Generation Commie

[K Frame]

Today we have (for the time being) Social Security. That didn't exist prior to the 1930s. There was no social net for individuals after they retired or couldn't work anymore other than what they had saved in their lifetime.

There was no welfare, virtually no social assistance of any kind other than what was provided by the community.

[charby]

Yes, we do, but those numbers are NOTHING like they were in the 60 years after the Civil War, when nearly 30 million immigrants arrived in the United States.

You're correct, though, that job pressure by immigrants has been somewhat replaced by job pressure from moving jobs overseas, but I still contend that it's nothing like it was during the Gilded Age.

I see what you are saying.

Still have immigrants/undocumented workers doing servitude and heavy labor (like packing plants) but where money is being made in the information age, much of that talent is coming from what mtnbkr said.

Also government regulations has done a good job of keeping the overcrowded rat infested tenement housing from happening again. Also safety regulations to reduce the work related deaths and injuries. Even though there has been a GOP movement in many states to start reducing workman's comp benefits for those that work in industry where certain injuries are common.

Yes, there are social safety nets for those who can't make it, where their wasn't in the past.

Something else, on Iowa Public Radio the other day they talked about the steady rise of free and reduced price school lunches for students of low income households. Something else to think about.

[French G.]

On the wage stagnation, is it possible that was really more of a bubble? Non union industrial labor was worth nowhere near $18/ hour in the seventies. My dad quit his last real job in 1979, was making high 30ks as the foreman of a twenty person shop and it was good money. I think the union states rode the inertia of WWII for a few decades and when it finally burned out the rust belt got to rusting.

[Pb]

Today we have (for the time being) Social Security. That didn't exist prior to the 1930s. There was no social net for individuals after they retired or couldn't work anymore other than what they had saved in their lifetime.

No social net?  Not quite.  This was one of the major reasons people had kids in the old days- to care for them in their old age.  My father said the normal thing for old people who grew feeble was to move in with their children.  Gov programs have replaced this.  This is one of the reasons the birth rate in the USA has plummeted to below the replacement rate (1.8 children per woman).  This experience is typical of countries that institute national welfare / pension programs for old people.

[MechAg94]

One thing that occurs to me is when was the last time we really had a true Free Market / Small Govt politician on the national stage?  When was the last time that was a driving principle in our Govt?  It is no wonder many young people think that way.  The closest thing to "Free Market" most of them have seen in their life is dirty, crony capitalism that isn't really capitalism at all. 

[K Frame]

"Something else, on Iowa Public Radio the other day they talked about the steady rise of free and reduced price school lunches for students of low income households. Something else to think about. "

I suspect that if you were to compare today's figures against the figures from the 1970s, we're nowhere near what we were back then in terms of kids receiving school lunch assistance. Even worse, in the 1970s, there were large numbers of qualified children who weren't entered into the program because their school districts screwed the pooch on the reporting requirements.

The collapse of the oil, steel, and coal industries in the US, the general global recession, and a litany of other events made the 1970s through the early 1980s a complete and total shitshow economically in the US. In a lot of ways it was a lot worse than 2007-2010 because it went on for almost 15 years and was accompanied by very high inflation.

My entire school district received funds from the school lunch program that applied to every student, regardless of income. Our lunches were 25 cents, and there was still a significant number of students who qualified for reduced price or free lunches because their parents couldn't meet that. The next county over, Cumberland, charged $1.75 for a school lunch at the same time. It didn't receive the same grants.

My school district, right across the river from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, also received Appalachia Improvement Corporation grants every year.

My point is, these little *expletive deleted*ers think that they have it tough. Yeah, they're coming out with high student loan debt. But as a percentage of starting income, I'm wondering if the disparity is as great as what's claimed.

I came out of college with, IIRC, $12,500 in student loan debt, and my first full time job out of school I made $11,500 a year as a newspaper reporter. I cleared $111.40 a freaking week.

[Scout26]

From investopedia

A 2015 Government Accountability Office study found that show that 29% of Americans 55 and older don’t have any retirement nest egg or even a traditional pension plan. Those who do have retirement funds don't have enough money: 55 to 64-year-olds have an average of $104,000 and those 65 to 74 have $148,000 in savings.  If that money were turned into a lifetime annuity, it would only amount to $310 and $649 respectively per month.

Read more: What's the Average 401(k) Balance by Age? | Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/010616/whats-average-401k-balance-age.asp#ixzz50Vivh69b
Follow us: Investopedia on Facebook

Proving my point.  Yes, they may not have "enough", but they still have "some", which is wealth.  As pointed out above, prior to the 1950's, for the vast majority of people the retirement plan (if they lived that long) was "Move in with the kids".  With grandma being the built-in babysitter.

As of March 2015 total retirement benefits in the US amounted to $25 TRILLION.*  That's more wealth then existed in the in entire world at the turn of the century.  

I get it Charby, you are mad because you want to buy some cheap land but there is no "cheap" land where you live.  It's mostly tied up in trusts and corporations so that when Farmer Smith dies, the family doesn't have to hold a fire sale to cover the inheritance and death taxes.   And you think that's "unfair".    No, it simple greed and jealousy on your part.   .gov created the problem(s).  More .gov will not fix it.

And no, you are wrong.  When the 16th Amendment passed, Taxes were 1% of income on people making under $20,000 (which is $492, 127 in today's dollars), with the first $3,000 for single filers and $4,000 for married couples exempt ($74,000 and $98,000 dollars respectively.)  After that Congress slowly racketed up the amount it would take from people until the 1980 Reagan Tax Cuts in the 1980's.  Since then they've fluctuated, but the overriding truth is that between local, state and federal taxes (of all types) the number 1 expense of all families today is not food or housing, but taxes.   Which is a huge drain on the income and wealth of the US.

*- http://www.benefitspro.com/2015/06/30/total-retirement-assets-near-25-trillion-mark

[K Frame]

"No social net?  Not quite."

Obviously I was talking about Government-based social networks.

And obviously I was talking about more than just old age care.

[K Frame]

"A 2015 Government Accountability Office study found that show that 29% of Americans 55 and older don’t have any retirement nest egg or even a traditional pension plan."

I don't have a traditional pension plan.

But I've been very rigorous and disciplined about saving for retirement, and saving as much as I possibly can on top of that.

I just topped $800,000 in my various 401K and IRA accounts, so I'm a lot better off than most people, especially given that I'm still in my early 50s.

And I got a late start on saving regularly because 401Ks weren't initially available to non profits and not for profits when I was at the start of my career.

[K Frame]

Here's an interesting, but decidedly slanted, look at some of this.

I came out of college with a degree in history. I tried my hand at computer science as a back up and it didn't go particularly well.

But what I could do when I came out of college was write well. And I've managed to turn that into a very good career.

No, I've not made nearly as much money as I could have had gotten a degree in computer science, but I've done well for myself.

[charby]

Proving my point.  Yes, they may not have "enough", but they still have "some", which is wealth.  As pointed out above, prior to the 1950's, for the vast majority of people the retirement plan (if they lived that long) was "Move in with the kids".  With grandma being the built-in babysitter.

As of March 2015 total retirement benefits in the US amounted to $25 TRILLION.*  That's more wealth then existed in the in entire world at the turn of the century.  

As Mike said earlier that was back when the monetary system was tied to gold, image if it was a fiat money back then.

I get it Charby, you are mad because you want to buy some cheap land but there is no "cheap" land where you live.  It's mostly tied up in trusts and corporations so that when Farmer Smith dies, the family doesn't have to hold a fire sale to cover the inheritance and death taxes.   And you think that's "unfair".    No, it simple greed and jealousy on your part.   .gov created the problem(s).  More .gov will not fix it.

Major thread drift there. First of all there are very few farms of actual owned land in Iowa that would break the $5.5M estate tax starting point for single tax filer. Most farmers own some land, but usually rent most of their acreage. Also it is very rare for a single heir to get all the land, unless they are an only child. Land is usually passed down to all children or grandchildren. After Grassley's little rant about booze, women and movies, all the media in Iowa have been pointing out how few estates in Iowa break the 5.5M/11M threshold. So I really call bullshit on having to liquidate at death to cover taxes. Now state estate taxes are different than fed estate taxes, that is a whole different discussion.

Also yes farm land is expensive these days, but normally a farm land only comes up for sale in once in a generation. Might be no heirs or need to sell off due to medical expenses. I was looking at 75 acres that is probably going to be for sale in bid process this winter, the owner is needing to sell it to pay for his medical costs. Right now farm land in Iowa is going for about $100 per CSR2 (it's a formula call Corn Suitability Rating 2, used to determine consistent potential yield of the land), long story short a group of us was approached last summer to bid on it. The land has a CSR2 rating of 62, which means it will yield around 150-160 bushels of corn per acre and more than likely will be sold for around $6200 an acre. If we bought it and put it up for rent, the rent payment per acre would be between $180-200 a year, which would get you around $14,000 in rent payment. At 20% down on the land, that just makes the principal payment (does not include taxes or interest, or tile maintenance). If one farmed it, just doesn't pencil out since you might make $25 an acre profit on a good year, most years it will be break even and probably have years where cost of farming exceeds the profits made, looking at the next 3-4 years ag markets, will be farming at a loss during that time. Have to really question why anyone would want to row crop farm.

I'm actually predicting a another Ag Crisis similar to the early 1980s probably mid next decade. That will be when I attempt to buy land.

And no, you are wrong.  When the 16th Amendment passed, Taxes were 1% of income on people making under $20,000 (which is $492, 127 in today's dollars), with the first $3,000 for single filers and $4,000 for married couples exempt ($74,000 and $98,000 dollars respectively.)  After that Congress slowly racketed up the amount it would take from people until the 1980 Reagan Tax Cuts in the 1980's.  Since then they've fluctuated, but the overriding truth is that between local, state and federal taxes (of all types) the number 1 expense of all families today is not food or housing, but taxes.   Which is a huge drain on the income and wealth of the US.

*- http://www.benefitspro.com/2015/06/30/total-retirement-assets-near-25-trillion-mark

Pretty sure I said in a century, which would start in 1917.

https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Income-Tax-Rates.aspx

Somethings things to chose, I guess if the concentration of wealth wasn't such a problem why has it become an almost weekly news item?

Washington Post from yesterday: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/the-richest-1-percent-now-owns-more-of-the-countrys-wealth-than-at-any-time-in-the-past-50-years/?utm_term=.58d4af600807

The new gilded age, this has been in the news for probably the last few years.

Here is a recent item: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/10/04/daily-202-why-a-republican-strategist-thinks-we-re-in-a-new-gilded-age/59d4454530fb0468cea81d53/?utm_term=.dbff0aa6df1c

Here is one I read a couple years ago.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/05/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/

[charby]

"Something else, on Iowa Public Radio the other day they talked about the steady rise of free and reduced price school lunches for students of low income households. Something else to think about. "

I suspect that if you were to compare today's figures against the figures from the 1970s, we're nowhere near what we were back then in terms of kids receiving school lunch assistance. Even worse, in the 1970s, there were large numbers of qualified children who weren't entered into the program because their school districts screwed the pooch on the reporting requirements.

The collapse of the oil, steel, and coal industries in the US, the general global recession, and a litany of other events made the 1970s through the early 1980s a complete and total shitshow economically in the US. In a lot of ways it was a lot worse than 2007-2010 because it went on for almost 15 years and was accompanied by very high inflation.

My entire school district received funds from the school lunch program that applied to every student, regardless of income. Our lunches were 25 cents, and there was still a significant number of students who qualified for reduced price or free lunches because their parents couldn't meet that. The next county over, Cumberland, charged $1.75 for a school lunch at the same time. It didn't receive the same grants.

My school district, right across the river from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, also received Appalachia Improvement Corporation grants every year.

My point is, these little *expletive deleted*ers think that they have it tough. Yeah, they're coming out with high student loan debt. But as a percentage of starting income, I'm wondering if the disparity is as great as what's claimed.

I came out of college with, IIRC, $12,500 in student loan debt, and my first full time job out of school I made $11,500 a year as a newspaper reporter. I cleared $111.40 a freaking week.

Probably so, 1970's wasn't as bad in Iowa (Ag was booming) like the rest of the rust belt. We got out ass kicking in the early to mid 80s with the farm crisis. 1000s of farms and ag related business went bankrupt. Some towns (like my hometown) have never fully recovered from that.

I made $25k my first year out of college and had a $300 a month student loan payment. Paycheck didn't go very far either after all the living expenses.

[charby]

On the wage stagnation, is it possible that was really more of a bubble? Non union industrial labor was worth nowhere near $18/ hour in the seventies. My dad quit his last real job in 1979, was making high 30ks as the foreman of a twenty person shop and it was good money. I think the union states rode the inertia of WWII for a few decades and when it finally burned out the rust belt got to rusting.

60-70s in Iowa unemployment was really low, probably why wages were higher in manufacturing, especially on skilled labor.

[charby]

"A 2015 Government Accountability Office study found that show that 29% of Americans 55 and older don’t have any retirement nest egg or even a traditional pension plan."

I don't have a traditional pension plan.

But I've been very rigorous and disciplined about saving for retirement, and saving as much as I possibly can on top of that.

I just topped $800,000 in my various 401K and IRA accounts, so I'm a lot better off than most people, especially given that I'm still in my early 50s.

And I got a late start on saving regularly because 401Ks weren't initially available to non profits and not for profits when I was at the start of my career.

Not everyone is as wise as we are (or have the opportunity). I'll be close to where you are when I am your age, I also dumped a lot of money into retirement since I was 27, still trying to put at least 10% of my salary annually on top of what I have withdrawn at work for my pension. (yes I took my current job because of the pension plan)

[K Frame]

Not sure if I'd call it a case of being wise.

In my case, it's more seeing the (bad) example set by my parents and vowing that I would NEVER find myself in the same position.

My father was a horrible money manager. I taught myself how to manage money, how to invest, and how to balance risk against potential for gain in investing.

[charby]

Here's an interesting, but decidedly slanted, look at some of this.

I came out of college with a degree in history. I tried my hand at computer science as a back up and it didn't go particularly well.

But what I could do when I came out of college was write well. And I've managed to turn that into a very good career.

No, I've not made nearly as much money as I could have had gotten a degree in computer science, but I've done well for myself.

I got a degree in History also, plan was to go onto law school. decided I didn't want to do that. Ended up working IT after I got my BA, then I decided that I have no formal science training so I went back to school in my early 30s, plan was to just do a BS in "pre med" so I can get a well rounded science degree, ended up getting a BS in Forestry and Agronomy because I fell in love with plant physiology. Now I don't work IT, make more money, get to use my plant physiology background and live in a town with a much lower cost of living.

[charby]

Not sure if I'd call it a case of being wise.

In my case, it's more seeing the (bad) example set by my parents and vowing that I would NEVER find myself in the same position.

My father was a horrible money manager. I taught myself how to manage money, how to invest, and how to balance risk against potential for gain in investing.

Wisdom comes from experiences.

[Pb]

I got a degree in History also, plan was to go onto law school. decided I didn't want to do that. Ended up working IT after I got my BA, then I decided that I have no formal science training so I went back to school in my early 30s, plan was to just do a BS in "pre med" so I can get a well rounded science degree, ended up getting a BS in Forestry and Agronomy because I fell in love with plant physiology. Now I don't work IT, make more money, get to use my plant physiology background and live in a town with a much lower cost of living.

Charby, may I ask what you do for a living?

[K Frame]

"and live in a town with a much lower cost of living."

As you walk around Mason City, think about this...

My family was very closely associated with that part of Iowa, and the Dakotas, for close to 100 years...

It's like me being there.

[charby]

Charby, may I ask what you do for a living?

My job is really hard to describe, but I work under the Federal FIFRA Act and Iowa Code related to pesticides. I carry state & federal credentials and fill out a lot of paperwork.

About half of my job is to investigate alleged pesticide misuse complaints. People file complaints to the state (or feds) and gets assigned to me.

[charby]

"and live in a town with a much lower cost of living."

As you walk around Mason City, think about this...

My family was very closely associated with that part of Iowa, and the Dakotas, for close to 100 years...

It's like me being there.

That explains the smell.

[K Frame]

That explains the smell.

No, that's Jamis. The Leprustank has spread over much of the country.

[charby]

No, that's Jamis. The Leprustank has spread over much of the country.

There is no fruity essence to the smell, more like the grumpy old Grinch smell of stink, stank, stunk.

[K Frame]

There is no fruity essence to the smell, more like the grumpy old Grinch smell of stink, stank, stunk.

Ah. That's Mtnbkr, then.

[Ben]

Back to the OP, I thought the Socialist Party comment at the below link was interesting. I have always assumed that the kids and the SJWs and the euro-lovers all worked under the premise that "socialism isn't communism!"

In their comment, the Socialist Party says socialism and communism are the same thing (and they are correct as far as I'm concerned). However I have always heard the arguments from socialists that they are different animals. I think mostly to try and deflect from tens of millions of deaths and from the "next time we'll get it right" perspective.

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2017/12/10/so-damn-good-jonah-gold-destroying-the-socialist-party-is-everything-right-about-twitter/