When they actually mean either the 0.1% or even the 0.01% ......
If you include my notional property-value ( & ignore the fact that it needs underpinning work I can't afford ) then I'm easily into the "1%". Which goes to show just what bollocks it is.
See also Scott Sanford's excellent reply.
This is the sort of thing that gets useless wet rags like Corbyn or fucking mad marxists like MacDonnell elected, who then actually do go for the 1% & not the 0.01 ... which screws the country as effectively as the other side pouring more money into the pockets of their super-rich ( i.e. the real 0.01% ) & corrupt friends. No middle way.
]]>Is this is why they are turning to TrumPence - in desperation - as they turned to Adolf or the communists in late-Weimar Germany?
[ Though that does not explain the rise of revolting objects like Erdogan or Horthy Orban ]
A short answer to your question is, Yes.
Read the Atlantic article again, and then look at my earlier point @253, that even though you are living the British sitcom, The Good Life, you are living at a higher tech level than I am or most people in the US.
Why America’s impressive 5% unemployment rate feels like a lie for so many
Right now with Trump, America has %4 unemployment, and companies can't find "qualified" people for vacant positions. What does this mean. Why is there a problem that caused people to elect Trump.
You are a machinist who has worked for over twenty years at a company. You are laid off when the factory you worked at is moved to Mexico, where the workers are paid 12 bucks a day. You are good at your job, with massive experience, and don't expect to have trouble finding another job. Trouble is, you can't. No one will hire you because you can't pass the drug test.
Over the years, you have had injuries on the job. You are taking doctor prescribed opioids for the chronic pain you have. You were covered by medical insurance with your company, and everything that you are taking for the chronic pain is proper and caused no problem with your last job. Yet, any new company sees you as having a "drug" problem.
Since you were laid off, you have been on assistance. As long as you are collecting benefits you are counted officially as "unemployed". Once your benefits run out you are no longer counted as "unemployed". You still have no job, but are no longer counted officially.
Those companies who can't find "qualified" workers, mean that you show up for the job interview, and they say come in tomorrow for a drug test, and you don't bother to show up because you know that you will not pass the drug test.
Economy Needs Workers, but Drug Tests Take a Toll
This video is showing the lengths that industry is going to to train "qualified" workers, i.e., Drug free kids are cheaper to train rather than hire a skilled worker with a "drug problem".
Where the Jobs Are: Manufacturing
BTW, There is a book out called Nomadland that speaks to many of the people lost by the "Great Recession". Too many people have family that are living like this and have never "recovered" from the "Great Recession", thus they voted for Trump.
When you read though the articles realize that, for years, just down the street at the Sam's Club -- a big box store -- I can drive by the parking lot at any time and see motor homes, trucks with camper shells, vans fixed up to live in, parked there long term. I can see the same long term parking at any of the local Walmarts. The stores give them access to bathrooms.
On the Road With the Casualties of the Great Recession - SEPT. 19, 2017
In ‘Nomadland,’ the Golden Years Are the Wander Years - NOV. 17, 2017
That's why I can say:
So, industry can't fill manufacturing jobs with "qualified" workers -- people who can pass the drug test. Yet, you now have legalized marijuana in some states, and there is a push to legalize it in many more states.
Think of the irony. They won't bring back manufacturing jobs because we have so few "qualified" workers, yet they are gearing up to make "drugs" like marijuana available locally.
When you go through the stuff, remember that these "products" are not cheap, so the people who can't find a job will not be able to afford to buy this stuff. All of the "products" are targeted to middle class and up customers. So while the "out of work" machinist can't find a job, and is living out of his camper, the 10% have a choice between wine or legal Marijuana "products" because their jobs do not require drug tests.
The main woman in this first video is a 38 year old "entrepreneur". In other words, she doesn't have to pass a drug test to work. Look at the moms getting high on "artisanal marijuana."
Pot-Smoking Moms Unapologetic About Getting High - 24 September 2014
Here is a joke from 2016 by Jimmy Kimmel, just two years later.
This is from The RAND Corporation in 2017, for the PBS Newshour. (BTW, The Rand Corporation is what Nixon used to demonize Marijuana to keep Blacks and Hippies from voting against him for re-election. A double irony since The Rand Corporation is paid to 'now' say Marijuana is okay.)
What a scientist suggests you tell your kids about legal marijuana
Yet here is the reality today, less than four years after the first video. This is a segment from NBR. It starts just before the piece. Mom Mints?????
NBR - Challenges for Pot Business - 22 minutes in, 19 January
This woman is clearly in the 10%, owns her own business, and is self medicating to function. Look at her makeup. She does not have to pass a drug test for work, so can take "Mom Mints" with no problem. It makes her a "much better parent." Remember, those "mom mints" are not cheap.
These are articles discussing the trend.
It’s Fine to Be a Mom Who Uses Edibles, as Long as You’re White
Microdosing: Today’s New Glass of Red Wine
These are the new Miltown wives. Remember Mad Men, the 50s when housewives were sold tranquilizer by the ton. The fashionable thing to do was take a Miltown.
Wiki - Miltown
These are comments from the Nightly Business Report about problems with the industry. (BTW, NBR is a corporate cheerleader here in the US. They talk to the 10%, not the regular people like our "out of work" machinist.)
Setback for marijuana industry?
Marijuana banking risks fallout from Sessions' announcement on legal pot
I am beyond words when I see the stuff I have posted about.
]]>In other words "your" employers are manufacturing a "drug problem" that does not exist. Next Q - why?
USA & drugs, generally You still haven't got over Prohibition, have you ... I mean -21 as the alchohol legal age & you are not allowed to GIVE your children wine in theor own homes? Boy are you fucked-over.
]]>American workers have always been disposable. It was only after WWII that they needed every worker they had as they made vast fortunes rebuilding Europe and Japan. By the 70s the cost of each worker became "too much" for industry to support, which is why they started moving to slave labor countries to produce the "consumer goods" that the Middle Class wanted at cheap prices.
The coasts are growing, the middle of the country is collapsing with vast areas abandoned. The coasts are reaching collapse as well, being mixed with slums side-by-side with gated communities.
The South is low income, low education, anti-union -- where they hide taxable income, essentially like Greece. Foreign car companies build car factories in the South, paying low wages, treating it as a third world country. The irony is, those foreign car factories are subsidized by the local city or state with massive tax breaks. If the subsidies stopped, the factories would close.
Look at the Houston videos I posted. It is "God's Will" if someone loses a job and can't get another, or has their house flooded out again and again. That is happening in Houston, which is the 4th largest city in the US.
What we are seeing is Plantation America.
You are right, we are fucked.
]]>Watch this a few times and see how these idiots want a society without paying for it. This is part of the race to the bottom.
Do tax cuts spur growth? What we can learn from the Kansas budget crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__PTe1dX3Zo
]]>Watch this video to illuminate what you just said. This is the PBS Newshour episode about the Atlantic article.
Why so many Americans in the middle class have no savings
I live in Santa Fe. People instantly think of Santa Fe as rich, the way they do the Hamptons in the video. Just as his story, the rich parts of town are owned by the wealthy as a second home. They only live here a few months a year. The rest of the town is a mix of slums - we call them barrios -- middle income housing, and trailer parks.
Most people who work here in Santa Fe live up the road in Espanola because the rich buying up houses here have raised the price of housing above what the workers can pay. That's why many have been pushed out to the trailer parks.
The subdivision is less than 30 years old, and built across from a trailer park, with an apartment complex between us. Many people were "underwater" i.e, they owed more than their house was worth, so they simply walked away from the house. Over time those houses were sold by the banks that took them over, but we now have many of the houses as rentals rather than the owners living there. We still have people trying to sell houses with them sitting empty for months. I have two right beside me that have sat vacant for over six months.
The next crash is coming. I see the same signs that I saw in 2005 when I warned people to get debt free. They looked at me as if I was an idiot. That was when people were using their house as an ATM, since the price of housing only goes up, up, up. I bought a year of time and retired early. Walked out of my job, debt free, by the skin of my teeth. I expected the crash to hit in February 2009. I was off by six months. Darn.
The housing industry has "recovered" since the crash. What that means is, there is a massive lack of "starter homes" for sale, while the builders are building $million+ homes like crazy. Even apartments being built are "luxury' apartments, not "affordable".
This is an example from NBR, a cheerleader for the 10%.
NBR - Luxury apartments - The video starts before the piece. Watch until 14:05
There are subdivisions of $million+ homes being built like crazy. No one actually lives in those homes. Many of those $million+ homes are being bought and flipped to launder drug money.
The next crash is coming, and it will be nasty, because the regular people are already down to the bone. That's why Trump will probably be re-elected for a second term.
]]>The most likely way for Trump not to finish his term is if he has some health-related catastrophe that leaves him incapacitated (or dead). This isn't unlikely, since he is 71 and doesn't eat healthy or generally take care of himself. However, that's not the way to bet either.
Barring the unforeseen, Trump will be president until 2021.
]]>Think of the example you used of Europe in the 1930s. People rallied around a man who told them what they wanted to hear, who gave them a clear enemy to hate for all of their problems -- that he had all of the answers.
People are afraid of losing whatever ground they have in their lives. Remember, an emergency that takes as little as $400 dollars can destroy them. You have a mix of slums side-by-side with gated communities. The next crash will be the "luxury" housing market collapsing when they show that Foreign drug cartels are laundering money.
I suspect that the next crash will occur around the time of the Presidential election, and the phrase will be, "Don't change horses in mid stream" That is classic, and has been successfully used before.
Think about. The only person the Democrats might present against Trump, is Oprah. Another TV personality rather than some hated politician. She is a woman, a successful billionaire who has not filed for bankruptcy multiple times as Trump has.
This speech had everybody calling for her to be President.
Oprah Winfrey Receives Cecil B. de Mille Award at the 2018 Golden Globes
This was Obama's speech that got everyone thinking of him for President in 2004. People are seeing Oprah's speech in the same light.
]]>Until the Black woman had her half White girlfriend as part of the loan they could not get the loan.
Struggle for black and Latino mortgage applicants suggests modern-day redlining
Gentrification, Whites moving in to Black neighborhoods. This is what happened to Santa Fe. People had to sell, they could not get loans for home improvement.
Blacks and Latinos say they have trouble getting home loans in Philadelphia. Here's what's happening
]]>NRA backs Trump’s call for arming teachers: 'Schools must be the most hardened targets'
Now watch this:
Students who support gun rights say schools safer when ‘good guys’ are armed
Now watch this.
The Man in the High Castle Season 2 - We Pledge Allegiance...
Are you paying attention.
]]>