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There are plenty of affluent, well educated yuppies who can buy luxury cars, travel, and do quite well, even in their purported "race to the bottom". They take advantage of Chinese iphones and computers, and then they complain about not enough made in the US as they jet around the world. And many/most of them are competent. They buy mostly foreign nameplates.
There are the wheelers and dealers who often have finance/MBA/accounting degrees, who are either extroverted salespeople who know more how to sell than anything about the products, or high-level management of companies that aren't doing very well. Think Lutz and Wagoner as two good examples of those types. There are the "creative" financial types who helped torpedo the economy who are earning obscene salaries and bonuses. No argument there about whether there's much competency in those crooks.
Then there are the more blue collar (in general), less responsible/educated types. They usually drive used cars, complain about life, and wonder why government isn't taking care of them better. They're much more likely to buy US nameplates ("American" cars), often because those vehicles are cheaper, especially used due to big depreciation. Some of those people are competent, too, but lots of them are lazy union workers (a la Chrysler or a la government). You've seen those ones when you visit your DMV or if unlucky enough to enjoy the court system. Others are living on the dole. They just know the world isn't fair as they chug their sixpacks and plan whether or not their beater will get them to the game or not. Plenty of fairness there as even poor choices and laziness in this society still allow for a standard of living that is luxury for much of the world population.
If companies like GM and C and F want to be really profitable, they need to cater more to the upscale clientele, which means they need to build good reputations as desirable vehicle manufacturers. When I was a kid, owning a Caddilac was a big deal. Now, that's not as much a big deal - but if you drive a Benz or BMW you have made it!
Many of those yuppies are also priced out of such ideals as detached property ownership, and having a family. So they spend their money elsewhere. Perhaps the last en masse middle class group. Mentioning phones and computers is kind of irrelevant- there's no option for those being sourced anywhere else, due to the lack of ethics of the second group.
Sadly, that third group you mention is the one paying the price, due to dying social mobility and education (college or vo-tech) becoming less attainable with time.
The general public doesn't seem to realize one can lease a new BMW or MB for around $350/month. Not exactly a high rolling expense. Perception is everything - the nitwit no doubt cradle to grave middle aged middle managers and above of these companies need to embrace it.
Just pablum in a forum. Are there any statistics for that?
...approaching their senior years, who think they built it all, when they really had most of it handed to them via their doting saver parents...
I'm sure those people exist. Perhaps you've seen a lot of them. I have plenty of friends and have rarely seen this situation. Almost all of the friends I have, many much younger than I, are much better off than their parents.
Sadly, that third group you mention is the one paying the price, due to dying social mobility and education (college or vo-tech) becoming less attainable with time.
You mean the ones who don't plan ahead, don't get an education, don't make wise choices, choose having irresponsible fun with friends rather than working hard in the early 20's for a better future for themselves? Such a shame that loss of social mobility. But there are certainly many who make it anyway.
Look at it this way - if there is no consumption, then even the fat cats don't earn anything. So the problem is going to be self-adjusting since if the middle class falls too far, the companies making things won't be successful, either.
In regards to the US standard of living slowing/declining vs. the rest of the world - well the minute we came out of isolation and began trading, it was bound to happen. Trade, communications, and transportation are the great equalizers. As they became more sophisitcated, the equalization was going to happen. It was never going to be like the end of WWII in terms of US manufacturing and economy as an island. No single person in government, or even a party, would significantly slow that irresistible flow.
We can thank the global economy for all today's jobs in the U.S. from companies like Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda, BMW, MB, etc. Buy those American cars!
If a die-hard UAW member thinks it's a home grown vehicle it would give me serious pause,,,
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Very true. Politicians and economists get too wrapped up in numbers as simply integers. But I think the biggest failure of government trade policies is it's total focus on trade balances instead of being focused on critical American industrial base issues. We have allowed critical manufacturing skills and factories to basically perish in many high tech components. The day is going to come when we are vulnerable to warfare because we have no ability any more to quickly produce key weapons components like chips and circuit boards.
Unfortunately a company being successful is no longer required for the CEO's and executives to be wildly successful. In fact, you can run an company into the ground, and ruin it, and still get a massive multi-million dollar severance package / golden parachute.
if there is no consumption, then even the fat cats don't earn anything
See above, the fat cats always make out. They can run a company into oblivion and do well thanks to our bailout mentality in the USA.
I don't know much about the financial situation of my friends' parents - not a normal discussion topic, so I won't ask for your statistics on that one. Sounds...embellished. I know the details of only one friend - both recently retired public sector, 3 pensions (teacher, state, military), you can imagine that income is more than what is enjoyed by most 30-somethings 10+ years out of school.
Planning ahead is only worth so much. Education costs stratospherically more than it did for the oldsters - not to mention the general cost of living, healthcare, transportation, etc. Not everyone can have their mysteriously affluent mommy and daddy give them a free ride. Hard work is only so much when the typical menial job had by a 20 year old buys a lot less than it did 35-40 years ago, when the holier-than-thou set was getting going. Hell, I am lucky and grateful to have what I have - I suspect in the future, even this will be a lot tougher. I won't pretend it was all hard work and planning and other distractions. These just might be the good old days.
Regarding consumption, those who buy the rules don't have so much foresight. This isn't going to end well. The middle class is falling. Not to mention, those fat cats don't need overall success to accumulate unearned gold. They reap rewards (calling it "earn" is dishonest) no matter what.
Funny thing. When trade started, the standard went up. It went up until about 30 or so years ago, when "coddle the rich" became the way of the day, and it became fashionable and permissible to start sending everything offshore and running to should-be-nuked tax havens. The standard also hasn't crashed as hard in other developed nations. Thanks for the legacy.
All of those jobs, look at this economic miracle. The job creators will trickle down any day now.
And of course, because we allow our warfare tech to be copied by "allies" and "partners".
Other successful areas haven't sacrificed their industrial base so a top few can roll around in piles of gold like at no time since before the depression. Why should we?
Bill Clinton says there are 3 million jobs not filled in the USA. I have to agree with him. My Nephew is graduating from UCSD this year and was recruited by a company in TX. They flew him down to look over the place during Spring Break. His sister graduated two years ago and took a high level job with the company she worked for during Summer breaks. She is always on the go between LA, Hong Kong and Chicago. You take the multicultural BS courses offered at so many of our Universities and you be flippin' burgers when you graduate.
Tlong, You mean the ones who don't plan ahead, don't get an education, don't make wise choices, choose having irresponsible fun with friends rather than working hard in the early 20's for a better future for themselves?
That is the new norm that I am seeing around here. party, party, party, then complain that the only jobs are at Wally World or McDs. I know two College grads that have been unemployed since graduation. I asked them how many places they had gone to looking for work. They both told me they do it all on line. What manager in their right mind would hire someone online. I sure would not. I want to see a clean cut young person dressed nicely with NO tattoos or body piercings showing.
Something our boss would tell customers looking for phone service yesterday. " Poor Planning on your part, Does not create an emergency on Ours"
If you aren't willing to pound the pavement a bit and show a little initiative you deserve to be asking "Ya' want fries with that?" for the rest of your life...
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Oh I'm sure many "someones" are involved in such dealings. Sort of like Toyotas and Hondas break down just like GMs. It happens, but an effort to claim its the majority has no backing. Most of my own friends, like me, were in a lower-middle class economic area, went to college, studied hard (I myself worked 20-25 hrs/week for five years to make it out with a Bachelor's), and then worked hard in early jobs to slowly become successful. We didn't go out on drinking binges on the job like the Chrysler employees, we didn't go on trips all over the world blowing our money, we didn't go into hock, and we sacrificed when others were living it up. I drove my college car that I bought used (it was a VW, not an "American" car) for 18 years!
I don't know much about the financial situation of my friends' parents - not a normal discussion topic, so I won't ask for your statistics on that one. Sounds...embellished.
Well no, I didn't know their tax returns. I do know that one was divorced and lived in an apartment; another lived in a 1000sf rented house. If there was money there it sure wasn't being spent. One friend did have a dad who retired from the Post Office with a pension, but a small house so not likely there was one of the fat pensions involved. And they always drove modest cars.
Perhaps you just grew up in a much more affluent situation than I did.
:P
To this day I've never had a close friend with a BMW or a Mercedes.
Funny thing. When trade started, the standard went up. It went up until about 30 or so years ago, when "coddle the rich" became the way of the day...
I can agree with that and I'm just as disgusted by much of it as you. Which is why we should be welcoming manufacturing that comes into this country such as the "foreign nameplates".
But with global trading expanding to new levels, tell me how, really, any policy at all was going to allow the country that sat on the top of the economic scale to retain relatively high incomes for the jobs that didn't require high skills or local presence to perform. The higher a country was, the more distance it has to fall, while the lower ones have farther to climb. Global trade and communications and transportation -- the great equalizer.
I could not agree more. I drove 20 miles downtown San Diego Every Monday morning to the Pacific Telephone employment office to check if there were any openings. I started in June after graduation and got hired into the mail room on December 11th 1961, making $62.50 per week.
Of course, she dressed and acted like a professional
To me sloppy dress means sloppy worker.
You're better off posting and networking on Facebook.
We have had 5 new chain restaurants open in the last year in Santee where we shop. Thousands of applicants applied for those jobs. Big sign out in front of Chik-FiL-A had a big banner saying starting pay $10 per hour. We have eaten at 3 of the new restaurants. The people they hired were all clean cut mostly college age without piercings and tattoos. That would be hard to determine from an application on line.
My friend told me his boss said, "John, you like driving that Cadillac, don't you? It took me 20 years out of school to get my first Cadillac. It's something to work towards". Many will scoff at that....but I miss those days, just generally.
If you click my link, you'll see that GM is back on Facebook.
And I think you mean "no visible" tats or piercings.
"Yo, dude! I just got this totally awesome job as a nuke-yoo-lar physicist despite the fact I only got this bogus degree in Classic Film from the local community college!"
"Yo, how'dja do it, bro?"
"Easy,dude! I just found these totally awesome buzzwords and randomly threw them in my resume and those chumps fell for it. I'm like makin' big bank now, yo!"
On TV I've been seeing XTS leases for $399. I don't know the details, and I bet it's a low mile lease with a decent down payment.
I've been getting the itch for a new vehicle, but I just threw $1,200 the other day into the Expedition to get it running right again. So I'll likely be driving it for a while. Only way I'll finance is with 0 percent which seems to be easy right now.
Meanwhile, you're really a Rastafarian with dreadlocks down to the floor who's so liberal you make Mike Stivic look like the staunchest member of the John Birch Society!
It still can be done. I know a women in her mid 20's who went back to school all on her own (she was living at home, but her parents are retired and were in no position to help fund college). She was a receptionist at a dental office and decided she wanted to be a dental hygienist. She just finished a two year program at a local commuter/tech college. She was able to get scholarships and loans to cover most of the cost which really wasn't that bad. All told I think she owes about $12k and she has had several job offers in the $60-70k range. Not a bad trade off.
There are lots of ways to reduce the costs of going to school. But yeah, if you can't or won't live at home, it is hard, but certainly not impossible.
I worked my way through college by working at a grocery store. My parents helped some and I took out loans. If my parents wouldn't have helped, I just would have borrowed more, it wouldn't have kept me from going. Also I didn't go to the main campus for 4 years either. I stayed home for 2 and took classes at a local extension. That saved a lot of money, probably cut my college expenses by nearly 1/2. Plus I was able to make more money being at home.
If you're clever enough to do that, you'd probably wind up making a good employee.
"The Obama administration said Friday it will allow Japan to join 11-nation free trade talks — a blow to U.S. automakers, which have strongly lobbied to keep the world's third largest economy out of the talks.
Japan on Friday announced it will more than double the number of motor vehicles eligible for import under its fast-track rules — dubbed the Preferential Handling Procedure — "a simpler and faster certification method often used by U.S. auto manufacturers to export to Japan. In the near term, U.S. auto producers will be allowed to export up to 5,000 vehicles annually of each vehicle type under the PHP program, compared with the current annual ceiling of 2,000 vehicles per vehicle type."
U.S. will allow Japan to join trade talks despite concerns over autos (Detroit News)
Hmmm. Seems like we have heard similar line of thinking within the last year. Some prominent guy on the national stage said: "You didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen".
FBI Smokes Out Fake Marlboro Men
Still not seeing others sinking as much as we are. Why is that? Why do some protect their people, and don't blame it on tenuous ideas like "equalization"? It's not about being equal, it's about seeking a bottom so a few can reap the highest margins possible. If being equal was anything, there would be fair trade, not the almost unrestricted free trade we have now. It's almost a zero sum game, just a wealth transfer. The wannabes whine about "class warfare", when it is obvious who has declared war on who. Again, when trade started, the devolution did not start. That part is much more recent and sinister. Thanks for the legacy.
For those types of jobs you typically have to go in and apply. The vast majority of professional jobs are no longer advertised and can only be found on-line or through networking. Last year I was doing a little job hunting and many places put it right up on their careers page that no paper resumes, letters or phone calls would be accepted.
BTW - you never know about piercings and tatoos. I'm not a fan of them and I would be hard pressed to not judge someone based on them. But there is a clean cut college kid that works at the deli counter at the local grocery store. He's polite, wears a shirt and tie under his smock. I've seen him outside the store and he has full tattoo sleeves.
A lot of help? Nothing special to me. Same amount of help given to ALL others. Such as in public high school. Those of us who worked very hard, applied ourselves by "individual" effort and persistence, got decent grades, were then worthy of admittance to college. Then, worked even harder and we, individually, built that. Our GPA's and diplomas.
Didn't seem to affect Dennis Rodman.
A friend moved in to a 1 bedroom apartment and is paying $1100/month in rent, including no utilities. Twinbrook is so-so, not what I'd call a nice area, either.
40 hours a week is $400, $1600 or so per month, less after taxes, she could pay rent and utilities if she didn't eat (take left overs home).
No health insurance but maybe the pool has enough chlorine to kill all bacteria.
Wages simply haven't kept up with the cost of living around here, not even close.
My mom used to live not too far from the new VW factory. Years ago, when the city took over the grounds of an old orphanage a mile away from VW, they put in new roads, sewer and other infrastructure. Lots of businesses moved in. (Mom moved out, lol).
When VW started building, the taxpayers paid to redo the railroad spur, complete with a new overpass on one of my long-time shortcut routes, plus fiber in addition to all the other typical roads and stuff.
Now Amazon has moved in right down the road.
Point is, VW didn't build that stuff, and they wouldn't be there if the taxpayers hadn't agreed to do it.
$10/hour hasn't been enough to get by here in the DC area for some time, now. I made $10/hour back in the fall of 1992, when I started working part time for McDonnell-Douglas Space Systems. I also had another part time job, working at Hecht's (now Macy's) and I was making $7.03/hr there at the time.
I did manage to buy a condo in the fall of 1994, out in Crofton. By that time, I was full-time, but only making $10.50/hr plus benefits. Still had the part time job at Hecht's, and by then it was probably around $7.50/hr. I had to take in a roommate though, to help make ends meet.
Adjusting for inflation, that $10/hr would be like $16.55 today. And the $7.03 would be $11.63.
So, those $10/hr Chik-fil-a jobs would actually be about 15% lower in pay than what I was making at Hecht's back in 1992! To be fair though, I don't think your typical fast food job is meant to be a sustainable, living-wage career type thing, unless you go into management. And similarly, neither was my retail job at Hecht's. Jobs like mine were filled with part time workers such as college students, retirees, people who wanted a part time job to supplement their income, etc. If you wanted to make a career out of it, you went into management, became a buyer, or went into a commission department such as Mens suits, womens' shoes, electronics, etc.
As for apartments, I think about the cheapest that you can find around here, if you don't qualify for Section 8, is around $1100/mo for a 1br/1ba. I know the apartment complex, it's practically next door to where I work, and one of the main reasons our office building has a big fence around it and a security guard up front. And also the reason that most of the other office buildings around here are vacant and decrepit.
Now Amazon has moved in right down the road.
Point is, VW didn't build that stuff, and they wouldn't be there if the taxpayers hadn't agreed to do it.
You know, I don't feel the need to defend any politician, because so much of what they do and say is beyond defense, but...
If one listened to the entire "You didn't build that..." speech, it seems pretty clear that was the point being made. No business would locate in the middle of nowhere and expect to be around very long.
As for successful people, I'd give 5 to 1 odds that, if you asked them, each one would tell you they had at least one "mentor/advisor" in their early years that helped them figure out a roadmap to being successful. And, that cuts both ways... Good and bad. If your mentor is successful in business, and you learn the "lessons" properly, chances are you will be as well. Unfortunately, the same goes for criminal behavior. If the mentors (or the people getting respect around you) are drug dealers, guess what you'll likely become (even Al Capone had a mentor)?
Probably the best advice I was ever given was to keep some "grey hair" around... Someone I could learn from, so that I wouldn't make the same mistakes they had made. That same "grey hair" could help advise and create that roadmap to success.
I began working at 12 years old as a busboy in a restaurant, and my mentor was the owner. She was very successful, and as far as I can recall, the first millionaire I ever knew. Her lessons for me centered around education and learning to be confident within my abilities, and to associate with what we would today call "winners". I'm forever thankful that I was lucky enough to have had so much exposure to her. Because of her constant drilling in to me the importance of education, I'm the first one in my entire extended family that obtained a college degree, not to mention the Masters degree I earned (or given, as a couple of my family members used to say).
Unfortunately, so many young people don't have credible mentors nowadays, and we, as a society, don't search in the right places for them. It's easier to just blame our misfortunes on someone/something else instead of looking into a mirror and seeing ourselves as the culprits.
From what I can see, the "I built it" set are the ones who want to walk away from paying maintenance on the system that allowed them to succeed in the first place. Without public schools, public infrastructure, in many cases subsidized business loans, etc, they wouldn't have "built" anything. I wouldn't have been able to attend school without such infrastructure and similar loans, and I do not balk in paying it forward.
I saw a "I built my business" sticker on a big GM pickup driven by an oldster the other day. I bet if I asked him specifics of how he built it, I wouldn't get an answer.
But it's all about equalization! :shades: :sick: