Queen Elizabeth went to Parliament, sat on a golden throne, put on her diamond crown then announced further austerity for her country:


Then she went back to her palace.

Then the crown took a separate carriage:


OPTICS

that freeloader needs to find a job, IMO

They really are disgusting in bred leeches. So-called Americans who get excited about royal doings really should go to Gitmo or something.

welfare queen

but i hear they make money for the country due to tourism so it's all cool

Is there a bigger scam in the world than the Royals? Maybe the church, I guess.

TV, as usual I line up with about 90% of what you've written on this topic. So I'll skip to the few aspect on which we diverge, in no particular order.

Like here:

TenuredVulture wrote:Now, I actually don't accept the doomsday stuff out there--other kinds of professions will open up.

I'm feeling this is more a wish than an assertion based on anything like evidence. Particularly, of volumes of jobs in "other kinds of professions". There's no sign of it. And no reason to find a sign of it; Moore's law & all that is seeing to that.

This one may be a matter of my not understanding you:

...if a comfortable life is available to a relatively broad segment of people, then social mobility makes inequality tolerable, and even desirable.

Arguably, mostly "everyone" in the US has a mostly "comfortable" life - running water, flushing toilets, etc. Reactionaries/apologists would tell you only the "envious" make gripes about "inequality" and push "redistribution".

That entire dialog is miscast.

Wealth concentration generates systemic distortion. It's not a matter of you having more than me, and me wanting a piece of what's yours; it's that "yours" has practically taken on a self-preserving life of its own, and a mode of life that is not good for us.

We are hardwired to be envious though. Relative poverty unpleasant.

If all work really is disappearing, then the distribution question really does become central. That is, if we can produce twice as much stuff with half the labor, then there are ways of distributing wealth where we can all have lots of leisure and a comfortable material existence. Or, there will be a few people with tons of stuff, and everyone else living wretchedly.

I think up until now, the elimination of drudgery has been a good thing for humanity. While you're right that it isn't obvious that new work is replacing old work, history at least has shown the process of new kinds of careers replacing old ones largely works.

We may all have to get more comfortable though with the idea that we should receive some level of material support even though we're mostly engaged in leisure activities.

Some people live some pretty shitty lives.

drsmooth wrote:TV, as usual I line up with about 90% of what you've written on this topic. So I'll skip to the few aspect on which we diverge, in no particular order.

Like here:

TenuredVulture wrote:Now, I actually don't accept the doomsday stuff out there--other kinds of professions will open up.

I'm feeling this is more a wish than an assertion based on anything like evidence. Particularly, of volumes of jobs in "other kinds of professions". There's no sign of it. And no reason to find a sign of it; Moore's law & all that is seeing to that.

This one may be a matter of my not understanding you:

...if a comfortable life is available to a relatively broad segment of people, then social mobility makes inequality tolerable, and even desirable.

Arguably, mostly "everyone" in the US has a mostly "comfortable" life - running water, flushing toilets, etc. Reactionaries/apologists would tell you only the "envious" make gripes about "inequality" and push "redistribution".

That entire dialog is miscast.

Wealth concentration generates systemic distortion. It's not a matter of you having more than me, and me wanting a piece of what's yours; it's that "yours" has practically taken on a self-preserving life of its own, and a mode of life that is not good for us.

I may be drunk, but I found myself on the side of doc. Although I would have framed things differently. In particular, I agree that there have been a lot of productivity gains, and those gains have been increasingly scalable, and this benefit fewer organizations and people who own those organizations. But the fact that there are more billionaires does not mean that that the middle class is worse off. Yes, I am familiar with the psych studies that show how people's happiness is driven by comparative and not absolute wellbeing. But that is why social mobility, and equality of opportunity, is so pivotal. Not everyone is able to be a billionaire. But poor people need to have a realistic expectation that their kids can succeed. That they have a fair start. That is tantamount. And I'm not sure if we have that.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Indicted On Federal Charges

Unclear what the "prior bad acts" are at this point, but to pay $3.5 million all these years later I'm gonna guess the answer will be not the best

i'm seeing way more anti-bernie posts than anti-hilary nowadays from the righties. i wonder if he's considered a threat now???

TenuredVulture wrote:
If all work really is disappearing, then the distribution question really does become central.

I didn't say all work. "Professional" work. The category of work you identified as having strong potential for expanding. I'm not seeing any evidence of that.

history at least has shown the process of new kinds of careers replacing old ones largely works.

Whether it "works" or doesn't, historically it arguably did happen. It isn't going to continue to happen that way.

We had an expectations adjustment, a 'redistribution' of time and rewards for input, within the past 100 or so years, in the form of the convention of the 8-hour workday, though the concept took almost 100 years to be codified in federal law. It was crude, its adoption glacial and haphazard, its goals varying and sometimes in conflict, yet was transformative. The nature of the work that the plurality of people do now probably doesn't make the tactics of that recasting of the "work engagement contract" possible today. But something pursuing that same kind or degree of working-age-population engagement seems needed.

Chris Christie continues to do his best to destroy public education in NJ. After thousands of hours of work and millions of dollars spent in the state's school districts, Heavy C decides it is politically expedient to scrap the Common Core and has instructed Pearson stooge and Education Commissioner David Hespe to convene a group of parents and educators to brainstorm new standards. No worries though, the test that measures mastery of the Common Core is still a-ok with our esteemed Governor. Ummm, what?!?!?!?

Good. Common Core is a fucking disaster. At least he did something right for a change.

Bucky wrote:i'm seeing way more anti-bernie posts than anti-hilary nowadays from the righties. i wonder if he's considered a threat now???

Because right wingers hate a socialist more than a moderate...

Werthless wrote:

drsmooth wrote:TV, as usual I line up with about 90% of what you've written on this topic. So I'll skip to the few aspect on which we diverge, in no particular order.

Like here:

TenuredVulture wrote:Now, I actually don't accept the doomsday stuff out there--other kinds of professions will open up.

I'm feeling this is more a wish than an assertion based on anything like evidence. Particularly, of volumes of jobs in "other kinds of professions". There's no sign of it. And no reason to find a sign of it; Moore's law & all that is seeing to that.

This one may be a matter of my not understanding you:

...if a comfortable life is available to a relatively broad segment of people, then social mobility makes inequality tolerable, and even desirable.

Arguably, mostly "everyone" in the US has a mostly "comfortable" life - running water, flushing toilets, etc. Reactionaries/apologists would tell you only the "envious" make gripes about "inequality" and push "redistribution".

That entire dialog is miscast.

Wealth concentration generates systemic distortion. It's not a matter of you having more than me, and me wanting a piece of what's yours; it's that "yours" has practically taken on a self-preserving life of its own, and a mode of life that is not good for us.

I may be drunk, but I found myself on the side of doc. Although I would have framed things differently. In particular, I agree that there have been a lot of productivity gains, and those gains have been increasingly scalable, and this benefit fewer organizations and people who own those organizations. But the fact that there are more billionaires does not mean that that the middle class is worse off. Yes, I am familiar with the psych studies that show how people's happiness is driven by comparative and not absolute wellbeing. But that is why social mobility, and equality of opportunity, is so pivotal. Not everyone is able to be a billionaire. But poor people need to have a realistic expectation that their kids can succeed. That they have a fair start. That is tantamount. And I'm not sure if we have that.

here's the thing, making social mobility easier is way more difficult than just redistributing the income a little bit. I mean, you can raise the estate tax to make it harder for people to pass massive amounts of money down, but then you still have all the advantages that come from coming from a well to do family(connections to schools, jobs, etc...) so unless you can find a way to get rid of nepotism in a big way, you'll never have easy social mobility.

well he is anti-deodorant and progressives hate choice, sooo

"america will get plain old spice and only plain old spice and like it."

momadance wrote:Good. Common Core is a #$!&@ disaster. At least he did something right for a change.

How so?

Werthless wrote:I may be drunk, but I found myself on the side of doc.

NOW we're getting somewhere.

Although I would have framed things differently.

oh, here we go

In particular, I agree that there have been a lot of productivity gains, and those gains have been increasingly scalable, and this benefit fewer organizations and people who own those organizations. But the fact that there are more billionaires does not mean that that the middle class is worse off.

You mean worse off than they would have been had billionaire 'takers' misappropriated productivity gains for themselves?

Let's be clear: there may not have been anything "illegal" about the takers doing so. And that's an issue isn't it, what with property being 9/10ths of the law & all.

Yes, I am familiar with the psych studies that show how people's happiness is driven by comparative and not absolute wellbeing. But that is why social mobility, and equality of opportunity, is so pivotal. Not everyone is able to be a billionaire.

Not every billionaire should have been able to become one, certainly not without bringing along a lot more people with them.

Mobile people are a byproduct, not a purpose, of a system that thwarts absurd wealth concentration. A system that doesn't 'recognise' its genuine sources of its output is suboptimal. It leads to undue friction, friction not offset by commensurate positive results. It declines. It explodes.

But poor people need to have a realistic expectation that their kids can succeed. That they have a fair start. That is tantamount. And I'm not sure if we have that.

It may be paramount; it can't be tantamount, except to something (you are drunk).

Another institution has long focused on assuring the downtrodden they'll get their reward in heaven. Its leaders wear funny hats and bugger minors. That's not a formula for sustained success.