SF: For future reference

C

Cypress

Well-known member
SF: Given that you refused to quit harrassing me on the state of the american middle class, and wages, I'm making a reference thread that can be easily found, so I can refer you back to it, next time you have a question about middle class wages:



SUPERFREAK: "Or perhaps you could show where... inflation adjusted... salaries for the middle class have gone down."


REAL WAGES
1964-2004

Average Weekly Earnings (in 1982 constant dollars) For all private nonfarm workers

1964 $302.52
1965 310.46
1971 318.05
1972 331.59
1973 331.39
1974 314.94
1975 305.16
1976 309.61
1977 310.99
1978 310.41
1979 298.87
1980 281.27
1981 277.35
1992 257.95
1993 258.12
1994 259.97
1995 258.43
1996 259.58
1997 265.22
1998 271.87
1999 274.64
2000 275.62
2001 275.38
2002 278.91
2003 279.94
2004 277.57

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)
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>

A new study cited in the WSJ reveals that 30-year-old men are making less than three decades ago:

U.S. men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers' generation, a reversal from a decade ago...A generation ago, men in their 30s had median annual incomes of about $40,000. Men of the same age now make about $35,000 a year, adjusted for inflation. That's a 12.5 percent drop between 1974 and 2004, according to data from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility

http://blogs.chron.com/watercoolerconfidential/2007/05/post_14.html
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Cypress said:
SF: Given that you refused to quit harrassing me on the state of the american middle class, and wages, I'm making a reference thread that can be easily found, so I can refer you back to it, next time you have a question about middle class wages:



SUPERFREAK: "Or perhaps you could show where... inflation adjusted... salaries for the middle class have gone down."




>
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I got a kick out of the writers quote from the blog you posted...

""Frankly, what I'd really like to see is a more even distribution of wealth for all of us. In a world where 40% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the population, there must be some way to even things out...mustn't there?""


Karl Marx could not have said it better.
 
cawacko said:
I got a kick out of the writers quote from the blog you posted...

""Frankly, what I'd really like to see is a more even distribution of wealth for all of us. In a world where 40% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the population, there must be some way to even things out...mustn't there?""


Karl Marx could not have said it better.
Click to expand...


""Frankly, what I'd really like to see is a more even distribution of wealth for all of us. In a world where 40% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the population, there must be some way to even things out...mustn't there?""

Sounds like something one of the founders would have said. Dudes like Jefferson and Franklin were sworn enemies of inherited wealth, and an elite wealthy aristocracy.
 
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -- Thomas Jefferson
 
Revolutionary era visitors to Europe, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, were aghast at the wide disparities of wealth and poverty they observed…the result of an aristocratic system of land transfers, hereditary political power, and monopoly.” (28)


Thomas Paine labeled hereditary government as “an insult and imposition on posterity.”


Noah Webster said “a general and tolerably equal distribution of landed property is the whole basis of national freedom.”


John Adams wrote, “The only possible way, then, of preserving the balance of power on the side of equal liberty and public virtue, is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society… If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude, in all acts of government.” (29)


Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison, “small land holders are the most precious part of a state. …The descent of property of every kind…to all children…is a politic(al) measure. Another means of…lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”

http://www.tompaine.com/Archive/scontent/7082.html
 
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Cypress said:
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -- Thomas Jefferson
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Kind of ironic wouldn't you say that the founders believed this but didn't give up their land and wealth to those less fortunate around them?
 
A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. – Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. – Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. – Thomas Jefferson

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. – Thomas Jefferson (1781)

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson

(We can play the quote game all night.)
 
cawacko said:
Kind of ironic wouldn't you say that the founders believed this but didn't give up their land and wealth to those less fortunate around them?
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Franklin and Jefferson were well-to-do men. Indeed, wealthy. But you can't even compare them to the super affluent billionaires of today. Jefferson and Franklin never said everyone has to be exactly equal in terms of income.
 
The essence of the American experiment is our collective rejection of European hereditary aristocracy and grotesque inequalities of wealth. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, he noted that equality of condition permeated the American spirit: "The American experiment presupposes a rejection of inherited privilege." In the words of novelist John Dos Passos, "rejection of Europe is what America is all about."

The nation's founders and populace viewed excessive concentrations of wealth as incompatible with the ideals of the new nation. Revolutionary era visitors to Europe, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, were aghast at the wide disparities of wealth and poverty they observed. They surmised that these great European inequalities were the result of an aristocratic system of land transfers, hereditary political power, and monopoly.

The distrust of concentrated wealth was so great that, in an extreme sentiment, Ben Franklin argued "that no man ought to own more property than needed for his livelihood; the rest, by right, belonged to the state." One could not accumulate vast wealth, in the republican worldview, simply through one's own labors. In small-scale agrarian freeholder society, where laud ownership was more widely distributed among men of European ancestry, there was a "natural distribution of wealth." Farmers, artisans, and other workers reaped the "fruits of their own labor."


http://www.tompaine.com/Archive/scontent/7082.html
 
The founding fathers were a bunch of affluent Masons. Some were smugglers, the darn British were cutting into profits.
 
cawacko said:
Ok, so what's your point?
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Nothing in particular I guess. Just that this country was not necessarially founded just for the honorable freedom and justice for all reasons we were taught in school. It was brought about by the elite of the colonies. and was funded by worthless money. At the beginning of the revoloution, x amount of paper money would be a months pay for a soldier, the same face amount would not buy one pound of cheese by the time it was over.
This country was founded on worthless money and rampant inflation :)
 
Since this is his "reference thread"... lets just go ahead and point out once again, that he wants to refer to to pre-Reagan and 1982 and beyond, then proceeds to delete the Reagan years from up above.

Then when you discuss the facts with him, he turns the conversation into Reagan vs. Clinton.

But lets go ahead and put up Watermarks census data as well, that disputes Cypress... since Cypress has yet to address that on the other thread.....

Here it is:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/incom...inc/p10ar.html

That shows the median and mean incomes in inflation adjusted and non-inflation adjusted dollars.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/incom...incpertoc.html

And this is a whole bunch of historical income data, including the above.
 
So Cypress... how about addressing the questions you REFUSED to address on the last thread???

You stated that the numbers under Bush Jr. dropped drastically compared to Clinton... yet your numbers state otherwise.... why????

You stated that the economy was better in the 60's and 70's than it was since Reagan took office. Basing your assumption off of an AVERAGE rate of GDP growth. When given an example of why that is incorrect (the salary example to Darla...that you continue to ignore) you changed the topic to Reagan vs. Clinton. WHY? why not address that example Cypress?

You also state that wages (inflation adjusted) have gone down since Reagan. Your own numbers show that to be false... so you switched to the Reagan vs. Clinton argument. Why? Are you so delusional that you simply refuse to see that you are wrong, because it would shatter your views so completely? YOUR OWN NUMBERS SHOW YOU ARE WRONG.

But please, keep this as your "reference" link. Maybe one day you will actually address the questions and critiques of your idiotic claims.
 
Almost forgot the laughable.....

"-FACT: Economic growth in the pre-reagan years (1946-1980) was superior to the post reagan years (1980-2006)."

Please find any economist who agrees with that assessment. Again... you are looking at percentage growth. You are not looking at what that percentage growth means in terms of buying power and production... you know in DOLLARS. Which is why I provided the salary example for you.

Let me post that in your "reference thread" as well....

Say you made $50,000 ten years ago. You receive 5% raises every year (adjusted for inflation) for the first five years. At the end of five years, you are making $63814. Over the next five years, you raise is 4.5% every year (again adjusted for inflation). Now you are making $79,523.

Now tell me, in terms of dollars... just which five year period did better for you? Percentage wise, you received a larger percentage raise in the first five years. 5% to 4.5%... wow big difference. Yet when you look at the actual results... you gained 13,814 in salary raises in the first five years and you gained 15,709 in the second five years. Which one is higher? Which one effects your bottom line purchasing power the most? The percentage gain or the dollar gain?
 
Superfreak said:
So Cypress... how about addressing the questions you REFUSED to address on the last thread???

You stated that the numbers under Bush Jr. dropped drastically compared to Clinton... yet your numbers state otherwise.... why????

You stated that the economy was better in the 60's and 70's than it was since Reagan took office. Basing your assumption off of an AVERAGE rate of GDP growth. When given an example of why that is incorrect (the salary example to Darla...that you continue to ignore) you changed the topic to Reagan vs. Clinton. WHY? why not address that example Cypress?

You also state that wages (inflation adjusted) have gone down since Reagan. Your own numbers show that to be false... so you switched to the Reagan vs. Clinton argument. Why? Are you so delusional that you simply refuse to see that you are wrong, because it would shatter your views so completely? YOUR OWN NUMBERS SHOW YOU ARE WRONG.

But please, keep this as your "reference" link. Maybe one day you will actually address the questions and critiques of your idiotic claims.
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SF, the middle class is in trouble, and people do better under democrats than they do under republicans.

At this point, I don't even know what you're talking about, you have gone on and on, like some kind of 3 card monty schill.

Republicans suck for the average guy. Live with it.

All of your dancing and reems of words that no one can even follow anymore, because you've written all kinds of conflicting statements, and, changed your argument in mid stream yesterday, isn't going to change anybody's mind.

Move on!
 
*HYPOTHESES:

-SUPERFREAK: The post-Reagan Years (1980-today) have been a golden age for the middle class with rising wages measured in real income.

-CYPRESS: The pre-Reagan years (1946-1980) were the golden age of the middle class, characterized by rising wages...the post-1980 years were characterized by stagnant wages


*RESULTS:

-1947 to 1980 (Cypress’ Era): Real average weekly earnings rose 43 percent

-1980 to 2004 (Superfreak’s Era) : Real average weekly earnings dropped 1.3% – statistically stagnant.

*CONCLUSION

-Cypress' hypothesis supported by the data

-Superfreak's hypothesis rejected by the data



REAL WAGES
1947-2004

Average Weekly Earnings (in 1982 constant dollars) For all private nonfarm workers

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics


1947 $196.47
1948 196.00
1949 202.58
1950 212.52
1951 215.09
1952 219.75
1953 229.35
1954 231.25
1955 243.6
1956 250.85
1957 251.13
1958 250.27
1959 260.86
1960 261.92
1961 265.59
1962 273.6
1963 278.18
1964 302.52
1965 310.46
1966 312.83
1967 311.30
1968 315.37
1969 316.93
1970 312.94
1971 318.05
1972 331.59
1973 331.39
1974 314.94
1975 305.16
1976 309.61
1977 310.99
1978 310.41
1979 298.87
1980 281.27
1981 277.35
1982 272.74
1983 277.50
1984 279.22
1985 276.23
1986 276.11
1987 272.88
1988 270.32
1989 267.27
1990 262.43
1991 258.34
1992 257.95
1993 258.12
1994 259.97
1995 258.43
1996 259.58
1997 265.22
1998 271.87
1999 274.64
2000 275.62
2001 275.38
2002 278.91
2003 279.94
2004 277.57

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/index.php?page=REAL+WAGES++1947-2000
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Darla said:
SF, the middle class is in trouble, and people do better under democrats than they do under republicans.

At this point, I don't even know what you're talking about, you have gone on and on, like some kind of 3 card monty schill.

Republicans suck for the average guy. Live with it.

All of your dancing and reems of words that no one can even follow anymore, because you've written all kinds of conflicting statements, and, changed your argument in mid stream yesterday, isn't going to change anybody's mind.

Move on!
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Darla... I like you... but you have no clue as to what you are talking about. His own numbers show that the middle class isn't worse off than it was in the 60's and 70's.

Re-read the thread if you so desire... I was not the one that changed the course of discussion. Cypress was. I simply addressed his changes.

Also, please do not tell me to "move on" when it is Cypress that started another thread on this topic. So if you want to move on, feel free to do so. No one is forcing you to read this thread that CYPRESS created.
 
Cypress... QUIT changing your fucking argument. Is it the pre-reagan vs Reagan and beyond? the 60/70's vs. the 80's and beyond? Reagan vs. Clinton? What?
 
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