Re: Back in September of 2016, per capita income was projected to be $65,000+ in 2020.
I think this is misleading. Per capita doesn't show the stagnation for 99% of us. Used median income per capita - the 50% above, 50% below number. The trillionaires skew the average way up, but most people don't see it in their pockets.
This could easily have gone in the humor thread, but there's a lot of political commentary, too, so I put it here. Bill Maher explains Q and why everything you think is the opposite:
This is Michael Avenatti's speech at the Iowa Wing Ding, a Democratic Party fund-raiser in Clear Lake, Iowa. It's considered an event where prospective candidates can test the waters. This is only nine minutes of a twenty-six minute speech:
I'd say he's still finding his voice. He needs an experienced political adviser, a better speech writer and speaking coach, but all the raw material is there. I wish he'd given us a few specific examples of, "When they go low, we go harder." For those with the patience and interest here it is, all twenty-six minutes:
Unfortunately the sound and video are not precisely synchronized, and there are a few unfortunately timed cut-outs, but if you have the time the longer one is the one to watch.
I recently read this article, Small Group Of White Supremacists Rally In D.C. Amid Mass Counterprotests and it struck me how expensive the police protection must cost in overtime and in additional funds to provide mounted police protection as well as extra officers on the scene. Why should the public pay for such controversial clashes between opposing ideologies?
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
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Why should the public pay for police oversight of this sort of event? To try to maintain public order, I guess. You really can’t just call in the nerve gas on both sides, I don’t think. Yeah, it’s expensive, but what else are you going to do? We do have the right to peaceably assemble, and lots of folks are big enough jerks that someone has to watch them to keep it peaceful.
Why should the public pay for such controversial clashes between opposing ideologies?
It's part of the First Amendment. Both sides have a right to assemble and the right to express their views.
Nor can the government forbid either gathering because of a threat of violence; if they could, then no one would have the right to assembly since all that would be needed to cancel a protest or gathering would be for someone to threaten violence over it.
On the other hand, the government does have the obligation to protect its citizens; in particular, the obligation to protect its citizens when they are engaging their rights to free assembly and free speech.
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That being the case, what do you think the government should do in this case?
Oh, God! Pride of Man, broken in the dust again! -- Quicksilver Messenger Service
In this corner, at 285 pounds of stinking bullshit, from New York City, it’s Donald J. Trump!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
Only a small group of pro-fascists showed up at the White Supremacy rally in Washington yesterday. They were escorted by law enforcement officers to a heavily barricaded area while a much larger anti-nazi protest took place outside.
Not much to say, except that when the White Supremist agitator Kessler tried to explain why the turnout was so low for his event, he said:
There were a lot of people who were at last year’s rally who are very scared this year, he said. They felt like last year they came to express their point of view. They were attacked. And when they fought back, they were overly prosecuted.
Well, aside from this being highly inaccurate, I have to say that I have trouble feeling sympathy for people whose main tactics are fear and intimidation when they themselves are fearful and intimidated.
Oh, God! Pride of Man, broken in the dust again! -- Quicksilver Messenger Service
I find myself pondering a different question as I watch so many people I have known and admired subordinate their talents and their integrity to Trumpism: How has my political generation of conservatives and Republicans laid itself so intellectually and morally low?
After blaming the Left for 9/11 (because Muslims are so conservative they hate the left)
D’Souza then urged American conservatives to make common cause with Muslims worldwide against gay rights, feminism, and secularism generally.
Yes, as I thought at the time, if the terrorists hate us for our freedom the answer from D’Souza is to give up our freedoms.
...Yet an annoying thing for those who disliked Obama’s politics: He is at the same time a genuinely high-quality personalityintelligent, considerate, dignified, and self-disciplined. Those who hated him were deprived of any rational basis to despise him. Lacking a rational basis, they reverted to irrationality instead.
Which is how the Dinesh D’Souza who in 1995 proclaimed the end of racism in America could react to a humorous 2015 photograph of Obama playing with a selfie stick: YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF THE GHETTO Watch this vulgar man show his stuff, while America cowers in embarrassment.
And yet Trump somehow isn’t an embarrassment? Oh well, if D’Souza didn’t have double standards he’d probably have no standards at all.
And of course there’s the racism - and caste prejudice, too.
At one point, D’Souza acknowledges that he is straying into controversial ground in his harsh assessment of the mentality of black Americans. I have to tread carefully, he says, and offers an analogy from Indian society to clarify his meaning while minimizing offense. The pathetic dependency of African Americans on Johnson’s welfare state, D’Souza writes, reminds him of untouchables in his native India. The untouchables too fell into a kind of collective stupor in which they could hardly imagine an escape from their degraded lot.
...The psychology of aggrievement joined to racial resentment: Perhaps that is the recipe from which Trumpism has been brewed. It’s a dismaying thing to see so many in one’s political generation succumb to it.
There is plenty more in the article - including evidence, and in the linked article by Kevin Kruse has more.
And I think Frum may even be understating the problems.
The Trump tax cuts have been in place for about six months, and the Washington Post has run an article about how they're faring: You Know Who the Tax Cuts Helped? Rich People. That headline about sums it up.
I was going to present the graphs from the article in this post, but that doesn't work. Only part of each graph is in a PNG. All the textual and numerical portions are produced with CSS and carefully positioned div's, obviously produced with some software tool.
So since I can't present any graphs I can't meaningfully present the case made by the article. Those interested will have to read it. I'll just summarize by saying that it shows companies are buying back their stock, which helps the higher up employees of the company who own significant amounts of stock rather than the rank and file. Investments by companies in their businesses have leveled off instead of increasing. Real wages have declined because inflation exceeds wage increases. And the federal deficit has exploded.
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