Election Season is upon us, and everywhere are the markers of the two major political parties in the U.S. Everywhere, you will see the blue and the red. Everywhere, you will see the donkey and the elephant.
The elephant.
I would like to propose a change to the Republican Party visuals. I would like to replace the elephant with the wolf.
Now that sounds like a strange decision and not one that would immediately play well. After all, aren't wolves evil creatures who prey on the sick and weak? Well... that's the view of them from a herd mentality, and that's what I want to talk about today - herds and packs.
This morning, I mentioned something about a political group with a Cause and various Arguments, and my husband said, "Yeah, this reminds me of my Social Problems class in college. The professor kept saying that a Social Problem arises because the society as a whole comes to the conclusion that there is a problem. I kept saying that a Social Problem arises because a few leaders decide that it is a problem and go about convincing enough of the other people that it is a problem, whether it is or not."
I came fully awake. "You're right and your teacher was wrong, and I know why," I said.
A while ago, I came to the startling realization that human beings are pack animals by nature. I'd been following the research of one of my friends into wolves and wolf behavior, and doing some of my own research into the similarity of genetics in social behavior between humans and prairie voles. Our interests intersected, and I found a whole world of fascinating information. Humans and wolves have very similar social-behavior genetics, and naturally tend to form very similar social structures. After a while of saturating my brain with information about alphas, family packs (the naturally-formed wolf pack resembles a family tribe of an alpha, his daughters, and his daughters' mates, who include formerly-lone wolves from other packs), roles, and tactics, I made the inescapable conclusion: Humans are also pack animals, endurance hunters, and family units, just like wolves.
(And, as the part of the research that led me in this direction, humans are by nature sexually monogamous in bonded pairs. But that, and the liberal Democrat view on it, is another discussion entirely!)
Why was this such a startling conclusion? Just like my husband's Social Problems teacher, the education system is saturated with teachers and administrators teaching and reinforcing the idea that humans are herd animals. Children in school are treated like herd animals, and expected to act like herd animals. Examples of human behavior are often likened to herd behavior, even when the full story of any given incident indicates differently. We even use terms like "sheeple" to refer to "The Masses"... Wait, I've heard that term before. Yes, I have, and so have you. It came out of early socialist philosophy. The very idea of a Communist Paradise requires a type of herd mentality and, since humans do not naturally work together in herds the way that herd animals do, all actual implementations of Communism have required a "shepherd", a member treated as if he is of a different species (some animals are more equal than others), who is determined to be qualified to shove the herd when it isn't 'naturally congregating' in the right direction.
This goes all the way down to government-run healthcare, in which Former President Obama's famous line to Jane Strum about her elderly mother, vital and strong-hearted, would be better off with the pill than the pacemaker. "Devil take the hindmost". Well, to be more accurate, in my part of the country, the hindmost is generally taken by the wolves. The exception is The Children, who are protected not because they are weak, but because they are the future of the herd.
Now herd mentality actually works for herd animals. They will stampede together when the decision is made. They will line up together to protect the young when that decision is made. If a herd did not actually come to a herd decision through their herd behavior, they would flee wildly in all directions, trampling even their young, or refuse to stand up against an enemy that the entire herd can drive off together... kind of like humans in cities, being pushed into herd behavior and not being able to synthesize it. For this reason people are trained, in an emergency, to point at someone and say, "You call 911" instead of hollering, "Someone call 911!" which, in a herd, may result in many people calling, but, in a group of bystanders, all too often leads to everyone leaving the job to someone else. When you tell a specific person to call 911, a specific other person to direct traffic, etc., you may not wind up with a fully elegant solution, as you don't know which of the strangers are better or worse at the roles you are giving them. You will, however, always wind up with a better situation by organizing them into an impromptu pack (that is what you are doing) than leaving them as a disorganized non-herd.
Pack mentality among wolves incorporates a sense of what we would call 'natural rights', in which each member of the pack has a certain level of autonomy and a structure of authority to handle matters that cannot be handled individually. They put up with this because they can get more, more meat, better homes, more security than they can alone.
Now unlike Democrats, Republicans favor a governmental structure in which the top parts of the government are limited in power, because human beings work better in a series of packs, the leaders of those packs coming together to form structures that only handle what can't be done within the packs themselves, just as the individual only yields what authority he must to do in within the pack what he cannot do as a lone wolf. They tend to be willing to put up with a little more structure and authority than the Libertarians do. But they do not have the mentality that human beings are a very large herd which must be pushed about by a shepherd, as the Democrats do.
So when the Democrats like to say, "Wolves, eh? Wolves take the hindmost," what can we point out? In a wolf pack, the 'hindmost' is still a subordinate in the pack. Have you ever seen overindulgent people with their (often small-breed) dogs? The dogs are a holy terror and they give in to every little doggy whim, because they 'just want their darlings to be happy'. I am reminded of Democrats promising their "masses" every little bit of food, shelter, healthcare, bread, and circuses, delivered to them for free and to make them happy. A dog (by taxonomy merely a subordinate wolf in a human pack) who is treated this way will become fearful and aggressive. He develops anxiety issues and winds up a very unhappy, unhealthy pup. What a subordinate wolf needs desperately is to know that he has a place in the pack, to be given a role, a job, and to know that he has received a portion as large as it is because of the health of the pack. The "hindmost" in the pack needs what Republicans promise - workfare and an improved economy in which he can take up his place and feel secure in his pack.
Consider this in your own lives, taking it out of politics for a moment. Consider your place of employment, your gatherings for hobbies, your weekend activity groups, even your momentary inadvertent social structures, like the passengers of an airplane, the other people in a movie theater, the crowd at the scene of an accident. Are they acting as a pack or a herd? If they can be chivvied into an impromptu pack, will the experience be better for everyone?
And when you hear the grand speeches of the politicians, ask yourself: Are they treating us like herd animals or pack animals? What do their wordings and their programs imply?
Showing posts with label feelthebern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feelthebern. Show all posts
Friday, September 7, 2018
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
The Other Path to a Living Wage
Living Wage.
This seems to be the new socialist bugaboo. I do call it socialist, even though its implementation may be more fascist in appearance. I have said this before: Fascism and Communism are two fingers on the same hand of Socialism, though one may be purer than the other. In the former, the government controls the people through the companies, while in the latter, the government forbids the companies and controls the people directly. There is very little difference; in Fascism, the government forbears the existence of the companies for the time being, while in a free market economy, the government is limited in the ways that it is allowed to control them.
Economics lesson aside, let's break into the actual thought. The usual suspects are now calling for a government-enforced "living wage", the ability of any job to support a spouse and family. They like to claim that this was quite possible and expected back "before all this deregulation", as if the 1950's may as well have been lived under the hammer and sickle or something. Frankly, I'm pretty sure they don't know what they're talking about. But let's take a moment and ask the question: Why are so many jobs no longer offering "a living wage"? There are a few reasons that we can note before stepping into this one. In the 1950's, a "living wage" supported a smaller home with fewer amenities, fewer electronic devices with monthly plans, fewer restaurant meals, and smaller wardrobes. If you were to study the time period and attempt to live only with the amount of stuff and amenities that they had, eating what they ate and owning the clothing that they owned, you might find that a minimum wage job would in fact provide your needs. But let's set that, also, aside for a moment and ask this question:
Are corporations not offering a "living wage" because they are already subsidizing it via government fiat?
A worker costs an employer a great deal. Government-required taxes and benefits alone may increase the cost of an employee a minimum of 25% and maximum (more common in larger businesses, which have additional mandates that small businesses do not) of 40% above the employee's base salary. Many of these 'benefits', like 'health insurance' (itself becoming increasingly expensive and useless), would have been paid by the worker back in the days of the Living Wage.
On the other side, we have corporate and personal income taxes. Why did I say "corporate and personal"? Many companies nowadays are taking advantage of the S-Corp filing status, and filing as if they are persons. That lowers the bewildering complexity of the process and may lower the tax rate. On the other hand, someone who makes $35K/year may be paying taxes on his company's $120K/year profits instead. When we talk about government income from employers, we need to include them. All in all, the top 1% of income earners pay nearly half of personal income taxes, the top 20% pay 85% (the bottom 60% pay 2%), and many, perhaps even most, of those are S-Corps rather than individuals like Elon Musk or Bill Gates. The average S-Corp tax rate is 31%, with a range of 19-35%. (Note: That information is pre-Trump and so is at least slightly out-of-date. But hopefully it gets some thoughts stirring.)
Including all Federal spending, over half goes to social welfare programs, and state spending further adds to the bundle. A cursory look 'round state budget pie charts shows that welfare spending seems to run about the 20-40% range in general. Where am I going with this?
The average low-paying job is indeed already paying a Living Wage.
How can this be? Well, in the 1950's, he would do it by giving you a paycheck with which you could purchase all that you need. Nowadays, he does it the same way the government does for nonworking families. He pays for your health insurance, pays for a fair bit of your tax burden (did you know he pays half your Social Security tax? Try to work for yourself and you'll quickly find that out!), and pays the government to give you food stamps, heating assistance, rent assistance, free school lunches for your children, possibly free medical care for your children as well (CHIP/SCHIP), and, as your salary, a small cash allowance with which to obtain that which he and the government through his taxes have not provided.
Indeed, we see that this provision is sufficient, as there are workers in California under an increased minimum wage who have asked for fewer hours in order to preserve the same Living Wage.
Now's the part where everyone starts accusing me of saying that the poor have it easy, that they are freeloaders, that I don't care if babies starve, yadda yadda. Let's see who can continue to keep an open mind and listen to what I have to say about that. This is not by any means an ideal situation, and the poor do struggle. The reason they struggle, however, is not due to lack of funding. It is because the method of that funding is almost the least efficient and least effective manner possible. I say "almost" only because full-on Communism exists in the world, and it is by far the least useful way to handle wealth.
Raising children has helped me to remember and think about what it was like to be a child. People look back to that time period fondly, thinking of it as being idyllic, because "the world was less complicated and more safe". Indeed, when an adult controls your life, you have less responsibility and you don't have to worry as much about the dangers that still surround you. You still have a chance of being hungry, of being homeless, but in that event the adult will tell you what to do. What people forget is the loss of freedom. Sure, there's a measure of it if you live in a suburban area and own a bicycle. Other than that, though... You still have to ask if you can go to a friend's house. You have to ask if you want to visit a museum. You have to accept the food they give you; your parents determine your diet. You are severely restricted in how you can earn income and how much money you will have. And, of course, your school takes up much more of your life than you would have ever remembered; your precious memories of freedom and fun were most likely snipped out of a plethora of weekends and holidays (the parts that don't involve mandatory visits and customs) and stitched together out of a pair of decades.
Well, the current method of providing a Living Wage is much like being a child. Someone else controls how often/much your house receives to heat, how much you spend on food, which doctors you see, and what your child eats for lunch every school day. This is great, if you live the exact lifestyle that these social programs were optimized for. The problem is that it does narrow you down into a specific form of lifestyle; a purely cash form of a Living Wage allows you to spend more on your housing and less on your cell phone, or more on your clothing and less on your groceries. It can be very, very frustrating to need money for one budget category and be blocked by the Government from simply doing what the middle class takes for granted and transferring it from another category.
What is the answer?
The obvious answer to me is to reduce and reform the welfare system, and with it the tax system. Every reduction in welfare spending must be paired with an equal reduction in employer taxes. I was hesitant to suggest this before, because there must be a time period, I thought, in which wages were still low and people would be hurting. However, the quick responses of businesses in handing out bonuses as they began to raise wages after Trump's tax cut surprised and emboldened me in saying this: As they spend less on the employees through the government, they will spend more on the employees through regular wages.
On top of that, market competition will come into play, this time with a strong emphasis on employee demands rather than employer offers. When you can get a job as a cashier at Walmart and have the government spend tens of thousands of dollars on welfare to make up your Living Wage, you will not have to insist that your employer pays you that wage or you will fight for one of the jobs that pays it. The employment market is indeed a market with customers and 'sellers', and companies that do not offer that wage will have difficult finding people qualified to do the work.
If we do this, I think we will find that the effect of "wages not rising with national wealth", an argument that Liberals tend to use to try to justify actions that depress wages further, will correct itself, and workers will receive their Living Wage as cash instead of an unholy mixture of cash, government-mandated employer spending, and government-mandated welfare spending.
This seems to be the new socialist bugaboo. I do call it socialist, even though its implementation may be more fascist in appearance. I have said this before: Fascism and Communism are two fingers on the same hand of Socialism, though one may be purer than the other. In the former, the government controls the people through the companies, while in the latter, the government forbids the companies and controls the people directly. There is very little difference; in Fascism, the government forbears the existence of the companies for the time being, while in a free market economy, the government is limited in the ways that it is allowed to control them.
Economics lesson aside, let's break into the actual thought. The usual suspects are now calling for a government-enforced "living wage", the ability of any job to support a spouse and family. They like to claim that this was quite possible and expected back "before all this deregulation", as if the 1950's may as well have been lived under the hammer and sickle or something. Frankly, I'm pretty sure they don't know what they're talking about. But let's take a moment and ask the question: Why are so many jobs no longer offering "a living wage"? There are a few reasons that we can note before stepping into this one. In the 1950's, a "living wage" supported a smaller home with fewer amenities, fewer electronic devices with monthly plans, fewer restaurant meals, and smaller wardrobes. If you were to study the time period and attempt to live only with the amount of stuff and amenities that they had, eating what they ate and owning the clothing that they owned, you might find that a minimum wage job would in fact provide your needs. But let's set that, also, aside for a moment and ask this question:
Are corporations not offering a "living wage" because they are already subsidizing it via government fiat?
A worker costs an employer a great deal. Government-required taxes and benefits alone may increase the cost of an employee a minimum of 25% and maximum (more common in larger businesses, which have additional mandates that small businesses do not) of 40% above the employee's base salary. Many of these 'benefits', like 'health insurance' (itself becoming increasingly expensive and useless), would have been paid by the worker back in the days of the Living Wage.
On the other side, we have corporate and personal income taxes. Why did I say "corporate and personal"? Many companies nowadays are taking advantage of the S-Corp filing status, and filing as if they are persons. That lowers the bewildering complexity of the process and may lower the tax rate. On the other hand, someone who makes $35K/year may be paying taxes on his company's $120K/year profits instead. When we talk about government income from employers, we need to include them. All in all, the top 1% of income earners pay nearly half of personal income taxes, the top 20% pay 85% (the bottom 60% pay 2%), and many, perhaps even most, of those are S-Corps rather than individuals like Elon Musk or Bill Gates. The average S-Corp tax rate is 31%, with a range of 19-35%. (Note: That information is pre-Trump and so is at least slightly out-of-date. But hopefully it gets some thoughts stirring.)
Including all Federal spending, over half goes to social welfare programs, and state spending further adds to the bundle. A cursory look 'round state budget pie charts shows that welfare spending seems to run about the 20-40% range in general. Where am I going with this?
The average low-paying job is indeed already paying a Living Wage.
How can this be? Well, in the 1950's, he would do it by giving you a paycheck with which you could purchase all that you need. Nowadays, he does it the same way the government does for nonworking families. He pays for your health insurance, pays for a fair bit of your tax burden (did you know he pays half your Social Security tax? Try to work for yourself and you'll quickly find that out!), and pays the government to give you food stamps, heating assistance, rent assistance, free school lunches for your children, possibly free medical care for your children as well (CHIP/SCHIP), and, as your salary, a small cash allowance with which to obtain that which he and the government through his taxes have not provided.
Indeed, we see that this provision is sufficient, as there are workers in California under an increased minimum wage who have asked for fewer hours in order to preserve the same Living Wage.
Now's the part where everyone starts accusing me of saying that the poor have it easy, that they are freeloaders, that I don't care if babies starve, yadda yadda. Let's see who can continue to keep an open mind and listen to what I have to say about that. This is not by any means an ideal situation, and the poor do struggle. The reason they struggle, however, is not due to lack of funding. It is because the method of that funding is almost the least efficient and least effective manner possible. I say "almost" only because full-on Communism exists in the world, and it is by far the least useful way to handle wealth.
Raising children has helped me to remember and think about what it was like to be a child. People look back to that time period fondly, thinking of it as being idyllic, because "the world was less complicated and more safe". Indeed, when an adult controls your life, you have less responsibility and you don't have to worry as much about the dangers that still surround you. You still have a chance of being hungry, of being homeless, but in that event the adult will tell you what to do. What people forget is the loss of freedom. Sure, there's a measure of it if you live in a suburban area and own a bicycle. Other than that, though... You still have to ask if you can go to a friend's house. You have to ask if you want to visit a museum. You have to accept the food they give you; your parents determine your diet. You are severely restricted in how you can earn income and how much money you will have. And, of course, your school takes up much more of your life than you would have ever remembered; your precious memories of freedom and fun were most likely snipped out of a plethora of weekends and holidays (the parts that don't involve mandatory visits and customs) and stitched together out of a pair of decades.
Well, the current method of providing a Living Wage is much like being a child. Someone else controls how often/much your house receives to heat, how much you spend on food, which doctors you see, and what your child eats for lunch every school day. This is great, if you live the exact lifestyle that these social programs were optimized for. The problem is that it does narrow you down into a specific form of lifestyle; a purely cash form of a Living Wage allows you to spend more on your housing and less on your cell phone, or more on your clothing and less on your groceries. It can be very, very frustrating to need money for one budget category and be blocked by the Government from simply doing what the middle class takes for granted and transferring it from another category.
What is the answer?
The obvious answer to me is to reduce and reform the welfare system, and with it the tax system. Every reduction in welfare spending must be paired with an equal reduction in employer taxes. I was hesitant to suggest this before, because there must be a time period, I thought, in which wages were still low and people would be hurting. However, the quick responses of businesses in handing out bonuses as they began to raise wages after Trump's tax cut surprised and emboldened me in saying this: As they spend less on the employees through the government, they will spend more on the employees through regular wages.
On top of that, market competition will come into play, this time with a strong emphasis on employee demands rather than employer offers. When you can get a job as a cashier at Walmart and have the government spend tens of thousands of dollars on welfare to make up your Living Wage, you will not have to insist that your employer pays you that wage or you will fight for one of the jobs that pays it. The employment market is indeed a market with customers and 'sellers', and companies that do not offer that wage will have difficult finding people qualified to do the work.
If we do this, I think we will find that the effect of "wages not rising with national wealth", an argument that Liberals tend to use to try to justify actions that depress wages further, will correct itself, and workers will receive their Living Wage as cash instead of an unholy mixture of cash, government-mandated employer spending, and government-mandated welfare spending.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Grow Up Before Supporting Sanders
I'm addressing this one to Sanders supporters, and I'm about to make a lot of you very angry with me.
You like to tell me that Sanders isn't in favor of "socialism", he's just a "social Democrat", which is completely different. You point to a bunch of European countries (which are currently moving away from socialism - oh, sorry, 'social democracy' - because it doesn't work), and tell me how much better life is in those places. The tip of the top always seems to be the same claim... "They're happier in these countries." The people are more content. You seem to believe that the reason that these people are more content is because they are getting exactly what you expect Sanders to provide to you: Government-streamlined resources, quick, easy, and 'free', with a stream of gold emanating from the rich and being distributed 'fairly' to you. (But remember, that isn't socialism! It's Social Democracy!)
You are young. I am not just trying to insult you by saying that. Statistics show a lot of younger people in favor of Sanders. You haven't learned history and culture in the way the older folk did. You haven't had much chance to get out and about in it for yourself. When you look at Europe, you don't understand what it is, what its people are, what its people have been for thousands of years before the word "Social Democrat" existed. You've been doubly encouraged, in the school system, to not learn about the European-descent men who created this country. How could you possibly know what Europe is like, what Europeans are, and what makes them content?
I'll give you a hint. It isn't Sanders' stance on the issues.
Europeans are slow. This isn't an insult either. They are slow, calm, and patient. They plod through each day. They don't mind that it takes a while to travel somewhere. They don't mind that the lines are long. They will stop and 'shoot the breeze' while you're waiting behind them in line, freaking out over your own tight schedule. This may be slightly less true in some cities, in some countries, but it is markedly true in the rural areas. An old European farmer won't mind that it takes him four hours to plow his field the old way. He doesn't see much reason to buy the newfangled equipment, because the old one works fine for him.
Europeans do for themselves. They will bicycle distances that you find obscenely long, in a daily commute. Increasingly, as hospitals have longer wait times and less equipment, Europeans will take care of the 'smaller' things themselves. An American will head to the emergency room with a cut that needs stitches; the European will get a friend or family member to stitch it up themselves. Here's the kicker, the part that you guys do not and possibly cannot understand: They are content to do so. They don't expect much from others. They don't expect much from their government. They don't expect much from life. And yet they carve out little lives for themselves and they are content.
Their housing units are much smaller. Their conveniences are fewer. Their possessions are less. And yet they are content.
This is why these countries are full of happier people than in the U.S. It isn't because of 'Social Democracy' or 'Democratic Socialism' or whatever you hope to call it. It's in spite of the government, in spite of the policies that leave them with less and take them much longer to get what little they can receive. Their inner contentedness helps them weather the delays, the bureaucracy, the stupid crazy hoops they have to jump through for everything. They are willing to lose an entire day to one single government program, to business that we expect to be able to complete in less than an hour.
Now I'm not insulting Europeans, and I'm not praising them either. We are young, quick, impatient, and creative. This is a good thing! This is the reason why so many improvements, so many inventions come out of this country. We see the farmer plowing for four hours and say, "If you did this, you could have it done in two." We demand instant food, instant medical care, instant government response, instant withdrawals, instant gratification... we don't want to wait. This is true of Americans in general, but it is even more true of the demographic that tends to make up Sanders supporters.
You aren't interested in giving up your car when you live eight miles away from your workplace and ten miles from the grocery store. You want a 2,500sqft house for your family. You want a four-year education for your kids. You want free healthcare. Did you know that your contented European counterpart has a bicycle, a 1200sqft domicile (probably an apartment or what we would call a 'condo', but with smaller yards and no amenities), and even the poorest among them have to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket before they can access healthcare through the system? You want your son to get a bachelor's in English Literature. If he's in Holland, however, and he doesn't score highly enough in his 10th grade (by U.S. standards) exams, the government will not give him more than a two-year (highschool diploma) or possibly four-year (associate's degree) education.
Oh yeah, and your counterpart has no bathtub, and his kitchen looks like it hasn't been renovated since the 1970's.
Would you be content with that?
Alright, so maybe you've read all of this and say, "I still am a Sanders supporter! I still think that I can be content with all of this!" Alright, then, prove it. I'm being honest here. No matter who gets into office, this will benefit you. Take command of your own healthcare. Do not expect anybody else to do it for you. Forget the gym membership. You can't afford it. Bicycle to work. Eat foods that are not pre-prepared. Learn how to cook rice, lentils, beans, 'boiled dinner', and other such meals. Take an apple as a snack instead of a candy bar. Slow down. Take tea every afternoon. Formal tea, or, at least, as formal as you can bear it. You cannot be looking at any of your electronic devices while you're doing it. Be content with 10-year-old televisions. When you buy online, never, ever pay more for second-day or same-day shipping.
Downsize your life. Downsize your expectations. Take longer. Care less. Don't think you'll be the one who gets famous, the one who gets rich, the one who even gets what he wishes out of life.
Learn to be content without government aid.
Then you'll be ready to live happy under a Social Democrat.
Of course, even then, you'll be happier to live under a conservative government; you won't get less, but you'll pay less for it.
But that's up to you.
You like to tell me that Sanders isn't in favor of "socialism", he's just a "social Democrat", which is completely different. You point to a bunch of European countries (which are currently moving away from socialism - oh, sorry, 'social democracy' - because it doesn't work), and tell me how much better life is in those places. The tip of the top always seems to be the same claim... "They're happier in these countries." The people are more content. You seem to believe that the reason that these people are more content is because they are getting exactly what you expect Sanders to provide to you: Government-streamlined resources, quick, easy, and 'free', with a stream of gold emanating from the rich and being distributed 'fairly' to you. (But remember, that isn't socialism! It's Social Democracy!)
You are young. I am not just trying to insult you by saying that. Statistics show a lot of younger people in favor of Sanders. You haven't learned history and culture in the way the older folk did. You haven't had much chance to get out and about in it for yourself. When you look at Europe, you don't understand what it is, what its people are, what its people have been for thousands of years before the word "Social Democrat" existed. You've been doubly encouraged, in the school system, to not learn about the European-descent men who created this country. How could you possibly know what Europe is like, what Europeans are, and what makes them content?
I'll give you a hint. It isn't Sanders' stance on the issues.
Europeans are slow. This isn't an insult either. They are slow, calm, and patient. They plod through each day. They don't mind that it takes a while to travel somewhere. They don't mind that the lines are long. They will stop and 'shoot the breeze' while you're waiting behind them in line, freaking out over your own tight schedule. This may be slightly less true in some cities, in some countries, but it is markedly true in the rural areas. An old European farmer won't mind that it takes him four hours to plow his field the old way. He doesn't see much reason to buy the newfangled equipment, because the old one works fine for him.
Europeans do for themselves. They will bicycle distances that you find obscenely long, in a daily commute. Increasingly, as hospitals have longer wait times and less equipment, Europeans will take care of the 'smaller' things themselves. An American will head to the emergency room with a cut that needs stitches; the European will get a friend or family member to stitch it up themselves. Here's the kicker, the part that you guys do not and possibly cannot understand: They are content to do so. They don't expect much from others. They don't expect much from their government. They don't expect much from life. And yet they carve out little lives for themselves and they are content.
Their housing units are much smaller. Their conveniences are fewer. Their possessions are less. And yet they are content.
This is why these countries are full of happier people than in the U.S. It isn't because of 'Social Democracy' or 'Democratic Socialism' or whatever you hope to call it. It's in spite of the government, in spite of the policies that leave them with less and take them much longer to get what little they can receive. Their inner contentedness helps them weather the delays, the bureaucracy, the stupid crazy hoops they have to jump through for everything. They are willing to lose an entire day to one single government program, to business that we expect to be able to complete in less than an hour.
Now I'm not insulting Europeans, and I'm not praising them either. We are young, quick, impatient, and creative. This is a good thing! This is the reason why so many improvements, so many inventions come out of this country. We see the farmer plowing for four hours and say, "If you did this, you could have it done in two." We demand instant food, instant medical care, instant government response, instant withdrawals, instant gratification... we don't want to wait. This is true of Americans in general, but it is even more true of the demographic that tends to make up Sanders supporters.
You aren't interested in giving up your car when you live eight miles away from your workplace and ten miles from the grocery store. You want a 2,500sqft house for your family. You want a four-year education for your kids. You want free healthcare. Did you know that your contented European counterpart has a bicycle, a 1200sqft domicile (probably an apartment or what we would call a 'condo', but with smaller yards and no amenities), and even the poorest among them have to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket before they can access healthcare through the system? You want your son to get a bachelor's in English Literature. If he's in Holland, however, and he doesn't score highly enough in his 10th grade (by U.S. standards) exams, the government will not give him more than a two-year (highschool diploma) or possibly four-year (associate's degree) education.
Oh yeah, and your counterpart has no bathtub, and his kitchen looks like it hasn't been renovated since the 1970's.
Would you be content with that?
Alright, so maybe you've read all of this and say, "I still am a Sanders supporter! I still think that I can be content with all of this!" Alright, then, prove it. I'm being honest here. No matter who gets into office, this will benefit you. Take command of your own healthcare. Do not expect anybody else to do it for you. Forget the gym membership. You can't afford it. Bicycle to work. Eat foods that are not pre-prepared. Learn how to cook rice, lentils, beans, 'boiled dinner', and other such meals. Take an apple as a snack instead of a candy bar. Slow down. Take tea every afternoon. Formal tea, or, at least, as formal as you can bear it. You cannot be looking at any of your electronic devices while you're doing it. Be content with 10-year-old televisions. When you buy online, never, ever pay more for second-day or same-day shipping.
Downsize your life. Downsize your expectations. Take longer. Care less. Don't think you'll be the one who gets famous, the one who gets rich, the one who even gets what he wishes out of life.
Learn to be content without government aid.
Then you'll be ready to live happy under a Social Democrat.
Of course, even then, you'll be happier to live under a conservative government; you won't get less, but you'll pay less for it.
But that's up to you.
Friday, March 11, 2016
"Feeling the Bern" - The Middle Class Experience on Social Programs
Is my family middle-class? I persist in believing that we are. The term "class" is not as easy as the term "income". It carries with it a sense of lifestyle, of priorities, of emotion and atmosphere. The "working class" has one set of jobs, lifestyles, and priorities. The "middle class" has another.
Our family income alone would mark us as a member of the working class. That said, the way I usually try to describe us is by typing "working/lower-middle class" or simply using the term "lower middle class". The job is white-collar educated, my husband has his college degree (so do I), and we own our own home in a quiet rural area with a large yard. We really do not have much in common with the blue-collar lifestyle. We actually don't have much in common with other lifestyles either, to be honest.
Our food budget is less than that of the average family on welfare, yet we eat well, with my cooking and careful pantry choices. We have the lack of processed foods usually associated with the wealthy. Our furniture may be used, but it is kept in good repair. We get our clothing for free (a church giveaway room, to which we contribute as children outgrow clothing), and I can sew the type of well-fitted outfits for myself that one might associate with the upper-class, even if I have to take trashcan-bound XXXL clothing and cut them down to get the cloth. We take pride in appearing as well as we can with what we have. We take no vacations, and we buy our vehicles used, quite old (both are currently over 10yrs), and with cash on hand. We actually have several thousand dollars in the bank, in a time when the vast majority of this country, even people twice as rich as we are, live paycheck-to-paycheck.
I feel strange whenever I find myself asking for need-based scholarships for my children to go to summer camp or engage in similar opportunities (my daughter did a year of high-class preschool on a half-tuition need-based scholarship, and my grandmother helped us cover the other half), yet when I sit down with Social Services to deal with bureaucracy, the person helping me is always perplexed at our family size and income and has no clue how we manage to make our ends meet at all.
So what happens when a family like mine encounters Sanders'-style economics? (Also known, by me, as 'social programs creep') There are three stages that I've been able to identify over the past about seven and a half years, as liberal economics have caused the process to begin already.
Stage 1: Self-Sufficiency
This is the very best stage, and the reason why families in situations like mine tend to be "surprisingly" conservative rather than wanting to "feel the Bern", as they say. In this situation, the family has low taxes and a high percentage of disposable income. The family uses this income, setting its own priorities, choosing its own lifestyle. Alternative lifestyles or uncommon needs (such as rare medical conditions) are accommodated quickly and easily, as the point of decision-making rests with the family. Money is tight, yes. We don't have the new television. We don't take the vacation. We don't buy the boat. We simply don't have the money, we say to ourselves, because we have already chosen to spend it.. on a curriculum that fits a child's special learning needs, or a doctor who specializes in a parent's medical condition. We are, indeed, by historical standards, wealthy.
Stage 2: The Transition
Anyone would expect this to be the hardest part, a temporary difficulty that results in a family like ours being better off than it was before. It is, in fact, not. As taxes rise, we begin losing our ability to afford that curriculum or that specialist. Income never rises when taxes rise, and so our budget narrows. We wind up giving up things we want, and then things we need, in order to allow the government to give things we already could not afford to people who are poorer than us. As the process continues, we start going into our savings, cutting to the bone, and praying for relief. Unfortunately, we already know from experience that this relief will never come.
Stage 3: Social Programs
Now the government has finally seen fit to "help" us, not by allowing us to meet our own needs again, but by 'graciously' deciding to meet them for us. We are now eligible for the social program. We do the paperwork. We wait for months, since we are one of a large influx of people joining the program, and the staffing for the program has not increased. Finally, we receive our shiny new cards and vouchers, stamped with our identities... our entire lives, experiences, hopes, and dreams, everything that makes us people, collated down into a number and entered into a government file somewhere. We have now been stamped, filed, and categorized. At least now we can access education and medical care again, right?
No. This is the point where we find out that we can't.
The specialist is not covered by the government program. The educational curriculum is not on the government list. They've run out of the bread that's on the WIC list, and the cheaper, healthier store-brand loaf is not on the WIC list, so it won't be covered. If you want bread this week, you'll have to pay for it yourself... out of what's left when the higher taxes have been taken from your paycheck. This is the point at which you learn that the government apparently doesn't think you're supposed to have that medical condition, or need that curriculum.People try to claim that conservatives just plain don't want to help the poor. That's unquestionably a lie, provable, if by nothing else, by the statistics that show how much more generous conservatives are to the poor with their own personal money. Even conservatives on the libertarian side do not oppose government programs as well, programs meant to aid those who simply cannot get what they need by any other means, programs that pay for surgeries and food for the destitute and the disabled. I think I can best explain my opinion on the matter by simply saying this:
In the end, you are transformed from a family that does not have what the wealthier families have, but meets its own individual needs with its own money, to a family that still does not have what the wealthier families have, and is now bereft of the means by which to meet its own individual needs on top of it.
The government should not be giving social programs to anybody who is paying taxes; in reverse, the government should not tax anyone who is receiving social programs.
Before a family is aided by the government, they should be permitted the full body of their resources in order to minimize or meet their needs.
We should never, ever be in the position we are in now, a position that Sanders seeks to worsen, in which the government takes money from us and gives us the goods or services we desire (or those that the government thinks we ought to desire, which does manage to coincide on occasion).
Feeling the "Bern"
What exactly do people mean by "Feel the Bern"? I was startled to see this phrase begin to pop up, especially when used by supporters to encourage other supporters! Apparently, in the world of bodybuilding, "feel the burn" describes the sensation you achieve by working your muscles to the point where you know that they are going to start building themselves higher and stronger. I find that to be a rather bizarre coupling with the cries for taxpayer-funded swag, but perhaps the statement is only meant to indicate the 'good pain' that comes only with hard work and personal sacrifice for personal gain.
I am not a body builder. Though I will exercise to the point of "feeling burn", I am not exercise-inclined, and won't do it for the sake of doing it. I usually exercise for enjoyment and in hopes of weight loss. I do, however, engage in quite a bit of Internet debate, in which the phrase means something very different. Commenters will say "Burn!" or "Feel the burn!" when one member of a debate manages to put down the other in a very satisfyingly thorough and often demeaning way. For many people, the more demeaning the put-down, the more satisfying, and they crow "Feel the burn!" as the other debate opponent reels back, half-blinded by impotent fury.
Given that, when I first saw the phrase appear, I thought it meant, "We are going to vote for someone who is going to take things away from your already-embattled finances and crow about it as you struggle to make your ends once again meet!"
I have never really been able to rid myself of the utter distaste I hold for the term. As I see more and more of Sanders' policy stances, I doubt I ever will.
I am not a body builder. Though I will exercise to the point of "feeling burn", I am not exercise-inclined, and won't do it for the sake of doing it. I usually exercise for enjoyment and in hopes of weight loss. I do, however, engage in quite a bit of Internet debate, in which the phrase means something very different. Commenters will say "Burn!" or "Feel the burn!" when one member of a debate manages to put down the other in a very satisfyingly thorough and often demeaning way. For many people, the more demeaning the put-down, the more satisfying, and they crow "Feel the burn!" as the other debate opponent reels back, half-blinded by impotent fury.
Given that, when I first saw the phrase appear, I thought it meant, "We are going to vote for someone who is going to take things away from your already-embattled finances and crow about it as you struggle to make your ends once again meet!"
I have never really been able to rid myself of the utter distaste I hold for the term. As I see more and more of Sanders' policy stances, I doubt I ever will.
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