Starvation Wages

The divide is widening. The key is to be on the right side of this divide.

i

But I wonder. Is it the proletariat getting poorer or the rich getting richer?

Proles are having their taxes increased at rapid rate.

. Christ>> The divide is widening. The key is to be on the right side of this >> divide.

Indeed, echoing Rousseau's observation [paraphrased] that the poor cannot pay taxes as they have no money, the rich will not pay taxes, therefore the entire burden of the state must fall on the middle class.

In many cases the increase in the amount of money extracted is hidden as increased governmental fees, decreased governmental services, and inflation which erodes the value of their wages and savings.

Loss of work place benefits such as health care and pensions is also a significant, albeit long-term, hidden hit.

George, you know better than that. The tax rates at the bottom and up into the middle class have fallen fairly steadily for 70 years:

That's why I qualified the statement by noting

Many of these fees bypass the constitutional requirement that all federal revenue must pass through the treasury and be approved by Congress. Check your phone bill for an example of a tax described as a fee, with the money nominally going to improve school internet connection. While this may be a "good thing," it evades controls, accountability, and express intent of the Constitution.

==================

A nobel sentiment (pun intended) indeed :-(, and one frequently expressed by the prior residents of both Versailles and the Winter Palace, before the deluge.

It is correctly observed that desperate solutions frequently result in desperate remedies, and if one is averse to desperate remedies, then one best avoid or prevent desperate situations.

I think about similar questions every other day. As I said many times, I am worried and disturbed about a possibility that a large, and constantly increasing, majority of people would not be needed in an automated economy.

For example, I can easily visualize how a typical McDonalds restaurant could be run by 1 person, the rest automated. It would also serve customers better and avoid messed up orders. A robot could handle deliveries.

I do not have a global solution and, meanwhile, I will just try to stay on the right side of the divide.

As for how such situations can resolve themselves, I see three possibilities:

1) That I am wrong and that displaced people will continue finding employment. 2) A violent resolution of this, resulting in mass damage and realignment 3) A non-violent resolution, with the majority of people living on handouts, studying liberal arts or doing make-work stuff.

Number 3 is what I personally anticipate, but I recognize the uncertainty that is inherent in these predictions. In any case, everyone needs to make predictions in order to plan our actions.

i

So, what is the answer? Kill the Kulaks?

At least a few of us on RCM can be robot repairmen.

. Christ>

follow up to my follow up...more info about falling real wages

According to every major data source, the vast majority of U.S. workers?including white-collar and blue-collar workers and those with and without a college degree?have endured more than a decade of wage stagnation. Wage growth has significantly underperformed productivity growth regardless of occupation, gender, race/ethnicity, or education level. During the Great Recession and its aftermath (i.e., between 2007 and 2012), wages fell for the entire bottom 70 percent of the wage distribution, despite productivity growth of 7.7 percent. During the Great Recession and its aftermath (i.e., between 2007 and 2012), wages fell for the entire bottom

70 percent of the wage distribution, despite productivity growth of 7.7 percent. The losses tended to be larger further down the wage distribution; wages at the 80th percentile were essentially flat (increasing by 0.2 percent), the median (50th percentile) worker saw a decline of 2.6 percent, and the 20th percentile worker saw a decline of 5.5 percent over this period.

Ayup, that's a very plausible scenario and outcome.

I prefer the clones, though, for two reasons. The first is that when they screw up, they usually give the screwup item to the orderer, costing the evil corporation another 50 cents. (I buy only ice cream cones there. The rest is worthless crap, so I don't benefit from the screwups.) I should be an ice cream machine repairman in this town, though. There are 3 McDs here and at least one of them has a broken machine every single week, bar none. I'll bet the (otherwise) idiot tech is a millionaire by now.

Second, the pretty gal who served me the fine ice cream cone today was also complimented by her boss, who said that the cone was beautifully made. It was a large cone and was very uniform in its structure, so he was right.

#3 is the bulk of the Democrat's Platform, isn't it? That is what our fine nation is turning into.

DO you see any other alternatives, other than 1, 2 or 3?

"Ignoramus15426" wrote in message news:c4ydneTJX5b87q_PnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

The Khmer Rouge solution was to force the unproductive urbanites out onto collective farms, to make the nation self-sufficient.

That's good. I was thinking you'd be on the left. ;)

No, those are definitely the 3 most likely trends. Now if we could only get people to drop the Reps and Dems and find a new party whose platform is solidly sane, fiscally frugal, and _pro_-USA...

Until Gunner's Great Cull happens, and changes things drastically, I forsee #3 happening/growing, too. I revamped my BOB and am adding to my stores continually now, hoping to shelter-in-place when the SHTF.

That would be #2 on my list. Could it happen? Yes. Will it happen? Less likely in a civilized society.

i

That would be awesome. I especially want fiscally frugal.

I dumped most of my food stores due to mice. I only have a bit of canned stuff.

i

They set out to implement their notion of 'pure' communism Violent repression was the consequence when it clashed with human nature.

Lenin himself recognized the flaws of pure communism once he had faced the realities of ruling a nation (Marx never had) and replaced it with the New Economic Policy that reinstated private enterprise to a limited degree:

"The NEP represented a move away from full nationalization of certain parts of industries."

[NEP policy] "increased the peasants' incentive to produce, and in response production jumped by 40% after the drought and famine of 1921-22."

Did they allow or suppress that history when you were in school? We learned quite a lot about the social engineering experiments of the past, one of which was still active and near enough to visit:

Other countries' schoolbooks may present history very differently from ours. I have an old German one in which Rome never fell, but passed on to its legitimate Germanic heirs (who as Praetorians had been a power there for centuries) and a Soviet one that dismisses the protracted meat grinder leading to the Allied victory in Normandy as 'no major battles'.

Less likely in a society that can effectively resist oppression.

Wouldn't that be novel?

You should have used 5/6-gallon buckets, Mylar bags vacuum sealed with oxygen absorbers inside, and gamma lids. Stock back up, Ig. The fecal material is about to hit the impeller, so you want to be stocked for it.

Gamma lids at HD, 3 for $21,

Mylar bags/oxy abs at eBay $24 Costco ARC bucket $15 off right now, $84.99 Costco 55gal water drum