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Our Three-Decade Recession
The American quality of life has been going downhill since 1975.
The news media and the government are fixated on the fact that the U.S. economy may be headed into a recession -- defined as two or more successive quarters of declining gross domestic product. The situation is actually much worse. By some measures of economic performance, the United States has been in a recession since 1975 -- a recession in quality of life, or well-being.
How can this be? One first needs to understand what GDP measures to see why it is not an appropriate gauge of our national well-being.
GDP measures the total market value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given period. But it includes only those goods and services traded for money. It also adds everything together, without discerning desirable, well-being-enhancing economic activity from undesirable, well-being-reducing activity. An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts from well-being. More crime, more sickness, more war, more pollution, more fires, storms and pestilence are all potentially positives for the GDP because they can spur an increase in economic activity.
GDP also ignores activity that may enhance well-being but is outside the market. The unpaid work of parents caring for their children at home doesn't show up in GDP, but if they decide to work outside the home and pay for child care, GDP suddenly increases. And even though $1 in income means a lot more to the poor than to the rich, GDP takes no account of income distribution.
In short, GDP was never intended to be a measure of citizens' welfare -- and it functions poorly as such. Yet it is used as a surrogate appraisal of national well-being in far too many circumstances.
The shortcomings of GDP are well known, and several researchers have proposed alternatives that address them, including William Nordhaus' and James Tobin's Measure of Economic Welfare, developed in 1972; Herman Daly's and John Cobb's Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, developed in 1989; and the Redefining Progress think tank's more recent variation, the Genuine Progress Indicator. Although these alternatives -- which, like GDP, are measured in monetary terms -- are not perfect and need more research and refinement, they are much better approximations to a measure of true national well-being.
The formula for calculating GPI, for instance, starts with personal consumption expenditures, a major component of GDP, but makes several crucial adjustments. First, it accounts for income distribution. It then adds positive contributions that GDP ignores, such as the value of household and volunteer work. Finally, it subtracts things that are well-being-reducing, such as the loss of leisure time and the costs of crime, commuting and pollution.
While the U.S. GDP has steadily increased since 1950 (with the occasional recession), GPI peaked about 1975 and has been relatively flat or declining ever since. That's consistent with life-satisfaction surveys, which also show flat or dropping scores over the last several decades.
This is a very different picture of the economy from the one we normally read about, and it requires different policy responses. We are now in a period of what Daly -- a former World Bank economist now at the University of Maryland -- has called "uneconomic growth," in which further growth in economic activity (that is, GDP) is actually reducing national well-being.
How can we get out of this 33-year downturn in quality of life? Several policies have been suggested that might be thought of as a national quality-of-life stimulus package.
To start, the U.S. needs to make national well-being -- not increased GDP -- its primary policy goal, funding efforts to better measure and report it. There's already been some movement in this direction around the world. Bhutan, for example, recently made "gross national happiness" its explicit policy goal. Canada is developing an Index of Well-being, and the Australian Treasury considers increasing "real well-being," rather than mere GDP, its primary goal.
Once Americans' well-being becomes the basis for measuring our success, other reforms should follow. We should tax bads (carbon emissions, depletion of natural resources) rather than goods (labor, savings, investment). We should recognize the negative effects of growing income disparities and take steps to address them.
International trade also will have to be reformed so that environmental protection, labor rights and democratic self-determination are not subjugated to the blind pursuit of increased GDP.
But the most important step may be the first one: Recognizing that the U.S. is mired in a 33-year-old quality-of-life recession and that our continued national focus on growing GDP is blinding us to the way out.
Robert Costanza is the director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont.
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
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71 Comments so far
Show AllBusinesses know that they get more of anything they measure. If we can just get the GPI measured, and that measurement published, I think we can start making progress.
Big money and greed have pretty well taken the country over. It will not be easy to reverse what has happened over the last several decades as most people do not voluntarily give up their monetary gains for the benefit of others. We can only hope that many will see that we will not have a decent country to live in unless the present conditions are turned around.
Yes lets set our goal as increased well being as opposed to increased consumption. The US is clearly the leader of consumption in the world. I think we need to somehow reduce our national drive to indiscriminately consume
and begin to actually reduce our consumption. The median household income in the US is around $48,000. Can we learn to have happy, productive lives on that level of income and even less? What skills are needed to live a happy life with what we have?
Americans have been lulled into believing that shopping for junk they don't need is quality of life...being in debt, working until you are too tired to think to get this junk, is upward mobility. And of course, once Americans are so in debt they have few options but to be docile.
Can we learn to have happy, productive lives on that level of income and even less? What skills are needed to live a happy life with what we have?
--of course, we can. But first we much learn to distinguish between needs and wants, and not equate our self-worth with the number of things we possess and/or the size of our bank account. Fat chance of that happening, eh?
We could bolster the 'care economy' by giving a stay at home primary care giver (male or female) during our children's formative years, a significant tax break.
Local economies could encourage fair labour goods exchange barter systems to increase GPI without factoring into GDP.
Perhaps Hollywood could do it's part to make Bohemianism popular again as we get off the corporate plunder consumerist treadmill.
Carnival
Here's to life as an on going carnival…
Of simple joys.
Here's to a pink cheeked glide skiing forward.
Here's to a stretched out carousel of forever moments.
Shii, shii, shii,…..
Here's to gliding in that perfect moment, as the creaking aspens whisper It is nice here….. shi, shi, shi,
Here's to a fleeting childhood memory
Of a ride on a smoothly rising and falling wooden horse reaching for that ring. A ring to nail that clown's mouth with,. and ride on gratis…..shi, shi, shi,…..
Here's to gliding in that perfect moment, as the creaking aspens whisper It is nice here….. shi, shi, shi,…
Here's a toast to life as a shared carnival of special moments of toasting all the joys that shared celebrations can bring.
Here's to gliding in that perfect moment, as the creaking aspens whisper It is nice here….. shi, shi, shi,…
For life ought to be a carnival of shared joys.
So grab that special ring
And hit the mark of that open mouth corporate clown of greed.
Life ought to be a carnival
Shi, shi, shi,…..
Here's to life as an on going carnival…
Of simple joys. A pink cheeked glide, sliding forward, a braced pumping of a stretched out carousel of forever moments.
Another good example of defining and controlling the language.
I am going to read up on some of these new (to me) indexes and try to apply/redefine them for local groups.
Perhaps our quality of life is going downhill because many in my generation (and I am 36) were brought up with the religion of consumerism that my parents (boomers) embraced wholeheartedly. My grandparents (WW2 era)lament that no one volunteers anymore because everyone is so busy with work and kids' activities.
More isn't always better, sometimes it's just more.
Even more applicable to the fate of the working class than the GDP is how the government calculates the consumer price index (CPI).
During the 1970s the calculation was relatively straight and the CPI came close to identifying the true rate of inflation. The business community, however, did not like giving workers COLAs commensurate with inflation, and politicians did not like getting blamed for high inflation. Gerald Ford (in 1976), and Jimmy Carter (in 1980) lost election bids, due in part to their being blamed for high inflation.
Ever since then, the gov. has cooked the books to create lower inflation numbers, resulting in an ongoing understating of inflation.
Understating inflation works against the working class in several ways, including but not limited to the following:
1) Results in lower annual COLAs for workers.
2) Results in lower annual COLAs for social security recipients and pensioners
3) Lowers the interest rate that banks pay the Federal Reserve for money they borrow, resulting in 4 through 7.
4) Inflated the value of stocks
5) Inflates the value of real estate
6) Inflates the cost of food and energy
7) Devalues the US dollar.
The gov. also routinely changes the criteria it uses to calculate CPI. For example: When the cost of buying a house is high and renting one is low, they apply the cost to rent.
There are also multiple concurrent CPIs. Two years ago my CPI-based COLA was 3.2%, while Social Security recipients' CPI-based COLA was 4.1%.
Let me see if I got this right: The author is suggesting that a greed-based capitalist society that has successfully trained its citizens to value greed and material acquisition should change what it values to "well being"?
First, I would say that i would agree that finding additional ways to measure the economy is desireable. I have a couple issues here though.
"An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, "
This ignores the Opportunity Cost of things like oil spill cleanups or replacement of broken windows. That cost is likely to keep GDP down indirectly. See here about the "Broken Window Fallacy":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
"GPI peaked about 1975 and has been relatively flat or declining ever since."
I was able to find a PDF about this that is informative, from the Redifining Progress website. Search for it, it's titled "The Genuine Progress Indicator 2006 A Tool for Sustainable Development". It helps to explain the methodology, which the authors admit has been criticized as arbitrary. It also shows a chart supporting the above quote from the article. I think we need to be cautious about simply accepting the numbers as reported.
I was born in 1959 -the 6th of what was to become 9 children. It's pretty obvious that my parents were Catholic.
But that little comment aside, my father was an architect and land use planner. He made good money and we were well in the upper middle class of those times.
The story of my family changed rapidly when my father died and all of us got a job of some sort to help with school costs and food, etc..
Today those jobs I did as a high school student are now being done by educated adults or immigrants. The point is, that even being no economist, it didn't take much thought to realize that since Reagan, things such as the quality of life have gone downhill, with the middle class disappearing quietly but relentlessly. The truly wealthy have gotten wealthier as the rest of us were stuck in economic time as safety nets began to disappear while trying to make a decent living appeared more and more difficult.
I have no children, but before leaving the USA when Bush was given back his crown in '94, I know that what a two parent home with two children and all the related costs needed to raise a family and enjoy a few comforts in the San Francisco Bay area, was much different than what the government considered you had to be earning to be living at the poverty level.
Just living in an apartment sharing rent I needed to earn more than $25,000 a year to live comfortably and be able to buy books or go to the cinema or go backpacking as often as I did. I can't imagine how a family of two parents and two children would make ends meet today on what I earned a little over three years ago.
Nine children in today's world is an irresponsible thing in my opinion but all that aside, my father was able to provide for all of us alone. In a normal family today, that would be impossible - unless you're one of the wealthy.
Not only do we need to come up with a more accurate way to measure the well being of a nation, we need to bring back the "quaint" idea that it is the responsibility of a government to ensure the education and health of every citizen. I'm not talking about hand outs or creating new ways in which the lazy can live comfortably off the sweat of the hard working people, I'm simply saying that we all encounter difficult times of one sort or another and need help at times. Far too many people are living one small catastrophy from being homeless - if only temporarily. And that help is harder and harder to find or get these days.
It's late here in South East Asia and this post has been written poorly, but I think I've gotten my point of view across. And thank goodness that I can live comfortably on less than $6 dollars a day. And a sonograph I needed done a few weeks ago cost less than $3 dollars. I feel very fortunate.
"Ever since then, the gov. has cooked the books to create lower inflation numbers, resulting in an ongoing understating of inflation."
Could you be more specific please?
"When the cost of buying a house is high and renting one is low, they apply the cost to rent."
This too please, thanks in advance.
Globalization has been an increasing trend over the last couple of decades. Multi-national companies like it and there's no doubt that it has increased international trade. Trade barriers are lowered and goods flow. I'm not saying that's good, there are many instances of abuse of the system by profit seeking companies.
Generally globalization (when not abused) can result in a levelling of standards of living between rich countries and poor ones. Poor ones develop goods at a lower cost than rich ones do. Money flows from rich ones to poor ones.
I'm not surprised that the standard of living in more wealthy countries is decreasing . . . maybe it should!
Ronald Reagan relly got the downward spiral going. He was such a fool he didn't even know he was under the control of the super rich.
Reaganomics destroyed the Unites States.
I remember well growing up in the 1970's. My dad worked as an auto body mechanic and supported a family of four by himself. And we eventually bought a 2nd car in 1976. We even took vacations every summer out to the Poconos in Penn. We went to Catholic school. How did they do it?!
I noticed during the 80's and onwards a marked decline in the quality of life and the quality of most products. I guess I wasn't crazy after all, as this report proves!
Quality of life in the US has been smashed to bits and replaced with a hedonistic and materialist culture. I don't blame Repugs or Democrats but the entire US GOVERNMENT of liars and thieves!!
Simple American economics 101:
(1)we are in the down slope of Peak Oil discovery.
(2)An increased demand in China and India cannot keep pace with production of established oil fields.
(3)oil prices will rise at a much faster pace now.
(4)we are entering a period know as stagflation which means inflation during a stagnate (recessionary) economy.
(5)America has a negative savings rate. The last time this happened was during the Great Depression.
(6)A 150 Bn bailout to Americans will not replace the estimated 600 billions (and counting) wiped out during the mortgage fallout.
(7)As the dollar collapses, crude oil prices rise.
(8)The dollar is worth 65 cents on the dollar compared to the Euro.
(9)Unfortunately, it appears that the self fullfilling prophecy is playing out before our eyes.
klasseng - That was a very honest post and you make a point everybody seems to forget. Most progressives would vote for measures that helped poor people at the expense of the rich. Yet when it comes to countries, we seem to be all up in arms that USA is suffering economically so that poorer countries can raise their living standards. Seems like a double-standard to me.
Now of course there's tons of waste and graft in the way Globalization is currently implemented. But does that mean it's wrong per se? Aren't we all each others brothers and sisters?
"600 billions (and counting) wiped out during the mortgage fallout."
WHat exactly is the 600 billion figure for please? Thanks in advance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis
America the criminal enterprise calculates the CPI omitting the cost of energy and food. Yes Dorothy, they believe their own lies.
Criminal business, government, and media are having a wonderful time and live in economic bliss. They are always reminding us just how well off we are. Well take this you &$)(%@%$$+*ers, you don't know shyt and you don't care either. Go to blazes and do it now! I don't want to hear your gazillion dollar investment commercials, your quadrillion dollar cars and drug ads. I don't buy your propaganda or your hideous smiles. You are the creatures of death and destruction and your economist whores spin your bedtime tales of false well being. Collapse you human crustations of the 20th Century and lie in the dust until you become nothing more than a dark layer of historic silt. Damn you all for the purposful hardships you have imposed upon the people. Happiness index indeed......
"America the criminal enterprise calculates the CPI omitting the cost of energy and food."
That's not CPI, It's Core CPI. They calculate both with and without and report both regularly.
"Yes Dorothy, they believe their own lies."
They detail the methodology on the BLS website. Did you miss that? Is that lying?
Thanks for the link middlec. I checked the article and saw no reference to 600 billion of anything being wiped out. They do estimate 200 to 300 in defaults, but that wouldn't represent a loss of that much.
Do you play piano or something?
re: jakenewton 12:59 pm
An excellent source of information about the manipulation of CPI and GDP, and the disappearance of M3, can be found here:
http://www.shadowstats.com/
Real government numbers, with the cold hard facts about the prisms they get shone through.
Big_Money, I've looked at that link before, and it looks like you have to subscribe to get any real information. Do you have the inside word on that? Thanks.
GDP certainly gives a false reading of the well-being of our society. But we all know the reality of the situation. The more we listen to economists, political candidates and the MSM to evaluate our lives and draw our attention away from our communities, our neighbors and our families the less we are able to control our own economy and make our own choices.
Expecting change from the top is expecting manna from heaven. You can vote for whoever you please, the hardwire still drives the same machine.
The only real answer is to take control of your own situation; work in your community among your neighbors to carve out a self-sufficient niche beyond the control and reliance on your government. Set up local foods systems, take charge of education, housing, energy needs, and work on bringing the means of production for life's essentials under the control of worker owned cooperatives within your community. Only when the government is made irrelevent can it be changed.
This is not some utopian dream but an attainable vision for a better world. It does require work, dedication and considerable fence mending between all members of your communities. It is time well spent for a cause of absolute importance. It is up to you now to deliver a future to the next generation that you can be proud of. It may require some sacrifice but the sacrifice is far better than to have to explain to history that you just didn't have the time or ambition to get it done.
Time's Up - get to know your neighbors and make a difference. Break a stupid government law just to you get yourself on the right track - once you've become a revolutionary you'll never want to go back!
Well, it's not been ALL bad since 1975. The advances in personal computers and electronic miniaturization have been astonishing. Some of it is annoying; I don't think people need to shut out the world in public with their cell phones and iPods. However, I love that I'm able to check the news from multiple sources and get access to library catalogs all over the world at a pretty cheap rate. Giant LCD TVs are pretty neat, though we're better off not watching television at all. I read a Robert Putnam article that posited a measurable loss of civic participation and after sorting out other factors put the blame squarely on television. Those who grew up watching TV participate a lot less than those growing up in the pre-TV era, even after accounting for education, wealth, gender, race and other variable.s
A good place to start in understanding the nexus of economics and ecology is Herman Daly's book, "Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development." It's geared toward the non-economist, and places human economic activity (extraction, production, consumption, waste) into its proper context.
Our quality of life spirals downward as our population spirals upward. This correlation is not coincidental.
"By some measures of economic performance, the United States has been in a recession since 1975 — a recession in quality of life, or well-being."
AKA - My entire adult life.
I have a long list of directions thwarted because of politics and the economy, budget cuts, Nafta, etc. Now at 52 I fear for my ability to retire and pay off a mortgage.
Until Greedism is recognized - and treated - as the severe mental disorder it is, nothing can change, because Greedism negates empathy, and, hence, sufferers lack the ability to even comprehend the definition of "the well-being of others."
I got mine - screw you, versus everybody got enough to eat? Can't have both...
Riane Eisler talks about this in her book, Real Wealth of Nations, creating a CARING economics. The book is a history of how we got into this mess--and what we can do--along with things like no longer measure GDP and replacing it with something like GPI--to get out of this.
All of this is doable if we work together to shift from a consumer (carbon) economy into a caring economy. We decide what to value--and the old story no longer works. Let's create the new story.
www.realwealtheconomy.com
When we decend into cannibalism, as it has been shown all collapsing cultures eventually do....it's the fat rich ones we'll be looking for first. Do a bit of looting, big feast after.
Emergency U.S. rate cut in the air again...
Will hyper inflation make Americans happier?
Are we 'safer' now from War, Pestilence, Famine and Death? How will stealing grandma's life savings 'save' jobs, the ecconomy or the Neo-Cons?
What will be the Bush Crime Family Legacy as measured in Gross Domestic Happiness?
What shall we do with all those 'stimulus' rebates that the GOP is printing up? Invest in Euros or just short the dollar (FXE, UDN)?
It appears that the GPI peaked at the same time as per capita energy consumption. According to Olduvai theory, that marks the peak of a civilization.
So it's all downhill from here, folks. Tax and policy changes aren't going to fix this -- unless they put more oil in the ground.
Get used to the fact that your children and grandchildren (if you have any -- kudos if you don't) are not going to have it as nice as you have had it.
Once you've accepted that fact, then perhaps you can voluntarily cut way back, in the hope that other greedy people won't suck up what you forego, but rather save it for future generations.
Move closer to work! Move to a much smaller house! Ride a bike or walk! Plant a garden! De-consume! Starve the beast!
The article mentions that its data are consistent with "life-satisfaction surveys, which also show flat or dropping scores over the last several decades."
There may very well be a correlation between these statistics and the others mentioned; but it may not be the obvious one. One of the things that has changed in America over the past several decades is that television went from being a novelty to a necessity in every home. During that time also, Madison Avenue executives perfected their techniques of making viewers less satisfied with their lives in order to sell them more products. It's not just the commercials, it's the shows that are also designed to pitch a "lifestyle" to brain-dead discontented viewers--one that requires the latest cars, fashions, foods, hairsprays and deodorants. And drugs! What insignificant malady of middle-class living anymore exists that cannot be solved by an expensive prescription drug?
It seems to me that subjective "life-satisfaction surveys" may be closely related to this phenomenon, and that one of the more positive moves an individual or family can make toward her, his or their own well-being is to shut the damn thing off and get a life.
It worked for me - eight years ago when I started graduate school - and I haven't looked back.
Check out "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole" by Benjamin Barber. This is an amazing book!!! (BTW Barber also wrote "Jihad vs. McWorld.")
o 40 countries have better rates of infant mortality than the US—countries like Cuba, and Slovenia. A child born in Japan is 3 times as likely as one born in the US to reach the age of one year. (See CIA World Fact Book.)
o Our 15 year olds were recently ranked #23 and 31 respectively in science and math. (See Programme for International Student Assessment of the OECD 2006.)
o
As for Child Well Being, we rank #18 of the 21 rich countries. (See Report Card on Child Well-being in Rich Countries 2007)
o
We are about tied with Mexico for being the fattest of the OECD countries--the NIH now forecasting a declining life expectancy. (See OECD statistics.)
o As for Income Equality, we are #29 of the OECD countries—only Mexico scored worse. (See OECD statistics.)
o We now have a negative savings rate—citizens of Italy, France, and Germany are saving at about 11%. (See OECD stats.)
o We are now imprisoning 1% of all adults i.e. 1.6 million. Even China with 4 times our population imprisons less people. (See Pew research and Feb.29, '08 International Herald Tribune article.)
o Finally, our life expectancy at 78 is only 45th best in the world and this after spending twice as much per capita on health care as the average OECD country. (See OECD stats.)
I think what we have here is a massive failure of people taking personal responsibility.
I feel you magicmary - my adult life has been one set of plans thwarted by events beyond my control too - dotcom bust, 9-11, recession, high housing costs, housing bust, etc. I worked in the corporate world and saw the greed involved in that lifestyle. I hope we can move forward as a society to the point where we value each other for who we are and not what we own or how much money we have. There is a split between conservatives and progressives but many conservative friends also lament this greedy, materialistic development in our society. Maybe if we can see past our differences on some issues, conservatives and progressives can achieve the goal of a more just society.
You are a sick person, Riverman. Get some help. Seriously.
BOBBY DYKEMA: I agree with your astute comments on the power of TV to mesmerize audiences into a very unrealistic vision of "The American dream." I, too, turned mine off.
One factor no one has mentioned is global warming and the wild weather changes that are going to turn security into a passe concept. I remember in my youth when every once in a while, LIFE magazine would run a story about a devastating environmental disaster. In that time period these were few and far between. Now they are becoming the norm. In Florida, the past few weeks have seen temperature variables from the upper twenties to lower eighties, and no plants can sustain that roller coaster for long. WE may soon see interrupted harvest cycles. Life as we know it, this whole pursuit of happiness as some kind of material ends in itself is not going to be a viable path. Simplicity and a return to the realization of the sacredness of having and hopefully sharing one's daily bread... that's where things are headed for the lucky.
Yo, Riverman, if there's an intelligence test to get to vote, I'm not sure you're going to make it. Want some help with the spelling and grammar? Or is literacy and logic unrelated to intelligence?
Reagan learned his lessons well while guv of California. He had the personal attention of the Orange County Repugs. They did not want to repeat the Nixon mistake.
He was really NOT supposed to end the cold war and do business with China - those items effectively ended the eternal war economy that keeps the rich, rich. Why else do you think he was impeached.
The cold war was effectively restarted under Ford by his white House staff including Cheney and Runsfeld.
Reagan was the best ever. He was such a good actor, he never flubbed his lines and delivered them smoothly (unlike Bush).
My father, a lifelong Republican and FBI agent, changed allegiance when he saw the corruption in favor of the rich installed to ruin the country.
Bush is working on two new perpetual wars:
(1) Terrorism -- a war against a concept, without exit condition.
(2) China -- the country to which our CEO's have outsourced a good number of our jobs, manufactures most of the products in the Big Box stores, to which we've sold a lot of our debt (and they depend heavily on us as consumers).
Neither make any sense whatsoever. It tells you how far they're reaching. They'd have been better off to fake some hostile UFO landings and manufacture an interstellar enemy.
I have it from some pretty good sources that UFO's are still on the table, but they want to try some of their other more traditional options to globalize us first. Once they do that, they may bring out the UFO's and call them space terrorists and create another War on Terror. This would be a way to justify martial law and reduce population in those areas needing it. In fact, we might nuke China and Russia, and any other opponents to the globalist agenda, and blame it on UFO's.
I learned long ago that the majority of my income was spent on buying/maintaining/gassing a vehicle so that I could drive to work so I could afford to buy/maintain/gas a vehicle to drive to work.
merwan said: "Our quality of life spirals downward as our population spirals upward. This correlation is not coincidental."
But even that is related to how our society has been sold in the last 30 years. Reagan passed a law 30 years ago making the hiring of illegals illegal, but refused to enforce it. There's no question that the promoters of 'no-holds-barred' capitalism were against it: they believe they should be able to hire who they want, wherever they want. To some degree I agree with them, but believe caution is warranted, given the overpopulation of this world, and the potential for Americans to pay unfairly for it. And that's what's happened. Free-trade is hurtful for Americans if practiced with abandon. Ironically, those with a skeptics eye toward 'free-trade-anything', are better placed to protect American's from the economic dangers of global overpopulation than the 'free-trade' crowd, for whom Americans are just another group to be exploited on the way to fame and fortune.
This is all good, but does not even look at the fundamental problem of WHY life has been getting worse for 30 years. The observation is real enough - the explanation is here - Banketeering - how the banks have been stealing trillions from you, and the tap is still running http://www.rudemacedon.ca/dlp/box/box01-money.html
joneden wrote: "I think what we have here is a massive failure of people taking personal responsibility.".....I am disappointed that no one challenged this. What I really conclude is that--unless Americans are inherently less able to take personal responsibility than others--what we have here is a massive failure of public policy.
riverman;for those old enough to remember-you are CD's professor Irwin Corey.Gibberish!