Your free enterprise system should not extend to basic human needs like education, health, protection etc. Keep the government at arms length at everything but not on these basic needs.
When the government did this very few people went to college and prices were just as expensive, given inflation, as they are now. Middle class children didn't go to college all that often. They ran mom and pop stores, the family farm, the local gas station (there was one in town), they became parsons and policemen, they became firemen, they worked in factories and rose through the ranks to managerial positions, they became teachers. None of these occupations required a college degree at the time. Most of them no longer exist in the new economy. Women didn't work before World War II. They stayed at home and took care of the children while dad's non-college education required job paid the bills. That's in the Middle class. In the lower classes women worked as servants and in gas-lit factories and as prostitutes and barroom girls. Women didn't even work as waiters except in the family restaurants. That was a man's job. The economy that you speak of, where the government doesn't help pay for education, would drive the American working class into poverty in a generation or two at the outside. Globalization would be complete. Now the rich would be all over the place as the only people that mattered and 90% of the population would be poor generation after generation. That's how it would have been in America before WW II also except that 50% of the Middle class worked a family farm or on a farm and the rest worked in the biggest industrial powerhouse on earth. No farms. No industry. Mickey D's and hopefully a managerial spot there in your mid to late 30's. That's where the American Middle class would go.
Really? Is that why plumbers can now charge $200 per hour for labor? Ditto an electrician? Ever hire a contractor in the past five years? The biggest problem with this country right now in terms of labor is that somewhere along the line, learning a skill or a trade that does NOT require college became a dishonorable or ridiculed thing. Meanwhile, those are some of the highest paying per-hour jobs that any lower or middle class worker could have.
Those jobs require actual labor. That's the trend away for those jobs and allows plumbers, electricians to get away with their high hourly rates (a supply and demand issue here). Down here its about a $100 bucks for a service call + the hourly rate on top of that. Instead of blaming their own selves for being lazy, people rather blame government, rich people, etc. So many millions of folks have been programmed to blame rich people or the government for their current situation. I see both of these excuses on the past few pages. Folks in this country haven't adapted to globalization or technological advances. There will always be jobs open for those who want to work hard.
Free market fundamentalism brought us the financial crisis. it amazes me how many people who call themselves conservatives fail to recognize this fact.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Plumber/Hourly_Rate Plumbers - $20.10 an hour. Electricians - $20.71 an hour. This isn't Mayberry in 1960 any more. The big money in plumbing and the trades goes to the corporations that run those trades. $100 an hour for a plumber doesn't go to a mom and pop plumber any more. They're out competed by the big companies and so wages are not just stagnant in the industry they're down over the last 2 generations.
Funny. I guess they report $20/hr to the IRS because they take only cash and charge at least $100/hr in the real world.
That's real clever. Let's try to be more specific. Let's apply it to a state instead of the national average. Let's say a state like new Jersey with a high cost of living. Let's see some current job listings: http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Plumber-l-New-Jersey.html Plumber Residential Service Plumber in New Jersey $80,000 I understand that not all plumbing jobs pay that much, and that the average may be significantly lower, but there are opportunities for those who excel to make a good wage. Again, I stress my original point: WHY has it been discouraged in this country to LEARN A TRADE?!?! There are plenty of other jobs between corporate america and burger flipping!!!
I doubt you will engage in a useful discussion here, but it is of note that you do not say how the federal reserve "caused" or was a factor in the financial crisis. After all most believe their failure to regulate the banks was a factor, but that is a sin of omission, and not commission, and in fact confirms that the extent to which the relevant markets were too "free" and unregulated were huge and significant factors. But I doubt that is what you are referring to.
for what its worth NSN, I agree with you on this subject. Just want to make it known because we don't often agree politically lol. But i think there should be shared blame. The federal reserve fucked up but the "free" market also jobbed the system. who deserves more blame? idk.. I'll leave that to the experts I guess. nobody has been held accountable though, government or private market, which is the scary part. Bernanke fucked that shit up and got 6 more years and a nice retirement
The scary part is they are bigger now and I think we only kicked the can down the road towards a bigger disaster.
