

It will be interesting to see how things evolve in the coming years.

[svelte]

[quote=FlyerInHi]There is no unraveling of America.

Some people talk about hard work, but they themselves are entitled. They expect their world not to change so they can coast along.

The world is moving faster today. There is world-wide competition so people feel less secure. Demographics are changing.
[/quote]

I think some people on here need to start reading old newspapers. From the late 1800s, early 1900s.

You know what you’ll find? Just as much of them was devoted to bad news, people doing idiot things, murders, riots, mayhem as today’s papers.

I know, I read them doing genealogy work here and there.

You’ll know what else you’ll find? There was a hatred of immigrants back then too. Only they were EUROPEAN immigrants. The Irish, the Italians, the Polish. All new influxes of people irritate the natives.

All of us tend to have rosy pictures of when we were younger…we forget the bad and remember the good. That’s probably a good thing, but it warps our perspective of how things have changed.

Chill people….the world’s gonna survive.

[SD Realtor]

Welcome back Brian. Why don’t you at least use your real name?

[bearishgurl]

[quote=SD Realtor]NSR I cannot argue with that point. It makes sense.

However I am discussing the entitlement mentality.

Okay for example, I have several midwest rentals. Alot of them are in working class neighborhoods. One of my tenants is chronically late on rent. All the time. However she always ends up getting it to me. She is in her 50’s with two good for nothing kids and two grandkids. She has no education. She gets some child support. She makes ends meet by getting housekeeping, babysitting and eldercare jobs. She uses care.com. She has no certifications. She works hard and is able bodied. She could collect welfare and SNAP and all that but she says as long as she is able to work she would feel very bad about taking support.

I think more and more, hers is a mentality that is vanishing amoung lower end working class. It is easier to throw in the towel.

Look at the SNAP program. In 2000 it was $17B and now it is $78B. Over 47 million on it. Stats show that the once on it, most stay on it. Then there is another $40 millions spent on advertising and outreach. There are recruiters and events actively recruiting more people for it…

I am in favor of the assistance.. it is yet another entitlement to an ever growing safety net. However all of the recruiting and quotas… it just serves the purposes of promoting dependency rather then weaning people off of it.[/quote]

I’m reading about one of SDR’s out-of-state tenants here who can apparently qualify for various types of aid and is not taking any. That is a typical mindset of boomers and beyond in much of America’s “flyover country.” It’s called PRIDE. Would SDR prefer that she avail herself of some of that aid so she can pay the rent on time? Or stop trying to “help” her “good for nothing” kids, and, by proxy, her grandkids, so she can pay the rent on time?? Obviously, if her “good for nothing” kids have kids, then they must be on aid, no? And are able to share some of that aid with grandma, who may take care of her grandkids whenever she is available to do so?

Believe it or not, there are THOUSANDS of these “good for nothing” 18-45 year-old parents still living with THEIR parents right here in SD County … yes, even in RSF. This problem isn’t confined to “working class neighborhoods.”

I’m won’t speak for him but I’m sure flyer can attest to this.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=no_such_reality]The world fundamentally needs to change. Automation is, and will continue, to largely make 90% of the population irrelevant from a labor standpoint.

The vast majority of the population, not only don’t have the education, they don’t have the family dynamic, they don’t have nutrition, they don’t have the raw life enrichment experiences necessary to develop the raw mental horsepower needed to be part of the creative class.

The question is how will we get over the hump before we rip ourselves apart.[/quote]

The emphasized portion of this statement is a very “elitest” attitude, IMO. Regardless of a job applicant’s educational level, only a very small portion of jobs available in the US are “creative.” The vast majority of jobs have been long-ago described in a classification manual and desk manual (for performance evaluation benchmarks) and are within organizations which have many rules and regulations for employees to follow. For example, a public school teacher and police officer (both great careers to aspire to) are not “creative” jobs in an of themselves, but they are needed in society.

America needs and will continue to need all kinds of workers, not just “creative types.” It’s not for elitest-types (or wanna-be elitest-types) living in SoCal (where fresh produce is in abundance and relatively cheap) to decide whether a midwestern diet of home-canned fruits and vegetables from a home garden, meat butchered and packaged locally or fish caught locally, milk pasteurized locally and real mashed potatoes with homemade gravy isn’t “nutritional.” Nor are they qualified to decide whether most Americans possess the “raw life enrichment experiences” or “family dynamic” necessary to develop the “raw mental horsepower” or whether they might already possess the “raw mental horsepower” to begin with.

Get up at 4:00 am 6-7 days per week to start chores on your “working farm or ranch” and tell me how much “raw mental horsepower” is needed to sustain that type of discipline, year in and year out.

Sorry, but it’s not the same thing as stopping off at Starbucks on your commute to a desk job in SoCal where you will report to a cubicle between 8 and 9 am, immediately put your flip-flopped feet on the desk and pipe up your laptop for the day in your supposedly “creative job.”

[jeff303]

[quote=bearishgurl]
America needs and will continue to need all kinds of workers, not just “creative types.” It’s not for elitest-types (or wanna-be elitest-types) living in SoCal (where fresh produce is in abundance and relatively cheap) to decide whether a midwestern diet of home-canned fruits and vegetables from a home garden, meat butchered and packaged locally or fish caught locally, milk pasteurized locally and real mashed potatoes with homemade gravy isn’t “nutritional.” Nor are they qualified to decide whether most Americans possess the “raw life enrichment experiences” or “family dynamic” necessary to develop the “raw mental horsepower” or whether they might already possess the “raw mental horsepower” to begin with.

Get up at 4:00 am 6-7 days per week to start chores on your “working farm or ranch” and tell me how much “raw mental horsepower” is needed to sustain that type of discipline, year in and year out.

Sorry, but it’s not the same thing as stopping off at Starbucks on your commute to a desk job in SoCal where you will report to a cubicle between 8 and 9 am, immediately put your flip-flopped feet on the desk and pipe up your laptop for the day in your supposedly “creative job.”[/quote]

I don’t think anyone is disparaging people who obviously work very hard in more physically-oriented jobs, or discounting their discipline or worth to society. The point is that like it or not, these jobs will gradually go away. Hell, so will most “creative” jobs (already happening to travel agents, accountants and lawyers are next). The free market demands that profits continue to grow every quarter, and the easiest way to achieve that growth is to reduce labor costs via automation. It has been happening throughout history and will continue to do so. Whereas many farmers used to be required to tend to one farm, now a single farmer can manage a much larger land area through the use of technology. And one day, almost no farmers will even be out physically on the fields; a small number of them will just be overseeing the operations of robots harvesting the fields.

I agree with others that say there will be some sort of major upheaval, probably in my lifetime. The only hope I can see to alleviating this outcome is something like essentially free universal power (fusion or similar), or mass rollout/usage/hacking of 3D printing. For the time being, wealth will continue to flow upward at an ever increasing pace, since the already wealthy are the ones who will own the profits from increased automation.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=bearishgurl][quote=no_such_reality]The world fundamentally needs to change. Automation is, and will continue, to largely make 90% of the population irrelevant from a labor standpoint.

The vast majority of the population, not only don’t have the education, they don’t have the family dynamic, they don’t have nutrition, they don’t have the raw life enrichment experiences necessary to develop the raw mental horsepower needed to be part of the creative class.

The question is how will we get over the hump before we rip ourselves apart.[/quote]

The emphasized portion of this statement is a very “elitest” attitude, IMO. Regardless of a job applicant’s educational level, only a very small portion of jobs available in the US are “creative.”[/quote]

BG, you’re missing the point. The point I made, that you then reiterated is that few, of the total, jobs are creative. Creative as in make something, create, not assemble. In LAUSD, a 1/3rd of the students don’t graduate. That’s not elitist attitude on my part, that’s a fact from LAUSD. Even farming is becoming ‘creative’.

Will we always need farmers? Yes, but as we’ve discussed in a previous thread, the machines on the farm now make it so that a family of four can do the work of 100 from as little as 40 years ago. That’s my point, we need 4 now, no longer a 100. That’s the dynamic I’m worried about. It also requires a lot of a knowledge. And the raw horsepower is that willpower you mention to do it, everyday. Research and find answers, to build the marketing network to sell their product.

It’s also not elitist to recognize that it isn’t just genetics or the child’s stick-to-it-ness. It’s family support, teacher support, it’s having parents that provide a lifestyle that provides safety and experiences to grow from. Can a completely average kid from the ghetto make it? Sure, but let’s be honest, it’s rare, not because there anything inherently wrong with the kid, but because his environment (on average) has stacked a much higher and steeper mountain to get there.

The mental horsepower, or to borrow a phrase from some guys from Harvard and Yale, cognitive load carrying capacity, is large. Environment, training, experience and safety net determine how quickly stressers burn up your cognitive load. There’s a very recent interesting study about cognitive load and how it doesn’t really matter if you’re rich or poor, if you’re given stressors, like financial difficulties, that take up your cognitive load, you start to make bad decisions, rich or poor, you make the characteristic decisions that lead to being poorer.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=flyer]Agree with these viewpoints.

The sad thing is that, IMO, even those in future generations with the family background, education, etc., etc., will still struggle to live the lives of their dreams, so don’t be deluded into thinking these trends will only affect “the masses.”

We’re already seeing evidence of this in increasing numbers with some of our kids friends, all of whom were raised in RSF. So far, our kids, who are in their late 20’s, are doing well after college, but I would say, rough estimate, over 50% of their friends are not. By well, I mean the ability to achieve your dreams/goals in life.

What’s really unbelievable, is when you ask their parents what the kids are planning to do after college, many of them just try to avoid the subject–since they probably have no idea. Sad.
A sign of things to come? Only time will tell.[/quote]

flyer, you’ve posted before here that your kids (like mine) left SD County to pursue their dreams. IMO, THAT is the key to success for local Gen Y college graduates. It is possible that some of your neighbors’ kids majored in degrees that will not land them any meaningful employment and that is the reason they can’t find a job. Another reason is that they are unwilling to relocate because they would have to move away from parents’ homes, which offer a better lifestyle than they can afford on their own. This is partly a parent-enabled phenomenon, IMO.

IMO, the key to success for local young college graduates today is to major in highly employable fields in college and be willing to relocate ANYWHERE to get their career started. They can always return to SD County, later . . . after they have moved up the career ladder in their field and can command a much higher wage.

All is not lost for Native San Diegan college students and recent grads who are serious about majoring in an employable field and finding a suitable “first job” for themselves … wherever that may be.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=jeff303][quote=bearishgurl]
America needs and will continue to need all kinds of workers, not just “creative types.” It’s not for elitest-types (or wanna-be elitest-types) living in SoCal (where fresh produce is in abundance and relatively cheap) to decide whether a midwestern diet of home-canned fruits and vegetables from a home garden, meat butchered and packaged locally or fish caught locally, milk pasteurized locally and real mashed potatoes with homemade gravy isn’t “nutritional.” Nor are they qualified to decide whether most Americans possess the “raw life enrichment experiences” or “family dynamic” necessary to develop the “raw mental horsepower” or whether they might already possess the “raw mental horsepower” to begin with.

Get up at 4:00 am 6-7 days per week to start chores on your “working farm or ranch” and tell me how much “raw mental horsepower” is needed to sustain that type of discipline, year in and year out.

Sorry, but it’s not the same thing as stopping off at Starbucks on your commute to a desk job in SoCal where you will report to a cubicle between 8 and 9 am, immediately put your flip-flopped feet on the desk and pipe up your laptop for the day in your supposedly “creative job.”[/quote]

I don’t think anyone is disparaging people who obviously work very hard in more physically-oriented jobs, or discounting their discipline or worth to society. The point is that like it or not, these jobs will gradually go away. The free market demands that profits continue to grow every quarter, and the easiest way to achieve that growth is to reduce labor costs via automation. It has been happening throughout history and will continue to do so. Whereas many farmers used to be required to tend to one farm, now a single farmer can manage a much larger land area through the use of technology. And one day, almost no farmers will even be out physically on the fields; a small number of them will just be overseeing the operations of robots harvesting the fields.

I agree with others that say there will be some sort of major upheaval, probably in my lifetime. The only hope I can see to alleviating this outcome is something like essentially free universal power (fusion or similar), or mass rollout/usage/hacking of 3D printing. For the time being, wealth will continue to flow upward at an ever increasing pace, since the already wealthy are the ones who will own the profits from increased automation.[/quote]

I disagree on a couple of your points, jeff.

First of all, jobs such as a police officer and a teacher are not going away. There are MANY jobs working with PEOPLE where a human needs to report to work and interact with PEOPLE all day. Most of these jobs are not “creative” but have procedures which have been laid out for decades.

And I don’t see where owning robots will be more economical for farms than paying the (mostly) migrant farmworkers the wages that they currently earn. Especially since humans will have to “oversee” the work of robots.

Contrary to popular belief on this forum, “wealthy” people come in all stripes, jeff. For example, “wealthy” or even “extremely wealthy” people may be those who control leases for thousands of acres of ranchland passed down through their families. “Wealthy” people also control 2-12 separate mineral rights (gas and oil) leases passed down through a family which may generate a monthly annuity for life for a dozen or more family members.

I have such relatives in both categories and can assure you that they would be considered “wealthy” or even “extremely wealthy” by the Piggs. What do they look like? They’re dressed in Levi 501’s and a flannel shirt today with a t-shirt on to strip down to if it gets too hot. They left home this morning at 7:00 am and hit the road in their 2002 dually pickup with their circa 1964 plaid coffee Thermos, a packed ice chest, gallon push-button drink cooler, safety glasses and hardhat in tow 🙂

In a lineup, you might not be able to tell them from the Walmart SNAP/EBT crowd.

They don’t have time to sit and blog with you and me because they’re busy checking on and even supervising their many “biz enterprises” and will arrive back home between 5:30 and 6:00 pm this evening to a home-cooked dinner.

And some of them are past retirement age but enjoy what they are doing.

And, to my knowledge, they never had any problems with “family dynamics” or lack of “raw life enrichment experiences.”

[Author]

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