Where the American Dream is Alive and Well

We hear much about the American Dream becoming increasingly unobtainable.  There is some truth to the story line and most of it comes from decades of Republican efforts to undermine the social safety net and to take from the working and middle classes and give even more benefits to the extremely wealthy.  Add to this the GOP refusal to face modernity, including climate change and it is a recipe for disaster for many.  Sadly, the willingness of far too many whites to fall for GOP class to racism and religious based bigotry has only helped to exacerbate the negative impact on large numbers of Americans.

But the American Dream is still alive and attainable.  Where do you find it?  In the nation's immigrant communities.  This is where one finds a respect for education and great efforts to learn and gain degrees.  Perhaps most importantly, this is where a willingness to move to find opportunity and a dedication to hard work still flourishes. The immigrant community that I know best is the Indian/Hindu community from which I have many clients.  Last night the husband and I went to a house warming party for an Indian-American client's spectacular new home (it was an amazing party, by the way).  As expected, numerous other clients were among the guests.  Many of these individuals were not born in America, arrived with little other than a desire to better themselves and their families, and shared a willingness to attain an education and work hard.  Our host noted that for him, America is truly a wonderful country where hard work could still move one ahead and allow one to find success.  The same stories can be found in other many other immigrant communities, including the Hispanic community. As the post yesterday on the disability epidemic in with rural America, far too many whites - the majority of whom voted for Trump and the GOP - have forgotten what is known and valued by our immigrant communities.  I feel truly blessed to have come to know the Indian-American community.

Another aspect that struck us last night was that we as an openly gay couple were completely welcomed.  Sadly, in many circles in Hampton Roads such is still often not the case.   Rather than judge people by their character and contributions to the community, the "godly Christians" reject those who are different be it in terms of skin color, faith or sexual orientation.  These "Christians" act in a manner the opposite of the Gospel message they pretend to worship. Indeed, my own quest for the American dream too a huge hit when I was forced from a large local law firm for being gay. The powers that be at the firm did  not want to upset the sensibilities of their "conservative clients."  Thankfully, things are back on a positive track for me - in no small part due to the Indian-American community's embrace of me. 

To truly make America great again, we need more hard working immigrants who put a premium on education and fewer Trump-voting whites.  

The American Dream Has Moved to Canada

Despite Donald Trump's vague speech last night that boasted about how he would "make America great again," the agenda that his party is pursuing will be a continuation of what has decimated the American middle class while shifting riches and benefits to the wealthiest citizens.  For the working class, the prospects are bleak especially since no details exist as to how manufacturing jobs will magically return.  And, if one is a member of a minority population, there are growing and well based fears of coming discriminatory policies that will favor Trump's white, heterosexual, right wing Christian base.  His base will not reap economic benefits, but their egos will be satiated by their ability to look down upon and brutalize those they deem "other."  The goal is to play up the base's sense of white privilege to delay their realization that they were conned.  Meanwhile, to the north of America, what used to be the so-called American Dream is thriving, in no small part because Canada has embraced policies that are anathema to today's GOP and Der Trumpenführer.  This article looks at this reality:

From the very moment of its creation, Americans have always imagined their country to be a beacon of opportunity for the world. Thomas Jefferson lit that torch when he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

But where once America stood alone as the land of opportunity, there are now dozens of other countries that have surpassed the United States; chief among these is its unassuming northern neighbour, Canada. Where do you go now for “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Canadians live 2.5 years longer than Americans. They are six times less likely to be incarcerated. And the World Economic Forum ranks Canadians as the 6th happiest people in the world, while Americans lag behind at 13th.

Every aspect of the American dream is now more easily found in Canada. In the United States, 46 per cent of the population has been able to obtain a college degree—in Canada it’s 59 per cent. After graduation, Canadians are more likely to find work, with an employment rate four points better. You are more likely to afford a house with a white picket fence in Canada, where home ownership rates are five per cent higher. Canadians also have more time to enjoy their homes, as they work over 80 hours fewer per year—and they take an extra three days vacation.

Compared to Canada, America isn’t even the “land of the free”, anymore. The Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index considers Canadians to be the sixth freest people in the world, while Americans limp in at 23rd, behind Poland. The conservative Heritage Foundation, based in Washington, ranks Canada and the U.S. seventh and 17th respectively for economic freedom. Free speech? Reporters Without Borders scores Canada 18th for press freedom; in spite of its much vaunted First Amendment, America only manages 41st.

The American Dream promised equality, a level playing field where everyone could pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but that too is more a Canadian thing. 

By virtually every measure, Canada has surpassed the United States as the shining city on the hill, where everyone is safe to reach their potential. And people around the world have begun to notice. From the United States, refugees and asylum seekers are now fleeing into Canada hoping for a fair immigration hearing and a better future. 

It is often noted that in the early 20th century, Canadian prime minister Sir Wilfred Laurier declared, “Canada shall be the star towards which all men who love progress and freedom shall come.” Let’s make that line as famous and meaningful as this once was: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Admitting the truths set out in this article is heresy to Trump voters, especially militant Christian extremists who have worked to weave their toxic religiosity into American policies that are the opposite of the Gospel message and which have abetted America's decline.   Depending how bad the coming anti-LGBT jihad becomes, places like British Columbia look like a possible welcoming refuge. 

New IKEA Ad Will Drive Christofascists to Hysteria

Big corporations have learned that diversity is good for business and the corporate line.  This reality continues to be lost on the Republican Party and, in particular, the Christofascists who want to impose a form of Christian Sharia Law on all Americans.  The result is that time after time the professional Christian crowd goes into spittle flecked rants every time a major corporation either runs an ad featuring a gay couple or, the horror, a interracial couple, or places ads in LGBT media outlets. Now, IKEA has launched an ad campaign that says that all homes are equal and then features an interracial gay couple.  Ad Week looks at the new campaign.  Here are highlights:

[T]he state of the American dream is a touchy issue. And while politicians running for the Oval Office obviously have to take on middle- and working-class angst, brands might prefer to steer clear of something so contentious and polarizing.

Ikea, however, is not among those brands. In its latest marketing effort, the home-furnishings giant goes right to the heart of a difficult topic, asking, "Where did the American dream go?"

As it turns out—according to related research Ikea conducted in partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit—the dream hasn't gone far, though it has changed significantly.

"One of the things we've seen since [the recession of] 2008 is a change in people's perception of what it means to make it in today's society," said Christine Whitehawk, Ikea U.S.'s communications manager. "So you see a shift happening."

That shift, according to Ikea, means consumers are measuring the American dream less in terms of material accumulation—the suburban McMansion with a new SUV in the driveway—and more in terms of making the most of what they have, living life on their own terms, and focusing on creating memories instead of just accumulating more things.

Among the findings of the brand's report, titled "Discovering the New American Dream," is that 60 percent of people now believe that the American dream has "more to do with achieving satisfactory quality of life defined in ways other than obtaining material possessions." While 45 percent of people still believe the American dream means buying a home, for example, a much bigger number, 57 percent, believe the dream is lived "though everyday moments with friends and family."

Literal diversity also figures big. One of the print ads shows two gay men chilling out on a sofa in front of a flag that reads "All homes are created equal." This is hardly the first time Ikea has put a gay couple in its advertising—it cast one as far back as 1994—but this time the image reads less like the spotlighting of one segment of the population and more like an image of a diverse population overall. (The couple's not just gay but mixed race, too.)

"There are so many different ways that Americans live—multigenerational, gay parents, etc.—that define the real portrait of the America that's really out there," Stone said. "If we'd put across 20 different living situations, they'd all be equally powerful."

The new creative is the opening salvo in a year's worth of creative under the slogan "We Help You Make It," all of it intended to teach consumers that, whatever their definition of the American dream might be, Ikea can help with it.

"People are finding it harder to make it in today's society, but the optimism is still there," Whitehawk said. "We're trying to get the message out that we're here to partner with them to create that everyday better life that they want to have."

   

New IKEA Ad Will Drive Christofascists to Hysteria

Big corporations have learned that diversity is good for business and the corporate line.  This reality continues to be lost on the Republican Party and, in particular, the Christofascists who want to impose a form of Christian Sharia Law on all Americans.  The result is that time after time the professional Christian crowd goes into spittle flecked rants every time a major corporation either runs an ad featuring a gay couple or, the horror, a interracial couple, or places ads in LGBT media outlets. Now, IKEA has launched an ad campaign that says that all homes are equal and then features an interracial gay couple.  Ad Week looks at the new campaign.  Here are highlights:

[T]he state of the American dream is a touchy issue. And while politicians running for the Oval Office obviously have to take on middle- and working-class angst, brands might prefer to steer clear of something so contentious and polarizing.

Ikea, however, is not among those brands. In its latest marketing effort, the home-furnishings giant goes right to the heart of a difficult topic, asking, "Where did the American dream go?"

As it turns out—according to related research Ikea conducted in partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit—the dream hasn't gone far, though it has changed significantly.

"One of the things we've seen since [the recession of] 2008 is a change in people's perception of what it means to make it in today's society," said Christine Whitehawk, Ikea U.S.'s communications manager. "So you see a shift happening."

That shift, according to Ikea, means consumers are measuring the American dream less in terms of material accumulation—the suburban McMansion with a new SUV in the driveway—and more in terms of making the most of what they have, living life on their own terms, and focusing on creating memories instead of just accumulating more things.

Among the findings of the brand's report, titled "Discovering the New American Dream," is that 60 percent of people now believe that the American dream has "more to do with achieving satisfactory quality of life defined in ways other than obtaining material possessions." While 45 percent of people still believe the American dream means buying a home, for example, a much bigger number, 57 percent, believe the dream is lived "though everyday moments with friends and family."

Literal diversity also figures big. One of the print ads shows two gay men chilling out on a sofa in front of a flag that reads "All homes are created equal." This is hardly the first time Ikea has put a gay couple in its advertising—it cast one as far back as 1994—but this time the image reads less like the spotlighting of one segment of the population and more like an image of a diverse population overall. (The couple's not just gay but mixed race, too.)

"There are so many different ways that Americans live—multigenerational, gay parents, etc.—that define the real portrait of the America that's really out there," Stone said. "If we'd put across 20 different living situations, they'd all be equally powerful."

The new creative is the opening salvo in a year's worth of creative under the slogan "We Help You Make It," all of it intended to teach consumers that, whatever their definition of the American dream might be, Ikea can help with it.

"People are finding it harder to make it in today's society, but the optimism is still there," Whitehawk said. "We're trying to get the message out that we're here to partner with them to create that everyday better life that they want to have."

   

The GOP's Joe McCarthy Moment

I generally disagree with most of what New York Times columnist David Brooks has to say be it his history of being an apologist for conservative misogyny to his deference to religious extremist.  But on rare occasion he gets things at least partly right.  A case in point is his column yesterday where he argues that the GOP is facing a Joe McCarthy moment.  While he casts about for solutions to the problem, he unfortunately fails to recognize that much of what has brought the country to its current status is the failed GOP policies that he has all too often supported and the GOP obstructionism that has prevented President Obama to take more decisive action to address the nations ills. More efforts at furthering the interests of the obscenely wealthy, vulture capitalists and Christian extremists is not going to achieve the aims Brooks claims to support.  Here are highlights:

Donald Trump now looks set to be the Republican presidential nominee. So for those of us appalled by this prospect — what are we supposed to do?

Well, not what the leaders of the Republican Party are doing. They’re going down meekly and hoping for a quiet convention. They seem blithely unaware that this is a Joe McCarthy moment. People will be judged by where they stood at this time. Those who walked with Trump will be tainted forever after for the degradation of standards and the general election slaughter.

The better course for all of us — Republican, Democrat and independent — is to step back and take the long view, and to begin building for that. This election — not only the Trump phenomenon but the rise of Bernie Sanders, also — has reminded us how much pain there is in this country. According to a Pew Research poll, 75 percent of Trump voters say that life has gotten worse for people like them over the last half century.

This declinism intertwines with other horrible social statistics. The suicide rate has surged to a 30-year high — a sure sign of rampant social isolation. A record number of Americans believe the American dream is out of reach. And for millennials, social trust is at historic lows.

Trump’s success grew out of that pain, but he is not the right response to it. The job for the rest of us is to figure out the right response.

I was surprised by Trump’s success because I’ve slipped into a bad pattern, spending large chunks of my life in the bourgeois strata — in professional circles with people with similar status and demographics to my own. It takes an act of will to rip yourself out of that and go where you feel least comfortable.

Up until now, America’s story has been some version of the rags-to-riches story, the lone individual who rises from the bottom through pluck and work. But that story isn’t working for people anymore, especially for people who think the system is rigged. I don’t know what the new national story will be, but maybe it will be less individualistic and more redemptive. 

We’ll probably need a new definition of masculinity, too. There are many groups in society who have lost an empire but not yet found a role. Men are the largest of those groups. The traditional masculine ideal isn’t working anymore. It leads to high dropout rates, high incarceration rates, low labor force participation rates.  This is an economy that rewards emotional connection and verbal expressiveness. Everywhere you see men imprisoned by the old reticent, stoical ideal.

We’ll also need to rebuild the sense that we’re all in this together.

I would add that we need a new empathy for others who don't look just like us or think just like us - something that is anathema to the Christofascists and white supremacists and vulture capitalists within the Republican Party. As for redefining masculinity, perhaps Brooks ought to spend more time around gays.

The Myth of the "American Dream"

Most Americans - and likely most immigrants whether documented or not - believe in the so-called "American Dream" - the idea that through hard work anyone can rise to wealth and influence.  Increasingly, the reality is something quite different from Americas' ideas about upward social mobility (it's higher now in "Old Europe" than in America) and wealth inequality.  Indeed, most Americans would be shocked - or perhaps sickened - if they really focused on the reality of American society.  Yet the myth of the "American Dream" persists and allows plutocrats and their minions in elected office to continue the push to return America to a new Gilded Age that is wonderful for the wealthy, but frightening for most of us.  A piece in Salon looks at the reality and how the "American Dream" acts as an opiate for the masses.  Here are excerpts:

Multiple studies have shown that Americans seriously underestimate the degree of inequality in the U.S. economy. As Slate’s  Jordan Weissman noted in September, subjects in one test “estimated that the top 20 percent of U.S. households owned about 59 percent of the country’s net worth,” when in truth the number is closer to 84 percent. Moreover, the same study shows that even if the wealth of the U.S. economy was distributed like they’d believed, most Americans would still consider it too unequal. And these findings were consistent across many social groups; from Republicans to Democrats, from men to women, from the rich to the poor. No matter your vantage, it seems, Americans’ perception and their reality is not in sync.

[W]hile the gap between perception and reality was most pronounced in Americans, people from other developed (and increasingly unequal) economies also came up with ideal distributions that were markedly different from their countries’ actual status quo. What separates Americans from others, though — what makes inequality of this kind sustainable in the U.S. in a way that in other democracies isn’t; what makes the gap between perception and reality that Rock alluded to so difficult to bridge — is their faith in one of the greatest branding exercises in human history. I speak, of course, of the American Dream.

The American Dream isn’t new, of course, and it didn’t pop up as a response to the great divergence that started in the early 1970s. It’s been around for more than 100 years, and there really was a time, during the late 1800s, when rising wages and rags-to-riches stories made the theory at least plausible. But as the aforementioned U.C. Davis researcher Gregory Clark has found in a recent (paywalled) study, even if the American Dream was real in the past, it’s no longer operational today. “America has no higher rate of social mobility than medieval England or pre-industrial Sweden,”

Currently, the gap between perception and reality in U.S. society is papered over by the American Dream and its vow that regular people, through hard work and perseverance, will be able to get ahead. That dynamic won’t change until more Americans realize that the American Dream today is just an empty promise. But if that ever happens, the 1 percent and the stewards of government will have a whole lot more trouble on their hands than Chris Rock’s hypothetical riots.

Like religion, the "American Dream" is a great tool for keeping the masses docile and working for the powers that be and a system that is all too often rigged against most of us.  Of course, the 1% and their political whores like it that way.

The Death of the American Dream - It’s Now the Canadian Dream

With three children of my own, I like so many do not believe that my children will have the opportunities that I had for to achieve the so-called American Dream, much less the opportunities that my parents had.  Why?  Because, in my view, America is headed in the wrong direction economically and to some extent socially.  Once upon a time, there was more of a sense of "we're all in this together" and that when the country built infrastructure, we all benefited.  Now, if the GOP had its way, America would be a completely cruel Ayn Rand world  where everyone simply fought to keep what was theirs and there would be no concept at all of the common good.  Add in globalization of the economy and the USA is headed for a situation like Great Britain found itself in following WWII.  Ironically, the far right blames "socialism" for America's predicament, yet Canada, our neighbor to the north is far more socialistic and it is now the nation that has taken over the dream that was once America's.  Even "Old Europe" now has more social upward mobility.  A column in the New York Times looks at America's decline, much of which has been self-induced.  Here are excerpts:

It was in 1931 that the historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “the American dream.”

The American dream is not just a yearning for affluence, Adams said, but also for the chance to overcome barriers and social class, to become the best that we can be. Adams acknowledged that the United States didn’t fully live up to that ideal, but he argued that America came closer than anywhere else.

Adams was right at the time, and for decades. When my father, an eastern European refugee, reached France after World War II, he was determined to continue to the United States because it was less class bound, more meritocratic and offered more opportunity.

Yet today the American dream has derailed, partly because of growing inequality. Or maybe the American dream has just swapped citizenship, for now it is more likely to be found in Canada or Europe — and a central issue in this year’s political campaigns should be how to repatriate it.

A report last month in The Times by David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy noted that the American middle class is no longer the richest in the world, with Canada apparently pulling ahead in median after-tax income. Other countries in Europe are poised to overtake us as well.

In fact, the discrepancy is arguably even greater. Canadians receive essentially free health care, while Americans pay for part of their health care costs with after-tax dollars. Meanwhile, the American worker toils, on average, 4.6 percent more hours than a Canadian worker, 21 percent more hours than a French worker and an astonishing 28 percent more hours than a German worker, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Canadians and Europeans also live longer, on average, than Americans do. Their children are less likely to die than ours. American women are twice as likely to die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth as Canadian women. And, while our universities are still the best in the world, children in other industrialized countries, on average, get a better education than ours.

[S]everal studies show that a child born in the bottom 20 percent economically is less likely to rise to the top in America than in Europe. A Danish child is twice as likely to rise as an American child.

Three data points:

The top 1 percent in America now own assets worth more than those held by the entire bottom 90 percent.

The six Walmart heirs are worth as much as the bottom 41 percent of American households put together.

The top six hedge fund managers and traders averaged more than $2 billion each in earnings last year, partly because of the egregious “carried interest” tax break. President Obama has been unable to get financing for universal prekindergarten; this year’s proposed federal budget for pre-K for all, so important to our nation’s future, would be a bit more than a single month’s earnings for those six tycoons.

It’s time to bring the American dream home from exile.

The irony is that much of the path for America's decline tracks to failed GOP policies.  More ironically yet, the decline corresponds to the rise of the selfish, anti-knowledge Christofascists in the Republican Party.   The far right loves to talk about American exceptionalism, yet it is they who are killing it.

America's Failed Economic Recovery

Social mobility continues to plummet in America while increasing in what the Republicans like to call "Old Europe."  Who would have ever thought that Europe with its former rigid class systems and hereditary titles would provide more promise than America and the so-called American dream which is fading for many and those in the Millennial Generation in particular.  What's also amazing is that those pushing for a cruel oligarchy in this country - e.g. the Koch brothers and much of the GOP - seem to have forgotten that throughout history sooner or later the masses have revolted - sometimes violently - against oligarchs who have been suffused with greed and mistreated the rest of society.  A main editorial in the New York Times looks at how the future prospects for our younger generations is shockingly fading.  One has to wonder when the reckoning will eventually come.  Here are highlights:

The official line is clear: The worst is over, and recovery has given way to expansion.

But that’s not the whole story. Economic gains so far have mostly benefited those at the top of the income and wealth ladder. Worse, future growth is likely to be lopsided, because the foundation for broad prosperity is arguably the weakest it has been since World War II.

Take, for example, Americans age 25 to 34, the leading edge of the so-called millennials, the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s. They are worse off than Gen Xers (born from the mid-1960s to the late-1970s) were at that age and the baby boomers before them by nearly every economic measure — employment, income, student loan indebtedness, mobility, homeownership and other hallmarks of “household formation,” like moving out on their own, getting married and having children.

This group had the bad luck of entering the work force in the depressed and slow-growth years that started when the recession hit in 2007. Instead of spending the crucial early years of their work lives laying the groundwork for a solid economic future, many of them have struggled with unemployment and underemployment, and many have fallen so far behind where they would hope to be that recovering lost ground may well be impossible.

According to the latest census data, nearly 16 percent of those in their mid-20s to mid-30s were in poverty in 2012, compared with just above 10 percent of Gen Xers in 2000 and baby boomers in 1980. Nearly 14 percent of that age group were living with their parents in 2013, a higher percentage than in previous generations. And of those living at home, 43 percent (2.5 million people) would be counted as being in poverty if they were on their own.
Some of the trends in the latest data were evident before the recession, especially stagnating wages, delayed marriage and later childbearing. But the poor economy has intensified those conditions. For instance, in a study by the Pew Research Center of the entire millennial generation, 74 percent were unmarried; many of them said they wanted to marry but lacked the economic wherewithal.

What is shocking is that despite the known danger and despite the prolonged bad economy, more government resources have not been used to prevent and reverse such a huge waste of human capital. Instead, public resources for job creation and even for unemployment benefits have been too little and too late, if available at all.

Another shocker is that those in the 25-to-34 age group are the best educated cohort in American history, with more than a third having a bachelor’s degree or higher. Education is important. But clearly, education alone does not create jobs and opportunities that lead to prosperity. For that, a fair and functional economy is needed — one in which the government plays a robust role, alongside consumers and businesses, to promote full employment and to ensure a just distribution of gains.

Younger millennials are not appreciably better off than their older peers, though they have not yet lost as much ground. At the other end of the spectrum, many older Americans who lost jobs and assets in the recession also face an uncertain future.

Certain sectors of the economy, especially the financial markets, are indeed turning a corner. But true prosperity is impossible when the productive potential of young adults is being squandered.

Just as the GOP is courting long term political suicide by courting declining numbers of aging, angry white voters, so too are they setting the stage for a potential overthrow of the system they claim to honor.

The Decline of American Society and the Revolt of the Global Middle Class

As the parent of three adult children it is interesting that none of my children expect to do as well financially or to have the life style that my late parents achieved.  Admittedly, my parents died as millionaires, but neither I nor my siblings can be assured of the same financial success in our lifetimes and for our children the deck is stacked even more decidedly in favor of the truly wealthy as social mobility in America falls behind that of Europe and wealth disparities exceed those of former banana republics.  It is little wonder why the Republican Party is faring poorly with younger voters.   But the phenomenon is not limited to  America as we see unrest in Brazil and Turkey and other nations as well.  Sadly, the status quo favors the few and the rest of us are increasingly expected to be satisfied with the table scraps that are left over.  A piece in The Guardian looks at what has happened to America.  Here are highlights:

In or around 1978, America's character changed. For almost half a century, the United States had been a relatively egalitarian, secure, middle-class democracy, with structures in place that supported the aspirations of ordinary people. You might call it the period of the Roosevelt Republic. Wars, strikes, racial tensions and youth rebellion all roiled national life, but a basic deal among Americans still held, in belief if not always in fact: work hard, follow the rules, educate your children, and you will be rewarded, not just with a decent life and the prospect of a better one for your kids, but with recognition from society, a place at the table.

This unwritten contract came with a series of riders and clauses that left large numbers of Americans – black people and other minorities, women, gay people – out, or only halfway in. But the country had the tools to correct its own flaws, and it used them: healthy democratic institutions such as Congress, courts, churches, schools, news organizations, business-labour partnerships.

The large currents of the past generation – deindustrialisation, the flattening of average wages, the financialisation of the economy, income inequality, the growth of information technology, the flood of money into Washington, the rise of the political right – all had their origins in the late 70s.  ..

The institutions that had been the foundation of middle-class democracy, from public schools and secure jobs to flourishing newspapers and functioning legislatures, were set on the course of a long decline. It as a period that I call the Unwinding.

Once American pre-eminence was challenged by international competitors, and the economy hit rough seas in the 70s, and the sense of existential threat from abroad subsided, the deal was off. Globalisation, technology and immigration hurried the Unwinding along, as inexorable as winds and tides. It is sentimental at best, if not ahistorical, to imagine that the social contract could ever have survived – like wanting to hang on to a world of nuclear families and manual typewriters.

But there was nothing inevitable about the aftermath – an unmanaged free-for-all in which unemployed workers were left to fend for themselves, while corporate raiders bought the idle hulks of the mills with debt in the form of junk bonds and stripped out the remaining value. It may have been inevitable that the constraints imposed on US banks by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 would start to slip off in the era of global finance. But it was a political choice on the part of Congress and President Bill Clinton to deregulate Wall Street so thoroughly that nothing stood between the big banks and the destruction of the economy.

Much has been written about the effects of globalisation during the past generation. Much less has been said about the change in social norms that accompanied it. American elites took the vast transformation of the economy as a signal to rewrite the rules that used to govern their behaviour: a senator only resorting to the filibuster on rare occasions; a CEO limiting his salary to only 40 times what his average employees made instead of 800 times; a giant corporation paying its share of taxes instead of inventing creative ways to pay next to zero. There will always be isolated lawbreakers in high places; what destroys morale below is the systematic corner-cutting, the rule-bending, the self-dealing.

It is little wonder that many younger voters have little faith in America and the future.  But the phenomenon is not limited to America as noted in a piece in The Atlantic which notes that what has happened in America is happening elsewhere - e.g., Brazil and Turkey.  Here are excerpts from that article:

From Turkey to Brazil to Iran the global middle class is awakening politically. The size, focus and scope of protests vary, but this is not unfolding chaos -- it is nascent democracy. Citizens are demanding basic political rights, accountable governments and a fairer share of resources.  

Overall, though, Americans jaded about world affairs should see the activism as positive. The protesters are performing the same role as middle classes have in developed nations. As their standard of living rises, so do their expectations of government.

The political dynamic in each country is different, of course. In Turkey, the protests are not the equivalent of the Arab Spring demonstrations that toppled governments across the Middle East. Nor are they simply a pitched battle between religious conservatives and secular liberals. Instead, they are deeply Turkish -- and hugely important.

Brazil presents a different dynamic.The ruling Workers' Party is left-leaning and its economic reforms have helped the poor and middle class. But now a souring economy, corruption scandals and $12 billion in government spending on 2014 World Cup stadiums has sparked one million people to take to the streets.

Marcelo Ridenti, a leading Brazilian sociologist, said reduced inequality and increased education have raised expectations. The number of university students in Brazil, for example, doubled from 2000 to 2011.

"This generates huge changes in society, including changes in expectations among young people," he told the New York Times . "They expect to get not only jobs, but good jobs."  

Pro-reform and urban Iranians frustrated with the country's weak economy, isolation and conservative monopoly on power apparently handed Rohani the presidency. Rohani may prove to be more conservative than expected, but his victory prompted thousands of Iranians to take to the streets.

"I am hopeful about the future," Hoda, a 26-year-old who asked that her last name not be used, told Reuters. "Hopeful that we will have more social freedoms, more stability in Iran, better relations with other countries and hopefully a much better economy.".

[O]bservers see parallels between Brazil's protests, India's anti-corruption movement , austerity protests in Europe, the U.S. Occupy Movement and similar demonstrations in Israel. 

First, the explosive spread of social media played a role in the movements. Networks of like-minded people were able to immediately communicate with one another -- and potential recruits. Some online information has been false orrestricted, but technological change has unquestionably sped up the pace of political organizing.

Second, all three movements are demanding basic individual rights and accountable government. They want non-corrupt leaders who respect their right to protest, gather and speak freely. From minority rights in Turkey, to fair elections in Iran, to better policing, healthcare and transit in Brazil, protesters want improved governance. 

That's right. These overseas movements want many many Americans want. especially an accountable government.  Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans, are you listening??  History has a lesson: when the majority of citizens are finding it harder and harder to survive, their interest in supporting the current political structure declines and governments fall, be it in ancient Rome or elsewhere.rest in supporting the

Jobless Young Americans

The Republicans love to look down on "old Europe" and describe it as socialist and any number of other things.  Yet ironically, they want to follow the same path of austerity that has failed to revive dragging economic growth both in the United Kingdom and on the continent.  It's clearly a case of demeaning Europe while refusing to grasp that austerity and budget cuts in the face of struggling economies doesn't work.   Another favorite GOP tactic is to focus on European unemployment levels and preen about American superiority.  But the truth is that now, unemployed American youths are more plentiful than is the case with their European counterparts in Europe's largest economies.  An article in the New York Times looks at this reality.  Here are excerpts:

THE idle young European, stranded without work by the Continent’s dysfunction, is one of the global economy’s stock characters. Yet it might be time to add another, even more common protagonist: the idle young American. 

For all of Europe’s troubles — a left-right combination of sclerotic labor markets and austerity — the United States has quietly surpassed much of Europe in the percentage of young adults without jobs. It’s not just Europe, either. Over the last 12 years, the United States has gone from having the highest share of employed 25- to 34-year-olds among large, wealthy economies to having among the lowest. 

The grim shift — “a historic turnaround,” says Robert A. Moffitt, a Johns Hopkins University economist — stems from two under appreciated aspects of our long economic slump. First, it has exacted the harshest toll on the young — even harsher than on people in their 50s and 60s, who have also suffered. And while the American economy has come back more robustly than some of its global rivals in terms of overall production, the recovery has been strangely light on new jobs, even after Friday’s better-than-expected unemployment report. American companies are doing more with less.

Employers are particularly reluctant to add new workers — and have been for much of the last 12 years. Layoffs have been subdued, with the exception of the worst months of the financial crisis, but so has the creation of jobs, and no one depends on new jobs as much as younger workers do. For them, the Great Recession grinds on.   

The net worth of households headed by people 44 and younger has dropped more over the past decade than the net worth of middle-aged and elderly households, according to the Federal Reserve. According to the Labor Department, workers 25 to 34 years old are the only age group with lower average wages in early 2013 than in 2000. 

The problems start with a lack of jobs.   .   .   .   .    But there are obvious suspects, and each probably plays a role. 

The United States, for example, has lost its once-large lead in producing college graduates, and education remains the most successful jobs strategy in a globalized, technology-heavy economy. It is no accident that the most educated places in the country, like Boston, Minneapolis, Washington and Austin, Tex., have high employment rates while the least educated, including many in the South and inland California, have low ones.

Beyond education, the nation has also been less aggressive than some others in using counseling and retraining to help the jobless find work.

Other research notes that the United States has expanded parental leave and part-time work less than other countries — and, perhaps relatedly, employment rates among women here have slipped.

the most remarkable aspect of the jobs slump is that the Americans in their 20s and 30s who have been most affected by it remain decidedly upbeat. They are much more hopeful than older generations, polls show, that the country’s future will be better than its past.  Based on what younger adults have been through, that resilience is impressive. It’s probably necessary, too. The jobs slump will not end without a large dose of optimism. 

American hubris and the far rights view that countless Americans are simply a disposable commodity continue to sicken me.  If one cannot learn from the mistakes of others or see our common humanity, it does not bode well for the future.

A Republican Glasnost?

Many political pundits would have one believe that the Republican Party has gotten the message from the 2012 election results.  Here in Virginia, it is somewhat hard to believe as Ken Cuccinelli becomes the all but crowned GOP nominee for governor in the 2013 Virginia elections.  Cuccinelli embodies the worse aspects of the GOP's white supremacist, anti-woman, anti-gay and theocratic agenda as exhibited during the past year by candidates like Newt Gingrich, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdoch, Rick Santorum and others.  More frightening is the fact that Cuccinelli is worshiped by the base of the Virginia GOP.   David Brooks makes the contrary case in a column in the New York Times and looks at what he sees as trends toward a new GOP.  I think he is giving Republicans too much credit and fails to see just how insane and toxic the GOP's Christofascist/Tea Party base has become.  I see little to make me believe that the GOP leadership such as it is can stop the party's continued lurch to extremism - at least not until the Christofascist extremist are driven from the GOP.  Here are column highlights:

But the speech really began to sing toward the end. Rubio made an oblique rebuttal to some of the Republican gaffes during the campaign: “Some say that our problem is that the American people have changed. That too many people want things from government. But I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of our people just want what my parents had: a chance.”

“It all starts with our people,” Rubio continued. “In the kitchens of our hotels. In the landscaping crews that work in our neighborhoods. In the late-night janitorial shifts that clean our offices. There you will find the dreams America was built on. There you will find the promise of tomorrow. Their journey is our nation’s destiny. And if they can give their children what our parents gave us, the 21st-century America will be the single greatest nation that man has ever known.”

The Republican Party has a long way to go before it revives itself as a majority party. But that speech signifies a moment in that revival. And I would say the last month has marked a moment.

Over the past month, the Republican Party has changed far more than I expected. First, the people at the ideological extremes of the party have begun to self-ghettoize. The Tea Party movement attracted many people who are drawn to black and white certainties and lock-step unity. People like that have a tendency to migrate from mainstream politics, which is inevitably messy and impure, to ever more marginal oases of purity. 

Jim DeMint, for example, is leaving the Senate to go lead the Heritage Foundation. He is leaving the center of the action, where immigration, tax and other reforms will be crafted, for a political advocacy organization known more for ideological purity and fund-raising prowess than for creativity, curiosity or intellectual innovation. 

Second, politics is being reborn. For a time, Republican candidates like Richard Mourdock of Indiana proudly declared that they didn’t believe in compromise. Political activists spent more time purging deviationists than in trying to attract new converts. 

But that mania has passed. There are increasing signs that House Republicans are willing to unite behind Speaker John Boehner so he can cut a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff.” There has been an epidemic of open-mindedness as Republicans try to win minority votes and create a version of their party that can be competitive in states like Connecticut and California. 

The Republicans may still blow it. If President Obama is flexible and they don’t meet him partway, Republicans would contribute to a recession that would discredit them for a decade. But they are moving in the right direction and moving fast. These are first steps, and encouraging ones.  

Again, I believe that Brooks is mistaken and that no real change will occur readily in the GOP.  Indeed, if he wants to see the real GOP, perhaps he should attend the Virginia GOP's convention that will crown Cuccinelli as the party's 2013 nominee for governor.  Barry Goldwater had it right.  The GOP allowed the Christofascists to get control of much of the party and it will be difficult, if not impossible to rid the party of that infestation.

The Resurrection of the American Dream

The caption to this post is the headline from an article in German publication Der Spiegel and it correctly captures some of what happened yesterday. Sadly, LGBT citizens are not included in the resurrected American Dream - or at least not yet. I truly hope that an Obama administration sets a new inclusive tone and in time may help change minds that still dwell on differences between people instead of our common humanity. In addition, an Obama presidency means that the likely coming vacancies on the U. S. Supreme Court will not be filled by those who would write some out of the constitution or seek the reverse the case law on the right to privacy - something which is crucial since I predict Proposition 8, if it passes, will be challenged under the U. S. Constitution. Lastly, Obama's win removes any near term likelihood of Bible Spice Palin becoming president (hopefully forever). Here are some highlights:

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Obama's tone embraces people, it doesn't exclude them. It's a tone of political romanticism. It doesn't solve problems, but it lessens the pain. Where Bush stoked fear, Obama spreads calm. The tone itself only accounts for half of his success, though. The surroundings determine whether it resonates. In the self-satisfied, successful America of the 1990s, Obama's tone would have been dismissed as too soft and too quiet. The victory over the Soviet Union had to be celebrated. America wanted to be loud.

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But in 2008 the economy is sputtering. To describe conditions in America today as "social inequality" is a blatant understatement. Almost 50 million people don't have health insurance. Around 30 million live off food stamps issued by the state.

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America has fallen silent, and Obama penetrated this silence with his message of hope and change. Conciliation, not confrontation is his message to an unsettled country. He doesn't use the word "compassion" with which German Chancellor Willy Brandt enchanted a generation. That word has lost its ring in America since George W. Bush described himself as a "compassionate conservative."

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Obama is America's offer of reconciliation after all those years of premeditated political provocation, of military action not backed by international law, of America's claim to be entitled to military pre-emptive strikes. The Bush doctrine was scrapped last night. The unilateralist stance of the Western superpower is likely to be over for now.

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As the new day dawns in Germany, America is once again dreaming the American dream. It will be a deep, soulful dream after all these restless, dreamless years of terror attacks, reports from the Baghdad front and the collapse of Wall Street. It's a dream about a world without poverty or fear, of a life full of opportunity and devoid of George W. Bush.