Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

Post by TYPE_FASTER » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

Post by petra » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #87

posguy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its the power of capital over labor, whereby capital is extremely stratified in the hands of very few people, and they have shifted political power so as to avoid investment in the laborers (aka everyone below themselves) and ensure they do not become a threat. Additionally, they will usually influence monetary policy to ensure their status is never challenged, which is why rapidly rising housing prices aren't a majo…

Interestingly, capital holders are complaining all the time as well. There are very few places to put money now with a decent return. Savings accounts pay roughly 0%. Bonds are at inflation, or sometimes less. The S&P 500's P/E is at 25, which is historically very high, implies a rate of return of about 4%, and makes the risk of a correction significant. Real estate is inefficient; property prices are so high that th…

Post by magic_beans » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

magic_beans wrote: post #129

cookiecaper wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather was dyslexic and in his 92 years, he never could learn to read. He started his own garbage disposal business and became wealthy from it, eventually getting contracts with several significant municipalities in the Northwest before he sold it off. He surrounded himself with intelligent, well-educated people who would read the contracts to him and advise him (primarily his sons and wives, but also trusted…

Ah, that is the very definition of white privilege. This despairing young white America just doesn't realize they actually have it, unlike their truly hopeless minority counterparts.

Post by redial » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

gramstrong wrote: post #75

cmahler7 wrote: post #35

We're at the point where the United State can either become utopia or dystopia. Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure, or continue as it has destroying the middle class and consolidating wealth for the elite. I used to be hardcore capitalism but if something isn't done to spread the wealth we are going to have our own French revolution with the plebes rising up ag…

>Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure This will literally never happen. The labor force will look a lot different, the average person will be much more educated. But we are never going to be in a perpetual state of leisure, or anything resembling it, lest we want to halt human progress in place. All automation does is allow us to focus on larger problems, or crea…

Post by dkhenry » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #147

dkhenry wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its previous generations non college educated whites who are previously lived in rural areas which better job prospects then today. The fact that the mortality gab is closing is nothing to do with race and more to do with economics. Showing that race isn't the factor, but the reporting instead focuses on race like this is some kind of white person problem. All we are seeing is the economic collapse that hit inner cit…

It has to do with race in that racial privilege used to have a higher economic premium than it does now. It would be facile toignore this fact; economics isn't some indepedent objective force, but the product of social and structural factors that are ultimately arbitrary. I'm a big fan of Colin Woodard's book American Nations , which examines the very different social, economic and cultural assumptions of 11 differen…