OT: Goodbye to the American Dream

That is mostly ideological blather. Gay marriage isn't wrecking the economy.

What's really whacking the middle class and the college grads is

1. Massive importation of cheap, often off-the-books, immigrant labor.
2. Tax policies that punish companies for hiring.
3. Huge student debt.

All are results of progressive public policy.

The admiration of "Continental" society is misplaced; they are having the same immigration and employment-disincentive problems.

It's silly. The silliest part is the idea that environmentalists want to cr ipple the economy in order to preserve the planet.

In reality, the environmentalists want to see the economy thrive, but in a way that doesn't cripple the planet (and the economy with it), which involv es putting a realistic cost onto dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

If we tried to do this overnight - which we can't - it would raise the pric e of electricity. I used to say that it would double it, but solar cell pri ces have gone down and solar cell efficiency has gone up. Solar power and w ind power is now roughly competitive with fossil-fueled generators. Their o utput isn't as dispatchable, which poses other problems - big thermal solar generators which can store a day or so's energy output in well-insulated t anks of molten salts do seem seem to be a necessary part of the long term s olution.

There are any number of commentator out there who haven't realised this, an d a fair number who are being paid by the fossil-carbon extraction industry to obfusticate the message.

Claiming that George Monbiot is a "wreck-the-economy environmentalist" is w rong enough to put Joel Kotkin in one or other of these groups.

The attempt to involve Obama does suggest that this is Republican Party pro paganda directed at Republicans with more money than sense. Jim is merely a right-wing nitwit with a rather poor grasp of reality, so he probably wasn 't an intended target.

But if your slice of the economy is selling RVs, 4x4 pickup trucks and bass boats, then yes, they want to cripple it.

I get a real laugh out of all the greenies with their wind, solar and micro houses (use less resources, you know). And invariably, evey one of them that plans such a layout comes in with the marketing brochure showing the cute little cabin sitting in the middle of 40 unoccupied acres of pristene wilderness. With a breathtaking view.

The reality is: if you want to save resources, that micro house will be located in a trailer park with 5 feet of space between your kitchen window and the neighbor's carport. Better yet, on a major city arterial with a bus line. Or more realistically, that 'micro house' will be an apartment in a high rise block that looks like something the Soviets built.

That idealized pastoral lifestyle has a huge f*ing carbon footprint, what with every trip to the town store being a 20 mile drive. And the wood stove. If they loved the environment, they stay out of it.

Slowman is the very definition of PANSY ;-) ...Jim Thompson

It is pointless to try to discuss any of this, but I have to feel sorry for people who see the idea of not depleting and polluting the world as a waste of time and effort.

he

ss

n a

ro

that

That's marketing for you.

us

There are plenty of high rise apartments in blocks that don't look like any thing the Soviets built. I live in one, and I've got a distressingly good v iew of one built a few years later.

it was there when we bought our current apartment in favour of one in the H orizon building - which are noisier, and badly affected by the air-currents around the building. Those pretty balconies do seems to pretty much unusab le.

ve.

Ask Joerg - he cycles to the town store. The wood stove doesn't have any ca rbon footprint - if you cut your trees locally. Our house in the Netherland s had half an acres of garden, enough for 25 trees. The house had been ther e since 1936, and some of trees were post-mature and had to be cut down - w e couldn't burn enough wood to keep ahead of the tree surgeon.

I wonder what prompted that? Jim-out-of-touch-with-reality-Thompson must think that every butch guy (and him) are suckers for low-grade Republican party propaganda, with the corollary than anybody who can think for themselves has to be effete. This doesn't actually follow.

I'm not sure where you are seeing "micro houses" or trailers as far as the US or Canada goes ? I am in this industry and most of the off-grid folks that use our products live in nice homes with all the amenities of life. A lot of them with wonderful views. Hey, if that's the way they want to live, what's wrong with that ?

Micro hydro is probably the best way to go if they are lucky enough to have that. Heck, all three, solar, wind and hydro if possible.

I don't see many trailer park solar installations and I'm sure there are some but I do know there are a LOT of RV's equipped with solar.

Making your own power can be a lot of fun, too.

boB K7IQ

Hold on, we have to check with the divore lawyers on this.

Are they a protected specie yet ?

Don't just thank Obama. Thank Merkel, Cameron, Holande and all the rest of 'em, 'cos this is happening all over the Western world. Anyone would think collapse is being orchestrated in some way...

On Tue, 18 Aug 2015 20:41:06 +0000 (UTC), Julian Barnes Gave us:

Of course it is. They saw it taking a turn years even decades ago, and they set it up so the middle class would vanish (and pay for their bullshit menagerie)and it now takes multiple incomes to support even a meager household. It really is pathetic.

Just a note my electric costs have went from $0.119 kWh to $0.15 kWh during Obama.

Mikek

We'll all be EQUAL >:-} ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | San Tan Valley, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

I think there is more to it than that. It's all the things we think we need because they are available. We didn't have them in 1950. Just starting, Please to add to my list any items we didn't have in 1950, that seem like a must have now.

House needs- air conditioning, ceiling fans, garbage disposal, mammoth refrigerator, TV, no 3 tv's, cable, 2 baths, 2 car garage, and a carport, electric can opener, microwave, exercise equipment, home automation, concrete driveways, dimmers on our lights, outdoors lights that turn themselves on,

Car needs-- NEW, 3 years old not 8 years old, power windows and locks, automatic transmission, air conditioning,

Electronic needs-- cellphones, internet, mp3 player, computer, printers, Xbox, play station, bluray player, stereo and speakers, digital cameras,

Personal needs-- expensive clothes, expensive razors, all nature of creams and salves and skin conditioners, expensive tennis shoes,

More categories or additions?

Don't get me wrong I like many of these, but you are right, it often takes two working to obtain them. Mikek

PS I'm following a blog that has a main interest in living a happy life without all the consumer excess, And on gaining Financial Independence- Retiring early.

First Blog posts at the bottom.

The forum filled with Mustachians is fun also.

Save 30% of you income retire in 28 years. Save 40% of you income retire in 22 years. Save 50% of you income retire in 17 years. Save 60% of you income retire in 12.5 years. Assumes you live the Mustachian lifestyle.

The blog writer would give Jim a facepunch just for the subject of this thread.

On Tue, 18 Aug 2015 14:26:12 -0700, Jim Thompson Gave us:

Well, then the trek that you face is the longest.

On Tue, 18 Aug 2015 18:53:42 -0400, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno Gave us:

And not for the reason you think.

Remember, Donald Trump actually thinks he is smart too.

On Wednesday, 19 August 2015 06:50:13 UTC+10, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno w rote:

This is primarily a US problem. See

The US is remarkably unequal, and has got a lot less equal since Reagan cam e to power. Particularly in the US, the middle class is being squeezed to a llow more income to be diverted to the rich and the very rich - the top 1% and the top 0.1% of the income distribution.

The Gini index doesn't capture this particularly well

but the USA - with a Gini index of 41.1% - is more unequal than any other a dvanced industrial country, and about 60th in the pecking order, ahead of R ussian 70th at 39.7%, Iran 79th at 38.3% and China, 88th at 37.0%.

Respectable countries sit around 30%. Sweden sits at 25%.

The US would certainly work better is the income distribution was less tilt ed towards the very well off.

Nothing suggests that Sweden has taken it too far. The Swedes certainly are n't smeared out into a totally homogeneous mass when it comes to incomes or life-styles, but the absence of extreme contrasts in income does seem to l et their society - and their economy - work rather better than the societie s and economies of less equal societies (of which the US is a pretty horrib le example). Germany is bigger - enough to make the effectiveness of it's e conomy fairly obvious - and while it's less equal, it is noticeably more eq ual that most advanced industrial countries.

Contrary to Jim's implication, equality has more to do with raising the inc omes of the poorest, rather than lowering the incomes of the richest.

Do a google search. It's all the craze.

Nothing at all. It's when they want to force everyone else to live their lunacy that it becomes a problem.

If you have money to blow. I'd rather just spend a much smaller amount on coal and be done with it.

Space?

I don't see *any* fun in it at all. Keep it.