The New Optimism

According to a new poll, Americans are increasingly pessimistic about their future and that of their children. Half of Americans doubt they’ll get as raise or a better job within the next five years. But hey, we’re Americans. We’ll adapt!

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  • Duh – I told you guys a few years back that this is the new order – that there is no more “recovery” and that low paying crappy jobs are now the norm. The middle class is now the lower class. Get it? There will be no returning to what we may have had in 2007. Corporations are in full control of the USA and any job that can be done for cheaper overseas will be. According to a new poll? Exceptional? Get real. You had the “choice” to stop this many, many years ago, but you chose to allow it to happen. Did you really think that the USA could continue to ride high while the rest of the world was so much lower? The Internet clinched it.

  • I’m just glad that I was able to retire in 2005 (and move to Mexico in 2006). Now all I have to do is fight the G.O.P.’s efforts to slash Social Security benefits and Medicare!!! 🙁

  • From what I read, Ted, I’m no so sure that in the US, even crappy jobs are easily «replaced» – they certainly aren’t in many places here in Europe – but I do appreciate your attempt to keep spirits up !…

    Henri

  • alex_the_tired
    October 6, 2013 8:09 AM

    It’s almost like the conversation Lecter has with Starling in “Silence of the Lambs”:

    Clarice: But the Internet’s a good thing. All of the very small number of people who have made millions off of it tell us so.
    Hannibal: How’s unemployment?
    Clarice: High. In some places very high.
    Hannibal: Even though the Internet is practically everywhere now?
    Clarice: What are you saying, Dr. Lecter?

    Brush away all the PR nonsense. The purpose of the Internet is to help a very small number of people make an obscene amount of money. Facebook? What does it actually do? It’s a cutesy little way to waste time while turning over huge amounts of personal information to employers, data thieves and snoops. It was started by a creepy little pervert who almost got bounced out of Harvard for stealing the private information out of other students’ electronic files. For this, he was not ordered into court-monitored psychiatric counseling. He was allowed to stay. Now, millions of simpletons think he’s reinvented business and is a genius.

    Sigh. Business 101 time, kids.
    Hannibal: What is the purpose of a business?
    Clarice: To make money.
    Hannibal: Wrong. That’s incidental. Look to Marcus Aurelius. “Of each time, ask ourselves, ‘What is it, of itself?’ ” Why do businesses make money?
    Clarice: So they can stay in busines.
    Hannibal: And how do they make money?
    Clarice: By selling things to people.
    Hannibal: And how do people buy things?
    Clarice: They have jobs at which they earn money that they use to buy things.
    Hannibal: So, a business that eliminates jobs will …
    Clarice: Eventually fail, taking down everything with it.
    Hannibal: So which is more of a genius: The man who makes $100,000 and generates 10 million jobs or the strutting little boychild who makes $100,000,000 and generates negative 10,000 jobs.

  • Excuse me if I’m wrong, but I think Ted has tried to direct attention to a few people talking about what they think their employment future may be. If people go into retirement and stop working at thois point in time, they will be fucked. How many people in the USA can still live off a social security payment anymore unless they live off bread and water? Every moron (average US person) on the street can’t even tell the difference between that ACA and Obamacare, which was actually once Romneycare. I’m serious, if you should meet Boenher or Cruz on the street – take him out. There should be a bounty on many of the Tea Party constituents.- absolutely anti-American terrorists.

  • @ rikster
    .
    “Every moron (average US person) on the street can’t even tell the difference between that ACA and Obamacare….”
    .
    I really, really hope that you are NOT suggesting that there actually *IS* a difference. (It sounds that way.)
    .
    Obamacare vs ACA

  • Sorry derleher, I needed a “that there is’ in the sentence. Since I wrote that, I also saw another late night host go out on the street and try to solicit opinions about Obamacare – with little or no real results. A couple of the people sheepishly admitted that they knew nothing about it. I thought the sampling might be slanted because they didn’t ask many old white people and about half asked were black.

  • I read Alvin Toffler’s book ” The Third Wave” up to the point where he asked the question, “Where will the jobs of tomorrow come from?” I’ve always felt that in order for the Internet based economy to work, a large part of the the population was going to have to be “dealt with”.

  • @ rikster
    .
    Hopefully, we’re on the same wave-length now. Didn’t you mean to say that there is *NO* difference, since “Obamacare” is merely a nick-name (originally derogatory) for the Affordable Care Act?

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