141–150 of 203 posts
I think there's a trade-off, millennials will live a life with more public conveniences. Internet, social networks, free games, etc. Not my cup of tea, but as a millennial I think the generational values are generally geared more to life experiences over money.
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The Tea Party didn't get a legislative hold until the mid-term elections, when Obama lost his Democratic majority.
The tea party was energized by 2008, they had to wait until the next election to take power.
There are mitigating strategies that we can use to our advantage. Rejecting car & home ownership culture, enforcing various frugal lifestyle patterns (cook and eat home, body weight exercise), cheap travel (couchsurfing/airbnb), geoarbitraging income can do wonders on a personal level. There are several changes on the horizon that could cause interesting ripples soon - for example, what happens when mobile solar powe…
Home ownership is a great asset if you're using the home yourself. On the other hand a car is a actually a liability that depreciates over time requiring inspections in regular intervals, compulsory car insurance and a parking lot at both the departure location and the destination.
The only real difference is that in major populated areas, the land it sits on tends to be rare and valuable, which allows its value to keep up with or even exceed the rate of inflation.
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the appropriate response for ordinary americans seems to be democratic isolationism, imo. oppose trade deals like ttip, tpp and tpa -- these deals serve to enrich those who are already the global winners and provide nothing for the emerging intelligentsia of the first world. globalism might benefit those in power at the moment, but it provides nothing for those of us who need to work through a career or two to be com…
Which is something I've been ranting about this very thing for years, often to much undeserved derision in my opinion. You touch the point but don't nail it down. You need to identify exactly what you have in common with the Texan vs the Chinese man. I would argue this is the beauty of the true American exceptionality, in that the American Revolution, despite the British propoganda attempting to paint it as hardly mo…
The US was founded by wealthy land owners because they preferred to keep their money rather than pay taxes to the British Empire.
I sympathise with that but lets not pretend it was founded with the freedoms and protections of ALL people in mind. Slaves and women were not granted those rights.
The country was founded by oligarchs for oligarchs and it has remained that way.
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Home ownership is a great asset if you're using the home yourself. On the other hand a car is a actually a liability that depreciates over time requiring inspections in regular intervals, compulsory car insurance and a parking lot at both the departure location and the destination.
A home is no different from a car in that it also depreciates, things break, needs to be maintained, repaired, etc. The only real difference is that in major populated areas, the land it sits on tends to be rare and valuable, which allows its value to keep up with or even exceed the rate of inflation.
On the other hand, you have to live somewhere and, absent having access to somewhere you can live for free, you're going to have to pay for housing one way or another.
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Why the stark contrast between bordering age groups? Difference in effort, intelligence, experience, drive?
> Difference in effort, intelligence, experience, drive? Unlikely. Much more likely causes are technological change and systemic changes in international political economy that reduce wages and consumer investment earnings.
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You're entirely right, government spending does not harm economic growth.
Not to champion austerity (and no, I'm really not championing austerity), but if increased spending is paid for with increased borrowing, government bonds will complete in capital markets and make borrowing generally more expensive for everyone. Of course right now capital is ridiculously cheap and the economy still isn't doing very well...
http://static.cdn-seekingalpha.com/uploads/2012/5/10/sauploa...
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Economic ills? Well consider that numerous other developed nations have large amounts of state-owned industry and that if anything their economies are stronger than ours.
Consider a 25 year return on investment in the economy. Adjusted for inflation and including dividends, it's about 9% for the S&P 500: http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm Are there any developed economies with a higher figure?
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Home ownership is a great asset if you're using the home yourself. On the other hand a car is a actually a liability that depreciates over time requiring inspections in regular intervals, compulsory car insurance and a parking lot at both the departure location and the destination.
A home is no different from a car in that it also depreciates, things break, needs to be maintained, repaired, etc. The only real difference is that in major populated areas, the land it sits on tends to be rare and valuable, which allows its value to keep up with or even exceed the rate of inflation.
