The story of the last three decades

"The story of the last three decades, in other words, is not the story of a benevolent government starved of funds by selfish rich people and fanatical Republicans. It's a story of a public sector that has consistently done less with more, and a liberalism that has often defended the interests of narrow constituencies — public-employee unions, affluent seniors, the education bureaucracy — rather than the broader middle class.

The alternative to this liberalism should not, however, be the kind of reverse class warfare currently being championed by the not-Romney candidates in the Republican field, whose flat-tax fantasies would ask working Americans to bear more of the burden for public institutions that have been failing them for years.

Rather, it should be a kind of small-government egalitarianism, which would seek to reform the government before we pour more money into it, along lines that encourage upward mobility and benefit the middle class. This would mean seeking a carefully means-tested welfare state, a less special interest-friendly tax code, and a public sector that worked for taxpayers and parents rather than the other way around."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opini ... nted=print

Wonderful fantasy. In an ideal word it could all work out that way. The reality of the situation is things will get a whole lot worse before they get better. People throughout the world are polarized, fed up with the status quo, and anxious for change. Nowhere is it better expressed than by the Arab Spring. The US is not far behind them because impatience is in short supply and our elected representatives have turned into deaf mutes when it comes to expressing the people wants.

I also would point out that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everyone will pay. I do not care what various factions of our society deem appropriate, the reality differs from class welfare or protectionism. Pointing to one country or another as a model is inappropriate. Cultural and social differences mitigate copy cat approaches to solving US problems. We require original solutions instead. I just don't see anyone coming forward with a really novel workable plan.

Again I look toward ecology for a lesson. Competitive exclusion says that when a superior competitor exists it takes over and dominates a community. Only a disturbance will eliminate the superior competitor and open up space for other species. Translated, we have superior competitors on various fronts. Government and (in some views) corporations or the filthy rich. To ease the competitive dominance we need a biological or physical disturbance.. that is going to be a revolution or natural disaster, a virtual annihilation of what currently exists. Only then will enough of the dominance be removed for less competitive aspects to flourish.

RdF, thank you for that perspective. I would say that is out side the box, at least from my narrow perch.

Sort of OT or at least tangential, this "we need a biological or physical disturbance.. " sparked an old brain cell. Thanks to the power of the Internet it led to this.

"The Snowball Effect" (1952). A sociology professor, challenged to prove his theories of the dynamic growth of organizations, rewrites the rules of a smalltown sewing circle to have "more growth drive than the Roman Empire." He is far more successful than he ever anticipated. Originally in Galaxy Science Fiction (September, 1952). "

It is about mathematics applied to sociology. No physical or biological disturbance necessary.

http://www.archive.org/download/XMinus1 ... Effect.mp3
Starts at 2:11.

I do not have any recollection of her name but reading the summaries of her stories here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_MacLean I recall many of them and they were great. Was she a time traveller?

Rockdoc Franz wrote: Wonderful fantasy. In an ideal word it could all work out that way. The reality of the situation is things will get a whole lot worse before they get better. People throughout the world are polarized, fed up with the status quo, and anxious for change. Nowhere is it better expressed than by the Arab Spring. The US is not far behind them because impatience is in short supply and our elected representatives have turned into deaf mutes when it comes to expressing the people wants.

I also would point out that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everyone will pay. I do not care what various factions of our society deem appropriate, the reality differs from class welfare or protectionism. Pointing to one country or another as a model is inappropriate. Cultural and social differences mitigate copy cat approaches to solving US problems. We require original solutions instead. I just don't see anyone coming forward with a really novel workable plan.

Again I look toward ecology for a lesson. Competitive exclusion says that when a superior competitor exists it takes over and dominates a community. Only a disturbance will eliminate the superior competitor and open up space for other species. Translated, we have superior competitors on various fronts. Government and (in some views) corporations or the filthy rich. To ease the competitive dominance we need a biological or physical disturbance.. that is going to be a revolution or natural disaster, a virtual annihilation of what currently exists. Only then will enough of the dominance be removed for less competitive aspects to flourish.

Mathematics is not part of my bag of tricks. Ecology is. Hence I lean on it. It's had a billion years of feedback learning to optimize relationships and organize communities into functional units. I'm betting it's got a few things for us to learn. BTW, I'm sure there is a quantification of community ecology as well.

Take a couple of days for the right-wing spin machine to come up with a response to the CBO's numbers?

Spin, spin, spin... The numbers are the numbers... Here's the story of the last three decades:

Good read Neptune, thanks for posting the article.
One thing it points out is the other side of the equation is costs, and they grew fast for Healthcare, higher Ed, and housing over the 30 years. This may be even more important than income growth in terms of pressure on the middle class IMO.

I really agree with the first two sentences - the story of the last 3 decades however- I dis-agree here....

The alternative to this liberalism should not, however, be the kind of reverse class warfare currently being championed by the not-Romney candidates in the Republican field, whose flat-tax fantasies would ask working Americans to bear more of the burden for public institutions that have been failing them for years.

I'm starting to think that asking Americans to pay more is EXACTLY what we need to do- especially the lower earners. The top earners already pay a disportionate percentage of their earnings- while the bottom 50% pay almost nothing - and it's the bottom 50% who will get the most benefit from entitlement programs.

How can this bottom 50% be persuaded to vote for a smaller - more limited government? The answer is to get their skin in the game. I think if we can shift the costs of massive government growth onto them, it'll be a matter of one or two elections before we have the votes to really start cutting back on government spending.

When the average earner feels the pain of taxation- he and she will vote for smaller and more limited government.

The fact is- we can't pay for the size of government we have now without taxing them (bottom 50%) more- you can keep stealing more from the rich- but it won't pay the bills. We need tax increases on the middle and lower class. We need to get them into the game- lets see how they feel about big government then.